Thursday's news that Kevin Youkilis will undergo surgery and miss the remainder of the 2010 season is obviously a huge blow to the Red Sox, and their slim chances at making the playoffs (currently just a 15.3% chance of them playing in October, according to coolstandings.com). This simple fact was not lost on David Ortiz, who said "it's a major hit."
"What happened with Youk?" asked the All-Star DH.
When he was told that the first baseman would be undergoing season-ending surgery Friday morning to repair a tear in the adductor muscle of his right thumb, Ortiz just shook his head.
"Man, it's a major hit," Ortiz said. "Things just get worse around here." [...]
"Everbody knows that Youk is a guy that plays the game hard," Ortiz said. "He's just like Pedroia - when you see those guys coming out of the game, something's wrong. I remember the way he looked after he hit that ball, his last at-bat, I knew that something was definitely wrong with Youk. He never does that, he plays through pain. Something that everyone's aware of. Now that I heard the news that he's not going to play again this year, it's going from worse to worse."
Then Dr. Ortiz offered his advice to Youk: "You have to take care of that [thumb] and come back healthy next year."