Jared Mitchell underwent surgery to repair a tendon tear on the inside of his right ankle on Tuesday:
Mitchell will be immobilized for four to six weeks before beginning the rehabilitation process. Tuesday’s 75-minute procedure, performed by Dr. John Nassar, a foot and ankle specialist at the Greenbaum Outpatient Surgery in Scottsdale, Ariz., went “OK. I think.”
“Somehow we ended up taking out more parts than we put back in,” Nassar said, “but everything seems to fit, so…”
Just kidding. It went “extremely well.” Still, Mitchell will miss the entire season.
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In previous springs, open competitions in the bullpen (2007), infield (2009) and center field (every year) failed to thrill. That said, this year’s righty fight is going down to the wire with three outstanding performances.
Daniel Hudson, Sergio Santos and Greg Aquino each held the Rockies scoreless in their appearances during the White Sox’s 6-1 victory on Tuesday.
*Hudson threw two scoreless innings, striking out two while allowing just one hit. It was Hudson’s most effective outing of the spring (he’s allowed five runs on 10 hits and a walk over eight innings, striking out just three), but Ozzie Guillen has liked the way he’s throwing.
*Santos retired two batters, both by the strikeout, giving him seven over 4 2/3 innings. He did walk two batters, though, which was his first flash of the wildness he’s known for this preseason.
*Aquino is the big surprise. After retiring all four batters he faced, he’s now thrown 6 1/3 hitless innings over three outings.
Santos seems to be the leader unless he continues walking three batters an inning, if only because he’s out of options. He might have to fall hard to get back to Charlotte at this point with the stuff he’s shown.
Behind Santos is Aquino, who might give Guillen some D.J. Carrasco-like versatility, even if, like Carrasco, he has to bide his time with the Knights for a while. Hudson, through no fault of his own, looks like a lock for Triple-A.
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More highlights from Tuesday (box score):
- Alex Rios tripled, walked, drove in two and scored twice before leaving the game with a sore left quad. It’s not serious, but he’s taking today off.
- Carlos Quentin was hit by pitches twice, and also left the game. He won’t miss any time.
- Mark Teahen showed signs of life, walking, singling and laying down a sac bunt.
- Juan Pierre and Mark Kotsay had three hits apiece.
- Freddy Garcia allowed one run over five hits in three innings.
- He was helped by some fine defense, including an Alexei Ramirez relay throw that gunned a runner down at the plate. His positioning on relays has always been an issue, so any improvement would be welcome.
- Randy Williams tossed two goose-eggs of his own, and has thrown seven shutout innings on the spring.
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*Eight White Sox were assigned to minor-league camp:
- Freddy Dolsi
- Brandon Hynick
- Lucas Harrell
- Jhonny Nunez
- Brian Omogrosso
- Clevelan Santeliz
- Santo Luis
- Cole Armstrong
In case you hadn’t heard Hynick’s name all of spring training — I’d forgotten about him — he’s been bothered by shoulder inflammation. Otherwise, there aren’t any notables on this list, unless you count the disappointing Jhonny Nunez.
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Christian Marrero Reading Room:
*Joe Cowley’s ongoing search for spring drama has led him back to Bobby Jenks, who contradicted Herm Schneider by saying his strained calf muscle was actually torn. Whether or not he knows what he’s talking about, the degree of the injury would explain the “nobody wanted to have a catch” storyline from before.
*Rick Hahn, friend of the blog (*cough*), will be named the top assistant GM by Baseball America.
*Going back to Carrasco, this MLB.com story has a lot of fun facts. Did you know:
- He wanted to be a position player?
- The White Sox tried to sign him last century?
- The Pittsburgh Pirates acquired him from indy league baseball for a buck (“I’ll buy that for a dollar!”)?
When he went back to the Pirates, he made Neil Huntington cut him a check for 25 cents — which was what he was owed from that transaction.
Am I the only one who still thinks Santos has little to no chance of making it through waivers…. Sox are going to be forced to keep him despite Aquino success and probably Aquino being a better fit since the sox dont have a long man. Now im not a huge believer in the long man especially when we have 12 guys on the staff but with rain delays and such early on… they can come into play.
Still really bummed about Mitchell, hopefully he can get healthy by september/october and play a lot of winter ball to try and make up for his lost 2010 minor league season. Im very worried about how this will effect him, very.
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I wouldn’t be too worried. Santos will make the team, but there are always changes made to the bullpen as the season goes on, just look at what we’ve had go through our pen the last few years. Aquino will find his way on to the staff at some point if he continues pitching well.
With our rotation, a long reliever is not as valuable to us as it was last year. When you are throwing Bartolo Colon and Contreras out there, you really need a DJ Carrasaco.
If nothing else, we can showcase Santos for a while as a solid reliever who can throw hard and then use him in a trade.
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a strain is a tear. sounds like semantics.
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a strain is a tear with good PR
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Even if Santos makes the opening day roster doesn’t he still have to pass through waivers in order to be sent down during the season?
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pretty sure yea, but typically in that scenario you just make up an injury then have him in AAA on rehab.
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Yup. Teams can buy themselves a little bit of time with the method Knox described, but that’s usually better used with veterans. Guys like Santos, who need development time at one level or another, won’t be helped much by two weeks off and two weeks at Triple-A.
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