And So It Begins… Jaime Garcia Is Having A ‘Minor Setback’

Some guys have all the luck. Others seem to have none.

Jaime Garcia, the perpetually injured Cardinals pitcher suffered a “minor setback” after throwing 80 pitches in a simulated game earlier this week. He will miss today’s scheduled spring start and will take it “a day at a time”.

He has made 36 starts in the past 3 seasons. 16 starts since 2013.

From STLToday:

“The last time I threw that simulated game, it felt really good _ as good as it’s felt this whole time,” said Garcia, who had thoracic outlet syndrome surgery last July to address a nerve issue in his left shoulder. “I just wasn’t able to recover the way I wanted to.

“The couple of days after, it was kind of hard to tell. After everything that I’ve gone through, you get some soreness and some fatigue in there. But things weren’t getting any better yesterday.

“I’m still recovering. Maybe it got to the point where it was a little too much for my body. I’ll just back off maybe, or take a couple of days off.

“I’m not starting today. Anything after that, I’m taking it one day at a time and I’m going to be good to go,” said Garcia, who also had shoulder surgery in May, 2013.

For most players, you’d assume that everyone was just being cautious and this is part of the process of working back from serious surgery and the subsequent rehab.

But since it’s Jaime, we can’t trust that it’s going to be “good to go”, as he put it, anytime soon.

https://twitter.com/MattSebek/status/581916233685176320

Dude is incredibly unlucky. Like, ridiculously unlucky. Let’s hope he and the Cardinals are right – this is just a “minor setback”. But it’s hard to believe this isn’t the beginning of a story that we’ve lived before.

What’s it mean for the Cardinals?

• Garcia most likely will be placed on the DL to start the season (next Sunday night is GM1)
• Puts Martinez into the starting rotation to start the season, with Gonzales heading to AAA
• Puts a hold on any trade talks that the Cards might have been having on Garcia

We’re a week out from Opening Day and almost 2 weeks out from having an appearance from a 5th starter, so there’s some time to iron out all the details.

Photo: ISC Deportes