Is Corey Hart soft?

[bobskube]

We really need him now to balance out the order and he has been out with a strained oblique for what now...six weeks? And we still have no idea when he will come back. Have any of you heard or seen that before? Also, other players (Dunn, Holliday) will come back from their appendectomies in less than two weeks. Hart takes two months that occurred at end of 2009. (Matt Cassel only missed a week too and he could have played but they kept him out for precautionary reasons.)

What do you all think? I think he is a little mentally soft myself. Thoughts?

[The Truth]

there is absolutely no way to know the severity of various injuries and to speculate on that and then jump to conclusions seems foolhardy. We all want him back ASAP

[rluzinski]

We have no idea how he feels.

[azcheesehead]

Well, at this point he's making Matt Holliday look like Superman.

[bobskube]

there is absolutely no way to know the severity of various injuries and to speculate on that and then jump to conclusions seems foolhardy. We all want him back ASAP

I want him back too but this one seems a bit fishy. Either this is more serious than Brewers have let on or Hart is a little soft.

By the way, I am not jumping to a conclusion. I am just openly questioning situation.

 

[Ennder]

Hart's appendix burst, they aren't the same thing as all. Other players including Harang and Izturis missed a month when their appendix burst as well. The oblique is the type of injury that can take 3 weeks or it can take a lot longer, just depends on how severe it is.

[derflotr]

I've never been too comfortable questioning an athlete's toughness. I don't know what Corey's going through right now so I don't want to stay anything in that regard. However, as a player he definitely has moments where he doesn't seem completely focused. I think "unreliable" is a better word than "soft". I don't expect him to produce like I expect others on the team to produce. I still feel like it's a bonus when he does produce, like last season.

[dlk9s]

Maybe he's pretty hurt?

[Brewer Fever]

Just to throw another example out there...

 

Didn't Giants closer Brian Wilson also strain an oblique? He's back in the majors already suffering his strain on March 19th. Hart's original strain came on February 26th. He re-aggravated it on March 5th. At the minimum, Wilson's injury came a full 2 weeks after Hart's final tweak yet he's back at full go.

[dlk9s]

Maybe Wilson's wasn't as bad and he didn't re-aggravate it?

[Robideaux]

The oblique is a big muscle, and we have no idea what grade the tear was or where exactly it was located. Swinging a bat is a relatively violent motion that requires a lot of core strength.

 

I'm sure Corey wants to be back on the field more than you do. Calling an injured athlete soft or mentally soft without specific knowledge of the injury isn't a classy move, in my opinion.

[SoCal Brew Crew Fan]

I'm neither a doctor nor did I stay at a Holiday Inn Express last night, but Corey has never seemed like a soft guy. He seems pretty competitive and probably wants to be out there more than anything right now. I'm more concerned they have missed something and his injury is worse than they originally thought.

[bigredrobbo]

Corey Hart is a tattooed maniac - ergo, not soft!

[RobDeer 45]

No two muscle injuries are going to feel the same nor heal the same on different people. You can't say hes milking this or being soft. He wants back in, hes not like that. What I have thought in the past is that mentally he's not the toughest. He seems to get down easily. I could see that affecting him right now but he's not acting soft. I want him healthy and he will be a bonus to a solid team. Right now we can get by with Nyger.

[battlekow]

They Brewers do have one player who's quite soft, but it's not Hart.

[Funketown]

I asked Corey, and he told me he is not mentally soft.

 

Based on what we know, this criticism seems unwarranted.

[TooLiveBrew]

Based on what we know, this criticism seems unwarranted.

 

But not at all surprising. After all, this is the poster that wanted Hart flat-out released heading into last season. Although I'm sure Bobskube is not only a doctor, but that he's examined Hart specifically.

 

From the game recap story on 8.2.09, the same day Hart went in to have surgery:

The team got some bad news when Corey Hart had to be taken to a local

hospital for an appendectomy. He was placed on the disabled list, and

Bill Hall was recalled from Class AAA Nashville and will be used as an

outfielder.

 

Hart will likely not be back before September, but that was an early

timetable from general manager Doug Melvin and trainer Roger Caplinger.

