Former ODU pitcher Ryan Yarbrough suffers facial fractures, placed on injured list after being struck by a line drive

Kansas City Royals pitcher Ryan Yarbrough, a former standout at Old Dominion, suffered facial fractures and has been placed on the 15-day injured list after being hit by a line drive in a game against Oakland.

Yarbrough, who played at ODU in 2013 and 2014, was making his third start for the Royals on Sunday when he was struck in the face during the sixth inning by a ball hit by Oakland’s Ryan Noda. Yarbrough immediately fell to the ground and covered his face with his hands. He never lost consciousness, and walked off the field with help from the Royals’ staff.

“He is very aware of what’s going on around him and normal conversations,” Royals manager Matt Quatraro — also a former ODU player — said Monday, according to the Kansas City Star. “He has three non-displaced fractures in different spots around his eye, which we don’t think at this time will require surgery. He is getting further testing this afternoon and we will have a lot better idea in the next 24 hours.”

Yarbrough, 31, was hospitalized, and Quatraro said Yarbrough was in good spirits and communicating.

“If you weren’t looking at him,” Quatraro said, “the conversations were totally normal, and you wouldn’t have known anything was going on.”

The Royals said in a Twitter post Monday that Yarbrough is “stable and improving.”

Yarbrough, a fourth-round draft pick out of ODU by the Seattle Mariners, signed with the Royals in December after leaving the Tampa Bay Rays organization as a free agent. He has logged 137 career major league games and was 1-4 with a 6.15 ERA in 26⅓ innings this season. He allowed one earned run in Sunday’s start before his injury.

Jami Frankenberry, 757-446-2376, jami.frankenberry@pilotonline.com