Talkin' Baseball: Tommy John, Texas Rangers, & Crazy Parents

49er16: The worst part of these recent rash of Tommy John elbow injuries is that we start to see the blame game and pointed fingers. For instance with Jose Fernandez you're seeing his lawyer say that Fernandez had a different injury but he continued to pitch through it altering his mechanics which lead to the injury. We don't know if that's the truth or not.

The Colonel: Yeah that's the sad thing about these recent injuries is that people are looking to blame instead of looking to fix. Hell even the MLB Network hosted a roundtable looking for blame instead of looking for a solution. I know they're also looking for causes and you need that to find solutions still though it always leads to blame and that always gets ugly.


49er16: My opinion is you don't really know why or how it happens. I was about to say its an age thing but we've seen 30-year old John Smoltz need Tommy John. Maybe there was a prior injury that lead to different mechanics but you don't really know? I'm just thankful for two things: 1) these aren't shoulder injuries which are much worse than elbow injuries. 2) that the Giants have been fortunate enough that none of their pitchers have needed this surgery.

/knocks on wood

The Colonel: Yeah the Giants have been really fortunate. Amazing that none of their guys have needed major surgery. I don't know what they're doing right but other teams should call them to get some advice for keeping young arms healthy.

49er16: Anything from this weekend surprise you at all? I haven't been paying attention but the Rangers have been playing real poorly this season. They're behind not only Oakland but Anaheim and (gasp) Seattle as well.

The Colonel: They've had a ton of injuries. Their starting rotation right now looks like something at Triple-A. You have the ace (Darvish) and the rest is minor league filler waiting until the real pitchers get there. They've had other injuries as well including a killer injury to Profar who was suppose to replace Kinsler.

49er16: Speaking of the Rangers, I love how JP Arencibia blamed the Toronto media for his failures with the Blue Jays. You know because the media is what produced a .212 batting average and a .252 On-Base percentage.

The Colonel: Yeah he's a "villain" alright. A below the mendoza line villain. Yeah it's the Toronto media who's to blame for that.

49er16: Did you see Mitch Williams is taking a leave of absence from the MLB Network because he went crazy at a little league game calling for one of his kids to bean another kid? Now if only Harold Reynolds would call for a little league beaning or hug someone who didn't want a hug we would get peace on the MLB Network.

The Colonel: You and I both think Mitch Williams has some sort of head injury, just listen to him talk folks, that this sadly doesn't surprise me. Too bad more guys at the MLB Network couldn't be suspended.

49er16: I just love the fact that the MLB Network has their own version of a crazy parent on their staff.

The Colonel: Now when Williams returns and he talks about a bean ball war between two teams, I'm going to wonder how awkward it's going to be for Williams to talk about it?

49er16: So what are we looking forward to seeing this week? San Francisco at Colorado should be the series of the week. I'm totally expecting one Giants loss there with the final score of 11-10.

The Colonel: One of those type of games is going to happen no matter how well Colorado is playing. The Atlanta-Milwaukee series should also be good.

49er16: Have a good week, folks.