More was expected to be known once the surgery was completed.

This info wasn't hard to find. An initial timetable of 4-ish weeks clearly indicates that Hart's was obviously a more severe case of appendicitis than Holliday's or Dunn's. But yeah, he's totally soft. Because you can control how your inner parts heal by being a super tough guy. If only Uecker wasn't soft -- he would've been back after the All-Star break last season!

[umphrey]

I'm starting to really lose faith in Corey Hart. Thing is though I felt this exact same way at this time last year, and he went on to crush the seams off the ball into the HR derby (forgettable performance though). I look forward to hoping he surprises me but I still feel like whatever he gives us over a Gomez/Morgan outfield is a bonus and not expected.

[brewers19]

Corey Hart has a career OPS of .812, compared to .641 and .709 from Gomez and Morgan, respectively. You'd be surprised if he puts up better numbers than them?

[Ennder]

To be fair he is a very significant downgrade defensively. No reason to not expect more out of Hart than Gomez but the gap between Hart and Morgan isn't all that huge and it wouldn't surprise me if Morgan is better than Hart vs RHP.

[owbc]

This is ridiculous. What do people have against Corey Hart? Greinke and Hart both have similar injuries, why does Greinke get a free pass for taking 2 months to recover and Hart doesn't? Rib injuries take 2 months.

[GormanHarvey]

They Brewers do have one player who's quite soft, but it's not Hart.

 

 

Ok, I know basically nothing about Twitter. Did Nyjer really tweet all that stuff? If so, he is freakin hilarious!

[RobDeer 45]

I would say that is not T. Plush. Especially becasue that was going on during the game.

 

Ya it's funny how quickly some people jump off a solid player's band wagon when he's not around. You just can't criticize a player for not getting back out there when it comes to muscle and tissue injuries. He's doing everything he can to get back and be healthy! You can't play this game at a major league level if you are having to hold back because of injury.

[Crew2323]

This is ridiculous. What do people have against Corey Hart? Greinke and Hart both have similar injuries, why does Greinke get a free pass for taking 2 months to recover and Hart doesn't? Rib injuries take 2 months.

I don't see Greinke and Hart's injuries as similar at all. One had a broken bone, the other has a muscle strain/tear. The broken bone is easier to determine the length of time a player will be out whereas a muscle strain/tear is more difficult to determine the length of time a player will be out. Greinke simply had to wait for the bone to heal until he could resume throwing and building up his arm strength. The time frame was pretty clear on that injury. Hart, however, has to be cautious in his approach so that he doesn't aggravate his injury. He's at the mercy of his muscle, and until it fully heals--which no one knows when that will be--he cannot resume full baseball activities.

 

So you have one player with an injury that is fairly easy to project, as far as his timetable goes. You have another player with an injury that has an uncertain timetable. That's the likely cause of frustration among fans. We want Hart to be back, but no one knows when his muscle will be fully healed, not us, not Hart, not the doctors. These injuries really aren't similar. In fact, they're actually quite different.

[Fear The Chorizo]

I strained an oblique in college hitting off a tee during winter practice, and it took over a month for it to feel completely healthy without doing anything baseball related - even then there is a mental hurdle to clear before you don't think about it every time you swing a bat or get ready to make a throw from the outfield.

 

I think some of the "softness" questioning stems from an overly ambitious timetable the training staff put Hart on prior to his setback in spring training. He strained the oblique early on, yet didn't let the thing fully heal before probably injuring it worse. Now he has to take the necessary time to let it heal, along with clearing the mental hurdle of performing baseball activities at 100% without fear of reinjuring it. Muscle injuries like these are so difficult to predict a timetable for - you have to look at them on a case-by-case basis. Hart's what, 6-5 or 6-6? That's a pretty big oblique muscle to strain, which has probably contributed to how long it's taking to completely heal.

 

I don't question Hart's toughness - it's just unfortunate for the Brewers that the injury and setback occurred...having him hitting in the 2 hole with a Morgan/Gomez platoon in center would greatly improve their offensive lineup.