On Tuesday, 27 year old Texas Rangers’ pitcher Derek Holland fell on the stairs at his home severely injuring his left knee. Unfortunately the result of the injury required arthroscopic surgery that was performed on Friday by the team physician Dr. Keith Meister. During the surgery Dr. Meister repaired the torn cartilage behind Holland’s knee but lucky for both Holland and the Rangers there was no ligament damage.
Via AP: “I am devastated by this injury. It was a freak accident at home that resulted in a hard fall on my knee,” Holland said in a statement released by the team. “As upsetting as this is, my goal is to begin rehab and get back on the mound as quickly as possible.”
Getting back to the mound quickly might be a little tougher than the Rangers’ star expects. According to Texas General Manager Jon Daniels, Holland will only be allowed limited activity for the next six weeks. The team is planning for the lefty to be able to return by mid-season but are optimistic that he may be available earlier than that.
“I feel I could be back sooner, but I don’t know, I’ve never had an injury like this,” Holland said. “That seems like a long time, but I’ve never had this before, so I don’t know what to expect.”
It appears both he and the Rangers will just have to wait and see. Holland, who has been with the Rangers for the last five seasons, pitched a career high 213 innings in 2013 finishing the season at 10-9 with a 3.42 ERA. He is under contract with Texas until 2016 with club options for 2017 and 2018.
Holland is a staple to the Texas starting rotation along with Japanese ace Yu Darvish. This injury is certainly a set back for the Rangers. Even without Holland Texas still has four solid pitchers in their rotation. As it appears now their opening day starting rotation will be Darvish, Matt Harrison, Martin Perez and Alexi Ogondo.
When asked about replacing Holland in the rotation Daniels said that the Rangers will definitely be looking to add to their pitching before the start of the 2014 season. He did specifically clarify that he didn’t necessarily mean finding a replacement for Holland but just adding in the “depth category.” Mostly likely this will entail having a long reliever from the bullpen step up to the starting rotation.
“This is an opportunity for a number of our guys,” Daniels said. “We’re going to go out and hopefully fortify that group and give ourselves some additional options and expect Derek will be back midyear.”
The Rangers were once rumored to be interested in, newly posted, Japanese free-agent Masahiro Tanaka and they certainly have the money to spend. But Daniels seemed to hint that would not be their course of action saying that it didn’t seem like a “big ticket item,” which would be a player like Tanaka, would be the answer to the temporary loss of Holland.
For more injury related news go to MLB Nation - delivering the latest news, insights, and analysis from around the league.
My A's fan perspective: well, it's definitely NOT a bad thing for us A's fans but it is usually Texas' job to choke down the stretch! Let's just hope they just choke all season! LOL! JK! (kinda, I just don't wanna bring us bad baseball voodoo karma, ya know?) We are gonna do it this year A's fans! Our team is hella complete and it just seems right and this year people know the name Josh Donaldson in the baseball world and Sonny Gray ... Our rotation is gonna be kick ass and I need to see a Gold Glove Award in BringerOfRain's hand at the end of 2014! Anyways, I'm rambling! I hope you read and shared my article! :-)
No comments:
Post a Comment