Shane Victorino was pulled from tonight’s Phillies win over Houston with an injured calf in the 5th inning. In the previous inning, he had collided with Ben Francisco in the outfield after Victorino had taken an awkward and seemingly unnecessary slide trying to get to a fly ball.
After the game however, Victorino told reporters “it’s fine… I’ll be ready to go tomorrow.” He said he was taken out of the game just as a precaution and will be re-evaluated by the team in the morning.
If he’s already saying he’ll be back in the lineup, it seems as though the injury is not serious. It’s certainly something the team will keep an eye on after an injured calf robbed Jimmy Rollins of the majority of last season… but it seems that we can breathe a bit of a sigh of relief. As we noted earlier, losing Victorino would not only have deprived the team of their leadoff man, but also their best defensive center-fielder.