MASH Report (9/21/15)

• Sorry about not getting Thursday’s MASH report out, so today’s post covers the past seven days.

Jung-ho Kang will miss the rest of this season and probably part of next with a fractured tibia and torn meniscus.

Kang’s native Korea did not take the news well, either. The fans are reportedly irate over the Chris Coghlan slide that took Kang out at second, and out of action until possibly late-May of next season.

This injury sucks in so many ways.

CC Sabathia will need a new knee sometime soon. Here are some the “highlights” of what CC has been dealing with.

CC Sabathia is pitching with bone-on-bone arthritis in his right knee, he told MLB.com as Sunday night turned into Monday morning.

Asked if he ultimately would need knee-replacement surgery, Sabathia said, “Eventually, but that’s the price you pay.”

“I wasn’t sure if we were going to get him back,” Yankees manager Joe Girardi said. “I asked him after a couple of days of wearing the brace, ‘How’s it feel?’ He said, ‘It’s all right, it’s all right.’
“It made me feel that if he’s going to buy into wearing the brace, he’s got a chance, because he was pitching pretty well before he got hurt. And that’s exactly what’s happened.”
Sabathia said the ligament brace keeps the joints in his knee from rubbing when the leg hits the ground. Before he began using it, he’d never know when to expect a jolt of pain on any given pitch.

None of the details can be seen as good and they explain quite a bit of his struggles. But what does he do this offseason. Surgery? Just rest? Retire? Too many questions for me.

Felix Hernandez was removed from his last start with a sore elbow.

Hernandez threw 105 pitches and was nearing the end of his outing when trainer Rob Nodine and manager Lloyd McClendon hustled out to the mound after he walked Rangers catcher Bobby Wilson.

“I saw him wiggling his arm and [I] asked, ‘what’s going on,'” McClendon said. “He said, ‘I’m just a little stiff,’ so I said, ‘Give me the ball.'”

Hernandez said he’ll see how his elbow feels on Monday, but doesn’t believe it’s anything serious.

“It’s not bad. It’s a little stiff,” he said. “I would say it was the long inning, that’s why it got stiff. But it’s not a big deal. I’ll be fine for my next start. I’ve been worse before. I’ll be fine.”

Hernandez said the elbow felt a little tight the whole game, then stiffened during Seattle’s six-run fifth. He wound up allowing four hits and two runs with five walks over his 5 2/3 innings, improving his record to 18-7 with a 3.54 ERA.

I ran my pitcher injury finder and all the indicators point to an injury. Loss of velocity, command, and not being able to maintain constant mechanics late in the game.



I would be a little leery of starting him this week because he will either throw hurt or not throw at all.

Albert Pujols talks about the foot pain which he has been dealing with for about a month.

Pujols, who injured the foot Aug. 28, is clearly in pain, and his performance is suffering. He is hitless in his last 20 at-bats, the second-longest drought of his career. The longest was an 0-for-23 skid in April of 2012. Though he has 35 homers and 83 runs batted in, Pujols is hitting .239.

“Look at how I’m hitting,” Pujols said. “I can’t drive off my back foot. I’m using my upper body a lot more. That’s the reality. But you know me. I’m not looking for excuses. I told you guys two weeks ago, I’m not going to throw in the towel on my team. I’m going to give the best I have.”

• Another star playing through pain is Robinson Cano who strained his abdomen in late July.

Lingering pain while running has been the norm for the 32-year-old second baseman since he was diagnosed with a Grade 1 abdominal strain in late July. Cano missed three games at the end of July but has since been playing through the pain, running noticeably slower but nevertheless starting every game since Aug. 1.

“Just running. Every time I force it, I feel it a little bit. I was OK, I just didn’t want to get up right away,” Cano said after the game.

Mariners manager Lloyd McClendon joked late last week he would have to get his star second baseman a day off by leaving Cano out of the lineup without telling him and locking the door to his office. But on Monday, McClendon said that with so many important games coming up to close the season, an off-day is looking less like a possibility.

