Kansas City is holding its collective breath awaiting MRI results for young pitcher Yordano Ventura, whose fireballing ways may land him on the disabled list with elbow problems.
The diminutive flamethrower has become well-known for firing off triple-digit fastballs, and have hope that the dreaded letters UCL won't come into play. Ventura's pain is being felt on a part of the elbow not usually associated with the ulnar collateral ligament, which is where Tommy John surgery enters the picture.
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He was getting under pitches, and his velocity dropped in the third inning," Royals manager Ned Yost said Monday.
"I came out and decided to check it. I talked to him in the second inning, and he said, 'Yeah, it's good.' I went out and he told me he was feeling a little something in the back of his elbow, but it's on the outside, not on the inside."
The circumstantial evidence, his small stature, crazy velocity, and sudden drop in velocity, are all harbingers of doom, but the bit about the location of the pain is promising. On the flip side, it may not be a torn ligament, but rather a separate injury that leads down that path.
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"In the third inning, I threw a few pitches and it started to feel a little weird," Ventura said. "I felt something unnatural. It was a little uncomfortable, unnatural, and I decided to say something."
Ventura's decision to say something could very well keep him off of Dr. James Andrews' operating table. Something every baseball fan around the league should root for. Already this year Marlins' ace Jose Fernandez has been lost for the season because of a torn UCL, and Tommy John surgery has claimed over 20 MLB pitchers already.
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