{"id":74886,"date":"2024-05-29T16:02:58","date_gmt":"2024-05-29T20:02:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/?p=74886"},"modified":"2024-05-29T16:02:58","modified_gmt":"2024-05-29T20:02:58","slug":"josh-jung-swinging-bat","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/2024\/05\/29\/josh-jung-swinging-bat\/","title":{"rendered":"American League West Third Baseman Takes Step in Rehab After Wrist Surgery"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Texas Rangers manager <a href=\"https:\/\/www.baseball-reference.com\/players\/b\/bochybr01.shtml?utm_medium=linker&amp;utm_source=lastwordonsports.com&amp;utm_campaign=2024-05-29_br\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Bruce Bochy<\/a> said Wednesday that <a href=\"https:\/\/www.baseball-reference.com\/players\/j\/jungjo01.shtml?utm_medium=linker&amp;utm_source=lastwordonsports.com&amp;utm_campaign=2024-05-29_br\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Josh Jung<\/a> &#8220;looks great&#8221; after resuming hitting, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.dallasnews.com\/sports\/rangers\/2024\/05\/28\/texas-rangers-3b-josh-jung-takes-key-step-in-rehab-from-wrist-surgery\/\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Shawn McFarland of <em>The Dallas Morning News<\/em><\/a> reports. The third baseman was cleared to hit Tuesday following a visit with the doctor who performed his wrist surgery in early April. He hit for a second straight day Wednesday while using a light bat, with Bochy saying &#8220;You&#8217;d think he was going to be ready in a couple of days&#8221; based on how he looked. Jung won&#8217;t be ready anytime soon, but it&#8217;s an encouraging sign. A more established timeline for the third baseman will likely happen in the coming days.<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\">\n<p dir=\"ltr\" lang=\"en\">Bruce Bochy watched Josh Jung hit today: &#8220;You&#8217;d think he was going to be ready in a couple of days.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Jung is swinging a lighter bat right now, of course, but Bochy said that &#8220;he looks great.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>\u2014 Shawn McFarland (@McFarland_Shawn) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/McFarland_Shawn\/status\/1795882572129370171?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">May 29, 2024<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<h2>Josh Jung Resumes Swinging Bat<\/h2>\n<p>Jung is only eight weeks out from surgery. He will get a CT scan to check the progress of the screws holding the fracture together. If that CT scan comes back clean, McFarland added that he could then start ramp-up hitting. Jung was removed from the Rangers 9-3 win over the Tampa Bay Rays on April 1 <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/2024\/04\/02\/justin-foscue-texas-rangers-call-up\/\" target=\"_self\">after being hit by a pitch<\/a> on his right hand as he swung at it. Scans quickly revealed a fractured wrist, which landed Jung on the 60-day injured list. In his first four games of the season, Jung went 7-for-17 with two walks, one double, one triple and two home runs.<\/p>\n<p>Jung&#8217;s first full MLB season saw him finish four in the American League Rookie of the Year Voting. He hit .266\/.315\/.467 with 23 home runs in his major league season in 2023. However, he landed on the injured list for six weeks due to a fractured thumb. After his return, he followed up with a .308\/.329\/.538 slash line and three home runs during the <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/2023\/11\/02\/texas-rangers-win-first-world-series\/\" target=\"_self\">Rangers run<\/a> to their first World Series title.<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-media-max-width=\"560\">\n<p dir=\"ltr\" lang=\"en\">Your daily Josh Jung update. <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/WAVJm5879t\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">pic.twitter.com\/WAVJm5879t<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\u2014 Shawn McFarland (@McFarland_Shawn) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/McFarland_Shawn\/status\/1792229574517879081?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">May 19, 2024<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<h3>Jung&#8217;s Projected Timeline<\/h3>\n<p>Jung will be out until at least the start of July, or perhaps closer to the All-Star break. It&#8217;ll be another three to four weeks before he&#8217;s cleared for full baseball activities and minor league rehab games. It&#8217;s common for batters to need some extra re-adjustment after an injury. For someone like Jung, that impacts their ability to control a bat and swing properly. Even though Jung&#8217;s had a lengthy absence, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.baseball-reference.com\/search\/search.fcgi?pid=smithjo11,smith-056jos,smith-053jos,smith-030jos,smith-035jos,smith-057jos&amp;search=Josh+Smith&amp;utm_medium=linker&amp;utm_source=lastwordonsports.com&amp;utm_campaign=2024-05-29_br\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Josh Smith<\/a> has stepped up. He&#8217;s hitting .280\/.379\/.409 this season, earning more playing time at third base.<\/p>\n<p>Main Photo: \u00a9 Tommy Gilligan-USA TODAY Sports<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Texas Rangers manager Bruce Bochy said Wednesday that Josh Jung &#8220;looks great&#8221; after resuming hitting, Shawn McFarland of The Dallas Morning News reports. The third baseman was cleared to hit Tuesday following a visit with the doctor who performed his wrist surgery in early April. He hit for a second straight day Wednesday while using [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3686,"featured_media":74895,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","sfio_featured_image":false,"sfio_embed_code":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[35,1071,18],"tags":[226,2624,5058,566],"class_list":["post-74886","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","category-mlb","category-rangers","tag-bruce-bochy","tag-josh-jung","tag-josh-smith","tag-tampa-bay-rays"],"modified_by":"Matt Graves","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/74886","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3686"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=74886"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/74886\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/74895"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=74886"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=74886"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=74886"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}