Link Report for Tue. 4/19 -- Latest: Josh Butler line drive to the head (video for MiLB.TV subscribers)

[TooLiveBrew]

Jeez, left out of the sentence "Former Sound Vinny Rottino led off the frame with a base hit that chased Sounds starter Josh Butler from the contest" is the useful context, provided above by UeckerPowell, that Rottino's single hit Butler in the head.

 

Yeah, that was my thought precisely. That's a pretty egregious omission.

[battlekow]

Greinke enjoys easy night with 93-mph heater

Mart DeCotis/Florida Today

VIERA — One and done for Zack Greinke as a Brevard County Manatee.

In Viera on a rehab assignment as he continues his comeback from a fractured rib, Greinke, the 2009 American League Cy Young Award winner with the Kansas City Royals, breezed through three innings against the Tampa Yankees on Tuesday night.

He threw 35 pitches, 27 strikes and eight balls. He struck out four and allowed one hit, a one-out ground-ball single to short right field.

Next stop for Greinke, who was acquired by the Milwaukee Brewers in the offseason to be their ace but who was sidelined by the rib he injured while playing basketball, is a stint in five days for the Brewers' Triple-A affiliate in Nashville.

He was pleased with his easy effort for the Manatees, the Brewers' Advanced-Class A Florida State League affiliate, before 1,909 fans at Space Coast Stadium.

The Manatees won 7-0.

"It was good, good game, locating my stuff, throwing everything," Greinke said. "Everything worked out good."

Greinke hit 93 mph on the radar gun, so velocity wasn't an issue.

"Just letting it go nice and easy kind of," he said. "It felt good coming out of my hand. Slider was pretty good, curve was pretty good. Location was good. It felt good out of the stretch. Pretty happy overall."

Manatees manager Jeff Isom sees the benefits big leaguers such as Greinke and 16-year veteran LaTroy Hawkins, who pitched in three games for the Manatees while also on a rehab assignment, bring to a Class A team.

"They're aware of where our players are trying to get to," Isom said. "They've got the experience, obviously. LaTroy Hawkins . . . you've got a professional guy there, the way he goes about his business.

"Zack Greinke, you've got a Cy Young Award winner. Our guys are all eyes. They're sitting there watching and seeing, 'What does a Cy Young guy do? What does a 16-year veteran do? What do they do to prepare for the game? How are they around the other guys?'

"They're definitely all eyes."

To that end, Hawkins had a message for the Manatees' players and staff that resonated.

Said Isom: "He mentioned to the team and staff in a meeting, he said that he thinks that every established major leaguer should have to go and do a rehab and just remember where they came from and remember the grind that they're doing and understand about player development and it's not always about winning."

Also of note Tuesday was the Manatees' debut of former Florida State baseball and football standout D'Vontrey Richardson, who started in centerfield. He went 3-for-4 with two RBIs and one run scored.

Richardson began the season on the disabled list with a hip injury.

The Manatees also placed pitcher Evan Anundsen, first baseman Chris Dennis and catcher Rafael Neda on the seven-day disabled list and activated Richardson and right-handed pitcher Corey Frerichs.

[Mass Haas]

Zack Greinke photo gallery part of the linked article you just read.

[Mass Haas]

Second Zephyrs' foe struck by line drive

By Bob Fortus, The Times-Picayune

 

Zephyr Field for the last two nights has been the Twilight Zone for visiting pitchers.

http://media.nola.com/zephyrs_impact/photo/josh-butlerjpg-d6a090dabb40f0bc.jpgJosh Butler

In two consecutive games, a New Orleans Zephyrs batter lined the ball off the opposing starter’s head and put him out of the game.

On Tuesday night, Nashville pitcher Josh Butler took the hit. Leading off the fourth inning, Vinny Rottino smacked a line drive that struck Butler above the forehead. He went down, and teammates surrounded him. About a minute later, he got up and walked off the field with assistance.

Nashville Manager Don Money said that Butler appeared fine after the game, which the Zephyrs won 6-5.

Butler wasn’t taken to a hospital but will be examined by a doctor today, Money said. “He’s going to have a headache, I would think,’’ Money said. “They’re going to re-evaluate him in the morning.’’

On Monday night, Round Rock pitcher Eric Hurley was struck in the head by a smash off the bat of Bryan Petersen. Hurley was taken to East Jefferson General Hospital, where he had a CT scan. On Tuesday, Hurley remained hospitalized, and by late Tuesday, Round Rock communications staff hadn’t released an update on his condition.

