Will Harris has a blood clot in his arm. The short of it is - that's not good and will likely to cause him to miss time. It sets the dominoes in motion and takes a bullpen you could see being pretty good and makes it more of a question. Along with that Tanner Rainey didn't look good in his outing. It might be (probably is) just early Spring work in late Spring because the guy hasn't pitched and again - Spring is Spring. However, it is possible that he won't be ready for Opening Day either. In that case... the bullpen is exceedingly thin.
On the good news side, Max seems healthy enough for Davey to name him the Opening Day starter. That's no surprise, it was just a matter of how healthy he was. Strasburg's calf seems to be the minor issue they thought it was and Lester looks on target to be ready when needed. So the 1-4 rotation holds for now.
Zimm is hot along with Bell, Harrison, Yadiel Hernandez, Robles and Castro so expect "we don't want to say this is meaningful but..." stories about these guys. Garcia, Kieboom, Avila, Soto, Turner, and Schwarber (.182) are having problems so expect toss away "struggling but it's Spring" lines about these guys - except Kieboom because his performance is what we are all looking at. He gets artcles.
What about the 5th starter battle? The one I said it's fine to judge by Spring because there are good and bad reasons to start everyone? Ross is winning. That's good because everyone understands they want Ross to win. Easy decisions when things line up like this. Ross has pitched in two games and has been a little wild (2 HB in 5IP) but otherwise ok. Neither Fedde or Voth has pitched poorly in a vacuum (let's not worry about ERAs here) but both have given up more hits than they would have liked.
Onward we go!
I think "exceedingly thin" is a real overstatement. There are a lot of at-least-decent arms there:
ReplyDelete- McGowin
- Suero
- Guerra
- Cole
- Finnegan
-
And that's not including the presumed "good" relivers - Hand, Hudson, Rainey.
I think they'll be okay.
I am a hematologist. Not sure why a clot in his arm should hold him back long. He should start anticoagulation and will be fine.
ReplyDeleteI'm not a hematologist, but I am a pathologist. It is pretty unusual to have a DVT at this age in someone this active and healthy. Hopefully there isn't some underlying malignancy or coagulation disorder going on.
ReplyDeleteMcGowin - hasn't been good yet
ReplyDeleteSuero - I like Suero! Dependable!
Guerra - filler arm
Cole - Blue Jay
Finnegan - intriguing but unproven
Hand - GREAT!
Hudson - 2020 looks like fluke but so does 2019. likely somewhere between Guerra and Suero
Rainey - building up strength, little history
A lot here depends on Rainey being healthy and like 2020. If he is... it sort of work. You definitely have that 1-2 and then Suero is a dependable 3 and you see what shakes out with rest. It's probably a little weak in the last couple arms (some of these will break bad, not good) but what pen isn't
If Rainey isn't healthy everyone is pushed up and you are looking at Suero in a position that's probably a little over his head and you looking at #3 for something to work out.
JC/Egonadon - so I did some reading and basically pitchers (and other athletes/workers that use their arms a lot in certain ways) are more inclined for these things because they have increased muscle size and stress which narrows/strains the veins. How bad it is ranges wildly. It could be an aspirin, it could be surgery. You just have to see.