JB Cox began throwing again Monday after being shelved with what was labeled as shoulder soreness a week ago. This is excellent news for the Yankees and proves Mark Newman was correct in implying Cox's injury was nothing serious after some miscommunication had Brian Cashman stating Cox would be out "at least three weeks." It seems this tired shoulder and soreness is something expected after such a long layoff from elbow surgery. It does not appear the Yankees are very worried about this injury as Newman's comments were bordering on dismissive.Apparently Dellin Betances pitched in a simulated game today and is making his way back from a similar shoulder malady to what sidelined Cox. Betances is rumored to have hit the high 90's mph with his fastball and had no discomfort. The flamethrowing righthander may return to the Charleston rotation in the very near future. It may just be the conspiracy theorist in me, but the Yankees may have simply decided to give Betances a breather in an attempt to limit his innings this year. The same type of blueprint was mapped out for Phil Hughes when he was at Charleston.
Chris Garcia has been MIA of late and an injury has been the only possible explanation. Though the Tampa Yankees are about as forthright as the Bush administration, rumor has it Garcia is suffering from the same slight soreness which bothered him while working his way through Extended Spring Training.
That's a lot of tired shoulders. It's important to remember how precautionary the Yankees have become with their minor leaguers, particularly when those players are high ceiling pitching prospects.
Garcia and Betances both have #1 starter type ceilings and will therefore be handled with as much care as professional athletes can be - regardless of what Jim Kaat thinks. Is anyone else completely perplexed by Kitty's inability to put together a coherant written column? I loved the guy in the broadcast booth, but somewhere between the microphone and the keyboard Kaat knocked his head on a toilet bowl and thought pitchers should once again throw 200 pitches per start like he did.
2 comments:
I get pretty worked up when I hear guys like Jim Kaat, Al Leiter, and David Cone talk about how pitchers are treated today. They point out that they didn't have any problems, but always fail to mention the guys that had more amazing "stuff" then they had and flamed out.
People who defend the three above also don't look at the thousands of guys who had the 3-4 year career due to over use and injuries. All anyone mentions are the White Fords, Jim Palmers, and Jim Kaats and make comments like "They didn't have any problems." Well, they were the best and were able to handle the workload.
big Amen on that Tripp. The entire sport has changed its conditioning program years and years ago. It's not about telling today's starters to go out and throw complete games every FOUR days, because they simply aren't conditioned for that type of workload.
Could their bodies handle it? I would think so, but the conditioning has to be ingrained into their arms and bodies long, long ago. Before high school even begins. Such an immense change in theory would require a complete overhaul of how pitchers are used in HS, college, the minors and FINALLY the pros.
You can't simply introduce a 150 pitchcount to an pitcher in the major leagues after he's spent half his life working at a more conservative workload. Well you could do it if you wanted the young pitcher's arm to fall off.
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