Phillies’ starter Cole Hamels has left spring training to fly to Philadelphia to have his sore elbow examined by team doctors.
“We do not think it is serious, at least at this time” Phillies general manager Ruben Amaro Jr. said. “We thought it was important for Dr. Ciccotti to check him out and see if there is anything more serious than what we think it is. He’ll decide once he sees him tomorrow morning if he needs to do any testing or any further testing. We did do a physical on him before we ended up finalizing the multiyear deal with him and felt comfortable with the diagnostics and such. But he’s had a little persistent soreness and we want to be cautious about it and have him checked out.”
Hamels pitched in a minor-league spring training game yesterday at the Carpenter Complex. The Phillies said afterward that it went well and that he remained on schedule to start Opening Day on April 5.
“And he was,” Amaro said. “But he’s still got a little bit of soreness in there. We don’t feel that it’s serious, but again, I don’t have a crystal ball. I can’t look inside his elbow. We just want to be cautious, and we thought it was important that he sees our doctor in Philly.”
I don’t think teams can ever be too cautious when it comes to starting pitchers and their arms, but it’s way too early for Hamels to be having any kind of issues. Hopefully for Phillie fans, it’s nothing serious and he doesn’t miss any time. But it’s a long season and if Hamels needs to miss a few weeks in April, that’s better than losing him during a key stretch run late in the year.
