Sawyer Black injury update: Scott Forbes breaks down recovery timeline for North Carolina outfielder

The North Carolina Tar Heels have been without outfielder Sawyer Black since the beginning of April with a hamate bone injury. Luckily, head coach Scott Forbes shared that he’s making good progress.

Forbes shared after North Carolina’s midweek win against Campbell that Black has been able to take batting practice. There’s still work to go in his recovery, but it’s a positive step as he looks to get back on the field relatively soon.

“Sawyer Black took BP today,” Forbes said. “Which was good for him. Have him available, hopefully, pretty soon.”

The hamate bone is a smaller bone in the outside edge of a hand. It’s in the range of where the wrist and small finger meet. An injury there is also relatively rare, but it can be very difficult for baseball players to recover from because of the challenges that then come with holding and swinging a bat. Luckily, it appears that Black is progressing well.

“It’s individual,” Forbes said. “Just a matter of when the bat speed is there. He swung today live in BP, but we’ll know. The ball will be jumping. The ball will go over the wall because he’s got power, and we won’t rush him back.”

Black came to North Carolina as the 133rd-ranked overall recruit in the Class of 2024 and the 23rd-ranked outfielder, according to Perfect Game. He was also ranked as the third-best prospect overall in the state of North Carolina.

As a freshman in 2025, Sawyer Black has played well statistically. In 13 games with 10 starts, he has a .294 batting average, a .400 OBP, and a .500 slugging percentage. That amounts to a .900 OPS. He’s done that on two home runs, a double, and four RBI in 34 at-bats.

Hamate bone injuries have been known to sideline baseball players for extended periods of time. Mike Trout suffered a broken hamate bone that cost him 89 games in 2023. That’s about three months of playing time in MLB. Trout’s injury, given who he is as a player, is perhaps the best-known example of a hamate injury, but he’s not alone. Baseball players from college through MLB can suffer from it.

North Carolina is currently sitting at 36-10 overall and 15-9 in ACC play. That’s good for a tie for third in the current conference standings. The Tar Heels have one more midweek game against UNC-Wilmington coming up. That will be nestled between two key ACC series against NC State and Florida State. Those are the two teams ahead of the Tar Heels in the ACC standings. So, Forbes would love to have his team as healthy as possible.