FredLynn

Thats a scary potential black hole v RHP with the last three guys in that lineup.

Kendrick has had a good ST. I guess he would be the #7 SP right now. I don't think its a given that Price will even play this year, not yet anyway. Even if he does, 7 SPs will probably not be enough. Assuming Owens/Johnson/Elias are useless, we will still need one more SP, at least.

The options are : Owens, Johnson, or Elias (who isn't even available yet). If Fister would take a minor league deal I would prefer him to the others.

Exactly. The only barometer of how he is doing is him pitching effectively and without pain. That is some time away yet.

No, there isn't a law that forces a patient to accurately relay to anyone else what a doctor has told him. And its unlikely that the doctor would initiate a call to his or her patient to ask them to stop propagating a lie. That said, how likely is it that both Price and Farrell are both lying about the diagnosis and prognosis, as best Dr Andrews, the world's expert on these injuries, knows? I can understand some misinterpretation, but seriously, LIGAMENT and MUSCLE are not spelled the same. Its entirely possible that Andrews covered the possibility of occult injury to the UCL in his discussions, and that that was left out of what Price and Farrell had to say. Every one of us knows by now that its possible that Andrews missed the diagnosis and that Price may still undergo TJS. I would envision that the conversation went something like this: Andrews: "Based on the results of your examination and of your MRI in my judgement you have not suffered any damage to your UCL and that the most likely cause of your discomfort is a sprain of your flexor tendon mass. I do not recommend either surgery or an injection, therefore, at this time-just rest and anti-inflammatory medications. After 7-10 days of treatment we will re-evaluate how you are doing. If your clinical course is not consistent with my diagnosis additional tests may be indicated". Now doesn't that sound reasonable? Some of us are more comfortable than others in accepting what Andrews likely said without assuming that Price misinterpreted Dr A. NONE of us assume that he is out of the woods until he starts pitching effectively. I for one believe, based on what has been written, that its more likely than not that Price will be pitching for the Red Sox again sooner rather than later.

Swihart was 1 for 3 today. He is now batting .308 in spring training in a small sample size. He proper position is catcher. Sometimes it takes a while for catchers to become excellent defensively. The Sox should exercise patience with him at that position.

I think Farrell was referring to the "best case scenerio" by saying that of the reasonable choices available, it was the best case. No one in their right mind though this was a pinched nerve. The two most like sites of injury were: ligament or muscle. Furthermore, I for one am not expecting that after the re-evaluation in 7-10 days Price will be good to go. He may need longer. That time period was just the earliest possible time that he might begin rehab. And as Jacko said below, he is far from being out of the woods; TJS is still very much on the table. That said, as happened with Andrew Miller in June 2015, sometimes a flexor mass strain is just a flexor mass strain. I am optimistic that thats all it is.

While you are correct that Andrews cannot provide medical information about his patients without their permission, its highly unlikely that Price and Farrell would convert a diagnosis of UCL damage to an injury to the muscle. I cannot imagine a circumstance why they would do that. Of course, we as fans have no right to the medical record or condition of any player at any time. They could be lying....but why?

Not to discredit Jacko in any way ( I actually like him, for a Yankee fan), but he is an ER doctor, not an orthopedist. He has more credibility than a nonmedical person here, but I would not say that he has more than any other doctor who posts here or anywhere else-unless he has special training that he has not yet made public.

Speaking about anecdotal evidence, I found this case report. Andrew Miller was diagnosed on June 10 with a flexor muscle strain and missed about a month. He never underwent Tommy John surgery, just rest, meds, and rehab. IF that is all Price has he should do fine. He is far from out of the woods, but as long as the UCL is intact he will pitch sooner rather than later. NEW YORK -- On Wednesday, after a 5-4 loss in 11 innings to the Washington Nationals at Yankee Stadium, the Yankees announced that closer Andrew Miller would be placed on the disabled list with a strained mass flexor muscle. (this was dated June 10, 2015)

I will paste below the passage you presumably referenced. Note also the comment that states that "there are pitchers who get pronator strains who do just fine". Of course its a concern; even Andrews doesn't always get it right. We are both in the medical field, and both of us know that anecdotal evidence doesn't mean much. I looked for real studies about the accuracy of the MRI in diagnosing UCL tears and could find none. I think we can stipulate that they are not 100% accurate, but how inaccurate they are is a matter that hasn't apparently been addressed. To state that there are "a lot" of them, as you did, without the proper data to back it up (because, apparently, such data does not exist-or at least I haven't been able to find it) remains in the realm of anecdotal evidence. The bottom line is this: Price went to perhaps the best doctor in the world, had the best available diagnostic testing, and the treatment that was recommended didn't even include an injection. How he will actually do is anybody's guess. I am sure, as a baseball fan, you wish him nothing but the best. Here is the passage to which you referred, I believe: "If you go back and look at all the press releases of Stephen Strasburg in the week before he went down, he was out for a start due to a flexor pronator strain and then shortly thereafter he went down with the Tommy John injury. Those would be words that would at least concern me, but there are pitchers who get flexor pronator strains and do fine. But any kind of medial (inside) elbow pain is worth looking at closely and being very careful with."

