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September 22, 2005

Under The Knife

More on Roberts

by Will Carroll

Randy Johnson pitches the Yankees into first place. Barry Bonds puts a homer into the upper deck. The Cubs lose. Somehow, everything seemed right in the baseball world yesterday. The last six months of great and bizarre baseball seemed to be distilled in one night on which, as Joe Sheehan said yesterday, you could show someone a baseball game and make them a fan for life. Just imagine what we're in for over the next ten days. Bucky Dent could revisit us as the Yanks and Sox go toe to toe. Bonds has a legitimate chance to catch Babe Ruth this season. We have a chance at having eight 20-game winners, which to me explains a lot about why home runs are down slightly. Baseball's so good right now that it almost makes me want to hug Bob DuPuy. Almost.

Powered by thoughts and prayers called up again a bit too quickly for our friends and readers in Houston and on the Texas coast, on to the injuries ...

• To show you how serious the injury to Brian Roberts was, let's consider that it was difficult for me to even get an answer to one simple question: how long did it take to get Roberts' elbow reduced (popped back into place)? After exhausting every source I have, I still don't have a definitive answer. The most likely scenario is that team physicians were able to reduce the injury once he got into the training room, but there are also sources that said the reduction was "incomplete"--that the damage was too extensive to get things back in. For anyone who's ever had a dislocated finger, you'll remember how painful it was until it reduced and then the pain went away. In the best-case scenario, Roberts dealt with that pain for at least half an hour.

  Pain aside, Roberts' elbow failed under the excessive load placed on it by a streaking Bubba Crosby. Both tendons and ligaments failed, necessitating surgery to reattach the tendon and reconstruct the torn ligament (Tommy John surgery). Studies have shown that the tendons break at about 98 newtons, so the low end for the force exerted on Roberts' extended elbow is almost 10 g's. If you did that in a fighter plane, you'd have passed out.

  Roberts is expected to miss spring training. Compare this terrible injury, and Roberts' expected recovery time, to that of Cesar Izturis, who is expected to miss a year. There's info there we don't know. There are no good comparables for this injury, so we'll just wish Roberts and his doctor the best as he tries to come back and continue a promising career.

• When I said "don't panic" yesterday about Jeremy Bonderman, what I meant was "they're going to shut him down." Okay, not really. I got some misinformation from a source on this, but it does show that context is very important in assessing injury. Bonderman developed tendonitis in his elbow while working on a circle change, a pitch that uses a pronating motion that is unusual for some pitchers and can have a negative effect in the short term while a pitcher gets it down. (It's a very safe pitch in the long term.) Where Bonderman is being shut down as a precaution, Mike Mussina is going to start on Thursday after being off a couple weeks with a very similar injury. I'd imagine that if the Tigers were fighting for the playoffs, Bonderman would be pitching as well. Add in that Bonderman won't be overextended more than he has this year. Remember that he's still just 22.

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