Michael Long

For those unfamiliar, the hamate bone — which could cause Corbin Carroll, Francisco Lindor and Jackson Holliday to miss Opening Day — is a small, hook-shaped bone on the palm, just underneath the pinky, that is particularly susceptible to breaking. While the recovery is typically four to six weeks, hitters who undergo the surgery to fix it often talk about how their power takes months to return. It’s not like a soft-tissue injury; the return timeline on hamates is fairly straightforward. The time to full health, however, can be longer.