Doctors then diagnosed a new injury to his arm most likely caused by the contortions necessary to pat himself on the back.

Ok, that last part isn’t true. I hope.

Bedard lands on DL

Erik Bedard has been placed on the DL with a left “hip” injury. In general, and without having examined him, the most likely diagnosis would be a muscle strain or a bursitis. Bursitis involves irritation and inflammation of a small protective sac of fluid that sits on top of a bone to keep overlying muscles or tendons from rubbing on the bone. There are a number of bursa in the hip, and the most commonly affected is the trochanteric bursa that sits on the bony prominence on the outside of the hip. It usually hurts when you touch it, and causes pain with going from sit-to-stand. There are also a number of muscles in hip that could be strained, and these can be uncovered with certain tests that involve stressing those muscles.

The worst-case scenario for Erik is that he is having pain from early arthritis (also called degenerative changes) due to the repetitive trauma of pitching. This would usually be uncovered with an x-ray or MRI, and would obviously be devastating. Did we keep the receipt on that trade???

I try to think of pitching as four stages of body movement: stride, hip rotation, trunk rotation, and arm movement. If Erik is having pain in the hip, regardless of the cause, the cycle is broken and he will lose velocity and accuracy. Like JJ Putz, time and rest will hopefully take care of the inflammation and discomfort. Anti-inflammatories (like ibuprofen or naproxen) may help, and both could receive steroid injections (if Erik has bursitis) to decrease pain/inflammation. Speedy healing guys!

Still, I had a fine view of the Ichirear.

How many players are wearing 42 today?

couple of interesting pieces on the presence of african-americans in baseball today; the annual report card on diversity and a column about it

Ryan Rowland-Smith of the Mariners: “My sister, Rhiannon Rowland-Smith, and my mom (Julie White) signed up for MLB.TV this year and they love it. Because of the time difference between here and Australia, they can’t watch the games live, but after I pitch, I’ll text-message my sister and tell her to ‘check this out’ and she’ll tell my mom. My sister (a professional surfer in Queensland, Australia) would follow our games on Gameday, but decided to get MLB.TV, and it’s great. My mom works for the Board of Education in Newcastle (between Sydney and Brisbane) and one time she was with some co-workers watching [a replay] of one of the games I had pitched. They kept asking her questions, like, ‘Was that a good pitch?’ and on a pickoff throw to first base, ‘Why did he throw a pitch there instead of [home plate]?’ It was kind of funny, actually. They love [MLB.TV]. They can watch any of the games I pitch whenever they want. That’s really cool.”

Do we really know if Mama RRS is watching the games on MLB.tv or are they just plugging it cause they can?

“Ryan Rowland-Smith has been providing his family back in Australia with some advance play-by-play of his outings. His mother, Julie White, subscribes to the MLB Extra Innings package back home, but because of the time difference winds up watching the games several hours after they’ve been played.

Rowland-Smith usually chats with her beforehand, letting her know whether he got in the game or not. “I’ll tell her what happened and what to look for,” he said. “Mostly just the good stuff.”"