Jung-Ho Kang has surgery, out 6-8 months

The Pirates have announced that Jung-Ho Kang had surgery tonight on a "displaced lateral tibial plateau fracture and lateral meniscal repair." He should be able to return to competition within six to eight months. Obviously, that means Kang's season is over, and he could potentially miss a month or two of next season as well.

In case you missed it, Kang left Thursday's game after Chris Coghlan slid into his left knee in an attempt to break up a double play.

Coghlan is obviously out of the base path and is trying to take Kang out, but I'm not sure I want to waste much time being angry at Coghlan, because this kind of slide happens a lot. In the comments of the recap of Thursday's game, a number of people objected to the way Coghlan raised his leg, but my guess is that it's probably hard for him to control exactly what his leg is doing while he's also trying to go through the motions of touching the base with his hand several feet away. If there's anything to be upset about, it's that the league tolerates this kind of blatantly dangerous play.

The Pirates have plenty of infield depth, but Kang's absence will hurt -- he's been the Pirates' second-best, or maybe third-best, position player this year, behind only Andrew McCutchen and perhaps Francisco Cervelli. Kang's injury ends what's been a terrific first MLB season, and an historic one, given his status as the first position player to arrive from the KBO.