In a few hours Mark Buehrle will be taking the mound for the White Sox on Opening Day for the seventh time in his career, tying Billy Pierce for the most Opening Day starts in the franchise's history. There have been some whispers in Chicago this spring about possible health problems with Buehrle, and it seems the team has been a bit concerned about it as well.The team had a meeting with the 30-year-old Buehrle this spring in which they asked him to make some changes to his offseason conditioning program. More specifically, they'd like him to actually have one.
"Buehrle has never been Johnny-condition guy in the winter,'' [pitching coach Don] Cooper explained on Monday. "But now he's getting older and he needs to do more. We talked to him about this. He needs to pay more of a price before spring training.''It seems that Buehrle's idea of an offseason conditioning program thus far in his career has been sitting in a tree stand drinking beer while waiting for some deer to walk by. Now, I'm not sure of the health benefits of this method, but given Buehrle's career record of 122-87, it seems to work pretty well.
"I don't throw much in the off-season,'' Buehrle admitted on Sunday. "I take off a lot in the off-season and use spring training to get ready.''
Still, as you get older, you're body doesn't heal as well as it used to. I can attest to this because I'm only 28 years old and everyday I notice something else hurting that never used to hurt before, so I can only imagine what happens to the body of a 30-year-old who spends six months a year actually exercising (unless typing counts as exercise).
So actually starting to work out and keep himself in shape during the offseason could go a long way in keeping Buehrle healthy and effective as he continues getting older -- something I'm sure the deer population of Missouri will be happy to hear.
