Under The Knife 8/28/25

2,000

Apologies for the delay. A bug hit me hard so I am day-to-day with flu like symptoms. There’s no pinch hitters around here, unfortunately, but I’m getting this one to you.

I did a podcast recently that I hadn't done before and as most hosts do, they ask me to kind of bolster myself to their audience as a means of introduction. "You're not a doctor, you're haven't worked for a team, so how do you do this?" I've gone from being slightly outraged at this to wondering if it's not more like a magician not explaining his tricks. (Admittedly, my favorite trick ever is Penn & Teller's cups and balls.) But I'm not a magician, this isn't a trick, and I get why people ask. I do have a rote explanation now which you've probably heard.

However, this one was different and he asked a followup. One that actually made me say "good question." (Unless you're on Hot Ones and Sean Evans goes full deep mode on you, never say that. It's a telling stall.) "What's the hardest part of your job?" he asked. "Tom Petty had it right. The waiting is the hardest part." I don't normally get off a quick answer that good, but I think he was going to say something like getting people to tell me things or building a network of people that explain things to me so I can explain them to you.

But it's the waiting. Making a call. Sending a text. Having to look up if this source is a Signal guy or a WhatApp person. Then waiting for them to respond, or not. It's a very asynchronous job and I listen to music, I play some quick games, I work on the novel I'm going to finish someday, and sometimes, I just wait.

It’s not just the waiting, though. It’s the weight of the waiting.

Because while I’m sitting there, refreshing the page, watching the bubbles in Signal never turn into anything and the world keeps asking questions I don’t have answers to yet. (I love reader questions by the way and wish I had more, though I have never done a full mailbag column and never will.) Sometimes I have the story, but I need one more source to confirm. Sometimes I have the injury, the diagnosis, the recovery timeline, but the team’s not ready to admit it or the player hasn’t told his agent yet. There’s a dance to it, an etiquette of information that most people never see. I don’t break news just to break it. I try to get it right, get it explained, and get it in your hands before the outcome makes the input irrelevant.

That’s the hardest part. Not the grind, though there is one. Not the pressure to be first - though it’s real for some and occasionally my ego pushes me. It’s that you’re only as good as your last update and no one ever sees the ones you didn’t send. The almosts. The “I heard this but couldn’t get confirmation.” The “it’s probably this, but that’s not enough.” You don’t see the hours, the unreturned messages, the double- and triple-checks. You just see the result and that’s how it should be.

But it is work.

If you’ve been here since Peter Gammons first mentioned me on the Kornheiser show, thank you. If you’re new and still figuring out whether I’m just some guy with good guesses or something more, that’s fair. I’ve tried to earn it. I try to keep earning it, ever day, every month, five dollars at a time. If you’ve been waiting for a sign to jump in, to subscribe, to support, to help push this past 2,000 strong, this is it. Normally, I ignore milestones, but getting over that would be nice, or maybe back to that number Gammons pushed me past all those years back.

There’s a lot coming this offseason. Expansion bidding. CBA posturing. Surgical recoveries. Health changes. Big decisions. If you want to understand them, not just hear them, I’ll be here. Waiting.

Now, let’s get to the injuries:

NATHAN EOVALDI, SP TEX (rotator cuff strain)

The phrase “straw that broke the camel’s back” is one that’s both overused and overused because it’s so perfect for so many situations. We don’t often see it until hindsight makes it clear and this injury to the pitching staff is quite possibly what ends the hopes for the Rangers. If Nathan Eovaldi’s rotator cuff strain is enough to close him down even for a while, let alone to the end of the season, it’s tough to imagine this Rangers club hanging on with all the other injuries they’re dealing with now.

Eovaldi’s been a monster this year alongside Jacob deGrom, giving the Rangers a 1-2 like few others, but they haven’t been able to capitalize on it. With Eovaldi coming down with a rotator cuff strain, his season will end a month early with some gaudy numbers, if not the counting stats we’re used to from an ace. So far, there’s no discussion of surgery so the likelihood is that they’ll rehab him as if he could come back, even knowing he can’t and won’t. The idea is to get to that decision point, to see if he’s healing enough before the “goes into the season” line for recovery gets crossed.

Yes, we’re seeing more rotator cuff injuries this season and no, I’m not sure why. For an age-35 pitcher, any arm injury is bad and with two years left on his deal, it has to worry the Rangers as well. Just a little luck balancing could put the team right back in good position, but that’s not something a team can plan on. Eovaldi’s come back from plenty before and while injury history is the best predictor, knowing your way around the rehab room does have some benefits as well.

JON GRAY, P TEX (thoracic outlet syndrome)

Jon Gray is dealing with thoracic outlet syndome, but because it’s the nerve that’s being impinged, doctors and the Rangers think there’s a better chance he returns this season. The condition would be managed rather than truly corrected, using injections of botox to deaden the nerve temporarily while allowing function. I talked with two doctors about this, including an expert in the use of botox in all sorts of non-aesthetic situations, and I’ll admit I still don’t fully understand it.

Botox isn’t just about erasing frown lines. Instead, I am told “it’s about blocking bad signals”, per the expert, who was declined permission to speak on the record by employers. In sports medicine, it can be a cheat code. “A pitcher with thoracic outlet syndrome? That overfired scalene muscle clamping down on nerves gets a Botox shot, and suddenly there’s space again. A runner with calf spasticity after a nerve injury? The Botox calms the gastroc, PT retrains the stride, and they’re back to logging miles without the constant seize-and-cramp cycle. Even migraine-prone athletes are in play, since Botox has FDA approval there”, it was explained to me. “The principle is simple: the nerve still fires, but the message doesn’t get through. That means spasm, dystonia, or maladaptive tightness isn’t sabotaging rehab. While it’s not mainstream for tendon problems yet, there are intriguing cases where knocking down the bully muscle lets the smaller stabilizers do their job.” Botox in sports isn’t cosmetic - it’s function-first, a reminder that sometimes less contraction equals more performance.

For Gray, it’s a chance and then he can work on a more permanent solution in the off-season. He’s a free agent as well, so showing a team that he can pitch rather than just being a risk is a big plus for him. Gray’s snakebitten ‘25 campaign might have a bit of something at the end that could help him and the team.

I was also reminded in research that one of the pitchers that came back from the surgery? Chris Young, now the Rangers GM. Also, Merrill Kelly, who pitched pretty well this weekend. A 2022 study (n=29) had a 74 percent return rate, which is better than I would have expected.

More news on hard throwers, down closers, injured aces, and responding to a complaint about #paddedgloves. Only for subscribers.