Jacob deGrom hasn’t pitched in exactly two months now, and the details of his arm injury have been somewhat mysterious at times – but apparently, he’s been out because of a partially torn UCL.
Mets team president Sandy Alderson is acting as GM right now while actual acting GM Zack Scott is on administrative leave, and in taking up Scott’s weekly media meeting today, Alderson admitted that deGrom’s elbow injury was a “sprain” – “the lowest grade partial tear if you will” – and then went on to further basically to admit that deGrom has been shut down for two months (and had more than one setback) because what the team termed “right elbow inflammation” and “right forearm tightness” stemmed from a partially torn UCL.
Which, apparently, is sprained no more.
“At this point, the sprain has resolved itself, and based on the MRIs and clinical evaluations, the elbow is perfectly intact,” Alderson said. “It’s a technical term the doctors have used; we don't use it routinely, but it's another term for a very mild ligament condition.”
Sandy was pressed about “which ligament” and admitted it was the UCL, worrisome because deGrom had Tommy John surgery once before in 2010 – but Alderson quickly downplayed the severity of this situation.
“When somebody goes out the headline is a partial tear – but that’s what a bruise is, a partial tear of a muscle, okay?” Alderson said defensively. “Let’s not go out there and write as if this is anything new. It’s not. It’s a very low-grade thing that has resolved itself.”
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One media member then pressed Sandy even further by saying “sometimes teams say sprain and the next thing you know, it’s Tommy John,” and Alderson got even more defensive.
“Look, I just told you that the ligament is perfectly intact, so whatever condition he had has resolved itself, and that’s one of the reasons that he didn’t pitch for a period of time.”
DeGrom last pitched July 7 and was shut down on July 30, only to resume throwing on August 25. He threw on flat ground on Sunday and was playing catch Tuesday, but according to a team official quoted by MLB.com’s Anthony DiComo, the righty is unlikely to even get back on a mound until the middle of this month, and that a return in 2021 is “likely only to be in abbreviated spurts.”
Alderson backed that statement up somewhat, saying that deGrom pitching again this season is "very much up in the air," and now, he's ramping up to see where the pain is.
“That doesn’t mean we’re going to ramp him up until it breaks, that’s not my point,” Alderson said. “My point is we need to begin to see whether this is more of a chronic issue that relates to mechanics in some way. But the more we know going into next season, the better off we’ll be.”
You can watch Alderson answer the media below courtesy of SNY:
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