3 more shutout innings for McHugh today....and another double for Singleton...I know that spring stats don't mean a whole lot, but the guys who seem to be the "keys to success" for us this year are pretty much all looking good so far!
Mark Appel was scheduled to pitch today, but..... <blockquote class="twitter-tweet" lang="en"><p>Appel not going to pitch today for precautionary reasons. Had mild forearm tightness before the game.</p>— Evan Drellich (@EvanDrellich) <a href="https://twitter.com/EvanDrellich/status/574993573906677760">March 9, 2015</a></blockquote> <script async src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
McHugh with another solid outing. 3.0 IP, 3 SO, 3 H, 1 BB, 0 ER Asher Wojciechowski with 3.0 IP, 3 SO, 2 H, 0 BB, 0 ER Marisnick with the lone RBI, enough for the 1-0 win
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" lang="en"><p>Carlos Correa makes a play to end this game not many 6-foot-4 guys can make. Great jump to his left, whirls & guns throw from deep SS <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/wow?src=hash">#wow</a></p>— Jayson Stark (@jaysonst) <a href="https://twitter.com/jaysonst/status/575021255910428675">March 9, 2015</a></blockquote> <script async src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
I thought TJ surgery wasn't a big deal anymore? It doesn't matter if 15 or so top pitchers miss a year, every year, they come back stronger, right?
After TJ, the pitcher misses one year to recover and starts the second year at less than 100%, hoping to be 100% back by the start of the third year. See Alex White.
I'd say its a bigger deal for pitchers who have never made it, vs. established stars who already know they have what it takes to succeed in the big leagues. I'd also continue to re-iterate that there has been no published study on UCL size and risk of needing TJ surgery... as case after case proves (then again, we don't know some of the sizes of legendary pitchers that never required TJ surgery, in the pre-MRI era). I'd say being a big league pitcher, regardless of type, puts you at risk of requiring TJ surgery.
But if it's a documented fact, as you love to point out, that a human arm has a finite number of pitches in it Wouldn't it tend to mean that a human arm with a larger UCL would have more pitches than one with a small one? I mean I don't believe any of this horse poop, but for those who do it would seem to say stay away from the tiny UCL?
No because you don't need a UCL to be a quality pitcher... hell, Aiken has already proven that. Now, will his arm hold up more than 5 years? Does UCL length play a role in why arms have a finite shelf-life? Is it all magic? None of that has been shown. There are no case reports out there in any sports medicine literature that short UCL's lead to increased arm injuries or surgeries in pitchers.... it just hasn't been studied one way or another, but clearly the Astros front office decided that no data is more likely to mean bad data than good data (and they very well could be right... or wrong... won't know till we see Aiken's entire career play out).
