Marlins' Connor Norby sidelined again with quad strain, Kyle Stowers could return next week

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MIAMI (AP) — Miami Marlins outfielder Kyle Stowers could return from his left oblique strain as soon as next week, but the team will be without Connor Norby for the foreseeable future after the third baseman went on the injured list Friday with a left quad strain.

Stowers has been sidelined with the injury since Aug. 17. The All-Star was scheduled for a rehab outing with Triple-A Jacksonville on Friday night as a designated hitter and will play in the outfield on Saturday.

If those outings go well, manager Clayton McCullough said Stowers will return to Miami on Sunday and be activated early next week.

Norby said he felt tightness in his left quad rounding first base after a double late in Wednesday’s loss at Washington and was taken out of the game.

It is Norby’s third trip to the injured list this season. He missed the first three weeks with an oblique strain, then was sidelined more than a month with a broken hamate bone in his left wrist. The Marlins activated Norby on Aug. 29, and he had gone 6 for 18 with five RBIs in the five games he’d played since returning.

“Frustrated is not even the word I’d use,” Norby said Friday before Miami opened a three-game home series against Philadelphia. “If I can think of a word, I’ll tell you. It sucks. You get hurt at the start of the year. You start off behind, come back and you’re fighting your way through, feel good. Start feeling like yourself after all the searching and then break your hand. Six weeks gone. You come back. Feel great. It’s the best you’ve felt all year and then you get a minor tweak.”

Norby did not want to risk further injury by playing through the quad strain but added he will be back before the end of the season — the Marlins wrap up their 2025 campaign against the New York Mets on Sept. 28.

“I’ve never been hurt in my life playing this game,” he said. “I feel bad for the team, for the fans, for the players here, for Clayton. I hate it more than anybody, but I’m going to be back and I’m going to be better.”

Norby joins a number of injured Miami players. Another, outfielder Derek Hill, was placed on the 10-day injured list Friday (retroactive to Sept. 2) with a right hamstring strain.

Reliever Jesús Tinoco underwent hybrid reconstruction in his right ulnar collateral ligament with an associated flexor tendon repair with Dr. Keith Meister on Wednesday, the team said.

Right-hander Edward Cabrera was placed on the 15-day injured list on Monday with a right elbow sprain. McCullough said Friday that the team is still gathering information on the nature and extent of Cabrera’s injury and declined to speculate if the starter will potentially need Tommy John surgery.

“That I don’t want to speak to,” he said. “I don’t know. It hasn’t been confirmed either way.”

Right-hander Janson Junk, who has been out since late August with right ulnar nerve irritation, is expected to start for the Marlins on Monday, McCullough said, after a strong rehab outing with Triple-A Jacksonville on Tuesday.

Left-hander Ryan Weathers, who went on the 60-day IL on June 9 with a left lat strain, is expected to return to Miami’s rotation by the middle of next week.

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AP MLB: https://apnews.com/MLB