Call in the Medics

"It is unavoidable." Emperor Palpatine said that in The Return of the Jedi. While he was referring to Luke Skywalker's potential conversion to the dark side, the same can also be said of baseball injuries. Every team will suffer a major setback due to an injury at some point. The only real difference is who gets hurt and for how long. For instance, my beloved Mets suffered a horrific year in 2009 chiefly because of consistent and devastating injuries to key players. While no team in 2010 has been quite so handicapped as the Mets were last year, the scars of battle are starting to mount for several teams.
For starters, a Mets rival, the Philadelphia Phillies are wearing and tearing at a breakneck (pardon the pun) clip these days. Earlier in the year shortstop and sparkplug for the team Jimmy Rollins went down with a calf injury. He missed about a month of action and came back, only to be injured again. Now that he's back from his second stint on the disabled list (DL) he's taking over the third spot in the lineup, which is normally reserved for 2B Chase Utley. Utley is out with a thumb injury that he sustained while diving head first into second-base. The ailment initially looked like a bad sprain. But according to the Philadelphia Inquirer the damage was much worse than originally thought, as part of a ligament was pulled off the bone and surgery was required. Meaning that Utley, the backbone of the Phillies offense will miss somewhere between 6 and 8 weeks to recover and resume normal baseball functions. And just to make matters a little worse for the Phils, third-baseman Placido Polanco, who was somehow leading the National League in 3B All-Star votes is also now injured with a left elbow inflammation. Before being injured, Polanco was having a great year hitting .318 and playing a stellar third-base in his return to the Phillies. Also, J.A. Happ has been missing from the starting rotation all season, catcher Carlos Ruiz has been out with a concussion, and the Phils recently added relief pitcher Chad Durbin to the walking wounding. Philadelphia is an extremely well build team, though, and have lots of pieces that they can sub in and out to make up for injuries. However, with the specific players that are injured, in addition to the length of time needed for recovery, this situation will prove to be a challenge for the club. If anyone can do it, the Phils probably can. Although as a Mets fan, I hope they don't.
Another club reeling from a recent rash of regressions is the Boston Red Sox. In a nine-day period, the Red Sox have placed five players on the DL. 3B Mike Lowell, who wasn't doing much anyway, 2B Dustin Pedroia went out with a broken left foot, catcher Victor Martinez left with a fractured left thumb, backup catcher Jason Varitek broke his left foot and will be out for six to eight weeks, and relief pitcher Manny Delcarmen strained his left forearm. Apparently the left side is indeed sinister for the Boston Red Sox. Again, the Sawks are a team built to deal with injury. Depth is a luxury with a high payroll team. When injuries pile up like this though, depth gets negated rather quickly. The Sox are now stuck with a third option catcher, and are without two huge bats in their lineup. And we haven't even mentioned that Jacoby Ellsbury, the speedy left-fielder/lead-off hitter has been out almost the entire season with a rib injury. Luckily the rookies have been stepping up a little for Boston, but they are going to have to step up quite a bit more if Bean Town is going to compete while so plagued.
There are some other teams dealing with injuries as well. Houston has put two pitchers and a shortstop on the DL recently. But with no disrespect to the Astros, they weren't competing this year anyway, so these setbacks aren't quite as devastating. It just helps speed up the process of the team selling off some of it's high-priced talent to other clubs. Elsewhere, Shaun Marcum of the Toronto Blue Jays went down with right elbow inflammation. Big stick Luke Scott of the Baltimore Orioles suffered a strained left hamstring while rounding the bases after a homerun. Detroit Tigers' fireball reliever Joel Zumaya fractured his right elbow in one of the most painful looking incidents I've ever seen, and will be out for the season. Rookie phenom Jason Heyward of the Atlanta Braves finally went on the DL for a deep bone bruise in his left thumb. And let's not forget that SS Troy Tulowitzki fractured his left wrist for the Colorado Rockies a few weeks back.
This is nothing new to baseball, though. Getting hurt and playing through pain is part of the game. These guys have to play a physically demanding 162 games a year, with very few days off in between. The wear and tear is tremendous, so injuries are expected. As a fan, I never like to see anyone go down hurt, even if it's a guy I don't particularly like. But injuries do impact the game, sometimes in dramatic ways. Perhaps the Phillies or Red Sox will suffer greatly from the untimeliness of these events. Maybe they can hold on and be better than before because they gave one guy a chance to shine in another's absence. Sometimes a team doesn't know what kind of talent they have waiting in the wings until a star player goes down. Who knows, maybe the next young stud is just getting his shot right now.