CLEVELAND -- For the first time since he was hurt in spring training, David Price gave some detail as to what’s going on with his elbow injury — and what he meant when he said he has a “unique” elbow.
Speaking to Ken Rosenthal of the The Athletic, Price said that his arm injury most recently is “kind of the lower triceps -- that’s where I felt it.”
“It wasn’t pain,” Price said via Rosenthal. “And it was only on an off-speed pitch. The days that I played catch in Seattle (before his second trip to the DL), I could throw as hard as I wanted with the fastball, and it was fine. But when I spun a breaking ball or threw a changeup, that’s when I felt it.”
MORE MEDICAL NEWS
- Sox place Jackie Bradley Jr. (thumb) on 10-day DL
- Matt Barnes (back) goes to DL; Hector Velazquez recalled
When Price was hurt for the first time in 2017, back in spring training, he visited a pair of renowned surgeons and came back to Florida with news that he had a unique elbow. He did not detail what that meant, except to say if he were younger, he could have gone under the knife.
Price said at the time he didn't know what his injury was.
Boston Red Sox
Find the latest Boston Red Sox news, highlights, analysis and more with NBC Sports Boston.
Apparently, his unique elbow involves a self-healing quality.
“It heals itself,” Price said of his elbow. “It lays down bone on my ligament. It calcifies and turns into bone.”
Dr. James Andrews, who examined Price, explained the situation to Rosenthal as a generality, not with specifics to Price.
“Repeated stress to the ligament over its attachment below the joint causes a gradual pulling reaction that over time forms what we call a traction spur,” Andrews said. “It pulls on it and instead of pulling off, it has a healing response with calcification and eventually bone formation. The bone that forms protrudes up into the ligament. You can say that the actual ligament turns into bone as it progresses.”
Price is in Boston as the Red Sox play the Indians in Cleveland. He threw out to 90 feet on Tuesday from flat ground and was scheduled to throw again from flat ground on Wednesday.
