Steve Sabins Provides Update on Starters’ Injuries — Here’s the Scoop

Mountaineer fans can take a big sigh of relief.

West Virginia junior Brodie Kresser rounds the bases after a grand slam in the first inning against Penn State. | Christopher Hall - West Virginia on SI

A couple of West Virginia starters, Brodie Kresser and Gavin Kelly, left last weekend's season-opening series against Georgia Southern a little banged up. Injuries are inevitable, but having them come this early in the year, before you even truly get going, would throw a big wrench into things.

Fortunately for the Mountaineers, neither Kresser nor Kelly is expected to miss much time, if any at all.

“I think pretty good right now. Brodie was walking around the airport pretty comfortably. I guess comfortably wouldn’t be the right word, but he was walking. He got a fastball to the shin, so he had a baseball-sized welt on his shin, and it blew up pretty good. He's moving pretty good. He said he’ll be good by the weekend, but we got to see over the next couple of days if we’re able to flush that out. Gavin (Kelly) is good. No issues there. He had a pretty heavy weekend, though, played two games at second, one game behind the dish. We were at the baseball field for twelve hours on Saturday, so it was just a very long day. To go from a lot of indoor training and a little bit of outdoor training with four-hour limitations on practice days to being at the field for twelve hours, it's just different on the body. Guys get beat up a little bit — hips, backs, and lower backs. But I think we survived weekend one without any serious injuries.”

The Mountaineers have a big three-game series this weekend against the Liberty Flames in Lynchburg. Having both of those guys in the lineup will be huge, especially Kelly, who is considered to be the most talented player on the roster.

If the swelling on Kresser's shin doesn't go down in time or there is still some pain there, we could see a mix of Ben Lumsden, Matthew Robaugh, or Ryan Maggy at first base. Sabins told reporters before the season began that he's repped about ten different guys there, so they will have plenty of capable options to turn to.

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