NIH: The Offseason and Future
It's been a fun season, and great to dip my feet into the world of the NIH this season. This feature of the blog will probably now be taking a hiatus for the next several months, as there just won't be as much injury news to talk about, other than maybe the occasional press release about how someone is doing in their recovery. NIH will return for the 2007 season, and will do so right here on thurdl sports. I'm still working on any changes that I might want to make to the style and presentation of NIH in the future. Until then, this blog will probably be about curling more than it is baseball, as the season for one happens perfectly during the offseason of the other.
I'd like to thank everyone that's come on board as a reader during this season, and look forward to being back with the NIH in the future. Until then, good health to you all.
NIH: Year End Injury Wrapup Part Two
Wow. After what happened last time I made one of these posts, I was hesitant to get to work on this one. However, I think this is a much more stable list of players, especially as it includes our presumed ace for the 2007 season.
Michah Bowie: No, I didn't mean him, I just do these alphabetically. Bowie appeared in 15 games out of the bullpen for the Nationals this season, managing a 1.37 ERA and more strikeouts than walks in 19.2 innings of work. He was one of several pitching callups during the season, and not the only callup to get injured. He hit the 15-Day due to muscle strain in his throwing shoulder in mid-August and was supposed to be ready for a return on or about September 18th. However, he never made that return, and finished the season on the DL. He had some good games, and would be worth a second look, but there is currently no indication if he is in the Nationals plans for 2007.
Shawn Hill: Hill has been sitting on the 15-Day DL for most of the season, having been placed there originally on July 1, with the team citing elbow soreness. Before that, he'd managed a 1-3 record over six starts for the Nats. He was never downgraded to the 60-Day list, and never upgrades back to active status during the season. He's a young pitcher, still under team control, and cheap to keep around, leading many to assume he'll be in Spring Training to compete for a starting job with the 2007 squad.
John Patterson: John Patterson is injury prone. There's just no better way of putting it. His 2006 was limited to just eight starts, including his last outing, where he lasted just one inning before having to be pulled because his injured elbow started acting back up again. After his second trip to the DL this season, it was announced he would be receiving surgery to relieve a pinched nerve that was causing most of his problems. Recently, he was spotted at Alfonso Soriano's 40-40 induction bash in New York, and was interviewed the next day by the MASN crew. He indicated at the time that he was getting back to pitching curve balls, and has had no major set backs. He'll hopefully be good to go in Spring Training, and we can only hope he has an injury free 2007. If he's to be the ace of the 2007 staff, then the team is hoping for the pitcher who started 31 games in 2005, and not 8 last season.
NIH: 60-Day DL post-mortem
Well, I should have done the 60-Day DL post last, it would have been shorter. Today the Nationals released three current and two past residents of the 60-Day DL:
Ryan Drese, Pedro Astacio, Felix Rodriguez, Zach Day and
Joey Eischen. The NIH will thus not be tracking their off season recoveries, and wishes them good health wherever they may land.
Update:
Brian Lawrence has had his 2007 option bought out. Which means of the pitchers on the 60-Day DL, the Nationals will only be inviting one to spring training.
NIH: Tubthumping
Briefly on
Nick Johnson. He was in RFK on Sunday for the finale against the Mets. Those in attendance were treated to his highlight real with Chumbawumba's Tubthumping pounding in the background ("I get knocked down, but I get up again.") I was briefly hoping for him to hobble out on crutches just far enough to wave to the crowd, but instead we were treated to him on the Jumbotron, looking a little dazed (I'm guessing he's still on pain medication). Was nice to know he was there, even if he might not have been all there. Also, at some point "GET WELL NICK" was hung up by fans in the upper deck, large enough to theoretically be seen from the dugout, though I don't know how long he stuck around, and didn't see him at any other point during the game.
NIH: Year End Injury Wrapup Part One
Well, with the season having whimpered to an end, the Nationals officially have 11 players on their DL, not counting
Nick Johnson who, due to the fact that the rosters had expanded and there was only one week left of the season, was not placed on the list. Therefore NIH will be doing a series of posts over the next few days talking about who is still injured, what they're injured with, and the prospects of their return. I'm focusing mostly on the 40-man roster, though there were some high profile season ending injuries at the minor league level as well.
I'm going to be doing this in three parts: Pitchers 60-Day, Pitcher 15-Day, and Fielders. I think it says something about our injury woes at pitching that I have to divide it up between two parts.
Let's start with the longest of those three lists, the pitchers who ended the season on the 60-Day DL.
Luis Ayala: The Nationals had some reasons to gripe about the World Baseball Classic. With the exception of Soriano, most of the players who the team sent to the WBC came back to season opening slumps, or worse yet, season-ending shoulder injuries. Ayala should have never been pitching at the WBC, as his shoulder was already in a state that probably would have delayed his 2006 season. When a ligament in the shoulder tore while he was on the mound for Mexico, that was all she wrote. Since then, he's undergone shoulder repair surgery, and extensive rehab. According to
Todd Jacobson of the Fredricksburg Free Lance-Star, Ayala is hopeful for his return by Spring Training, and feels like he has "a new arm."
Zach Day: I'll be honest, I forgot Day ever took the mound this season for the Nationals, racking up a 2-5 record through the months of April and May. His last game of the season was May 22 against the Astros, but his injury problems go back to when the Nats picked him up on waivers back in April. At that time, the staff doctor recommended that he needed to be on the DL due to spasms, but he said he was fine to go. Two months later, he left a game early with what was termed at the time simple soreness in his shoulder, but turned out to be tendinitis. That put him on the 15-Day DL. He never quite recovered, and eventually had rotator cuff surgery on June 6th and was placed on the 60-Day DL, where he would spend the rest of the season. His prognosis for the 2007 season should be decent.
Ryan Drese: He pitched 8.2 innings back in April, spanning two starts, and notched up 2 losses in the process. Then, on April 17th had an MRI due to shoulder problems, and it was revealed that he had flexor tendon strain. At the time the prognosis was no surgery needed and a return in 4-6 weeks. Of course, anyone with a calendar could tell you that April 17th was 25 weeks ago today. He suffered a setback in his recover in May when continued inflamation was found by doctors, even though there was no further damage noted. At the time, there was no schedule set for his return. We'll see how he looks in the offseason and whether or not he'll be pitching again anytime soon.
Joey Eischen: With his ERA hovering right around 9.00 for much of the time he played this season, most people were hoping that Eischen would have a limited role. His role was cut to nothing, however, when he tore a muscle in his rotator cuff in late May. It was known at the time that the surgery would be season ending, and marked the third consecutive season he'd made a trip to the DL. He's going to be a free agent this off season, and has already said that he would take a smaller contract to return to the Nationals, likely knowing that it's hard to negotiate contracts from the DL.
Brian Lawrence: The National who never was. He was picked up in the off season in a trade that sent 2005 third baseman Castilla to the Padres. In a sense, his trade was a successful one, even if he never played. Castilla's salary was off the table, his 2006 proved disasterous to the point that the Pads cut him from their roster, and it opened the door for Zimmerman to come in and have a ROTY caliber season. But this is about Lawrence, not any of them. Way back on February 25, he tore his labrum, and was until at least August and likely for the season. Here we are in October, and we know we didn't see him during the sweltering summers nights at RFK. Still, we paid him $3.5 million to never play. This coming season, he's owed either $7.5m to play or a $550,000 buy out of his contract. If he could return to form, he could be a decent cog, but it's unknown whether that $7.5m is within the plans of the new ownership of the team.
