Brad Lidge Throws 35 Pitches Without Devastating Injury

I made the mistake of calling disk golf “frolf” this weekend.  I also made the mistake of calling it “frolf” while on a  disk golf course.  I also made the mistake of hurling a frolf against the same tree four times in a row before calling a mulligan.  I also kept accidentally referring to the disks as “frolfs.”

When we call something what it is, our understanding of how to react to it can notably change.  If the Phillies had called Chase Utley’s chondromalacia an inflammation of the underside of his  knee cap and not “some soreness in his legs,” we could have walled ourselves in the tool shed weeks earlier.  

The Phillies waited an hour or two for another one of their ancient players to go down in flames.  When Brad Lidge’s soreness became tendinitis, it became clear that we’d been lied to once again, and my neighborhood would continue to be filled with the sounds of a man in a tool shed trying to cover his sobs by discharging a nail gun into the wall.

But then, just when it seemed like I’d run out of nails before the Phillies would run out of players to injure, it was reported that Brad’s making a turnaround.

“Yeah, right!” I shouted at the internet.

“No, its true,” the Phillies replied.  “Here, look; we’ll even make him throw like 30 pitches.”

And threw them he did; 35 pitches later, he was bragging to the press.  “I was very encouraged by this one,” said Brad and zero doctors.  He seems convinced that the outing was enough to appear in a few more Spring Training games before being back to normal.  For a guy who can turn a two-out save situation into 35 pitches quite handily, “normal” may no longer be the answer.  But, Brad took it to us disbelievers by the end of 2010, and honestly, unless he’s currently trapped in a sinking house boat, the Phillies probably aren’t going to tell us anything anyway.