Taylor Green’s season is officially over before it even had a chance to get started.
According to the team, the Milwaukee Brewers’ utility infielder underwent arthroscopic surgery Tuesday morning to repair tears in the labrum in his left hip and also remove bone spurs from the area.
The 26-year-old Courtenay native — who married Sophie Cottini in January in a small ceremony in the Comox Valley — will be out for the entire Major League Baseball season.
“I got a text message from his wife, the operation went well. He’s out of the hospital,” said his father, Bill Green, who confirmed Brewers’ doctors shaved a spur off the head of the femur and fixed three tears in the labrum.
“He’s been gutting it out. It was time to do it. He tweaked it and he couldn’t hide it,” said Bill, who had a similar injury in his playing days. “It’s like a knife going in. They sent him for an MRI and saw it right away.
“We knew it had to get done, that there was a strong possibility. If there was a time for it to be done, this is probably a good time. It’s the beginning of the year, he’ll lose this year, but it won’t affect next year.”
Green had also been blocked, positionally, in the organization stymied on the depth chart.
He is now expected to see his doctor again on Friday and is then going to head home for recovery.
Green did represent Canada at the World Baseball Classic earlier in spring training and impressed when Brett Lawrie went down, hitting .286 in three games with three runs scored.
Green returned to the Brewers, where he was battling for a roster spot. Numerous injuries in the Milwaukee lineup — particularly at first base and third base — had drastically improved his chances to secure his spot on the club, but he aggravated the injury diving for a ground ball during a game in extended training camp in Arizona.
As the Brewers (now 10-8 after a 2-8 start to the season) broke camp, Green remained in Phoenix to continue rehab. It was then discovered that he would require season-ending surgery, which was to be performed by team physician William Raasch.
Prior to his surgery Green told the Milwaukee Sentinel Journal that: “I’ve played with it for years now, but it’s gotten to the point where I literally can’t [anymore]. It’ll be good to finally have it healthy.”
Despite the disappointment of not being able to take advantage of a solid opportunity, Green remained positive, telling the newspaper that: “It would have been nice, but it’s been sore for a while so it’ll be nice to have it healthy.”
He also told MLB.com’s Adam McCalvy that: “These opportunities don’t come along too often. It’s tough timing, but it is what it is. I’ve been through stuff like this before, so I’ll get through it.”
The two-time Brewers’ minor league player of the year played 58 games with Milwaukee last season as a backup infielder and struggled, batting .184 with three home runs and 14 runs-batted-in during 103 at-bats in the big leagues. He was hitting just .139 (5-for-36) with 12 strikeouts in 15 games in Cactus League play when he went down.
Still, with regular first baseman Corey Hart out due to injury, Brewers manager Ron Roenicke was hoping that Green and Jeff Bianchi (also out with a hip injury) would be ready for opening day.
“Bianchi and Green are two guys that we really thought were going to be on our team,” Roenicke told Milwaukee media prior to the start of the season. “We figured Taylor was going to be in this mix so we’ve had to change our thinking a little bit.”
