Thursday, January 8, 2009

We Are Ready...Are The Indians?

The recent acquisition of RHP Carl Pavano adds another dimension of talent to the 2009 edition of the Cleveland Indians. They have improved themselves in the off season and look to be ready to compete for the Central Division title once again. But taking into account all of the recent injuries and adding to that the new players that are also so injury prone, the question is, are they ready?
Our pitchers have a long history of abdominal muscle pulls and arm strains. CC Sabathia, Jake Westbrook, Cliff Lee, and many others suffered these injuries over the last several years as Cleveland Indians. We all remember the Joe Borowski (no injury) incident. At the very least, he had to be suffering from a strained neck watching balls go over the scoreboard. Enter Carl Pavano and Kerry Wood, two guys that will need to stay healthy despite their chronic injury problems.
Opening day, catcher Victor Martinez went down with a pulled hamstring as he rumbled into second base. He played on with the injury all while hiding a shoulder problem.
Travis Hafner must be at 100% or he will not produce the numbers he is capable of as well as the numbers the Tribe is depending on him to produce.
Is Shin Soo Choo healthy at this point?
When can Jake Westbrook safely return without risk of additional injury?
Do the Indians have a strong enough medical corps. to support the conditioning and training necessary to last the season in health?
Recent history would support looking at getting a prescription in that department because it is just as critical as what is needed on the field with this collection of talented but injury-prone professionals.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

ugh!!! pet-peeve alert. ok, now you've done it. adding an "s" on the end of somebody's name where there isn't one like you did. the name is kerry "wood", singular, not "woods". no "s" on the end please. thanx!!!

Big Daddy said...

Wow! I am very much like you, I also find mistakes like that very annoying. Thanks for the correction!