Milwaukee Brewers' Catcher Jonathan Lucroy Fractures Finger

A position of weakness for the Milwaukee Brewers just got a little weaker on Wednesday.

According to Brewers beat writer, Adam McCalvy, catcher Jonathan Lucroy will have surgery on Thursday to repair a fractured left pinkie finger. He hurt the valuable appendage during a drill on Wednesday and is expected to miss about four weeks.

Four weeks brings Lucroy to Opening Day, and if you figure in some rehab after that, he is looking at a mid-April return at least. The 24-year-old hit .253/.300/.329 with four HRs in 297 plate appearances for the Brewers in 2010.

He was slated to be the Brewers’ starting catcher heading into 2011, but with this injury, look for George Kottaras and Wil Nieves to split the catching duties until Lucroy returns. Neither is a hot box of rocks.

I will say this about finger injuries. They aren’t easy to recover from. I point to Andre Ethier and Coco Crisp as two guys who fractured a finger during the season and never recovered. Let’s see if Lucroy can overcome this injury in 2011.

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