Chris Bassitt has successful facial surgery

The Oakland A’s provided a medical update Tuesday regarding pitcher Chris Bassitt, who was hit in the head by a line drive last week.

Full text of the update:

Chris Bassitt had successful facial surgery today in Chicago with Dr. Peter Revenaugh at the Rush Medical Center. Dr. Revenaugh was able to stabilize and plate the tripod fracture with good fixation and debride other small fractured bones from the incident. Chris is stable and resting comfortably and will have follow-up appointments upon his arrival to Oakland. The A’s anticipate Bassitt will return to the Bay Area later this week.

Manager Bob Melvin said the following about Bassitt’s surgery on Tuesday (via Janie McCauley of the Associated Press):

“Very successful, so that is great news. All the little nuance things that we probably knew about in there all went beautifully, took out fragments, the whole bit. I think it went exceptionally well and everybody feels great about that.”

The injury occurred last week, in a game on Aug. 17. He was released from the hospital later that night, with a diagnosis of a displaced tripod fracture in his right cheek that required surgery.

Two days after the scary incident, Bassitt visited his teammates “already eager to get back on the mound and in good spirits,” per Shayna Rubin of the Mercury News. Whether he can return in time to pitch this season hasn’t yet been determined, but it hasn’t been ruled out yet, and Melvin said the following last Friday, via insider Martin Gallegos:

“You do have to plan [that he won’t return this year]. But I don’t think Chris thinks his season is over, by any stretch,” Melvin said. “Once he gets through the surgery, it is on his mind to get back this season.”

Returning to the mound is obviously a secondary consideration after what happened, but it was nevertheless encouraging to hear the idea even being discussed last week. The optimism from both the team and the player are reassuring in terms of the person’s health too.