I was further deferring my season preview to take a deeper look at the Tigers choice of Chad Durbin, when the news came across that Kenny Rogers may be suffering from a blood clot.
Now this could be bad, or it could be really minor. Tom Glavine had some coldness in his ring finger last year which was caused by a blood clot like malady. He was back pitching in 2 weeks after treating the problem with medication.
On the other hand, players have had to undergo surgery which have sidelined them for the better part of a season.
Dave Dombrowski has been downplaying the issue saying that it may be only a one start thing while Jim Leyland is worried about making sure that Rogers is OK before he wories about playing time. I don’t say this to paint Dombrowski as callous, just that there seem to be some different messages coming out.
I’ve been trying to get smart about blood clots, so I checked with Mrs. Billfer who is a heart nurse who happens to be working tonight. She checked with some physicians who identified 3 main causes for blood clots. Keep in mind I’m not a doctor, but I’m married to someone who talks to doctors while I watch TV.
The first is hypercoagulability which is inherited problems with anticoagulation. It isn’t uncommon for it to be diagnosed for people in their 40’s. A second cause is malignancy (cancer). The third cause is trauma. Given that pitching is a traumatic act on the shoulder, this doesn’t seem far fetched.
Of course speculation is pretty moot at this point. Rogers was to see a specialist and one name you might want to look for is Dr. Robert Thompson, a vascular surgeon from Washington University in St. Louis who has performed a couple surgeries on Major Leaguers.
(disclaimer: I’m truly not a clinician and don’t want to promote any false information. If you know better than me, please post corrections in the comment)
Billfer, did you stay at a Holiday Inn Express last night? That’s great reporting, man. +1 to Mrs. Billfer today as well, as that’s nice teamwork.
Let’s hope it’s minor and he’s 100% in a few weeks…the last thing we want is for the season to start on a serious down note. Get well soon, Kenny!
Health first and pitching second. I doubt Dombrowski was purposely being callous. Perhaps he didn’t know the issue at the time of the quote.
“…so I checked with Mrs. Billfer who is a heart nurse who happens to be working tonight. She checked with some physicians who identified 3 main causes for blood clots. Keep in mind I’m not a doctor, but I’m married to someone who talks to doctors while I watch TV.”
You OFFICIALLY are an insider.
Joking aside, his makes me even more worried. Both for Rogers health and the Tigers pitching depth.
Kenny needs to get healthy first and foremost. That’s clearly the most obvious concern. Then baseball comes into play after that.
I think it was less of Dombrowski being callous, and more of just GM speak not wanting to put out this information as the source was “someone familiar with the situation”, it seems like the Tigers attempted to keep this under wraps, hence the reasoning for the callousness sounding remarks from DD.
Not great, but I don’t think it’s that big of a deal. Like I’ve said before if Kenny was to never pitch again, we still would have gotten more than our money’s worth.
Only 1 start, but if you check out Durbin’s career stats (most of which are pretty ugly) his line against Toronto is phenomenal and his best by far – 3GS, 2-0, 20.33 IP, 14 hits, 4runs, 2hrs, 7BB, 15Ks, 1.77 ERA, 1.03 WHIP, .192BAA.
He will probably be shifted to the 5th slot b/c you don’t want RRRLL. Then again Toronto’s starters are as follows
1) Reed Johnson – bats right
2) Vernon Wells – bats right
3) Alexis Rios – bats right
4) Troy Glaus – bats right
5) Royce Clayton – bats right
6) Aaron Hill – bats right
7) Frank Thomas – bats right
8) Greg Zaun – bats switch
9) Lyle Overbay – bats left
That’s very right-handed heavy, maybe Durbin should take Kenny’s spot also considering that Robertson and Maroth have struggled against Toronto in the past…
I agreed with you, David in the other post about Kenny going to the DL. We’ve already gotten our money’s worth from Kenny for sure.
We have already gotten our money’s worth but it still doesn’t make this season all that easy. They have depth in the minors in starters but the two really quality ones are a bit away from being ready.
Durbin is okay for a bit but I am not sure I want him to be on the team for the entire season.
And that doesn’t even begin to speak on how serious this could be health wise for Kenny.
Everyone knows Kenny’s work ethic, and the effect it had on the pitching staff…I don’t think him being on the DL will have much effect….they learned that from him last year. I would rather see Miner start than Durbin, Miner proved himself last season.
Personally I like Grilli and Ledezma over Durbin, but if its only 1 start I don’t really care.
Billfer this post put me on the floor…
Both with concern for our guy Kenny and also with laughter from reading your first disclaimer.
I’m a big time Ledezma fan and would love to see him get the 5th spot in the rotation. Zach Miner’s pretty “meh” to me. He’s slightly better then Durbin, but, to me, it’s really not a big deal. I think the Miner towards the end of the year is more of the real Miner then the one who was on a tear when he first got his call up.
Not the best news on Kenny. Surgery, out 3 months. http://sports.espn.go.com/mlb/news/story?id=2819167
Best wishes to the Gambler and a speedy recovery. Andrew Miller, that’s your name they just called. Get ready.
I heard the news about Rogers while watching the game today. Interestingly, by bro-in-law said they should do the same as Bix. So, is it Miller Time???
To Ed:
Very much NOT millertime (yet)…but I hope he realizes that we probably now need him sooner than we thought we did…and if he embraces that (sorta like ZoomZoom did with his “I’m just going to come in and strike you out, if that’s ok” role last year), and gives it everything he’s got, he’ll become a rockstar in Detroit. The city’s so in love with the Tigs right now that they’ll latch on to anyone that does their best to “help the ballclub”, as Crash would say.
No. I do not want to rush Andrew Miller at all. I want him in Double AA for most of the year and not to come up until the rosters expand. No reason to put him on a more accelerated pace then what we did with Verlander. He’s got 5 IP in the minor leagues. Let him get a full pro season before talking about bringing him in. Zumaya was in the minors for 3 years as we got him out of high school so that’s kind of apples and oranges.