Collateral Damage Daily for June 27

The Blue Jays finally got some good news; the MRI of Henderson Alvarez's right elbow showed only inflammation and no structural damage. He still may need a trip to the DL, but at least he’s not expected to miss a significant amount of time.

The same cannot be said for Daniel Hudson who admitted that his elbow has been bothering him for several starts and has been getting worse. He had to leave yesterday’s start because of forearm tightness, which is very concerning for a UCL injury. He’s going to have an MRI today, at which point we should have a clear diagnosis and what it means moving forward.

Additions

• Justin Maxwell couldn’t deal with the pain and inflammation caused by bone chips in his left ankle any longer. He’s been dealing with it for several weeks at least, and it was clear after his latest appearance on Monday that the ankle was not going to get better on its own. He’s going to have surgery on his ankle; assuming that the bone chips are the only finding, he should be back pretty quickly. It generally takes about two weeks for the incisions to heal enough to start doing some exercises and slowly progress into baseball activities. The historical data isn’t so keen on him returning quickly, though, the quickest healer still needed a few months. Maxwell is expected to miss four to six weeks. Scott Moore was called up to take his roster spot.
• Colby Lewis was placed on the disabled list, retroactive to June 24, with right forearm tendinitis. Lewis’ past arm troubles were shoulder related, so there is some hope that the tendinitis will dissipate quickly. In our data, starting pitchers took almost three months to recover (small sample size alert) from forearm inflammation but only 40 days if diagnosed as a forearm strain. It sounds like it will be closer to the 40 days missed than the 80, but time will tell. In the interim, Scott Feldman will start on Thursday night.

Subtractions

• It’s been a very long road, but Stephen Drew is finally going to be activated today from the disabled list. It’s been almost 11 months since he suffered a severe ankle injury and required surgery to stabilize a fracture and repair ligament damage. He’s had a rough road on his rehab, between recurrent bouts of soreness and having team officials call him out by suggesting he is progressing his rehab more with his contract in mind instead of helping a team win. Now that Drew is finally back, he’s not going to be playing every day, but he should be able to come off the bench on those other days.
• Fernando Martinez was activated from the 15-day disabled list yesterday. He was originally placed on the 7-day DL with a concussion but was automatically transferred over on that 15th day when he was not ready to be activated. He owas activated after 19 days on the DL. He was optioned to Triple-A Oklahoma City.
• The Astros activated Travis Buck from the 15-day disabled list yesterday but designated him for assignment. Buck missed a total of 28 days on the DL because of his inflamed Achilles, which is only a few days more than the outfielder average of 24 days.
• Drew Smyly was activated from the disabled list in time to make his start against the Rangers and was promptly charged with six earned runs in less than five innings of work. His command wasn’t there, and he didn’t miss many bats, either. He struggled in his rehab appearance, too. The good news in is that Smyly’s blister seemed to be fine and didn’t give him any problems.
• Matt Lindstrom is expected to be activated from the disabled list today now that the soreness in his right middle finger has gone away. Lindstrom missed 46 days because of the finger. He was right on target with the historical data for partial tearing of finger ligaments and is expected to head right back into the bullpen. No word yet on a corresponding move.
• The Washington Nationals activated Carlos Maldonado from the 15-day disabled list and optioned him to Triple-A Syracuse. Maldonado missed 27 days with a strained lower back; catchers average 26.8 days missed, so he was right on target. Maldonado will head back to Triple-A to get at-bats every day.