Think the San Francisco Giants will take to playing the song “Brian Wilson,” by the Bare Naked Ladies?
It’s looking like Wilson may be laid up for the next 12-14 months, in need of a elbow reconstruction for ligament damage in his throwing arm. He has continued to throw this season–a mere 56 pitches–but it seems that the damage is significant enough that it will require the popular Tommy John surgery.
This surgery is somewhat the equivalent of an ACL replacement surgery in the knee. The surgery most famously performed on pitcher Tommy John. The surgery was to replace the ulnar collateral ligament, and in 1974, the revolutionary surgery was considered miraculous. Now, it’s commonplace, and pitchers often rehabilitate to learn what caused the damage in the first place, coming back to the game stronger than when they departed. Such is not always the case, but when such an injury used to be considered career-ending, it is still quite miraculous.
Wilson has no regrets about his approach to the game, and plans to get another opinion before moving forward with a planned reconstruction. If Wilson does have the operation, it will more than likely mean that he’ll be big game ready by All-Star Break of 2013.
When asked when his elbow started hurting, before he injured it last week in Colorado, Wilson responded:
Two thousand ten, if you want to be honest. I was pitching on borrowed time last year.
Gotta love this guy.
