Athletes are always trying to push themselves and generally hate sitting out due to injury, but those who play through it sometimes hurt their teams more than they help them.
Take the case of Washington Nationals closer Koda Glover, who tweaked his back before Saturday’s game and promptly blew the save in an eventual 6-3 defeat. The kicker? He hid the issue from the Nationals until after the game, when the damage was already done.
“I was taking a shower, bent over to get my body wash, stood up and had a little kink,” Glover said, via Jorge Castillo of the Washington Post. “With some issues I’ve had lately I kind of pushed myself. I didn’t want to take a day off. I’ve had three days off already, so I pushed the limits today, tried to pitch through it. And it’s one of them things where it was out of my control and I should have said something early. I didn’t and now my back’s in pretty bad shape.”
Glover blew a two-run lead in the ninth, and only escaped with the game tied due to a great throw to the plate by Bryce Harper. His status going forward is unclear.
It’s commonplace for teams to try to cover up injuries in other sports, but the Nationals will have to be pretty peeved with Glover for trying to keep this one quiet — particularly after he went out, blew the game, and may have made the back issue worse in the process.
