UTK Blast 3/25/21
Jimenez and Soto
I don’t often send out a second email in a day, but the news on both Eloy Jimenez and Juan Soto, two of the most exciting young players in the game, was worth knocking on your email door again I believe.
For Jimenez, it went from a minor shoulder strain to a ruptured pectoral muscle in a hurry. I got this one wrong, or was misdirected by sources, but either way, I don’t like not getting you the best information first.
The pectoral muscle is often thought of as the chest muscle or the “bench press” muscle, but follow the muscle up into the shoulder and you’ll see it’s very involved in almost all activities with the shoulder. We see this type of injury in the NFL a lot, mostly with linemen. They go with their arms out at shoulder height and gets pulled, either blocking or being blocked. JJ Watt had this a couple seasons ago in probably the best known case.
The mechanism we saw with Jimenez is not the normal one. His arm was up and over, and that point where he hooked the top of the fence and had basically his whole weight on the shoulder as he was coming down is the likely culprit. The result is that the tear has him out for five to six months after surgery to re-attach the muscle. The normal tear is in the tendon into the shoulder, so there could be other structures involved which we won’t know until after the surgery. In all likelihood, Jimenez won’t play in ‘21 at all.
Shoulder injuries are obviously problematic for throwing but they have also been trouble for hitting, making this a double-whammy for Jimenez and the Sox. We have seen this on an upswing with new techniques and rehabs, so Jimenez will get the best possible chance to come back well. A key will be if the surgery and damage is isolated to the re-attachment or if there’s any labrum or rotator cuff involvement.
Coming on the heels of the Jimenez news, hearing this about Juan Soto is a bit more problematic:
Minor. Fine. Yeah, I’ve been burned before, so “fine” and “minor” make me worry, and “undisclosed reasons” have be a bit twitchy. Sources do not have details and it seems the Nats are keeping this one close to the vest, so we’ll have to see exactly where this goes. It certainly bears watching in a spring where one of the best young hitters in the game has yet to hit an XBH. Cautious is good, but watchful is what I do here.
Thanks for reading, sorry for the downplay on the initial Jimenez report, and stay tuned.