The A’s prolific hitter of this MLB season, Cliff Pennington, is suffering from a nerve disorder that controls the movements of the face muscles and is commonly known as Bell’s palsy. Pennington had to be exited from the game between the Oakland and Mariners during the sixth inning on Monday night. The Oakland team got a pounding from the mariners losing the game 8-4. Pennington has been given medical attention since the incident and he was not able to move his left eye. He is hopeful to be in the thick of things very soon as he is in good form with his hitting. He has extended his hitting streak to 15 games.
Pennington said that he was playing with this difficulty for quite a while, but felt that it would be better for him to take a break in playing rather than aggravating the symptoms. He also said that he had difficulties in sighting the ball sometimes and hence withdrew mid way through the game. There have been instances when this problem has persisted for a longer time, but his hopeful for a total recovery from this condition pretty soon. His problems got compounded when the team landed in Seattle on Sunday night and his vision got blurred due to the non closing of the eyes.
Pennington feels that he will be fully fit to play as soon as he can close his eyes. But this seems to be a pretty serious symptom which needs to be completely diagnosed to find the root cause of such a muscle cramp on his face. Though the team management feels that Pennington can play once he as control of his eye, it necessarily does not indicate that such a problem will never rise again. The A’s management will not be able to predict Pennington’s return to the playing arena and so the manager of the A’s team has decided to expand his bench strength with DeJesus also listed day to day.
Pennington was replaced by Eric Sogard in the sixth innings of the match. Sogard did pretty well with the opportunity presented to him and he will be hoping that his side would need his services in the future games as well. A’s fans are wishing for Pennington’s speedy recovery as he is in the best hitting form of his MLB career. But all said and done, it seems like Pennington will be warming the side benches for at least a couple of weeks.
