News item: Garrett Whitlock will not pitch again this season. He will undergo arthroscopic surgery next week in New York, and is expected to be ready for the start of spring training.
Some reaction:
1. Are there any more bombshell medical updates left this year?
I mean, Trevor Story, who was supposed to be back after a day off, then was supposed to be back for the weekend series with Kansas City, and then the start of this road trip....is still not in the lineup, nine days after hitting the first base bag in an awkward fashion and suffering a minor heel injury. Is, he, too, about to have some procedure done?
Seriously, the Red Sox have not done a very good job when it comes to their public pronouncements on player injuries.
Time after time, the severity of injuries have been grossly understated. Kiké Hernandez had a hip issue -- until it was revealed, literally months later, that what sidelined him the most was a softball-size hematoma in his core. Nathan Eovaldi was going to miss a start or two -- until he missed more than a month. Tanner Houck was cleared to start throwing and close to a return....until he, too, was done for the year, with back surgery performed earlier this month.
And now, Whitlock, who only weeks ago, told the Boston Globe that surgery had never been discussed as an option, and now, is having, you guessed it, season-ending surgery.
Injuries are tricky things, and that's especially true with pro athletes. Things change, conditions worsen -- or get better. For as many advances have been made in sports medicine, there's a lot that we still don't know. Unexpected developments are almost expected.
But when it happens four, five times in a season, it suggests a bigger problem.
Maybe that problem isn't with the training/medical staff and their original diagnoses. Perhaps it's more about messaging, and the organization's desire to put a positive spin on how long a given player may be off the field.
(This is not, it should be noted, a competitive advantage thing. The Red Sox gained nothing by announcing that say, Hernandez, was going to be back far sooner than he actually was).
Thanks to some formal business alliances between MLB and gambling interests, teams are mandated to be forthcoming about lineups and probable starting pitchers.
Perhaps there needs to be a similar rule in place when it comes to being forthright about injuries -- if not for the gambling entities, then certainly, the fans.
2. How responsible were the Sox with both Houck and Whitlock?
We now know that, in the case of both, the organization understood their injuries to be far more severe than they acknowledged publicly.
The Sox acknowledged as much with Houck earlier this month when they revealed that, after he encountered some setbacks with some side sessions and bullpens, that surgery could be an option. But they instructed Houck to continue throwing until it became obvious that he couldn't do so without considerable pain. Then, and only then, was he shut down and surgery became the most logical option.
It now seems it was similar with Whitlock.
Alex Cora said the team used him sparingly -- one inning stints of late, plenty of rest between appearances -- because they thought they still had a chance to win. That would seem to suggest that the club knew surgery was likely for him, at some point, and that they were trying to delay that as long as they could.
But is this the right move with a pitcher to whom the Sox committed a guaranteed $18.75 million back in April, with the potential for the deal to be worth more than $40 million?
Given how much difficulty the Red Sox have had developing young pitchers -- and yes, they don't get all the credit for Whitlock, a Rule 5 pick from the Yankees -- you would think they would want to protect any and all promising arms.
Instead, it seems they pushed two of their best young pitchers as far as they could before finally conceding that surgery was the wisest option.
Does that make much sense?
3. Uncertainty looms for pitching staff.
Just as every team reports that their players underwent "successful'' surgery, they also are fond of assuring that they'll be ready for the start of spring training.
Sure enough, the Sox have said that about both Houck and Whitlock.
But we're talking about a back procedure and a hip operation. These are not small surgeries without risk. Given the torque necessary to be effective major league pitchers, it's likely to take some time before we know that the procedures were, indeed, successful.
And that's before we get to the question about which roles they'll be filling. The Red Sox said Tuesday that one of the reasons they wanted to get Whitlock taken care of was to keep open the option of moving him to the rotation.
That's an understandable position to take. Starting pitching is the toughest position to fill on a roster, and given its importance, you never want to rule it out for a pitcher until it's been proven conclusively that he can't handle the assignment. It's obviously far more valuable to have Whitlock -- or anyone else for that matter -- to provide 175 innings (in the rotation) than it would be to provide 75 in relief.
But at some point, there needs to be some certainty with how these guys are best utilized. Whitlock has been here for two full seasons and Houck has been here for two and change. Shouldn't the Sox have identified their strengths and weaknesses -- and suitability for one role over the other -- by now?