Thursday, May 30, 2013

Injury Report: From Head to Calf

The Twins placed Trevor Plouffe on the 15-day DL on Thursday with a strained left calf muscle.

Poor Trevor. This is the worst of all possible luck. He was activated off the 7-day concussion DL on Wednesday, just to strain his calf in pregame warm-ups. He didn't even play in a game.

He missed a fair amount of time in Spring Training with the same injury.

The Twins don't believe it'll take the full 15 days for Plouffe to heal, but with a 13-man (!) pitching staff, they can't afford to have him sitting on the roster unavailable to play. Also, they weren't able to make the move retroactive to the beginning of the first DL stint since it's a separate incident.

The Twins recalled Chris Colabello to replace Plouffe on the roster. Colabello probably didn't even get unpacked after being optioned Wednesday to make room for Plouffe.

Monday, May 27, 2013

Injury Report: Head Cases

Sorry about posting this so late. I treated myself to some relaxation time.



On May 22, the Twins placed 3B Trevor Plouffe on the 7-day DL with concussion-like symptoms. He suffered it during the Braves series plowing into 2B Dan Uggla trying to break up a double play. Plouffe's helmet flew off and Uggla's knee met his head with force. It kind of reminded me of Justin Morneau's collision back in 2010, which was pretty worrisome.

After Plouffe's collision, he laid on the field for a long while, holding his head. And he looked really woozy as he was escorted off the field. The Twins wasted no time and put him on the DL right after the game.

Fortunately, it appears that Plouffe is going to be ok. He's passed his concussion tests, and he's gone through some workouts with no lingering effects. He hopes to be back in the lineup as soon as he's eligible on Wednesday. I hope so too.

The Twins selected the contract of 3B Chris Colabello to replace Plouffe on the active roster and transferred Darin Mastrioanni to the 60-day DL to make room for Colabello on the 40-man roster.

Bonus reading: Here is an article from my friend Seth over at Twins Daily on Chris Colabello's interesting back story.

~~~~

On Monday, the Twins placed OF Wilkin Ramirez on the 7-day DL with concussion-like symptoms. He suffered it on Sunday during the Tigers series when he ran into Josh Willingham while going for a fly ball. I didn't see the play, but apparently, Ramirez's jaw hit Willingham's forearm. Apparently, Josh Willingham has forearms like lead pipes.

The Tigers' team doctor diagnosed Ramirez. Ramirez initially disagreed with the diagnosis, claiming that the only portion of the concussion test he failed was naming the months backwards from December. He insisted that he can't normally name the months any way, English or Spanish.

(Admit it, you just named the months backwards from December.)

Ramirez wanted to appeal the DL stint, until the flight to Milwaukee. He got sick. It was later revealed that the months question was not the only part of the test he failed.

While I appreciate Ramirez's drive to stay on the active roster, I sincerely hope he realizes that brain injuries are nothing to fool around with. It's too soon to tell whether he'll recover quickly or not.

Catcher Chris Herrmann was recalled to replace Ramirez.