Love never ends; neither do great marriages. It’s starting to feel like José Ramírez and the Guardians are in one of those great marriages that will last forever. They renewed their vows again over the winter, on a deal that will keep the future Hall of Famer in Cleveland through his 40th birthday. It’s been a successful relationship, too. This year, though, the team is in dire straits—and an important fact is coming to the fore. The physical laws of the universe, as any fan of baseball or romantic comedies can tell you, don’t care about love. An athlete’s prime years can’t last forever.

In his age-33 season, Ramírez isn’t the same guy he was for the last decade—or, perhaps, the universe just isn’t responding to him the same way it did for those halcyon years. He’s hitting just .238/.341/.384 on the season, and since his return from a broken hamate bone, it’s just .237/.348/.263. I don’t have to tell you this for you to know it, but in the name of clarity on all sides: a .026 ISO is a huge and inescapable problem. Our models still love Ramírez, really. His DRC+ is 116 for the year, essentially the same as last season and just a hair below the level he established for the handful of years before that. It won’t stay that high if he keeps hitting for so little power, though.

Perhaps it ought not surprise us, though, that that pop has gone missing. Ramírez isn’t back from a stay on the IL with a broken toe or a sore shoulder; it was the hamate bone. This injury is becoming Tommy John surgery, but for hitters—an almost de rigueur result of the demands the modern game places on the body. Baseball is evolving faster than its players, leaving a trail of torn elbow ligaments, strained obliques, thoraxes that are way too outletted, and breaks to that tiny hook-shaped bone on the side of your hand. (Find someone who loves you as much as ball writers love telling you the hamate is the little hook-shaped bone on the side of your hand.) To generate enough bat speed to hit a 2026 fastball with authority, you have to get way down on the handle of your bat and push your body’s red lines, just like the pitcher is doing with their elbow and shoulder. Faster, faster, faster—until you break.