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It is sometimes amazing how much (or little) of a reaction certain things receive given the place of a team at any point in the season.  When every game matters, we focus on every waking moment of any player that could have an impact on the season.  For instance, the 10-win Browns make the news when [former cornerback] Leigh Bodden gets a traffic ticket at the airport.  A reserve defensive back for the Ohio State Buckeyes is in line to miss the first two games of the season?  All national news.

But when starting pitchers and prize prospects are going under the knife and being shut down for the year for various injuries?  Meh.  It is football season – don’t come in here with that “baseball” nonsense…

Strikeout specialist Scott Lewis will get the starting nod tonight.  Personally, I’m pretty excited to see what he can do at the big league level.  As will I be when the 23-year old David Huff takes the hill for the first time as an Indian.  But what I hope for at this point that it is not because of a potentially dangerous injury to another players. 

Anthony Reyes, he who had eigth-best ERA in baseball for the month of August, had a stellar start to his last appearance.  The down side is that it ended a bit prematurely due to elbow soreness.  Young pitchers and “elbow soreness” doesn’t mesh well.  Ask Mark Prior, Joel Zumaya and Rafael Soriano.  They’ll contest.  And while the team is playing it down saying that Reyes is recovering well and will just miss a start due to “precaution,” I cannot help but be concerned. 

And when it comes to getting the elbow examined, Reyes is not alone.  Aaron Laffey went from being the sixth man in a rotation d’jour to being shut down for the rest of the year with an inflamed left elbow – which just happens to be the one that earns him a living.  While MRI results detected no damage structurally, you are looking at a guy who threw just over 150 innings of baseball.  Another case of my overreaction?  Most likely, but also at 23-years of age, Laffey is a guy that the Indians will need to stay healthy as he heads into his prime years. 

Rounding off the elbow troika is Jake Westbrook.  After going successful Tommy John surgery, Jake is now recovering from yet another operation – this one on his right hip and of the arthroscopic variety.  Since he is already on a long track of recovery with the elbow, this one won’t slow him down much aside from the time it takes him to get something out of the refrigerator prior to beginning any sort of throwing.  We’re looking at any sort of return between May and August for Westbrook, so I guess one can understand why the hip surgery wasn’t discussed ad nauseum.  But color me curious on how exactly one hurts their hip while recovering from elbow surgery.  Overcompensation?

Which leads me to one Carlos Santana.  Traded for Casey Blake, Santana lit up A-ball for his entire stay with the K-Tribe.  He was recently called-up to Double-A Akron, as the Aeros are in the heat of an Eastern League Championship race.  But in a promotion that ended quickly, Santana has reportedly been shut down for the rest of the season with what’s being called a strained adductor muscle – also in the Westbrook-esque hip area, a part that is pretty important to most baseball players.  Of course, there is some rumblings that this is just a Belichickian injury and that Santana is just being conserved for a later, non-rainy day. 

Couple all of this with the injuries to Travis Hafner, Victor Martinez, Josh Barfield, Fausto Carmona… The list goes on.  You have to wonder if there is a Chief Wahoo voodoo doll out there and some witch doctor is just sticking a bevy of needles into the elbow, shoulder and hip regions.  The number of injuries sustained by this Indians team is relatively astounding; and those that continue to pile up possibly couldn’t be at a better time given the time of the season.  I just wish that those that came earlier wouldn’t have had such an impact.