Roger Espinoza's No Good Very Bad Week

It's not been a good week for Sporting KC's Roger Espinoza.

First came his one game suspension by the disciplinary committee for his challenge on Tyler Deric in this past Saturday's game against the Houston Dynamo.

In that same game, Espinoza picked up an injury late in the game on a sliding challenge by Nathan Sturgis that produced a red card for the Dynamo midfielder and saw Espinoza subbed out of the game. Today it was reported that Espinoza had suffered a left sesamoid fracture on the play. The sesamoid, a small bone in a tendon typically in the hands and feet, the knee cap is also a sesamoid bone (the word sesamoid has never been Googled more in the history of KC probably).

The injury will keep Espinoza out for 10 weeks, which would put him returning in mid-October, right near the end of the regular season, he'll miss at least 12 games. According to Espinoza though, the 10 week time frame is just his time to heal from the injury, and from there Espinoza would have more rehab to get back to full health. That means that KC fans shouldn't expect Espinoza back until the playoffs at the earliest, 15 total games.

It means that the likes of Paulo Nagamura and Amobi Okugo are going to need to step up more to fill in for Espinoza in his absence. While Espinoza hasn't been seen as stellar this year, he's done a lot of the dirty work that doesn't get noticed. Replacing him will be a difficult thing for Kansas City to do.

On top of the injury, today US Soccer handed down its punishment for Espinoza's punch on Brad Davis in the 67th minute of KC's 3-1 US Open Cup win over the Houston Dynamo a couple weeks ago. US Soccer suspended Espinoza for two games for "violent conduct" on the play. So Espinoza was he not injured would be unavailable for the semifinal against Real Salt Lake and either the final this year or KC's first game in the 2016 US Open Cup.

The good news for Espinoza and KC is that both that suspension and the one by the disciplinary committee will be served while he is injured, so should KC make the US Open Cup final, Espinoza will miss no games due to suspension.