Cleveland Indians catcher Yan Gomes exits game with shoulder injury

Cleveland Indians catcher Yan Gomes had to exit Sunday afternoon's game against the Minnesota Twins after suffering a right shoulder injury. Gomes, who earlier in the day broke an 0-for-27 slump with a seeing-eye double, suffered the injury after stumbling over first base during the fifth inning. His shoulder was wrapped by trainers and he was driven off the field.

Gomes is batting .165/.198/.313, in the midst in one of the worst offensive seasons in franchise history, with an on-base percentage that would be the lowest by any MLB player with 250+ plate appearances since 1911. Gomes is beloved by his teammates though (as evidenced by the ritual sacrifice the team performed before Saturday's game), especially by the starting pitchers he works with.

Gomes will return to Cleveland, where he will be examined by the team's head physician, Dr. Mark Schickendantz, on Monday.

Chris Gimenez took over for Gomes, and will presumably start Monday's series opener in Kansas City. If tomorrow's tests determine that Gomes needs to go on the disabled list, Roberto Perez could return from the DL to take his place. Perez has missed almost the entire season after suffering an injury to his right thumb, but has been rehabbing and played nine innings behind the plate for the first time during his recovery on Saturday, so he's close to ready and anyway, and given that he was pulled from the Columbus lineup today after Gomes suffered his injury, the team apparently seems ready to bring him up if Gomes is indeed on the shelf for a while.

Here's the play Gomes was injured on:

A look at the awkward landing & tumble for Yan Gomes pic.twitter.com/mvmyazObiY

— CJ Fogler (@cjzero) July 17, 2016

Earlier this week I wrote that I thought Perez should be given the bulk of the playing time when he was ready, but this isn't how I wanted that to happen.