More Injuries, What Else Is New?

We’re three days into the exhibition season and the injuries are already piling up as usual. No surprise to me to tell you the truth. I figured most of the regulars would already be on the disabled list by now. Sorry if I sound a little negative and annoyed, but it seriously bothers me. I want my Dodgers healthy. Do other teams have this many injuries?

Joe Camporeale-USA TODAY Sports

We already knew about Carl Crawford’s tight quad. Who knows how long that’s going to keep him out for. Apparently Zack Greinke is feeling better, and should play catch today as he recovers from his strained right calf. I’m sure we’ll hear constantly that he’s “not going to Australia”. Trust me when I tell you that he’ll go. Unless he’s on his death bed he’ll go. He may not pitch, but it’s not like he’s going to just sit home because of a calf strain and watch the games on tv while the rest of his teammates get on a plane. Sorry that’s not how things work. He’s part of a club. But anyways, he’s feeling better, and it doesn’t appear that it’s serious, so it looks like we dodged a bullet there.

Now we’re getting word this morning that pitching prospect Ross Stripling has pain in his elbow and will be getting a contrast MRI today. Lovely. I guess he’s been dealing with pain in his elbow for a while now, and I have no idea when this started. He actually threw two innings in Wednesday’s Cactus league opening 4-1 loss to Arizona. Did the club even know about this? And why was he allowed to pitch if he was having pain in his elbow? Did Stripling withhold this from the club? We don’t know yet. By the way if you haven’t already checked out Kenny Shulsen’s wonderful interview with Ross from last week at Camelback, you should do so. I know Kenny will be most upset to hear about this. This just further illustrates how bad the medical staff is. But that’s my opinion.

Rick Scuteri-USA TODAY Sports

All I know is the Dodgers probably need a new medical staff. Stan Conte and friends just aren’t getting their job done. I could probably write a whole article about this, but the medical staff is just crap. For the last several years not only do are the Dodgers in the top five in injuries and disabled list stints, but every spring several regulars go down with nagging injuries. What’s the point of this medical staff if they can’t keep anyone healthy? At some point you have to stop blaming the players and “bad luck”, and look at it from an objective point of view. The medical staff is not getting the job done. They’re not keeping guys healthy. Too many guys are getting hurt too early in spring. This happens every single season.

I think it would be wise for the Dodgers to start rebuilding the medical staff at some point soon. This isn’t normal for the club to have this many injuries. Who knows who will drop next. Thank goodness we have Stephen Fife. He may make the team after all if all of these injuries keep piling up. Are the injury gods just trolling us at this point?