The Phillies placed Jimmy Rollins on the 15-day DL Wednesday with a strained right calf. The injury, acquired during pre-game warmups in Monday’s home opener, is believed to be between a Grade 1 and Grade 2 strain.
How a strain can be between two grades is beyond me, because, after all, isn’t the point of placing grades on injuries to differentiate between one level and another?
Grade 2 calf strains typically take 3-6 weeks to heal, but all cases are different. If Jimmy heals slowly, he won’t be back until the beginning of June. If sufficient progress is made, however, the outlook is much brighter.
When asked about the injury Wednesday, Jimmy noted “Between today and Monday, it’s much better. It’s not even comparable to the way it felt. So if things continue to progress the way they have over the last 48 hours, hopefully it will be just two weeks.” Kudos to Delco Times’ Phillies beat writer Ryan Lawrence for the quote.
On MLB radio earlier Wednesday afternoon, Charlie Manuel referred to the injury as a “Grade 1 or 2 calf tear.” He did not misspeak, but the word “tear” does not mean the same thing in this instance that it usually does. By definition, a grade 2 sprain of the gastroc (fancy word for the calf muscle) involves a partial tear of the muscle.
This is NOT a full-on muscle tear, however. That would have taken significantly longer (a minimum of three months) t0 heal.
Juan Castro will start tonight in Jimmy’s stead, and it can be assumed that he will take the reigns at shortstop for the next few weeks. While Castro is not nearly as productive as a starting shortstop, it is times like this that we should be thankful Eric Bruntlett no longer wears a Phillies uniform.
Werth Not Starting, But Available
Greg Dobbs will bat fifth and start in right field tonight, in place of Jayson Werth. A sore hip required Werth to be taken out of Monday’s 7-4 win over the Nationals, but the move was more of the better-safe-than-sorry variety than anything else.
Werth commented after Monday’s game that he was fine and that removing him from the game was solely a precautionary measure.
As for his absence in Wednesday’s lineup card, Charlie Manuel stated that this was just a way to give Werth an extended breather, and that he would be available to come off the bench.
Original Story:
http://www.philliesnation.com/archive...
