• Yu Darvish is headed back to the DL with shoulder and neck tightness.

Darvish had made just three starts in his return from Tommy John surgery before beginning to feel the discomfort. He left his most recent start, on Wednesday, after five innings and continued to experience tightness over the weekend in Seattle.
…
“There were no acute findings in either MRI, which is a good thing,” general manager Jon Daniels said. “Nothing structural that was a cause for concern. Yu still has a level of discomfort, so we are going to put him on the DL and give him time to recover.”

I am not surprised to see Darvish back on the DL. It seems like most pitchers coming back from TJS initially struggle to stay healthy.

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• Felix Hernandez got some bad news. He will not be back for four to six weeks.

The team initially hoped that Hernandez, who is 4-4 with a 2.86 ERA in 10 starts, would miss only two starts after being placed on the disabled list June 1. But Hernandez told ESPN’s Marly Rivera on Saturday that while the second MRI showed improvement, the Mariners’ medical director, Dr. Edward Khalfayan, wants him to rest the calf for four to six weeks.

“I have already been [on] the DL about 12 days, so those days are included [in the 4-6 weeks],” Hernandez said, adding that he expects to be throwing again before the team returns from its next road trip on June 24.

This update sucks for Hernandez owners.

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• Jorge Soler is on the DL with a strained hamstring.

Soler sustained the injury running to first base on a third-inning single in Monday’s win over the Phillies. The Cubs don’t know the exact severity of the strain and will find more out as he begins to rehab the injury.

I am amazed at the number of hamstring injuries this month which currently stands at 10. Since 2009, the only months with double-digit totals for hamstring injuries were the colder Aprils and Mays. We still have 21 days to add to the total.

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• Hunter Pence will be out eight weeks with a torn hamstring.

Giants right fielder Hunter Pence is expected to undergo surgery to remove a torn right hamstring tendon, which could sideline one of San Francisco’s top run producers for approximately eight weeks.

The Giants are still consulting physicians about their medical options with Pence, who injured himself while sprinting to first base in Wednesday night’s 5-4, 11-inning loss at Atlanta. Head athletic trainer Dave Groeschner said Friday that until those discussions have ended, the Giants won’t officially declare that Pence will need surgery.

However, Groeschner said, “I think we’re headed in that direction.”

Even the typically upbeat Pence indicated surgery appeared imminent.

I could make a case in shallow leagues with short benches that Pence is now droppable.

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• Felix Hernandez will likely miss a few starts on the DL with a strained calf.

“Right now I’m hopeful that it’s only a couple starts and we can get him back as soon as pos-sible,” Servais said before Wednesday’s game. “I’m trying to keep the glass half full and stay positive. Hopefully he’ll have a little extra left in his tank at the end of the year because he’s getting a little breather now. But it has nothing to do with his arm. It’s all related to the calf.”

Hernandez was examined in Seattle on Wednesday by Mariners physician Ed Khalfayan. If the injury proves to be very minor, Hernandez potentially will miss only two starts, since the DL move is retroactive to Saturday — the day after his most recent start. He will be eligible to return on June 12, which is the final day of the Mariners’ next homestand.

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• Troy Tulowitzki looks to miss the minimum DL time with a strained quadriceps.

The veteran shortstop underwent an MRI on Saturday morning, with the results showing a low-grade strain, and Tulowitzki believes he will be back in the lineup after the mandatory 15-day period.

I am not 100% sure Tulo has an injury, but he could definitely use the break to get himself back together.

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• I am going to recomend a couple must-read articles for the week which look at the differences and “results” of stem cell and platelet rich plasma (PRP) injections. The first one starts with the Angels Garrett Richards and Andrew Heaney choice to use them, but ends up being a great overview of the entire subject.

On May 2, Steve H. Yoon, a physician at the Kerlan-Jobe Orthopaedic Clinic in Southern California, extracted stem cells from Andrew Heaney’s bone marrow and injected them into the damaged ulnar collateral ligament in his elbow. Fourteen days later, Yoon did the same with Garrett Richards.
Now the Angels’ two best, most promising starting pitchers are left to wait, and hope.

If the stem-cell therapy works, Heaney and Richards will be lined up to pitch for a full season in 2017 and may even be able to contribute toward the end of this very summer. If it doesn’t, they will undergo Tommy John surgery that, at this point, is certain to knock them out until the start of 2018.

The second article is a study by the American Journal of Sports Medicine which found “no significant” positive effect for using PRP injections.

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• Sonny Gray will miss some time with a strained right trapezius (back/shoulder/neck muscle).

Gray said he got a cortisone/anti-inflammatory shot for the issue Friday and he believes he will not miss a great deal of time. He said he got treatment for the muscle strain in the trapezius and his neck before his start at Tampa Bay last Sunday and it felt OL during that game but it nagged a bit during the week.

“Warming up against the Yankees in the fourth inning, it locked back up the way it did in the bullpen in Tampa,” Gray said. “I definitely noticed a difference warming up the inning. It’s just a matter of getting extension and getting out in front.”

Said A’s manager Bob Melvin: “I don’t think it’s really affected his velocity, but it’s affected the command. It’s like pitching with a rock in the bottom of your neck.”

Sounds like minimum time lost and not a major injury.

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• Carlos Gomez is on the DL to work out some mechanical issues with bruised ribs.

Astros manager A.J. Hinch said prior to the series opener at U.S. Cellular Field that Gomez was kneed in the ribs diving back into second base during a play in Sunday’s loss in Boston and informed the team on the flight to Chicago that he didn’t feel well.

“We talked to our doctors and had him evaluated, and it’s in the best interest to everybody to get him healthy and not play short,” Hinch said. “He wasn’t going to play in this series based on the injury, so we felt no need to keep him here as a bench player that wasn’t available.”

I bet he either had this injury for a while or it is totally made up.

• Geovany Soto will be out a few months after tearing the meniscus in his knee.

Soto’s right knee bothered him a bit during Tuesday’s Freeway Series game at Dodger Stadium, but he showed up to the ballpark planning to play Wednesday. His knee then locked up while he rode the elliptical early in the afternoon, then again as he walked to the trainer’s room, prompting an MRI that showed surgery was necessary.

I am estimating he will miss a couple of months, it might even be a bit longer since he is a catcher and his knees get suck a workout.

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• I am going to start with a report which just came out from the Journal of Shoulder and Elbow Surgery on UCL tears. Here is the conclusion:

MLB pitchers requiring UCL reconstruction do not pitch at higher velocities than matched controls, and pitch velocity does not appear to be a risk factor for UCL reconstruction. However, MLB pitchers who pitch a high percentage of fastballs may be at increased risk for UCL injury because pitching a higher percent of fastballs appears to be a risk factor for UCL reconstruction.

I agree with every aspect of the findings expect “pitch velocity does not appear to be a risk factor for UCL reconstruction”. The problem with the study is that the difference was between pitchers with similar velocities (less than 1 mph difference). I would not expect a huge injury rate difference in pitchers throwing 91 and 92 mph. As I previously found, harder throwers do see an increase in Tommy John surgeries. Their velocity statement may be true under their limited conditions, but it isn’t stated as so. It is made to read like a major breakthrough, but it isn’t.

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