ANOTHER ONE BITES THE DUST

Derek Jeter and now Junior Griffey. Damn. Last night on “Baseball Tonight,” Bobby Valentine warned that bad things happen in 3’s, and gave fair warning to the rest of players in the Majors. Griffey dislocated his right shoulder attempting to make a diving catch against the Cubs over the weekend, and is out for at least a few months. Will Carroll of Baseball Prospectus has a linkable column for all of you who do not subscribe to the Premium package. See what you’ve been missing.

Carroll reports:

Griffey’s injury is much more reminiscent of Phil Nevin’s injury than Derek Jeter’s, both in mechanism and result. Reports from Cincinnati indicate that, like Nevin, Griffey is likely out for something in the order of months rather than weeks.

…Mechanism is a fancy way of saying how an injury occurred and what forces acted on someone’s anatomy in a way that caused damage. Some injuries have such clear, repeatable mechanisms that they become predictable; watch a football player collapse after a dead stop on turf and you can quickly say to everyone “oooh, ACL tear,” and be right nine times out of 10. For Griffey and Nevin, the shoulder was forced from the glenoid fossa (the shoulder socket) to the rear after force was applied to the arm due to dives and amplified by the weight of the body. For Jeter, his humerus (upper arm) was forced forward from the fossa by the weight of a foreign body (Ken Huckaby). While seemingly a small difference, it is the likely explanation of why Jeter has escaped with a much less serious injury.

Jeter is scheduled to recieve a second opinion on his status from Dr. James Andrews today. On Friday, Yankee doctors determined that Jeter would not need surgery and could return in 4-6 weeks. Carroll thinks that is overly optimistic but could see Jeter returning before the All-Star game.