I don’t like the sound of this one bit, but Johan Santana’s comeback attempt took a step back today when GM Sandy Alderson announced that the lefthander experienced “soreness in his left shoulder while attempting to increase the intensity of his mound sessions.”
Santana was expected to begin his final phase of his recovery this week and face live hitters, but when he tried to increase his pitching intensity on June 3rd, he felt soreness and was shut down. I wonder why it’s taken over a week to reveal that information?
Anyway, since then Santana has only done some long toss sessions, but he is expected to go back to throwing off a mound again sometime this week.
Alderson said he didn’t consider this a setback, but the way I look at it, it’s a setback in every sense of the word. Santana’s sore shoulder will not only keep him from throwing to live batters this week as was planned, but he has actually stepped two phases back and is now only long tossing like he was in February. Sorry, you can sugarcoat it all you want, but this is definitely a setback, folks.
Hopefully he can get back to where he was expected to be (phase four) in short order, but the way our rotation is pitching right now, no need to rush the process.
