White Sox reliever Matt Albers underwent surgery on his fractured right pinky finger last week and will now miss six to eight weeks, general manager Rick Hahn revealed Tuesday.
Albers suffered a compression fracture in his pinky during April 23’s brawl with Kansas City and was initially given a recovery timetable of two or three weeks. Hahn said the bone in Albers’ pinky wasn’t healing properly, so he was forced to undergo the procedure to insert pins into the fractured finger.
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The injury occurred when Albers tried to pull someone away from the thick of the melee between the White Sox and Royals last month.
"(He was) reaching, trying to pull someone back and the finger jammed on it and the tip of the pinkie got displaced and had to be reset," Hahn said.
The White Sox brought up right-hander Scott Carroll to replace Albers on April 26. Albers appeared in four games prior to his injury, allowing one run on four hits with one walk and five strikeouts in 5 2/3 innings.
Albers signed with the White Sox as a minor league free agent in February and earned a spot on the Opening Day roster out of spring training. The 32-year-old missed most of the 2014 season with tendonitis in his right shoulder, but compiled a 2.77 ERA over 119 relief appearances between Cleveland, Arizona and Boston in 2012-2013.