Wednesday, May 12, 2010

Marquis to have surgery

NEW YORK -- Jason Marquis says he will likely need surgery to remove bone chips in his right elbow after a ragged rehab start last night for Class A Potomac.

Marquis, who came to Citi Field today to meet with team doctors and officials, said his elbow "locked up" this morning. Asked whether he thought he would need surgery, he replied: "It's definitely a strong possibility."

The Nationals won't make a final decision immediately. If Marquis does have the arthroscopic procedure to remove the loose bodies, he would likely miss eight to 10 weeks.

UPDATE AT 12:45 P.M. -- Here's the full story on Marquis on CSNwashington.com.

UPDATE AT 5:40 P.M. -- It's official now: Marquis will have arthroscopic surgery Friday in Cincinnati.

17 comments:

MikeHarris said...

Again, I ask: Loose bodies? Why not surgery right away? Are they going to melt? Attach to a bone? Get unloose somehow? This is all very confusing to me because it seems obvious that it should have been taken care of promptly.

Souldrummer said...

Man, Mark. Way to go getting on the board first with this one. Tragic that we didn't go the surgery route first. Looks like Marquis needs to get that surgery ASAP and hope that he will be one of the options to pick up the baton once Strasburg gets shut down as Marquis attempts to maintain his Streak Which Shall Not Be Named.

cadeck13 said...

Yep, couldn't we be almost 3 weeks into healing by now? A little confusing to me....just sayin'

Souldrummer said...

I guess it's like the team just can't make a guy get surgery and it was clear that Marquis wanted to try to pitch as soon as possible, although I have no idea why with a 2 year guaranteed deal. You chalk this one up to injuries and bad breaks, and you hope and pray that this doesn't cool the FO to making deals that will require them to pickup some salary as they try to win. Ironic isn't it. They try to go home grown with the Sean Hill's and John Patterson's and the cast of thousands from last year and fail miserably. They try to get the free agent to manage the prospects and it's looking really bad so far.

I still think that this one is good process, bad results. Still, Livo plus Atilano have more than made up for Marquis' failures.

Natsochist said...

Will someone please fire our entire (expletive-deleted) medical staff? This happens far too frequently, and there were plenty of people in the comments here originally saying avoiding surgery was probably a boneheaded move. Identify problems, FIX them, and get the player ready to play well again ASAP.

This level of amateur-hour crap has to stop. I'm beyond fed-up with it, and I'm just a fan. I can't imagine how the players themselves must feel.

Section 222 said...

Gee, wasn't Marquis angling for taking Lannan's slot for that Saturday start? What a disappointment he's been. Souldrummer has a good point about him hopefully returning after SS is shut down. Is that a realistic possibility if he had the surgery soon? Would it have been if he had the surgery three weeks ago?

Anonymous said...

Nice timing. They could use that extra slot on the 40-man for Strasburg as they appear to have a bullpen problem. I wonder if Batista, Bruney and perhaps Burnett need to placed on the DL? And then there's Lannan ...

Anonymous said...

Oooops Stras is already on the 40-man ... its the 25? Hmmm, Storen could use that slot though?

Anonymous said...

As far as "after Strasburg is shutdown" like Wimpy I will happily take a Jordan Zimmermann and pay to keep Marquis on the DL on some distant Tuesday ... next year.

Dave said...

Way to go, Mark. Zach Berman at the Nationals Journal headed his post this morning: "Jason Marquis Leaves Rehab Start Healthy."

Um, no...he leaves his rehab start by getting lit up and with the foreign bodies still in his elbow. That sorta seems like not healthy to me.

Get it fixed, accept the 8-10 weeks without him, and then see what's left. Quit screwing around here, Nats.

K.D. said...

You can't make a guy go under the knife, he has to make that decision. Now if he has, get it done and focus on getting back. They picked him up for a reason and while it's not his fault he is injured, if he would have accepted the MRI results he would be part way through his recovery by now. I hope he comes back healthy & strong to give Livo a break once the dog days of summer arrive.

Anonymous said...

The Nats haven't been the ones screwing around here, Marquis has. They can't force him to have surgery, and neither can the doctors. He has to make that decision himself. What the Nats can do and have done is to make it clear to him that he's not pitching in the bigs again until his performance warrants it. He took the gamble that he could get by without having surgery until after the season, and it sounds like he finally has come to the realization that that was a bad bet on his part.

Bote Man said...

If what we have seen of Marquis this season is due solely to the illegal immigrants living in his elbow, then the sensible solution is to perform the necessary medical procedure so that he can earn his keep. If not, then he and Bruney should go on the infinite-day D.L. never to see a pitching mound again.

I agree that the medical advice and services that the Nationals have received in their time in D.C. have been questionable at best, and harmful at worst. I'm pretty sure the sign over the door to the team doctor's office reads "Three Stooges", but only Curly has office hours.

Dave said...

@Anon 1:17 PM: "The Nats haven't been the ones screwing around here, Marquis has."

Fair enough. I'm not really sure why I laid it at the Nats' feet. You're exactly right: this is all about Marquis not doing what he needs to do. I agree with K.D. that if Marquis had taken care of this after that disastrous start versus Milwaukee, he would have been halfway through the recovery period now.

So stop screwing around, Jason, and get it fixed!

Mark Zuckerman said...

Just to add my two cents to this discussion: I wouldn't put too much blame on the Nationals here. Their team doctor looked at Marquis initially, then he wanted a second opinion from Tim Kremchek in Cincinnati. My hunch is that the club would have preferred he have the surgery all along, but Marquis (with Kremchek's blessing) wanted to try to pitch through it.

Nervous Nats Fan said...

Not that I think he's right, but there can always be surgical complications/slow recovery/no recovery. So I don't think Marquis was crazy to try more conservative treatment first and then opt for surgery if it became necessary. Sure, it wasted four (?) starts, but particularly since it was such a new problem (based on the MRI at signing), he probably didn't want to jump right under the knife.

greg said...

i agree that we shouldn't be too hard on marquis here. if you have a reasonable doctor's opinion that you could avoid surgery with rehab, why be so quick to just go have surgery? if the rehab had worked, he would be back in the rotation before the end of may. surgery isn't something that should be taken so lightly.

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