Should we be worried about Cookie Carrasco?
I imagine many text exchanges between Mets fans went something like the one between my dad and me yesterday:
ME: Carrasco has some elbow soreness, but doesn’t sound like a big deal.
MY DAD: That means he’s out for the season.
Mets fans have seen this story unfold before: Player is pulled from the lineup for an undisclosed reason; team later reveals the player has a very minor injury; team holds player out of additional games for “precautionary” reasons; player has MRI; player is out for the season. (We’re still waiting for Carlos Delgado to return from his day-to-day injury. Any day now!)
So while I understand that fans are still recovering from Jed Lowrie, perhaps with Mr. Carrasco things will be different. To back up this point, read a tweet from almost one year ago to the day:
Sound familiar? Carrasco would eventually get an MRI to rule out any structural damage, and after gaining several months to work himself back to full health during the pandemic, he ended up making 12 starts for the Indians in the shortened 2020 season, rebounding nicely off his 2019 campaign that was interrupted by his cancer diagnosis.
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With manager Luis Rojas telling reporters, “he's telling us that this is something that he has gone through,” Mets fans can feel some assurance that Carrasco is telling his new team the truth.
This was from Spring Training in 2017:
Indians manager Terry Francona noted that Carrasco underwent an MRI exam earlier in the day, revealing some swelling, but no structural damage in his right elbow. As a result, Francona said the team is leaning toward skipping Carrasco at least once in the spring rotation.
It’s like his right elbow has nine lives or exists in that Groundhog Day movie. This is the second consecutive spring he has had issues with it, with last year’s turning into nothing. He also experienced swelling in 2017, before having his best season in the majors. And in 2018, he only needed a short stint on the DL after taking a Joe Mauer line drive off the same elbow.
Meanwhile, he has pretty much pitched every fifth day since 2015, with two years ago being the justifiable exception due to his battle with chronic myeloid leukemia.
While it’s not ideal to have one of their top starters sidelined this early in the season, the Mets can weather the storm. We will talk in more detail about their rotation depth throughout the spring. But, for now, take a deep breath and have some faith that Cookie’s elbow has a few more lives left in it.