Strange how baseball works.
When Matt Daley was pitching for the Bucknell Bison, he blew out his elbow and had Tommy John surgery. Sunday, news arrived that fellow Rockies reliever Taylor Buchholz must undergo the same procedure. That means Daley will be counted on to beef up the back end of the bullpen.
Daley, called up from Triple- A Colorado Springs on April 22, is 0-1 with a 3.00 ERA. He’s now fully recovered from a left foot sprain that landed him on the disabled list May 18.
He’s got the kind of bulldog mentality that manager Jim Tracy loves.
“The one guy who jumps out and goes well beyond your perception going into spring training has got to be Matt Daley at this point,” Tracy said. “You see this guy come out of the bullpen and you see his courage and his ability to compete. He is in that video room, he’s studying swings, he’s studying tendencies, he’s bringing a lot of information when that gate opens out there.”
Buchholz surgery.
After three months of diligent rehab, reaching every goal, Buchholz hit a dead end Saturday when he pushed his right elbow to the limit in a bullpen session and the elbow failed him.
The Rockies said Sunday he will have elbow ligament transplant surgery on Wednesday or Thursday in Denver.
“I was hoping this could be avoided. That’s why we waited this long,” Buchholz said. “Looking back, I guess you could say I could have had this done three months ago. But we were hopeful.”
Normal recovery time for the surgery is 10 to 12 months.
“It’s a little scary, of course, but I am optimistic,” he said. “I know some guys have come back better than ever.”
Hitting the wall.
There was significance to Dexter Fowler’s beautiful catch of Russell Branyan’s drive to deep center field to end the fifth. In 2007, playing for Single-A Modesto, Fowler broke his right hand crashing into a wall. The injury cost him half a season, making him leery of chasing balls beyond the warning track.
Sunday’s catch showed Fowler is letting go of that fear.
