Injury Update - Only Zimm edition

Tuesday was a fun day in a Spring Training in desperate need of a fun day.  Zimmerman's "Spring Abstaining" reached its head as we finally got a public blitz in response to the increasing interest in why this guy wasn't playing any games . Articles from the Post and Zuckerman and Martinez & Zimm on the radio.

The story was consistent. No injuries. He just hates Spring Training and wants to do it his way and Martinez was ok with letting him try it. He says it came about organically as they tried to slowly work him into playing shape after feeling some general post-break soreness at the start.

Is this really what has gone on? Eh. It sort of ignores the whole "one major league Spring game" issue which seems a funny thing to do. It sort of ignores the fact that this doesn't seem like something done before and if you let someone do this "just because" then it opens up a can of worms. There's the fact that no reporter has apparently seen him play the field or run*

I suppose you can ignore those things but then there are other little things that seem funny. Like Zimm catching some throws at first while wearing what look like supportive sneakers? Or the story Zimm tells in that MASN interview about Eaton saying Thome never played in Spring Training when the two were teammates on the White Sox, but the two were never actually, you know, teammates on the White Sox, Thome having retired before Adam ever got to Chicago.**

So I have a hard time buying it but it's plausible I guess.

And even if I do buy it - there are other issues, like possibly the worst fielding first baseman in the NL thinking that getting half-hearted minor league field work is enough?

What I think is he felt something - a twinge, a pain, something - in his feet and the team and him didn't want to take any chances. So they limited him to as much work as he could possibly do while also resting those tootsies. This fits with the evidence. But this is just me saying something and in the end it's nothing more than a guess.  And even with everything said above the end point we reach is "Don't really care as long as he's fine on Opening Day" The problem I have, in the end, isn't with the team or Zimm - who are fine playing him as much or as little as they need and telling us what they want to, but with the beats for taking about 2 weeks longer than necessary to write the "The team says he's ok, but there are reasons to be suspicious" column. 

But it's out there now and we move onto the "Now Play!" phase of this story. Apparently this weekend it'll happen. We'll see.

*Plenty of shots of him doing BP and mentions of him shagging flies. However a plantar fascitis issue is most exacerbated by running or standing in place for long periods of time. So seeing him running the bases or playing the field is necessary to rule that out. 

**Plausible explanation - when Eaton got to Chicago and Thome was in the front office they talked and Thome told him he barely played in Spring. Of course Thome was basically a DH after leaving the Phillies in 2005 at age 35, so why would he do more than take cuts?