Collateral Damage Daily for July 16

Coco Crisp will have his left shoulder looked at today. He strained his it while swinging last week, but the Athletics want to make sure that’s the only injury. We should know more after Crisp’s evaluation. … Ian Desmond aggravated his left oblique injury over the weekend. He is expected to sit out several days, but a trip to the DL has not been ruled out. … Robert Andino landed awkwardly on his left shoulder and will have an MRI to rule out any structural damage. He could end up on the DL. … Chad Billingsley had to skip his start yesterday because of right elbow flexor tendon inflammation. He’s going to get more tests done to see if there is any other damage, but it sounds like he could end up on the DL.

Additions

• Jack Wilson doesn’t have good timing; he dislocated the middle joint on his right little finger less than a week after Andrelton Simmons fractured his hand. Wilson has been no stranger to injuries over the course of his career, and dislocated joints take about three to four weeks to come back from. Wilson will probably need a rehab assignment once he gets his motion and strength back, but by that time Simmons may have returned from his injury. Randall Delgado was optioned to bring up Ben Sheets in corresponding moves.
• Jason Hammel was placed on the disabled list yesterday, retroactive to July 14, with a loose piece of cartilage in his right knee. The loose cartilage has been floating around in his knee for a few months; it’s the reason he had a start pushed back in May. He’s scheduled to undergo surgery today to have the loose piece removed and is expected to miss three to four weeks, assuming no further damage is found. This is a typical timeline because it takes at least a few weeks for the incisions to heal, and then you’re able to start baseball activities. Steve Johnson was recalled to take Hammel’s roster spot.
• Todd Helton was placed on the disabled list after rest over the All-Star break did not resolve the inflammation in his right hip. It has bothered him for at least a few weeks and has factored in his struggles. The move was retroactive to July 9, which means he’s eligible to return on July 24. Helton believes that he will be able to return when eligible because of a cortisone injection he had on Friday. In the meantime, Michael Cuddyer is expected to take over at first base.
• Drew Smyly was placed on the 15-day DL this weekend with a strained right intercostal muscle. The average time missed for these kinds of strains is about 32 days, but the Tigers have not given an expected timeline. These injuries can linger, as evidenced by teammate Doug Fister, who needed two stints on the DL to get rid of his lingering pain. It looks like Smyly is going to miss more than the minimum, but by how much remains to be seen.
• Scott Atchison was placed on the 15-day DL on Sunday, retroactive to July 14, with right forearm tightness. He missed time as a minor leaguer back in 2000 with a right elbow sprain, and then missed the majority of the 2005 season with a strained elbow. We’ve seen that forearm issues can be caused by elbow looseness and that the player ends up needing Tommy John surgery. There have been plenty of instances where a forearm strain is just a forearm strain, but until I know that the elbow is stable with an injury history like his, I have that concern. If it is just tightness, the average reliever misses 37 days.
• Jordan Walden was placed on the disabled list Sunday with a strained right biceps. Walden reported that his shoulder was bothering him for a few weeks, and he injured the biceps after compensating for his shoulder soreness. He struggled during that time. Relievers average close to a month on the DL with a strained biceps, although Walden is expected to return around when he is eligible on the 24^th.
• Jed Lowrie was sent to the disabled list on Sunday after suffering a few injuries during a collision on Saturday. He sprained his right ankle and injured the peroneal nerve in his leg. The nerve travels from deep in the leg to wrap around the outside of the knee before traveling down the leg. This leaves it vulnerable to bruising, crushing, or tearing from trauma to the outside of the leg, including the proximal fibula. Additionally, in some cases, the nerve can be stretched from the ankle sprain itself. The ankle sprain heals at a fairly well-known pace, but nerve injuries have a little bit of a mind of their own and greatly depend on the severity of the injury. It is not uncommon to have the nerve take at least a week or two for symptoms to calm down. Marwin Gonzalez was activated in a corresponding move.
• Jason Castro has swelling in his surgically-repaired knee, so he was placed on the disabled list retroactive to July 8. The official diagnosis will almost certainly change, as swelling is the symptom—not the cause. The cartilage damage that occurred at the time of his original ACL injury could be bothering him, or a new injury to the meniscus or articular cartilage could be bothering him. He’s scheduled to undergo more tests to figure out what is going on, and once that is done, we should have a better idea as to his timeline.
• Wil Nieves was placed on the DL, retroactive to July 9, after suffering a sprain to the big toe in his right foot about a week ago. He was diagnosed with “turf toe.” Luckily, most cases tend to resolve within a few weeks, and he is eligible to return on July 24. Ramon Hernandez was activated in a corresponding move.
• Raul Valdes was placed on the DL last Friday with a right hip strain. Interestingly, relief pitchers with this injury only average 20 days on the DL, while starting pitchers average almost 50 days. The Phillies haven’t released an expected timeline for Valdes, but Joe Savery was called up to take his place in the interim.

