Fantasy baseball injury report: Cruz, Ramirez, Judge land on IL

There can be no silver lining for those who lost Jose Ramirez to a fractured hamate bone over the weekend. Their first-round pick is now out for more than a month, and no matter how shallow the league, there’s no accounting for that loss.

Worse yet, the injury comes only two weeks after consensus best player in Fantasy Aaron Judge was lost to a stress fracture in his rib and a week after Ronald Acuna’s hamstring put him out of commission again. Between those three and Oneil Cruz (fractured hand), the IL is as abounding in star power as it’s been all year.

Those of us who’ve managed to dodge those bullets can indeed see a silver lining, though, and it’s that Hunter Brown is at long last set to return from a shoulder strain Tuesday. The undisputed Fantasy ace made only two starts before landing on the IL in early April.

Cal Raleigh (strained oblique), meanwhile, is also expected back Tuesday, as are Yainer Diaz (strained oblique), J.P. Crawford (bruised hand) and Kodai Senga (lumbar spine inflammation). Those players obviously command varying degrees of interest, with only Raleigh being an absolute must across the board, but my point in mentioning them is that it doesn’t make sense to rank them here since they’ll be active by the time you can actually do anything about it. I’m going to put Casey Mize (strained adductor) in the same category even though he’s not being activated until Wednesday. He would have already come off the IL Sunday if not for a rainout, so the chances of the Tigers pulling back on him seem remote.

I’ll remind you once again that the order here is more about how impactful the player will be when healthy than how close he is to returning, though both factors carry some weight.