Knee slapper: All-Star Avisail Garcia cracks jokes about recovery

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OAKLAND, Calif. -- He’s nearly healthy and a first-time All-Star so naturally Avisail Garcia is in a pretty good mood.

The White Sox outfielder cracked several jokes Monday afternoon before he went through a full batting practice. Garcia ran on the field, hit and shagged fly balls in hopes that he could soon return to the White Sox lineup. Named to the American League All-Star team on Sunday, Garcia missed his fifth straight game on Monday as the White Sox opened a series against the Oakland A’s. Missing games in the short term is much better than trying to come back too early and losing a significant amount of time on the disabled list, Garcia said.

“You’ve got to be careful with the knee -- you only have two,” Garcia said with a laugh. “I prefer five days and not to lose one month. Just got to be healthy and try to get this thing better. I prefer five days and then play again. I don’t want to lose two weeks or four weeks. That’s why we’re really careful with it.”

Garcia is hitting .318/.362/.512 with 11 home runs and 51 RBIs in 309 plate appearances. He’s been able to ramp up his activity over the past few days after an MRI revealed no serious damage to his left knee and only inflammation. Still, Garcia understands that missing a week now is better than missing a month. Given he wants to back up his first half, Garcia is OK with being thorough. The approach also flies with Garcia’s manager, Rick Renteria.

“Avi is doing very, very well,” manager Rick Renteria said. “He ran yesterday with tennis shoes on the field, took batting practice in the cages, did some things with our strength and conditioning guy. I want to have him go through the whole routine today … so I can have a sense of security of where he’s at. I don’t want to rush him in there without having a full understanding of what the regular routine will do to him. We’re going to be cautious on our side, and I’m sure at some point during the series he will be available.”

Garcia can’t help but be happy about his newfound All-Star status. If he weren’t already, Jose Abreu stopped by Garcia’s media session to let reporters know the outfielder is “happy, happy, happy” to be headed to Miami for next week’s exhibition game. Still, while the All-Star Game is important to Garcia, being on the field for the second half is even more so.

“The knee is something you’ve got to be really careful with,” Garcia said. “I’ve got to be healthy, not for the All-Star Game, but the whole season.”

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