Everybody Hurts

I know this is just the way things are done in baseball, but that doesn't make it any less aggravating. Jason Marquis has been scuffling since Spring Training. All the while, everyone from Rizzo to Riggleman to McCatty to Marquis himself swears up and down that it's mental, or mechanical, anything but physical. Then, all of a sudden they examine him and, lo and behold, his pitching elbow is chock full of grape nuts and ball bearings. Needless to say, he's DL-bound.

Okay, things crop up, I get that. Pitchers are used to a certain amount of pain, soreness and discomfort. Maybe it's hard to separate that from a new and different pain. That's why teams have trainers, team doctors, outside specialists, physical exams and MRIs. I'm no doctor, but floating bodies in the elbow doesn't sound like something you wake up with one morning after an ill-advised 3 am convenience store egg salad sandwich. After all, this is the same Jason Marquis whose 6.05 ERA last September got him left off the Rockies playoff roster.

Over the winter this franchise gave Jason Marquis more money than any pitcher in Nationals' history. I really hope they did their due diligence. This isn't Vinny Castilla for Brian Lawrence. There were a half dozen guys roughly equivalent to Marquis available this offseason, and somehow the Nats ended up giving $15M to the guy with the bum elbow. Seems like this has the potential to be another big black eye for the team's none-to-highly-regarded medical staff.

For all I know, "floating bodies" is the 2010 equivalent of Dontrelle Willis disorder. Jason Marquis certainly looks like a guy who could use a few weeks off and a low pressure rehab assignment. I'm not sure how time off is supposed to cure miscellaneous junk in the elbow though. Maybe it's a conservation of energy thing: floating bodies at rest tend to stay at rest? I guess we'll see. Is it June yet?

On a related note, I'm ignoring Zimmerman's cramp in the hopes that it will go away quietly. If he misses any significant time expect a remix of my post on how this team's vaunted "versatility" really won't be of any use in replacing key offensive production.