NEW YORK -- Erik Goeddel landed on the disabled list Friday, but the reliever could not get a precise answer on the seriousness of what is tentatively being labeled an elbow strain by the New York Mets.
So much surgery has been performed on his pitching elbow during his amateur and pro careers, Goeddel said an MRI cannot show a clear picture of the current issue.
Despite throwing a scoreless relief inning Thursday against the San Francisco Giants, Goeddel said he was missing catcher Travis d'Arnaud's glove by four feet on some pitches. Goeddel had been experiencing soreness for a while, but Thursday's outing was the first time it affected his location.
"I had full ligament reconstruction," Goeddel said, recounting his past elbow procedures. "I had my nerve moved twice. I got scoped back there. So there's a lot of scar tissue and stuff that's been moved around and whatnot. From an MRI, I mean, they didn't see my bone ripped in half or anything. But it's tough for them to see what's going on. Holes were drilled in my bones from the other surgery. They look at it and it just doesn't look like a normal elbow. Say I had no symptoms and felt 100 percent, they told me if I had an MRI then they'd probably say the same thing."
So Goeddel will try to let the elbow calm and then attempt to resume throwing, without knowing the full scope of the issue. He received a platelet-rich-plasma injection during his visit to Mets doctors.
"It's a little sore from that right now," he said. "But that's supposed to accelerate healing of whatever is going on."
Goeddel said this injury does not feel relatively serious based on symptoms of past elbow injuries.
"When I had Tommy John, I couldn't throw a ball from here to that wall over there," Goeddel said, motioning toward a wall across the clubhouse from his locker. "So obviously it's much, much better than that."
On his control issues Thursday, he added: "I'm not saying I have unbelievable command, but normally I can throw it generally where I want it to go. It was bad. And I could kind of feel a little something in my elbow on release. So I was like, 'You know what? I'm not going to help the team like this. It's not good for my arm.' I was going to wait to be worried about it until the MRI. And then the MRI doesn't help me. I'm just trying to keep myself positive, because I really don't know."
