After playing through injured wrist, Marlins’ Miguel Rojas sets surgery date

Miguel Rojas has a surgery date set to deal with an injured right wrist that he has played with for nearly two and a half months.

The Miami Marlins’ shortstop will undergo wrist surgery to remove frayed cartilage on Wednesday, the final day of the regular season.

Rojas said he met with Dr. Patrick Owens on Monday. The main concern is the twisting of his wrist. He said he hasn’t experienced any pain throwing and mostly discomfort hitting as of late. He shot a basketball a couple weeks ago, which really aggravated his wrist. Other than that, it hasn’t been too hard to play through.

There was thought to having the surgery sooner, but Wednesday allowed for the shortstop to miss less games and fit in with the doctor’s schedule, Rojas said. He will have to rest his wrist for four weeks, during which he’ll wear a removable splint, and is looking at two-to-three months for recovery. He and the doctor will know more after the procedure.

“It’s just one of those things where you have plenty of time,” Rojas said of the recovery process heading into the offseason. “...I just want to make sure that I’m fully healthy. As soon as those four weeks approach I’m going to start doing my my lower body activities and get back to my regular offseason routines. Looking forward to have a healthy offseason and coming back next year as strong as possible.”

Rojas said in late August that he first sustained the wrist injury during the Marlins’ 8-0 loss to the Texas Rangers on July 21 — the first game back from the All-Star Break. Rojas has managed the injury since and said on multiple occasions his plan was to play out the season if the injury and pain tolerance could be managed. He has played in 57 of Miami’s 68 games following the All-Star Break and started Monday’s game against the Atlanta Braves.

“I’m going to play through it,” Rojas said on Aug. 31. “I just want to make sure that this is something that I don’t let escalate a little bit more. ... After the season’s over, I will take the recommendation from the doctor, but I feel like I’m capable of playing.”

On the season, Rojas entered Monday with a .237 batting average, .282 on-base percentage, .324 slugging, .606 OPS — all lowest marks of his Marlins career.

While Rojas has not been pleased with his performance at the plate, his defense has been sterling and should have him in consideration for the National League Gold Glove Award at shortstop. Rojas entered Monday having not committed an error in 64 consecutive appearances at shortstop, breaking the previous Marlins franchise record of 54 set by Hanley Ramirez in 2009. He committed an error on the first at-bat of the game Monday, when a Ronald Acuna Jr. groundball to the left side bounced off his glove.

His 16 defensive runs saved are the most among shortstops, according to Fangraphs, and his 11 outs above average tied for fourth behind only the Atlanta Braves’ Dansby Swanson, New York Mets’ Francisco Lindor and Chicago Cubs’ Nico Hoerner.

“I accept at this point that I’m a defensive shortstop that’s going to do whatever to contribute for the team offensively and just keep my approach and be OK with that,” Rojas said postgame Sunday after recording the go-ahead RBI single in Miami’s 4-3, 12-inning win over the Milwaukee Brewers. “The things I do on defense, other shortstops can’t do.”

Defensively, has this season felt like Rojas’ best in the majors?

“Definitely, 100 percent,” he said. “Up and down of analytic numbers or just the standard numbers I feel like it’s been the most productive and the best, most solid season that I’ve had in my whole career.”