Friday, July 23, 2004

Cringe factor

The Monk saw the injury to Rangers pitcher Ricardo Rodriguez on replay yesterday and immediately had the Cringe Factor -- when the injury is so transparently nasty you flinch from the safety of your own home.

An Angel batter lined a pitch right back at Rodriguez in the fourth inning. Rodriguez had his right side and back to the plate in his pitch follow-through. The liner hit him square on his right elbow, breaking it. Rodriguez went down in a heap. He's out for the season.

This is easily one of the top three pitching injuries where The Monk has seen the injury take place. I still remember Bryce Florie's broken face after a shot from Ryan Thompson -- Thompson ripped the pitch and it went right off Florie's nose, he didn't even have time to flinch.

I also remember the (first) tragic injury to Dave Dravecky. He battled back from a cancerous embollism in his pitching arm and had two sterling starts. In his third start, he threw a pitch and his humerus just snapped. Dravecky crumpled and the players looked at him as if he'd been shot. Dravecky tried another comeback, same thing happened and he retired.

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