The Kansas City Royals placed outfielder/first baseman Mark Canha on the 10-day injured list on Wednesday because of a left abductor strain.
In a corresponding move, the Royals recalled outfielder Drew Waters from Triple-A Omaha.
Canha left Tuesday’s home game against the Minnesota Twins in the sixth inning with left hip soreness after crashing into the left-field wall while attempting to catch Harrison Bader’s drive in the fifth. Canha held Bader to an RBI single as the Royals won 2-1.
Kansas City had acquired Canha on March 22 in a trade with Milwaukee for a player to be named later or cash. The Brewers had signed him as a free agent to a minor league contract on Feb. 24.
Canha, 36, reportedly let the Brewers know he planned to exercise a clause in his contract that required the team to put him on the 40-man roster or allow him to become a free agent. As a result, the Brewers traded him to the Royals.
After making his third start of the season, Canha is batting .357 (5-for-14) in seven games.
He is a career .250 hitter with 120 home runs, 459 RBIs, a .349 on-base percentage and .414 slugging percentage in 1,056 regular-season games with the Oakland Athletics (2015-21), New York Mets (2022-23), Milwaukee Brewers (2023), Detroit Tigers (2024) and San Francisco Giants (2024).
He also has hit .149 with one homer and three RBIs in 14 postseason games with the Athletics (2018-20), Mets (2022) and Brewers (2023).
Waters, 26, is a career .229 hitter with 13 homers and 51 RBIs in 137 games with Kansas City from 2022-24. He is hitting .370 with two homers, seven RBIs and three stolen bases in seven games this season with Triple-A Omaha, including hitting for the cycle in a game last week.
