KANSAS CITY, June 15 -- The swing looked like nothing. Vinnie Pasquantino got jammed by an inside fastball from Mike Burrows in the fifth inning Saturday night, popped it weakly toward third, and then did the thing hitters do when a bone in the hand gives way. He shook the hand. He flexed the fingers. He looked down at it as if it belonged to someone else.

By Sunday he had surgery on a fractured hamate in his right hand, and the Kansas City Royals had lost their first baseman for what the team framed as roughly six weeks. The pop-up to third was the last thing he did in a Royals uniform before the All-Star break, and quite possibly for a stretch well beyond it.

That is the cruelty of the hamate. It is a small wedge of bone at the base o...