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The Detroit Tigers' excellent and still improving set-up pitcher who consistently pitches in the range of 100 mph--often reaching 102 mph--had to leave the game on Monday evening in extreme pain. The catcher, Gerald Laird, and the third baseman, Brandon Inge, both reported that they heard a pop sound when Zumuya pitched a 99-mph fastball. Today X-rays and MRIs confirmed that he had suffered a fractured elbow. In other words, he threw the ball so hard it fractured the bone.
The popping sound could have been caused by a massive muscle tear, or a tendon separation from the bone; at least a broken bone will heal more readily. But estimates are that he will be out for the rest of the season.
One has to wonder if perhaps Zumaya has been going beyond human endurance, by throwing so hard so many times. Maybe his arm simply was not designed to withstand so much repeated peak stress.
In the past Zuymaya has suffered several season-ending injuries, including a finger dislocation suffered while warming up in the bullpen, plus two injuries involving his shoulder (one of which required surgery to remove a bone chip).
Could this latest injury mean the end of "Zoom-Zoom's" career? He is still fairly young--he first joined the team as a rookie in 2006. The bone will undoubtedly heal in time for next season. But will he dare to throw his trademark 100+ mph fastballs any more?
The tragedy greatly overshadowed a victory for the Tigers over the Minnesota Twins, which put the Tigers ahead of the Twins into first place in the American League Central Division.
Posts: 3742 | Registered: Dec 2001
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Zumaya might not be as glitchy as say, Todd Jones used to be (my mom used to call him Heart Attack Jones), but Zumaya easily misses as many as he hits. For all his triple digit fast balls, maybe one in three is a strike, and most of those balls are wild pitches that get by Laird or Avila. The guy needs to seriously work on his control. It's silly to throw that hard if all the batter has to do is stand there while Zoomer walks him.
Posts: 21898 | Registered: Nov 2004
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posted
Zumaya had shown significant improvement this year. It looked like he was finally getting it all together. His ERA was only 2.58. And his ratio of strikeouts to bases on balls was excellent, at 34 to 11. (That's better than 3:1. So he might walk a batter, but then strike out the next three.) The manager, Jim Leyland, had come to rely on Zumaya as his favorite set-up pitcher to bring in for the eighth inning, to prepare the way for the closer, Valverde.
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Everyone now expects that Joel Zumaya will be back next year. He had told the Detroit announcers prior to the game where he suffered his injury that he was going to dispense with his curve ball--which he throws in the mid-80's--and just use his split-fingered fastball as an alternative to his regular fastball. Both pitches use the same arm motion. He said he was afraid he might have been telegraphing his curve ball. So maybe throwing all those superfast fastballs and the splitter with the same arm motion, one after another, allowed the stress to build up to the breaking point. So maybe in the future if he is careful to mix up his fastballs with slower pitches, and gets a little extra rest between games inwhich he pitches, he might be able to get through a full season without another injury.
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