“Two nights in a row; that’s unbelievable,’’ Rottino said. “(Butler) did get his glove up a bit, so it didn’t get him flush. How does that happen two nights in a row — line drives off the pitcher’s head? You’re in the midst of competing. You don’t want to see that.’’

With circumstances so eerie, it’s easy to overlook the game itself, which the Zephyrs won Tuesday night behind starter Dallas Trahern (1-0).

A three-run first-inning play, on which two runs scored on an error, gave the Zephyrs an early 3-0 lead, and Trahern pitched six solid innings for the victory.

With two out in the Zephyrs first, Ruben Gotay reached on an infield hit, and Joe Thurston singled him to second. Josh Kroeger then singled to left, and left fielder Brandon Boggs, charging the ball, couldn’t make connections. When it rolled under his glove to the wall, Gotay, Thurston and Kroeger scored.

 

In the fourth inning, the Zephyrs botched a rundown, and Eric Farris scored on a wild throw past third by second baseman Thurston. But the Zephyrs answered in the bottom of the inning. Rottino, whose liner off Butler went for an infield hit, scored on a double by Chris Aguila.

 

The Zephyrs made the scored 6-1 in the fifth inning. Thurston’s single drove home one run, and another run scored when Rottino hit into a force play.

Nashville scored twice in the sixth, and a two-run homer by Farris off Frank Mata with one out in the eighth cut the Sounds’ deficit to 6-5.

Victor Garate finished the inning for the Zephyrs, and Jose Ceda pitched the ninth for his third save in three chances this season.

Butler (1-1) picked up the loss, but in light of the blows that he and Hurley took, baseball statistics don’t seem so important.

“It’s scary,’’ Zephyrs Manager Greg Norton said. “You don’t want anything up in the head.’’

QUICK HITS: The series resumes with a game at 11:30 AM Wednesday. Zephyrs right-hander Tom Koehler (1-0, 0.75 earned run average) will pitch against Sounds right-hander Frankie De La Cruz (0-0, 4.50). ... Rottino played catcher for the first time this season.

[Mass Haas]

Chris' two most recent snow-centric posts (link, link) at his blog includes more fun with the Mike Walker / Chuck Norris notion.

[Mass Haas]

Manatees might enjoy road trips

by Mark DeCotis, Florida Today

 

The Brevard County Manatees leave today for a six-game road trip that includes a brief journey back home for Easter and a rare day off.

And the way things are going right now, the Manatees, who are 4-9, it might be a good thing. In fact, Manatees Manager Jeff Isom sees positives in road trips at the Advanced-Class A Florida State League level.

"Sometimes, it's a good thing, to get away," Isom said. "Usually, at home you've got a bunch of rovers (roving instructors) in town, the days are long.

"Sometimes going on the road, you can sit back, relax. You get to be around the whole team. They hang out quite a bit. So the camaraderie starts increasing and the guys start jelling as a team a little bit more."

The Manatees play three games at Clearwater beginning at 3:00 PM Wednesday (2:00 Central) and then head east for one game at Lakeland on Saturday before Sunday's holiday break. They then head back to Lakeland for two more games before returning home to kick off a six-game homestand by hosting Dunedin.

The road has been kind to the Manatees so far. They took two out of three from two-time defending league champion the Tampa Yankees but lost four of their last six games all at home. They did break through on Tuesday night, throttling Tampa 7-0 in the final game of their three-game series. So are they ready to hit the road?

"I think so," Isom said before Tuesday's series finale. "We just need to continue playing baseball games, bottom line. I think a road trip can be good at times and this might be the right time to have it, get guys together and hang out."

Shortstop Josh Prince, in his second season with the Manatees, agreed.

"The traveling on the road in this league is nice because nothing we travel is more than four hours," he said. "The two-hour, 2 1/2-hour bus trip, all the guys are sitting there talking to each other, talking about the game, talking about what's going on in their lives.

"Being in this league, the travel kind of helps the players bond to each other because there's less time to sleep and more time to sit and talk."

The routine of the road, with specific, set and shorter times on the field also gives the players time to rest and heal from the rigors of the playing-every-day grind, especially now that hot weather and humidity are arriving.

It also provides the opportunity for the players and coaches to get to know each other better with the purpose of continuing their development as ballplayers, which is the bottom line at this level.

"You create a routine," Prince said. "You create something you do every single day. Knowing exactly how much time and where you're at and things like that helps you create that. I think it's part of becoming a professional. Everybody kind of gets their own routine and their own agenda of how they do things."

And there is also is one more benefit.

"Getting on the road might help us kind of forget about this (slow start) and move on with the season," Prince said.

