Injury News and Analysis September 7th
Carlos Quentin
Surprise surprise, it’s not the forearm it’s the wrist. This is just another reason why we cannot always believe what the team tells us regarding an injuries health. He’s going to have a screw inserted into the wrist in order to help facilitate healing. While I am not 100% suggesting this is the case, often surgical fixation is needed for scaphoid fractures. The scaphoid bone is a small bean shaped bone at the base of the thumb where it meets the wrist. Due to it’s poor blood supply, sometimes it doesn’t heal fully by itself.
Many times the scaphoid is broken by landing on an outstretched arm as if you are trying to break your fall. Finally what leads me to believe it may the scaphoid is that many times it doesn’t show up on plain x-rays and requires specialized CT scans. Therefore it tends to linger a bit before being diagnosed. The White Sox aren’t willing to call him out for the season or the playoffs, but I just don’t see how he’ll be remotely close to 100% if he does come back in the playoffs.
Ian Kinsler
After trying to rehab, Kinsler has decided to undergo surgery to repair a sports hernia. Basically what they do is put a piece of mesh screen to patch the tearing in the abdominal wall. The surgery has become much better the last couple of years with a minimum amount of complications. This will undoubtedly end his season but there shouldn’t be any problems in the coming years. Damn shame he can’t stay healthy for a whole season, he could put up some really magical numbers.
Josh Beckett
Beckett started on Friday and actually threw more pitches than I think anyone was expecting, going 80 pitches against the Rangers. He didn’t walk anyone which is obviously great news but he did lose significant velocity (about 5 MPH). This is most likely due to being completely shut down for that period of time in order to let his elbow rest so we’ll have to see how he throws in his next start. He hasn’t had any recurrence of the altered sensation in his hand and fingers which is also very encouraging. I still think that the Red Sox will be very conservative and not allow him to throw over 100 pitches until the playoffs start.
B.J. Upton
Well we finally have a reason for the lack of power development that everyone expected from B. J. Upton as it was released that he has a labrum tear in his left shoulder. He suffered the tear when he separated his shoulder on May 1st and only has what 8 HR on the year? Last year he had close to 25 at this point in the year. While no labrum tear is exactly the same, Hanley Ramirez had a similar injury last year and following surgery doesn’t appear to have bothered him. He’s going to delay surgery until after his year is done which if the damage is severe enough could delay the start of spring training.
Carlos Zambrano
It’s been revealed that Carlos Zambrano is suffering from rotator cuff tendinitis but I started noticing a difference in his PFX data as early as June 20th. His delivery changed, his arm slot dropping and by many accounts he started to “sling” the ball in the words of Will Carroll.
The reason why the arm slot will drop down because of rotator cuff problems is an issue of mechanics. The following image is courtesy of athletic scholarship.net.
When the arm raises above the athletes head, the head of the humerus must rotate downwards or the tendons will become pinched between the acromion process and the humeral head. The Rotator Cuff muscles are absolutely key in this process as they have a force couple with the deltoid muscles to keep stability of the shoulder joint and move the arm. The rotator cuff must compress the humeral head into the labrum and rotate the humeral head downward allowing the deltoid to raise the arm above the shoulder. If the rotator cuff is insufficient, the deltoids raise the arm but the humeral head doesn’t rotate. The arm cannot raise above the shoulder level without the rotator cuff and the tendons get pinched between the two bones.
Therefore, instead of coming from “over the top” the pitcher must drop down to 3/4 or approaching sidearm. Another adjustment is what Zambrano did by dropping ones elbow and shot-putting the ball up to the plate. Tendinitis can caused by several things including laxity (looseness) of the shoulder or elbow, muscle imbalances, labrum tears, or overuse. Without seeing him everyday I can’t give you an exact reason but normally in power pitchers it’s a combination of muscle imbalances and very minor looseness.
Based on how long he appeared to have an altered throwing motion, it will likely take just as long to get him back to 100%. I expect that he’s going to be around a week or two away from being able to pitch in an MLB game again. He’s probably going to be on a strict pitch limit when he comes back which is the smart things to do. Hopefully this will help set up a Cubs-Red Sox World Series.
Tidbits
Ryan Freel seems to think he can come back this September from hamstring surgery. My question is why would be want to risk further injury when the team is clearly out of it and all of his money is guaranteed? Rafael Furcal is improving and could make an appearance around the start of the playoffs. Carl Crawford had a checkup and is still on schedule to return the last week of the season. J.D. Drew took live BP on Saturday and reported no ill effects, but did admit being tentative on a few of them. He still hopes to return this coming week. Jeff Clement will have season ending surgery on his left knee. More details once I know.
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