Houston Astros prospect Carlos Correa, the No. 1 overall pick in the 2012 MLB Draft, suffered a potentially serious right leg injury while playing for High Single-A Lancaster on Saturday night, reports Drew Silva of Hardball Talk.
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Relaying tweets from Jason Schwartz, one of Lancaster’s broadcasters, Correa reportedly injured his right ankle while sliding into third base on a triple. Unable to walk off the field under his own power, teammates carried Correa off before he was carted away through the back of the left field fence.
Schwartz says Correa appeared to slide over the third base bag on the play, and was immediately in pain afterwards. He reportedly underwent a number of tests Sunday to determine an official diagnosis, but we haven’t heard the results of that process yet.
Correa, 19, was rated by Baseball America, Baseball Prospectus and MLB.com as one of the game’s top-10 prospects heading into the 2014 season. He’s done little to dispel the notion that he’s an elite young player this season, hitting .325/.416/.510 with 28 extra-base hits and 20 stolen bases in 62 games with Lancaster.
The severity of Correa’s injury remains unclear, but given the way he apparently reacted to the situation on Saturday, the signs weren’t positive. Missing significant time would likely be a blow to Correa’s development, at the very least by delaying it depending on how long he’s out.
The good news, of course, comes from Correa’s youth. Since he doesn’t turn 20 until September, there’s still plenty of time for him to get healthy and emerge as a star player for Houston, even if he doesn’t play again this season. That’s surely something the Astros hope to avoid, though, so we’ll see how the test results come back in a day or two.