Arm injury for Bautista?

[waroriole]

7 hours ago, Hallas said:

I'm buying this committee business about as far as I can throw Bautista.  It's a committee consisting of Cano until he starts blowing games.  We have some depth getting healthy (Wells, Means, Hall) so hopefully they give us enough of a boost down the stretch to minimize the drop-off in the 8th inning.

Same. It’s Cano until he proves it’s not. But Hyde probably doesn’t want to put unnecessary pressure on him, so he says it’s closer by committee until Cano sheds the interim  label or shows he can’t handle it. 

[Jagwar]

3 minutes ago, Moose Milligan said:

I like the differential between his fastball and change up but when he had that batter 0-2 then went 3-2 I wasn’t thrilled.  Overall he looked pretty good though. 

Exactly. With Hall it's never been about stuff, but about control and command. If he can throw strikes with that FB velocity, changeup velocity, and a good slider to lefties, he will be an effective bullpen piece. 

[Aristotelian]

7 hours ago, Hallas said:

I'm buying this committee business about as far as I can throw Bautista.  It's a committee consisting of Cano until he starts blowing games.  We have some depth getting healthy (Wells, Means, Hall) so hopefully they give us enough of a boost down the stretch to minimize the drop-off in the 8th inning.

Ha. I certainly expect Cano to get the majority. I think (hope) Hyde will be conservative managing Cano's workload and matchups may be a factor. If he was brought in to face 3-4-5 with two LHB that would be more definitive, but he was brought in for the bottom of the order RHB's plus Blackmon. 

[Can_of_corn]

42 minutes ago, Jagwar said:

Exactly. With Hall it's never been about stuff, but about control and command. If he can throw strikes with that FB velocity, changeup velocity, and a good slider to lefties, he will be an effective bullpen piece. 

I was worried about Hall's stuff earlier in the season.

 

[Moose Milligan]

56 minutes ago, Jagwar said:

Exactly. With Hall it's never been about stuff, but about control and command. If he can throw strikes with that FB velocity, changeup velocity, and a good slider to lefties, he will be an effective bullpen piece. 

I think this is where we differ a little. Not on our take of what Hall is, but our hopes for him. 

In other words, I shudder to think of a game situation where Fuji is shaky and then Hall is the guy to come in after him in a tight situation. 

IMO, there’s room in a bullpen for one Fuji/Hall type, a guy with tremendous stuff but iffy command. Having two of those guys in the pen is playing with matches and a gas tank. But perhaps I’m overthinking this. 

[Just Regular]

Hall and Felix hit me as perhaps simiilar in the raw.     What will be revealed the next month plus is if he's fixed enough to challenge hitters with the good version of himself for say about twenty 20-pitch chunks.    Felix's case - it was years of effort to get enough strikes.

It's him - not Cano or Wells or Webb or Fuji - that in the Best Case scenario I could conceive of generally picking up the baton.

It's mostly settled by now thirty 90-pitch chunks can be ruled out of his range of outcomes.

Grayson Rodriguez earning Start 1, and DL Hall earning Save 1 decisively for the '24 Orioles before the offseason arrives is how the '23 ride can still level up from here.

 

[Otter]

48 minutes ago, Moose Milligan said:

I think this is where we differ a little. Not on our take of what Hall is, but our hopes for him. 

In other words, I shudder to think of a game situation where Fuji is shaky and then Hall is the guy to come in after him in a tight situation. 

IMO, there’s room in a bullpen for one Fuji/Hall type, a guy with tremendous stuff but iffy command. Having two of those guys in the pen is playing with matches and a gas tank. But perhaps I’m overthinking this. 

This.  The great stuff and K's get all the attention, but in late inning relievers I like pitchers who don't walk a ton of guys.  I don't mind the occasional solo HR, but giving free passes late in games just invites disaster.

[Frobby]

2 hours ago, Jagwar said:

Exactly. With Hall it's never been about stuff, but about control and command. If he can throw strikes with that FB velocity, changeup velocity, and a good slider to lefties, he will be an effective bullpen piece. 

Like many guys, sometimes he goes out there and you can see right away he has no idea where the ball is going.  Other times, his command is pretty good.  But you just never know what you’re going to get until he’s on the mound.  

[Aristotelian]

1 hour ago, Otter said:

This.  The great stuff and K's get all the attention, but in late inning relievers I like pitchers who don't walk a ton of guys.  I don't mind the occasional solo HR, but giving free passes late in games just invites disaster.

Since the Astros game Fuji has 1 BB in 8 innings. Something to keep an eye on. 

[WarehouseChatter]

I thought Hall looked very confident last night on the mound. He just pitched with determination vs. the previous times when I felt he had trepidation. He was going right after guys last night.

[Jagwar]

5 hours ago, Moose Milligan said:

I think this is where we differ a little. Not on our take of what Hall is, but our hopes for him. 

In other words, I shudder to think of a game situation where Fuji is shaky and then Hall is the guy to come in after him in a tight situation. 