Subtractions

• Boston has been waiting all season for Carl Crawford to be ready, and he is finally expected to be activated today. The numbers on Crawford don’t tell the whole story; he was originally coming back from wrist surgery when it was determined he had a partially torn UCL in his elbow. Then, while on rehab from that, he suffered a mild left groin strain. Crawford expects he will need Tommy John surgery in the future, too.
• Lance Berkman took almost two full months to recover from his May 25 meniscus surgery. Berkman has had trouble staying healthy since he turned 34, particularly in terms of injuries to his lower extremities. Unlike whiskey, baseball players’ health does not typically get better with age.
• Andre Ethier was activated on Friday afternoon after spending just the minimum 15 days on the DL recovering from an oblique strain. Hitters usually return quicker than pitchers do, and Ethier proved that. It wasn’t until Saturday that he got a few hits, including a home run. Oblique injury recoveries tend to hold up for the rest of the year.
• Matt Kemp’s second round on the DL needed 43 days, which is almost two weeks more than the average 31 days and a full four weeks more than his first time on the DL for a hamstring injury this year. That’s typical in cases of re-injury, especially when the encounters are so close together. Elian Herrera and Scott Van Slyke were sent down to make room for Ethier and Kemp.
• Jerome Williams was activated from the DL on Saturday but could not have been happy with his performance. After missing just the minimum 15 days mostly due to asthma, he gave up five runs in six innings against the Yankees. There wasn’t a recurrence of breathing issues, so it looks like the Angels have Williams’ asthma under control. Williams was ineffective even before going on the DL, so it remains to be seen how long a leash he will be given. Brad Mills was optioned in order to make room for Williams.
• Marwin Gonzalez was activated from the disabled list over the weekend after spending over a month on the DL with a bruised heel. Soft tissue contusions tend to heal quickly, but contusions to the bone can act like a hairline fracture and require four to six weeks to heal. Gonzalez looks like he was right on that edge between the two. He will take over for Lowrie.
• It has been a long road for Taylor Teagarden, but he was finally activated from the 60-day DL after spending 110 days recovering from a ligament tear in his lower back. The move paid off immediately, as he hit a walk-off home run on Saturday. Catchers take such a beating that it wouldn’t be surprising if his back flared up periodically. Luckily, the Orioles have Matt Wieters ahead of Teagarden on the depth chart, so there is no need to push him.
• Emilio Bonifacio was activated from the 15-day DL on Friday following his thumb surgery on May 25. He actually made it back quickly; he missed 55 days, compared to 70-day average. Full disclosure, it’s a smaller sample size of five for outfielders, but this is roughly the same for most of the position players. Bonifacio took Giancarlo Stanton’s spot on the roster in a corresponding move.
• Clay Buchholz came back from esophagitis in the minimum 15 days to pitch well on Saturday, even if he didn’t get the win. Buchholz is a trailblazer in one respect; he’s the only one in the injury database for esophagitis. Mauro Gomez was optioned to Pawtucket in a corresponding move.
• Joe Saunders was activated from the disabled list on Saturday and managed to make it through six innings while only giving up three earned runs. Saunders only missed 27 days because of his strained shoulder, which is roughly half the average of 53 days. Considering his past bouts with shoulder problems in the past, it seems likely that he will deal with them in the future.
• Justin Maxwell was activated from the disabled list on Friday after getting rid of his ankle pain. However, he still has a loose body in his ankle that could flare up at any time. The surgery that was planned was going to take a few months to recover from, and Maxwell didn’t want to do that midseason. He will probably end up having the surgery shortly after the season, if the ankle doesn’t give him more trouble beforehand.
• Ramon Hernandez was activated from the 15-day DL on Friday after he spent 50 days recovering from a strained left hand. There is no other catcher to compare Hernandez to when it comes to recovering from a hand strain. Most injuries to the hand or fingers involve fractures or sprains, so you really can’t tell if he came back faster than others would. Even though he was batting cleanup for the Rockies when he was activated, it’s not realistic to expect Hernandez to produce as a typical cleanup hitter would. Wil Nieves was placed on the DL in a corresponding move.
• Endy Chavez was activated from the disabled list on Friday after he recovered from his hamstring strain. He missed 30 days, which is only one day earlier than the average for outfielders. Chavez likely won’t provide future contributions at the plate, considering he was only projected for a TAv of .229. He has actually been worse, with a TAv of .165. The good news is that it would be hard for him to be any worse.