I haven't been able to confirm that anywhere. Do you have a percentage of guys "being diagnosed with flexor mass strains" that end up having a torn UCL? Do you have a reference that cites the false negative rates? I have not found such a reference. Regardless, the MRI is the most definitive tool that specialists like Andrews use to make the diagnosis, and in the hands of someone like that, someone who has probable seen and evaluated hundreds of patients with torn UCLs, its the best chance for getting it right. Is it 100%? Of course not. None of us get it right all the time. This goes back to what I wrote earlier when you asked what the diagnosis is: it doesn't really matter what label they put on it; what really matters is how soon Price can become an effective pitcher again. Had it been the Red Sox medical team that made the assessment I would have more reason to doubt it, given their history. In Andrews I trust. Maybe he is wrong, but I doubt it.

Well thats exactly it. I wrote as much earlier. Even if they call it a strain he could be out for months. And there is a small chance that the MRI missed the correct site of injury and its worse than what Andrews thought. The ONLY thing that matters is this: can he return from the injury, whatever they call it, and pitch effectively with minimal time on the DL. Too much emphasis on the diagnosis, IMO.

Price specifically stated that the injury was in the muscle, not in the ligament. Therefore, its a strain, not a sprain, assuming he is telling the truth and assuming Andrews got the diagnosis right. If it was the Red Sox team physicians who drew that conclusion I would be more skeptical, but Andrews has a very good reputation. You know as well as I do that strains may cause localized inflammation and some edema. The MRI would likely have been able to pick up a torn or partially torn UCL despite the swelling, so I would interpret "inconclusive" to mean "no tear in the ligament seen". When you think about it, nearly every injury that requires an MRI is going to have some swelling associated with it. And thats good news if you are a Red Sox fan. I admit that there is a small chance the the MRI missed a tear, but the resolution on that test is so good that I would imagine that the results are probably over 90% accurate. As you said, time will tell.

Thats great if our other top 5 SPs can stay healthy. Ideally we would keep all of their innings down to that level. On the other hand, if one of them gets significantly hurt, do you really want to see the likes of Owens or Johnson out there for any extended period of time?

Good point. Price didn't exactly light it up last year. He was awful for a good part of the year. I think what has people freaking out is not what he has done for the team but what he could have done this year.

So there is the diagnosis: a "strain". Is this the kind of strain that lasts a couple of weeks-or is it the kind that lasts 3-4 months? Hope Jacko is satisfied now that everything is cleared up.

While the diagnosis is of some interest here, its really not all that important given the circumstances-assuming we are not being given fake news by the Red Sox. What if the diagnosis was a strain or a sprain-but it takes four months to heal and recurs later on? Assuming what we have been told is correct its not likely a tear of the UCL. What if its a bone spur and they are going to see how it responds to conservative treatment, and it does great? Or if it requires surgery later on? My point is that while the specific diagnosis is of some interest here, its really not all that important. What IS important is how long it takes for Price to return to being Price, regardless of the diagnosis.

Who cares? If what Farrell said is true I could not care less what the diagnosis is. However....the Red Sox are generally not particularly forthcoming or honest (or competent) in dealing with these things. Whatever they are calling it, I want to see him pitch effectively before I believe he is over this.

Even if Price can pitch this year we will still need a decent 7th SP. Elias might do, but Johnson and Owens are simply not good enough. Workman, in his small level of experience, has an ERA of about 5, which isn't too bad for a #7. At least he has had some success, unlike Owens. True, he hasn't pitched since 2014 in the majors, but I would like to give him a shot at #7 (or 6 if Price can't pitch) before any of the other candidates. We will still need one more IMO; I agree with Harmony.

I sincerely hope you are right about Sandoval, but note that his OPS+ has gone down every year since 2011. In 2015 he was down to 75 for an OPS+. From my point of view there is little reason to expect that he will improve much. And Moreland at 1B? He is, in effect, replacing Ortiz. We shall see.......

I stole the following post from a different forum. Its not that Swihart is Babe Ruth, but given David Ortiz and his 127 RBIs and other contributions on offense is gone, we need to play guys who can hit the baseball: "Christian Vasquez in 557 PAs has a career OPS+ of 62 with a BA of .233 with an OPS of .602. Sandy Leon in 548 PAs has a career OPS+ of 81 with a BA of .254 with an OPS of .681-and these numbers are skewed by a brief flash in the pan last year. None of these guys is David Ortiz, but Swihart is, offensively, the best of the lot. And with Sandoval and Moreland in the lineup, we need all the offense we can get."

I don't think we will have the mashers to win many games by 5+ runs. Our pitching is likely to keep us in games and give us a chance to win games by 4-2 and 5-3 scores. At least thats the plan.

That all depends on how many starts we need from our #7-8 SPers. If our top six can stay healthy we will do just fine.

Definitely not a troll. I agree that he is consistent. I do not recall a single projection on his part that supports the Red Sox being a strong favorite in any arena, so yes, he is consistent. You have to remember where he is coming from. He is a fan of a franchise that has never made it to the WS in its 40 years in existence, writing on a Red Sox forum about a team that won the WS just four years ago. A bit of envy, I think.