IMO, there’s room in a bullpen for one Fuji/Hall type, a guy with tremendous stuff but iffy command. Having two of those guys in the pen is playing with matches and a gas tank. But perhaps I’m overthinking this. 

Did you miss all of the IF's in my posts? 

[Moose Milligan]

1 minute ago, Jagwar said:

Did you miss all of the IF's in my posts? 

Maybe. 

[OnlyOneOriole]

This is such a disappointment.  I can give a little breakdown on what it might entail to 'possibly' come back from this without surgery.  Each UCL injury is different of course but if it is anything like mine he has little to no chance of returning this year. 

I played HS baseball and HS and college tennis growing up so I put a lot of strain on my elbow with an overhand motion.  Plus I am a PBA pro bowler (regional level) and have lifted weights for 25 years.  Needless to say I have all kinds of arm and shoulder issues....including a chip the size of a quarter in my elbow that sits right on the UCL. It always hurts but is manageable.  Had it for 25 years.  A year and a half ago when bowling in a tourney I threw a shot and felt the same as what Felix did.  A shooting pain right from my elbow down to my hand.  Threw one more and it felt as if I had been shot.  Within 2 days my elbow was 3 x its normal size and was black and blue.  Went to specialist and of course the chip was a culprit but I also blew out my UCL....probably from the chip rubbing it. 

 

Of course he recommended surgery to fix everything but I did not want to give up bowling and lifting weights for a year.  So I said screw it and rehabbed.  Waited for the swelling to go down....about a month....and then started lifting again.  Started to bowl again about 2 months later.  I am now a year and a half out and it hurts everyday but as long as I don't throw anything?  It doesn't hurt too bad.  Bowling is fine. In fact just threw a 754 series Friday.  Lifting is fine.  But any throwing?  Shooting pain.  So unless Felix wants to become a softball pitcher who pitches underhand, I just can't see how he can  fix this without surgery. 

 

I sincerely hope he can come back this year but throwing overhand really irritates that particular ligament.  Such a shame.  And terrible luck.

[ChosenOne21]

12 hours ago, Moose Milligan said:

I think this is where we differ a little. Not on our take of what Hall is, but our hopes for him. 

In other words, I shudder to think of a game situation where Fuji is shaky and then Hall is the guy to come in after him in a tight situation. 

IMO, there’s room in a bullpen for one Fuji/Hall type, a guy with tremendous stuff but iffy command. Having two of those guys in the pen is playing with matches and a gas tank. But perhaps I’m overthinking this. 

I feel like Fuji is one of those guys who's stats make him look worse than he is because when he melts down it's spectacular but you can only blow one game no matter how many runs you give up on a bad day.

Hall looked pretty good today, I dunno. I'm sure he'll be the kind of guy who will be nails for like four to five relief appearances than have a spectacular meltdown. But I think he has the ceiling to be better than that.

[Tony-OH]

Losing Bautista is obviously going to hurt no matter how we look at the situation. Can Cano, Hall, Fuji, and Perez pick up some of the slack, sure, but none of them are the guy you feel good about with a runner on 3rd and less than two outs like we did with Felix because of his ability to strike anyone out at anytime.

Without that absolutely dominant guy at the end of the game, a guy who can just mow through any middle of an order when he's got the split working, it's going to be a tougher. There's no way around it. 

We don't know the severity of the injury but does anyone know of a UCL injury for a pitcher where the guy came back after a few weeks off? Even with a "strain" I doubt we are going to see Felix the rest of the season. My worse fear is they try to rest and rehab the injury over the winter, and then next spring he comes back and it's not right and they end up doing surgery then. That means he's out all next season and probably part of 2025. 

Now I did some research and did find players who returned to pitching without surgery, but two months was the earliest they came back. Maybe someone can find something else.

Quote

There are pitchers who have successfully returned to competition with only conservative treatment. Masahiro Tanaka of the New York Yankees was diagnosed with a partial UCL tear and underwent PRP injections and rehab, returning to the mound just over two months later. Ohtani's teammate Garrett Richards underwent stem cell injection therapy in 2016 and returned to action in 2017. Richards' 2017 campaign was interrupted due to nerve irritation in his throwing arm, but after returning late in 2017, he started the 2018 season on time.

It should be noted that while these injection therapies have shown some promise given the success stories of several pitchers, the jury is still out on their efficacy. Others -- including another Ohtani teammate, Andrew Heaney -- have undergone similar treatment and failed. In 2016, Heaney first underwent stem cell injection therapy but ultimately needed TJ surgery.

Now, I have no idea the severity of the injury to the UCL for Bautista and hope it's a strain vs a tear. If it's a grade-1 sprain, I have a better feeling that he will be ready to go next spring. But anything more, I hope they go ahead and knock out the surgery before they lose him for a whole season and potentially more if they wait until next spring. 

https://www.bonsecours.com/health-care-services/orthopedics-sports-medicine/hand-wrist/conditions/ulnar-collateral-ligament-injury#:~:text=A UCL injury is classified,3 sprains — Complete ligament tear.

https://rothmanortho.com/stories/blog/ulnar-collateral-ligament-injury

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7905078/