Gallardo went 67 pitches last night, and if anyone saw a problem with his knee, I'd love to hear about it. I spoke with three people last night who I consider pitching "gurus" within the game, and every one of them asked me if this was normal, if ACL surgery has become so routine that this kind of recovery is now probable, and not merely plausible. The answer is simple as 'yes.' It's unusual in baseball, but even so there's the Milton Bradley situation to compare it to. Gallardo showed a normal motion, no real change in his mechanics, normal velocity in line with both his 2007 and 2008 averages on all his pitches, and certainly solid results for his first work in nearly a complete season. There's very little to say other than giving proper kudos to Gallardo and to the medical staff for what looks miraculous, but is actually the product of hard work. The interesting thing is that Gallardo now sets up to be the first game playoff pitcher, if necessary, and if they make it. How's that for a return?
Go check out the three minute (unembeddable..fuckers) video (also featuring former Badger Jake Dowell, who clearly wants to date Burrish). Funny stuff.I'll be updating the blog regularly and will post a new entry every Friday. So make sure to bookmark this blog. That way you can easily check back here to send in questions and post comments.
Adam Burish of the Blackhawks here. I'm writing a blog called "Dropping the Gloves" exclusively for the the Sun-Times this season.
No major structural damage. Will rehab today and Tuesday. Wednesday's practice will be key -- how he throws, then how he recovers on Thursday morning. Coaches will get Matt Flynn ready regardless; reps will be split.
“Grandma, get out the mustard and mayo, it’s Grand Salami!”
Sheets won't start today due to continued pain in his arm, so instead it will be Gallardo. It's a bit of a surprise, but I tipped people to this on XM's Fantasy Focus earlier this week. The thing is, Gallardo won't be making a normal start; yes, he'll start the game, but he's essentially acting as a long reliever at the beginning of a "bullpen game." He'll be on a hard pitch limit, and is unlikely to throw more than 50 pitches. Sheets remains a possibility for a start or in relief, but only as part of the Brewers' kitchen-sink approach to pitching over the last week. Sunday will be Sabathia, again on short rest, after he won his Wednesday start (throwing 108 pitches). The Brewers are certainly getting their money's worth out of Sabathia during his stint in Milwaukee, but the move will leave them without the big man available to start in any of the possible tie-breaker scenarios.
But our guy says the Royals should trade Soria.
And Zack Greinke.
"Those are their two biggest commodities," the man says. "You might
go three-for-one with each of those guys. Now you get six players back
and you're a better team."
Like I read in the open thread comments, it didn't help Dallas in the playoffs that they had beaten the NY Giants twice in the regular season. It didn't help the Packers in the playoffs that they smoked the Giants in the regular season either. Just secure winning the division and get into the playoffs. The lesson that Mike McCarthy and the Packers have to learn is how did Dallas shut them down during that awful six drive sequence.
Coming back from the gym yesterday, I was in my car listening to The Michael Kay Show (on ESPN Radio in NYC) right around the five o’clock hour. And, I heard
Kay share that, according to all his ‘inside sources’ and ‘Yankees
connections,’ etc., the potential free agent starting pitcher (this
off-season) who the Yankees lust after the most is Ben Sheets.
“The first problem is that the burden of proof necessary to overturn a play in replay (indisputable visual evidence) is very high, and that the default is the "ruling on the field." When you let plays go longer than they are supposed to, the ruling on the field is often not only wrong, but catastrophically so. As a play goes on, the chances for a turnover increase greatly. Refs let plays continue out of fear of stopping a big play with a quick whistle, but by letting defensive players continually strip offensive players even when forward momentum has been stopped, or by letting defensive players pick up a "fumble" when a QB's arm was going forward, the refs actually create turnovers, and turnovers are perhaps the most important factor in who wins or loses a game.
Under the current policy, "indisputable visual evidence" is more often required to prove that a turnover didn't happen. The original intent of replay was to fix major mistakes during games. We now have a situation in which replay creates huge mistakes.”
Paul is absolutely right. (Ed: Thanks Mike.) However, there's one ref who doesn't let the rules stop him from enforcing the game how he wants: Jeff Triplette. Click the link, what happened in Ravens-Bengals is that a Bengals player fumbled and a Ravens player picked it up and ran it into the end zone, but an official thought he was down and blew the whistle. That means it's Bengals ball where they had it when the official blew the whistle, but Triplette inexplicably gave the Ravens the ball. He just disregarded the rule saying nothing happens after the whistle because he thought it would be more fair to give the Ravens the ball.
