Just when you thought Carl Pavano has encountered every stupid injury known to man, it appears that Tigers flame-thrower Joel Zumaya sustained a stupid injury of his own during the ALCS.
The Detroit Free Press has the scoop:
The Tigers are satisfied they won't see a recurrence of the right wrist and forearm inflammation that sidelined Joel Zumaya for three games of the American League Championship Series.
Why? Club president and general manager Dave Dombrowski told WXYT-AM (1270) on Wednesday the team had concluded Zumaya's injury resulted from playing a video game, not from his powerful throwing motion.
"That was probably what was taking place," Dombrowski later told the Free Press.
Zumaya, 22, was known to play "Guitar Hero," a PlayStation 2 game in which a player uses a guitar-shaped controller to simulate the performance of popular songs.
During the radio interview, Dombrowski said the Tigers' athletic training staff discovered that Zumaya's forearm pain was more consistent with the action of a guitar player than a baseball pitcher. The Tigers asked Zumaya to stop playing the video game, and he did. Zumaya then pitched pain-free during the World Series, and went 0-1 with a 3.00 ERA in three appearances.
"He felt fine in the World Series, to tell you the truth," said Steve Springer, one of Zumaya's representatives. "I didn't even think twice about it."
I've said plenty of times during the past year that Zumaya is going to hurt his arm someday because few pitchers can throw that ridiculously hard and sustain it over a number of years without hurting himself.
The funny thing is that I never suspected that the PS2 game "Guitar Hero" would the Kryptonite that almost brought down Superman.