For Royals pitcher Guthrie, Oregon tragedy hits close to home

Kansas City Royals pitcher Jeremy Guthrie was born in Roseburg, Ore., and he lived there until he was 12 years old.

Guthrie remembers hanging around Umpqua Community College, attending sporting events at the school and swimming in the pool.

Before Thursday night's game against the White Sox, an emotional Guthrie talked about the 10 dead and many injured in a shooting rampage at Umpqua.

"Those families are going through unimaginable loss today," Guthrie said. "Maybe some of them don't even know what has happened, still. You keep them in your prayers."

While saying he has no stance on gun control, Guthrie did have strong opinions about another violent incident.

"We obviously all have the ability to go out and do harm, whether it's with a gun or whether it's through other forms of violence," Guthrie said. "That's never the answer. Unfortunately, we've seen too many people resort to that in recent times. All of us go through struggles; all of us have our challenges.

"Maybe we can show a little more love and compassion to those who are going through other things. Hopefully the end result is that we can stop having to witness these types of tragedies."

Successful surgery:

Micah Johnson had arthroscopic surgery to remove scar tissue from his left knee Thursday.

The second baseman is expected to be 100 percent healthy when he reports to spring training.

"It wasn't very substantial," manager Robin Ventura said. "There was some stuff in there that they cleaned up, but he definitely should be ready to go by spring training. He'll be ready earlier, but no lingering things for spring training."

After rejoining the White Sox from Class AAA Charlotte on Sept. 8, Johnson was 3-for-26 and he never looked completely healthy.

"I know he was reluctant at first to come forward and say what he felt, but you've got to take care of this," Ventura said. "You don't want to go out there and have it potentially turn into something bigger."

Johnson opened the season as the Sox' starting second baseman but lost his job to Carlos Sanchez in mid-May.