Here’s the latest out of Arizona:
- Star Diamondbacks outfielder A.J. Pollock won’t begin baseball activities for another three months, Dr. Don Sheridan told reporters including Nick Piecoro of the Arizona Republic (Twitter). As was initially suspected, Pollock may miss the entire season, although there’s at least a chance he’ll return to action late in the year. For those interested, Steve Gilbert of MLB.com (tweet) has an image of the bracket and screws inserted into his elbow.
- Pollock sustained the same injury back in 2010 and had a similar plate installed at the time. The previous plate broke early this spring, tweets Gilbert. The club caught the issue via X-Ray at the time meaning they were aware of the risk. As Piecoro notes (Twitter), the club told reporters there was no issue with Pollock’s elbow despite being well aware of the broken screw. Teams have plenty of incentives to be tight-lipped about injury-related findings. Union chief Tony Clark has also talked about implementing news rules to further privatize player health.
- Patrick Corbin has the stuff to be a top of the rotation pitcher, writes Piecoro. While offseason moves for Zack Greinke and Shelby Miller are the top talking points in Arizona, Corbin’s success will be critical to Arizona’s ability to contend. Piecoro provides a nice description of Corbin, highlighting a new changeup. PITCHf/x data from Spring Training and his first start suggests his changeup may need further refinement. His best offering is a plus-plus slider.
How was Pollock allowed to continue playing with a broken plate/unhealed bone in his elbow? When I saw the play that reinjured him, it was clear that it was already severely damaged.
Pollock has been playing hurt since 2010. That original surgery on his elbow was a failure. He’s had pain every Spring since then. So, he was continuing to play through that pain as it gradually worsened over the past six years. Then the plate let go when he pushed himself up after sliding into home plate during the 2nd to last exhibition game against the Royals. Neither he nor the D’backs thought the plate would totally fail like it did after six years of monitoring it, but it did. So now he needs the second virtually identical surgery. That is a very different scenario from the one you painted.
scottaz……That’s not what the article says. Do you have “inside information” that conflicts with the article?
The article clearly states that the D-Backs knew that the plate had broken prior to the injury (“early this spring”). It’s my thought that they were hoping that the bone had sufficiently healed and that he would be able to play through it, at least for a while.
I do credit the team for one thing……..they had many chances to trade Pollock over the winter and in the early spring, but didn’t do so, even after learning of the broken plate.