MLB Mlb Injuries

The Atlanta Braves have announced that struggling second baseman, Kelly Johnson has been placed on the 15-day disabled list with tendinitis in his right wrist.

This is the second piece of bad news Johnson has received this week. After Tuesday night's game, Bobby Cox announced that Martin Prado would take over as the starting second baseman for the Braves. Johnson, who is hitting .214 this season in 234 at-bats, has been mired in an awful 9-for-74 slump. Johnson's overall poor hitting, especially his .174 average against right-handed pitchers, combined with Prado's recent success forced Cox to rule out a platoon situation and give the job outright to Prado.

Starting Five is our wrapup of the previous day's baseball action, with a quick nod to what is ahead.

You Oughta Know ...
That the Braves have their longest winning streak of the year.

OK, it's only four games. But before Thursday night, Atlanta was the only team that had not won four straight at some point this season.

And where has it gotten the Braves? Not out of fourth place in the NL East – yet within two games of the first-place Phillies, their victims the past three games.

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Just five games into his minor-league rehab stint at Triple-A Pawtucket, Jed Lowrie was hit by a pitch in the knee. He hasn't played since June 28 because of that, and his knee is still swollen and bruised. Not only has this setback slowed down his progress toward rejoining the Red Sox, but now the team has sent Lowrie back to Boston to have his knee examined by specialist Scott Waugh.

Lowrie was expected to miss six to eight weeks following wrist surgery in April. Prior to surgery, Lowrie played in five games getting only one hit in 18 at-bats.

The knee injury almost certainly assures that Lowrie will not rejoin the Red Sox, as originally, scheduled before the All-Star break.

Starting Five is our wrapup of the previous day's baseball action, with a quick nod to what is ahead.

You Oughta Know ...
That the Red Sox probably did not sleep well Tuesday night.

Boston held a nine-run lead in Baltimore with nine outs to go. Then the Orioles exploded for five runs on seven hits in the seventh inning and five runs on six hits in the eighth, handing Jonathan Papelbon his second blown save of the season. When George Sherrill struck out Jason Bay with two on in the top of the ninth, it finished off a wild 11-10 victory for the O's.

[Said Orioles manager Dave Trembley:] "It was the shootout at the OK Corral except it was Camden Yards."

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NEW YORK – When bone spurs were removed from Adrian Beltre's shoulder Tuesday, no structural damage was found, giving the Mariners hope their third baseman could return sooner than the originally projected 6-8 weeks.

"Everything went great," manager Don Wakamatsu said. "There wasn't any damage to the [rotator] cuff or anything like that. The bursa sac was inflamed.

"We're still looking 6-8 weeks, but maybe if everything goes well it might be quicker than that."

Complaining of stiffness and limited to only nine at-bats over the last week, Mike Lowell saw team doctors on Monday.

In the midst of injecting Mike Lowell with Synvisc to coat the joint in his surgically repaired hip yesterday, the Red Sox [team stats] medical staff also drained 15 ccs of fluid from the area.

While this procedure could have lended to Lowell playing by the weekend, the Red Sox decided instead to have Jeff Bailey join the team in Baltimore, and place Lowell on the 15-day disabled list.

Bailey has been slotted into the ninth spot in the batting order and will play first base Tuesday night, with Kevin Youkilis moving over the third base.

Mets fans, you can breathe a huge sigh of relief. Monday night, we passed along the information that Carlos Beltran was visiting a specialist -- and outlined the worst-possible-scenario: Beltran missing the rest of the season. Instead, he's been diagnosed with just a bone bruise, as the team originally believed.

Beltran's choice of doctor raised eyebrows, considering he visited a well-known micro-fracture surgeon, Dr. Richard Steadman. Still, Steadman examined Beltran and determined he just needs to stay off his feet. He did push back the timetable for Beltran's return to after the All-Star break.

As if the Mets needed to deal with more bad news this season Carlos Beltran is now going to visit a specialist. Beltran was in the midst of an All-Star season when he injured his right knee. Right now, all we know is that Beltran has a bone bruise under his knee.

The possibly worrisome news is the fact that Beltran is visiting Dr. Richard Steadman, who performs micro-fracture surgeries. If Beltran does, in fact, have or develop a micro-fracture in the knee area, that's even bigger trouble than his current DL stint. Judging from what we've seen in baseball and other sports, and the fact that we're almost in July, micro-fracture surgery would probably end Beltran's season. We can't get ahead of ourselves just yet, though.

One of the more interesting injury-related developments this season has been the spate of anxiety, stress and other emotional/mental issues cited as reasons for sending players to the disabled list. Dontrelle Willis, Joey Votto and Khalil Greene, who missed two games after a previous stint on the DL, have all been struck with these ailments, which has generated two general schools of response.

The first is sympathetic. Many people in this country have suffered from such problems, or have close friends or family members who have suffered, and they know that being a talented athlete doesn't make you immune. The other camp feels that these are just excuses for teams to stash away players performing poorly.

Starting Five is our wrapup of the previous day's baseball action, with a quick nod to what is ahead.

You Oughta Know ...
That the Phillies are grateful to be in the NL East.

The division got out-scored 37-7 on Friday as the AL East swept in interleague play. And it's only the rest of the division's mediocrity keeping Philadelphia in first by a half-game.

After their 11th loss in 13 games, 6-1 to the Blue Jays as Ricky Romero didn't allow a hit in the first six innings, the Phillies held a team meeting.

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