Further Bastian:

Recovery time for Sizemore’s knee was expected to be around 4 weeks or so. Indians felt it made sense to address sports hernia at same time.

Crasnick reports this has been bothering him since May.

Wha?

This made me think of the Steve Rushin article from SI this week on injuries. Definitely worth a read.

Did the sports hernia cause waiting for off-speed pitches to be painful?

Permission for temporary use of game thread language, please?

Does anyone know the difference between a sports hernia and just a hernia? I’ve had two hernia operations in my life, and my understanding is that it’s a tear or hole in the lower abdominal walls; is a sports hernia just a weakening of that or is there actually a tear?

We’re cautiously optimistic that in four to six weeks he’s going to return to full baseball activities.

Quote from Soloff on Grady’s injuries.

Well, this puts into context the rumors around the Tweetertubezz that the Indians have inquired about Coco Crisp.

who?

So, what are the odds that Sizemore’s option is NOT picked up next year?

Sizemore must have a big patella

Fab.

If there is one thing I have learned about ‘hidden’ injuries this year, is how constant pain in one part of your body leads to slight alterations/compensation in how you use the rest of your body, and subsequent injuries or at least pain in areas that seem unrelated. If Grady was regularly in pain due to the abdominal issue, it would most definitely affect his mechanics and explosiveness at the plate, and most likely performance in the field as well. Pain drains you, makes you hesitate – and in this level of sport, a fraction of second of hesitation is the difference between success and degrees of failure.

Grady’s done. It’s just sad at this point. Feel bad for the guy. Worse for the team/fans.

Here’s what I wrote about Grady for the 2009 Indians Annual:

“It’s only natural to wonder if an occasional day of rest would help an All-Star who’s only missed five games in three years… Given Sizemore’s clean health history and work ethic, it’s conceivable he’ll add another 75 points to his career OPS of 861 and win his first MVP.”

Siiiiiiiggghhhhhhhh

Interesting to see these sports hernia repairs become popular….actually diagnosed my first one a few weeks ago in a hockey goalie. Imaging’s tough, only recent expert opinion that real-time u/s is better than MRI in picking them up. But for Grady’s to recur and have multiple surgeries now…abdominal surgery ain’t no joke, adhesions later on can be a pain in the neck. I’m always amazed how quickly the pros jump to the knife.

It’s nice to know that this “hidden injury” (I didn’t hear anything about Grady having a sports hernia until today – not sure if I missed it or if it was “hidden”) is being taken care of, but this partly baffles and annoys me.

If the Indians and Grady both knew there was a problem, and it sounds like they did from the tweets Andrew referenced, why didn’t the Indians and Grady decide to take care of this earlier? It’s not like Grady has been producing much since returning from that injury in May – he’s been one of the weakest cogs in the offense.

Presuming that this sports hernia was preventing him from hitting closer or at the level he was hitting in April, taking care of it sooner might have enabled them to avoid, or at least mitigate, that offensive drought they suffered in June, and really, still are in for the most part.

Having a consistent Sizemore who hit at or close to the level he hit in April would have likely made considerable difference in our offensive woes that began in June.

Outside of Hafner, who has probably been the most consistent Indian all year, everyone else in the lineup has gone through a slump of some sort. A. Cab. has been the next most-consistent, with just a slight dropoff (though he seems to have found that “hot” zone again, especially power-wise). Then, as expected with young players trying to establish themselves, Brantley, Santana, and LaPorta have had some good moments and streaks, and some notable dropoffs.

Combine that with Choo struggling for much of the season, then getting injured just about the time when he may have been finding himself, and it lends credence to the idea that Sizemore and the Indians may have been much better off having this sports hernia taken care of sooner rather than later.

I mean, it was admirable to an extent that Sizemore came back and tried to play through the injury, but I think everyone knew that Sizemore wasn’t producing close to the level he produced in April, and I don’t think pitchers all of a sudden just started figuring out how to dominate Sizemore in May when they had major trouble getting him out in April. This sports hernia may have been the missing link, and why Grady and the Indians decided to let him keep playing through it for this long when he wasn’t producing much offensively since late April when the offense was going well in April and May (that and the fact that the offense started faltering after Hafner was injured, NOT Sizemore when he went down in May) baffles and annoys me a bit.

I don’t want to knock the Indians too much – they’re on the right path both in the short and the long-term (and these TV and sports analysts, like Cleveland’s Tony Zarrella on CBS 19, who are suggesting that we make a major trade this year because you don’t know about next year are way off-base and not knowledgeable about the strength of the farm system and how small market teams are truly successful), but this “hiding” of Grady’s injury does baffle and annoy me for the reasons mentioned above.

Granted, some of this is in hindsight, but you’d think that Grady would have told the Indians after a week or two of coming back and not producing that he is doing more harm than good for the team and needs to get the sports hernia corrected so that he can help the team like he is capable of helping the team – that’s my biggest gripe. At some point, you need to realize when your play on the field is doing more harm than being out for a period of time to get more or totally healthy so that you can come back at or nearer to 100% and really be able to produce like you’re capable of and have shown in the past and even in April of this year.

While it’s only one part of the puzzle, admitting this injury sooner and taking care of it then might have led to the Indians still having a decent lead in the Central right now, since the offense probably would have been better off with a healthy Sizemore, one who is hitting more like he did in April, than the Sizemore who returned in May. That could have helped compensate for the rockier starting pitching the team has had since early to mid-June.

Well, I knew he needed some kind of surgery.