Atlanta Braves Starting Pitcher, Mike Minor, Injury Update
Well, there’s a warm breeze blowing through the clubhouse this morning at the Disney spring facilities for the Braves: the breeze of a collective sigh of relief:
Per MLB league source:
— Zach Klein (@ZachKleinWSB) March 10, 2015
No structural damage on Mike Minor. He'll get rest for a few weeks
More from Mark Bowman:
Dr. Andrews did not see anything more than inflammation in Minor's shoulder. He provided an ant-inflammatory injection.
— Mark Bowman (@mlbbowman) March 10, 2015
“No structural damage” – the words that mean no further medical needs for Mike Minor… at least not for the foreseeable future.
This does leave the lingering question about what he’s feeling in that throwing shoulder, and what’s causing the discomfort/stiffness/etc. that led him to shut it down last week and seek the counsel of Dr. James Andrews yesterday. But for that question, we have no insight, except to suggest that this could be a recurring thing with Minor.
Next: Shoulder Injuries are Nothing to Mess Around With
The Prognosis
Minor will shut down for the next two weeks. This could put him on a similar schedule as last year, when he joined Atlanta's rotation in May
— Mark Bowman (@mlbbowman) March 10, 2015
“A few weeks” in the initial tweet above sounds more like a lot like “a month” to me – and that would be before Minor would even pick up another baseball. But we’ll go ahead and take Minor at his word – which is what Bowman reported.
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So let’s speculate a bit
… today is March 10. The season starts on April 6.
- March 24th before light tossing, then some loss tossing
- March 31th – get onto a mound
- April 11th or so – start rehab work in the low minors (don’t forget: he’ll have to work up in innings, given that he will have missed essentially all of the current festivities at Disney).
- So maybe 2 innings on April 11… three on April 17; four on April 23; five on April 29 (yes – intentionally showing 6 day gaps), and then ready for the majors if all goes well.
That schedule maps out a return in late May… something around the 4th or 5th… and assumes no setbacks along the way. Speculative, but seems reasonable at the same time.
The Braves clearly had a scenario like this planned out well in advance, having brought in three veteran starters who could eat up the lost innings in the event of an injury. Two of them – Wandy Rodriguez and Chien-Ming Wang – had solid outings in yesterday’s win over the Nationals. So it is likely that the team won’t skip any beats while Minor is on the shelf.
This could play into the team’s hands for other reasons: it would give a chance for one of these ‘rehabbed’ veterans to showcase their stuff for a couple of months, thus allowing them to be moved via trade.
But all of this is future-scoping. For right now, the good news is that Minor is still relatively healthy and will simply need more time to get into playing shape.