Braves pitcher Kris Medlen spent the past few days coming to grips with the reality that he’s almost certainly going to need Tommy John surgery for the second time in five years, after tearing the ulnar collateral ligament in his pitching elbow in a game Sunday.
“Mentally preparing myself,” Medlen said Wednesday. “It’s something that I’ve felt before. I think I had all the answers to anybody’s questions in my head when I was walking off the mound. I never do that. When I did it before in 2010, the same thing kind of happened. Nothing’s … ” (Here there was a long pause, as he fought back emotions. “Nothing’s official, but I think I know and just go from there.”
Medlen has already undergone an MRI exam and other tests that indicate the ligament damage, and he expects to have Tommy John surgery and go through another rigorous 12-month rehab process, which he believes will at least be a little easier now that he has a wife and 1-year-old son to help keep him occupied through the grind.
Medlen will see Dr. James Andrews in the next few days before making a final decision about surgery. Andrews and other orthopedic surgeons have been at a convention in New Orleans that runs through the weekend.
He would join fellow Braves pitcher Jonny Venters in trying to be among the few pitchers to ever come back from two “TJ” surgeries and perform at a high level again in the majors. Andrews has previously placed the success rate at about 20 percent for pitchers to return to pre-surgery form after a second Tommy John surgery, and the percentage has been much better for relievers than for starters.
Medlen, 28 fought to hold back his emotions as he discussed the situation with reporters Wednesday morning at Champion Stadium, three days after he left a game against the Mets clutching his right elbow in pain. He said he actually felt the injury on a curveball he threw to Curtis Granderson on a ground out, but stayed in the game and threw two more pitches to Matt Clark, and felt searing pain after each, before hopping off the mound and heading to the dugout with the count 1-1.
He said cursed to himself after the Granderson pitch, in disbelief that he could have the same injury to his ligament and knowing that he’d need TJ surgery again. Medlen said he threw the next two pitches while in states of anger and denial, and that it was stupid to have stayed in the game but he didn’t think that had any effect on the ligament already injured on the pitch to Granderson.
“From his perspective, he probably knew when he walked off the mound, based on how he felt,” said Wren, who sat next to Medlen when the pitcher spoke with reporters Wednesday, and put a hand on his shoulder when Medlen nearly broke down. ” And over the last couple of days he’s had additional tests. Yesterday he had a stress X-ray, and that stress X-ray, it’s not definitive, but it did probably confirm what he was fearing. That there’s a high likelihood that he’s going to have to have a second Tommy John.
“And so that put him in a position where he wanted to come to you guys and be open and honest with where we are. It’s nothing official. It’s not definite yet. But I think over the next few days when he sees the doctor, that’s what we’re anticipating.”
It’s a big blow to the Braves, who’ll lose one of their most popular team members and the pitcher they had planned to have start on opening day. They moved quickly to bolster their injury-plagued rotation by signing free agent Ervin Santana, an announcement that was made Wednesday morning in the pressbox at Champion Stadium about one hour before Medlen met with reporters in the dugout.
Medlen is 24-12 with a 2.47 ERA in 44 games (43 starts) since moving from the bullpen to the starting rotation at the end of July 2012. His 2.40 ERA since the 2012 All-Star break is the second-best among major league pitchers with at least 250 innings, behind only Dodgers ace Clayton Kershaw.
Medlen has won three of the past eight NL Pitcher of the Month awards, while no other pitcher in either league has won more than one such award during that period.