Isom agreed.

"Maybe it is time to get on the road right now," he said. "Try to get things back in line. Wins and losses it's a lot more difficult to win games on the road for different reasons but, yeah, it will be hopefully a good road trip for us."

[Mass Haas]

A reminder from Tuesday:

 

In two consecutive games, a New Orleans Zephyrs batter lined the ball off the opposing starter’s head and put him out of the game.

On Tuesday night, Nashville pitcher Josh Butler took the hit. Leading off the fourth inning, Vinny Rottino smacked a line drive that struck Butler above the forehead. He went down, and teammates surrounded him. About a minute later, he got up and walked off the field with assistance.

Nashville Manager Don Money said that Butler appeared fine after the game, which the Zephyrs won 6-5.

Butler wasn’t taken to a hospital but will be examined by a doctor today, Money said. “He’s going to have a headache, I would think,’’ Money said. “They’re going to re-evaluate him in the morning.’’

 

***

 

It took a couple of days to get it archived, and there is no corresponding audio, but MiLB.TV has the video of the game online for MiLB.TV subscribers.

 

Go to the date of 4/19. You can then go to the 57:45 minute/second mark to see the bottom of the 4th begin. On the second pitch, Butler is sent to the ground, legs flailing for a bit, it really is a tremendously scary piece of video. Of course, everyone converges on the mound to care for him / check him out. He is sitting up and then walking off (aided for support) within a couple of minutes. Josh was incredibly lucky.

[TooLiveBrew]

Yikes. I hope Josh actually winds up being ok.

[TheCrew07]

Why wouldn't they test him for a concussion right away, as soon as they got him into the clubhouse? Or is that too obvious? Forehead tendonitis perhaps? Why wait overnight to have him see a doctor? You're only going to see a doctor if the concussion is severe or if you think the skull is cracked, either way it's an immediate emergency room visit. If he's got either serious injury then you'd logically want to make sure the swelling around the brain wasn't going to cause a more severe problem. This isn't a joint injury where swelling can cause problems with diagnosis, head injuries are the rest of someone's life... which is why we don't mess around with them at all and address them immediately. A ball moving that fast with a finite impact point... just yikes. I haven't seen the video but I hope for Josh's sake it was more of a glancing blow and I'm just overreacting.

 

Yea I know I'm bagging on the trainers again, I just don't understand how the trainers the Brewers hire seem to be worse at injury diagnosis and treatment than our High School trainer is. I also understand concussions and head injuries have been more of a football thing, or at least that's the perception... but come on.

 

It was reinforced again at this year's clinic that in terms of debilitating long term head trauma, Boxing is #1, Soccer is #2, Football #3, followed by Hockey and Baseball. Yea I know, Soccer is supposedly a "safe" sport but there's nothing safe about redirecting a ball moving at 90 MPH with your head, and a soccer ball has the ability to change it's shape and lesson the impact, a baseball is much more firm striking with a much smaller impact area, usually at a higher velocity than a soccer ball. I actually think hockey is worse than football, the helmets are gimpy and falling on ice is like falling on concrete, I just don't think hockey has done a good job diagnosing concussions.

 

I've always wondered about Koskie... what should have been minor concussion ended his career. The evidence would seem to suggest a history of significant head trauma that was improperly treated over the years. Getting a concussion isn't the problem, continuing to put stress on the brain by playing again too soon or remaining active is the problem. For example, new studies have shown that kids who get concussions shouldn't even be allowed to watch TV or read a book, much less go to school... the idea should be to minimize as much brain activity as possible. I know that's unthinkable in this age of instant gratification, but they should lay in bed doing essentially nothing. The end result of coming back too soon or playing through head injuries is that a relatively minor fall ends someone's career... it's not the fall itself, it's everything that came before it. There is an exponential cumulative effect with improper treatment. I'm not trying to scare parents away from sports and I'm not talking about coddling/pampering every little owie, there's too much of that the way it is, but there can be grave consequences for certain injuries especially for significant falls. Peewee football, mite hockey, dirt bikes, snow mobiles, little league, bikes, skateboards, falling down the stairs... doesn't matter. If you're child isn't acting right and you know it, do something about it, don't wait for it to get better.

 

/off soapbox

[TooLiveBrew]

I haven't seen the video but I hope for Josh's sake it was more of a glancing blow and I'm just overreacting.

 

I just watched it again. It was anything but. It was basically a direct hit; the ball ricocheted back almost directly toward home plate. I also can't believe the Brewers didn't treat the injury as urgent.