Yesterday, The Baltimore Banner reported that Jordan Westburg has undergone elbow imaging, indicating that there was concern about damage to ligaments. On Friday morning, Orioles GM Mike Elias delivered the official news about what’s going on with Westburg’s elbow. The infielder has been diagnosed with a partial tear in his ulnar collateral ligament. That’s the ligament that requires Tommy John surgery after a full tear.
According to Elias, the initial treatment for Westburg is going to be a platelet-rich plasma (PRP) injection. At a minimum, he will be out through the end of April and things will be re-evaluated at that point. The PRP injection is an option to avoid surgery for only a partial tear. It doesn’t always work, as was demonstrated two years ago now when Kyle Bradish tried to avoid TJ by getting the PRP injection. In Bradish’s case, it worked for eight starts and then he needed the surgery anyway.
If you’re not optimistic about the PRP working and Westburg avoiding the surgery, I don’t blame you. In this case, for a position player, there’s not really a lot of downside to trying it. While position player rehab times for Tommy John are typically quicker than pitchers, Westburg would be done for the year if he decided he was getting the surgery tomorrow. He would also have a good shot of being fully ready to return for the start of next year’s spring training. That should still be the case even if he ends up deciding on May 1 that the only option is surgery. Trying the PRP injection is a longshot with almost no cost and a decent upside.
Westburg felt the elbow soreness while rehabbing for his oblique issue, Elias said. The imaging done on his elbow suggested that Westburg has probably had the partial tear in the UCL for a while. The throwing done by a position player just doesn’t do the same kind of stress on the elbow as pitching, so he could probably play through the issue and maybe not even think of it as much of an issue until this month when he suddenly could not. That’s the way it goes sometimes.
This is not good news. About all you can say about it is that at least now the Orioles have some clarity, in the sense that they know Westburg is going to miss at least a month, so they’ve got the remainder of spring training to figure out a solution to this absence. Between Jackson Holliday’s broken hamate bone and this, two of the four infield spots will be covered by backup options as the season begins. Holliday, at least, shouldn’t be out for as long, and his playing at all this season is less in doubt.
Whether the Orioles have readily-available solutions based on who is in camp already is another thing. Coby Mayo is taking aspirational grounders at third base and recently-acquired infielder Blaze Alexander might be able to be the guy for second base. Mayo needs some work at third and maybe he can’t be good enough no matter how much work he puts in. He also needs to hit enough to be worth playing at any position.
I hope the Orioles don’t get too invested in believing that Westburg will be back on May 1. I also don’t think that they will do this. They will know the PRP success rate even better than any of us. There’s only so much they can do on February 20 to adjust. “Use the backup plan we already had in place” is probably going to look the same as “do nothing.” As spring training moves along, we’ll get a sense of what that backup plan is and on Opening Day we’ll start to see how well it works.