Red Sox: Where current injury woes rank in value and significance
By Jimmy Longo
Tyler Thornburg and the Red Sox shoulder strength program
As one of the key acquisitions that Dave Dombrowski wheeled following the Red Sox departure from the ALDS last fall, Thornburg was another kind of unknown to many Red Sox fans.
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A bright spot in the dumpster fire that currently is Milwaukee Brewer baseball at the moment and for the foreseeable future, Thornburg was seen as a solution to many of the Red Sox bullpen’s inconsistencies heading into this season.
While he still plausibly is, Thornburg has gone down with a shoulder injury, suffering an impingement in his shoulder that has brought some heat on Red Sox manager John Farrell, Dombrowksi and the Red Sox offseason shoulder strength program.
Because of the injury that will keep him out at least a week, Thornburg is guaranteed to start the season on the disabled list and not break camp with the Red Sox.
Thornburg maintains, and has reiterated, that he believes his shoulder injury is a result of the fatigue caused by the throwing program.
Per Jason Mastrodonato of the Boston Herald:
"“If anything, it might have fatigued my arm a little bit before the first outing,” Thornburg said. “Or it possibly could’ve pointed out some weaknesses in my shoulder or something that wasn’t working properly. That’s all stuff we were figuring out in the last couple days. Really feel like we should work on certain areas of my arm to keep those a lot stronger and should help absolutely everything else.”"
Farrell was also quoted as discounting that the throwing program had anything to do with the injury.
"“There’s been a lot written targeting our shoulder program here. I would discount that completely… To suggest that his situation or his symptoms are now the result of our shoulder program, that’s false.”"
The discrepancy in communication and agreement on the part of Thornburg and Farrell does not look pretty. Added further is that the Red Sox are now in the same position to start the year that they were last year, with a late-innings bullpen piece out to begin the year leaving the Red Sox to depend on some unproven arms.
They’ll carry three left-handers so start the year, the most unproven being that of Robby Scott but also arguably Fernando Abad, while using the heavily inconsistent Joe Kelly as the eighth-inning guy, who hopefully — thanks to crowd noise and beer sales ending (?) — will be able to be adequate until Thornburg’s shoulder is taken care of.