“He’s gonna have it all year. It’s unfortunate,” McClendon said about the injury. “People think he’s dogging it, but he’s not, he’s actually showing up and posting up every day, when most people wouldn’t be able to go.”

• When looking at 2016 projections, also remember Giovanny Urshela was dealing with a sore shoulder since the All-Star break.

Huston Street went on a “crash diet” causing him to lose 13 pounds in four days.

Angels closer Huston Street has spent the last four days battling flu-like symptoms, a condition that caused him to shed 13 pounds and made him unavailable for Tuesday’s 4-3 win over the Mariners. Setup man Joe Smith recorded the save by striking out the side in the ninth inning.
Street said postgame that his symptoms have cleared up “for the most part,” and Angels manager Mike Scioscia was hopeful that Street would be available by Wednesday’s series finale at Safeco Field.

I bet he became extremely familiar with the toilet over those few days.

Here are players likely to miss the rest of the season.

Dario Alvarez (strained groin)

Brandon Belt (concussion)

Jesse Chavez (fractured rib)

Omar Infante (sprained oblique)

Joe Kelly (sore shoulder)

Jimmy Nelson (concussion)

Joe Panik (Back)

Jose Peraza (hamstring)

Joe Smith (sprained ankle)

Non-player notes

Travis Sawchik of the Bucco Blog looked at how the Pirates are taking steps toward preventing injuries. Here are some of the highlights:

This spring Clint Hurdle revealed the club was to target a new area: they were going to ratchet up their preventative health practices.
….
Moreover, Hurdle has reduced practice time.

This season, the Pirates have reduced how often they take pre-game batting practice.

“From the strength and conditioning .. the regeneration room, the travel … leverage situations in games. I’ve learned some things moving forward,” Hurdle said. “You see models in other sports…. If you can get to a point where you can give the proper rest to the proper player, it’s amazing that we really think we can ramp up the performance.

“We’ve just tried to be smart and talked to teams that are doing it. Keep players involved in the mix. And quantify the results best we can.”
….
After losing the fewest days lost to the disabled list last season, the Pirates have the second fewest days lost to the disabled list (602) to the National League, entering Friday, trailing only the Milwaukee Brewers.

A study at John Hopkins University found the worst catcher injuries are from batted balls or swinging bats.

Contrary to popular belief, the worst injuries baseball catchers face on the field come from errant bats and foul balls, not home-plate collisions with base runners, according to findings of a study led by researchers at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine.

A summary of the findings, published ahead of print Aug. 28 in The American Journal of Sports Medicine, reveals that only a small fraction of injuries sustained by catchers — fewer than 15 percent — were the result of run-ins with another player. Such “contact” injuries, the investigators report, were neither season-ending nor career-ending serious traumas, and they generally required shorter recovery than other kinds of injuries.

Velocity Readings

Jeremy Affeldt’s average fastball velocity is OK.

Matt Cain’s velocity is up.

Carlos Frias’s is up 4 mph compared to before his DL stint, but this appearance was out of the bullpen.

Jeremy Hellickson’s is a bit on the low side.

Phil Hughes’s velocity is down 2 mph.

Daniel Norris’s velocity is up.

Players on the DL in 2015

The Red players have had updates since the last report. Click on the “Date” for a link to go to the latest article on the player.

Players who should be on the DL





Jeff, one of the authors of the fantasy baseball guide,The Process, writes for RotoGraphs, The Hardball Times, Rotowire, Baseball America, and BaseballHQ. He has been nominated for two SABR Analytics Research Award for Contemporary Analysis and won it in 2013 in tandem with Bill Petti. He has won four FSWA Awards including on for his Mining the News series. He's won Tout Wars three times, LABR twice, and got his first NFBC Main Event win in 2021. Follow him on Twitter @jeffwzimmerman.

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