No, I just think they're being extra-super-cautious with him. That said, I have less than an ideal amount of faith that he and/or Lance will stay healthy the rest of the way. Morton too.
790 reported yesterday his return is probably 2nd series post-ASB. Regardless, the entire situation is worrisome going forward.
talk about peeing in someone's cheerios with the last 2 posts. =( ( though I don't know where that saying came from. Who would actually pee on someone's cheerios? R kelly?)
I honestly think his extended stay is a product of having a double digit lead in the division. I believe they set out on a plan and are sticking to it regardless of what else is going on. Doesn't hurt that the lead has actually grown a bit.
This rehab process seems more for an arm injury than a pinched nerve in the neck. Granted, I'm no expert on how all this works, but progressing to being able to throw off a mound vs flat ground seems like it should be irrelevant here. If he's able to throw fine from the ground now, I don't see why they'd have to hope he could do so off a mound.
Don't they always long-toss first before bullpen situations? The inflammation in the neck is from throwing. Presumably rest is what has made it go away, but since its seemingly an overuse injury (and not from some sort of ligament tear or dislocation), he's done nothing in the way of picking up a baseball for almost 2 months. He's going to need some sort of arm re-training to get back into season shape.
rehab starts are also to get back into game shape. They need to stretch him out so he can pitch more than a couple of innings. That is why they only start throwing a couple of innings at a time in ST and then build up. When you take a layoff of a few weeks you have to build back up. They don;t want to have him do that in the majors so they will run him through a rehab start or two to get his arm stretched out.
Throwing from flat ground is totally and completely different than throwing off a mound. eta: throwing 40 live pitches is totally and completely different than throwing 80. There's a reason teams do this every spring.
Certainly - and I get the idea that they want him to throw on the ground and then throw on a mound and then do rehab starts. But in Spring Training or whatever, there's no "I hope he can throw off a mound" situation. It just seemed weird that they have to hope he can do that - that seems more relevant to an arm injury. For a neck injury, I'd assume (again, not being an expert on this) that if he can throw off the ground, he can throw off a mound. It's just a matter of doing it as part of the process, rather than hoping he might be capable of it.
My guess is that if he has neck discomfort throwing off the ground... he's not going to throw off a mound. The hope is that he doesn't have any neck discomfort at all with any throwing, thus they hope he's going to throw off the mound at the planned timetable. I don't think anybody has denied that the neck injury is related to his pitching... it obviously aggravates the inflammation. At that point, its really all not that different from an arm injury (since resting the arm fully was the planned treatment action here, and would have been similar if this was a non-surgical arm injury).
Gotcha - my assumption was that he'd already (successfully) been throwing off flat ground. If he hasn't done that, it would make more sense.
these neck things are nothing to mess with, yo. slept wrong last night, it hurt just putting on a shirt and I can't turn my head left. momma always said I shouldn't sleep on my sides.
I get the impression that if it does happen to come back, he'll pitch through it... unless he's completely ineffective. Either way, these last 2 years will certainly influence whether or not the front office will want to invest in a long-term deal with Keuchel.
