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DUNEDIN, FLA. — The blood didn't bother Scott Rolen. Neither did the fact his fingernail looked as if it were bent back 45 degrees. It has happened before, by his guess, about 30 times.
"It's nothing," the Toronto Blue Jays' third baseman said yesterday, discussing for the first time a finger injury that he said could keep him out of action until the first week of May.
"You reach your glove-hand out," he added, "your top hand is on top of your glove to pull the ball in and it happens three or four times a year where the ball takes a kick up and hits the tip of your finger.
"From what I understand, there's a lot of capillaries and a lot going on in the tip of the finger. It bleeds all over the place. It looks terrible and you have pain for about five days, but you don't miss any time. It's just a pain."
Related Information
- Cincinnati Reds
- Houston Astros
- St. Louis Cardinals
- A.J. Burnett
- Troy Glaus
- Jesse Litsch
- Shaun Marcum
- Scott Rolen
- B.J. Ryan
The Blue Jays finished their Grapefruit League schedule yesterday with an 8-3 win over the Houston Astros. Today, the Jays will fly to Philadelphia for two exhibition games against the Phillies before working out on Sunday in New York in advance of Monday's season-opener against the Yankees.
Pitchers A.J. Burnett, Shaun Marcum and Jesse Litsch will stay in Florida to get in their work and will join the team in New York. They'll be joined by relief pitcher B.J. Ryan and Rolen, who suffered a non-displaced fracture of a finger on his throwing hand when he misplayed a ground ball last Sunday. The ball was hit by infield and bench coach Brian Butterfield on one of the back fields at Knology Park. Rolen played the ball to short-hop. Except it didn't.
"Butter?" Rolen replied when asked whether it was Butterfield who had hit the ball. "No, not Butter. [Expletive deleted] Butter."
Rolen had surgery on the finger 24 hours later, performed by Baltimore hand specialist Thomas Graham, who told him the pin he'd placed in the finger would need to stay in for 14 days after the surgery. Rolen would like to return to Baltimore on Monday and have a smaller cast put on so he can begin doing some baseball-related cardiovascular work.
"In 14 days, we'll take the pin out and we'll move on," Rolen said. "Dr. Graham seemed to think it would be a bigger problem throwing [than hitting] because the middle finger would be the last finger the ball would leave. The first four or five days after rehab, he's talking about picking up a bat to see how it feels. At the three-week point or more [after surgery], he thinks I should be ready to pick up a ball and see how it feels.
"He gave a four-ƒ{to six-week window from the time of surgery. Hopefully, we can be optimistic and cut it down the right way, the smart way. I don't want to be throwing my finger across the diamond."
Yesterday was Rolen's first day back in the clubhouse, where he found pictures of his injured finger circulating. "You could see the bone because all the flesh was pulled off," he said.
"We thought the nail was bent up 45 degrees and actually the bottom of my finger was bent down 45 degrees," said Rolen, who has put his stamp on the team's infield and in the clubhouse since being acquired from the St. Louis Cardinals in a trade for Troy Glaus. "My nail was fine. It was the bottom part of my finger under the nail that wasn't doing so hot. It grosses a lot of people out. There's pictures of it all spread out around the clubhouse. You know, pictures of death kind of stuff."
Rolen did not lose his fingernail. Graham inserted a pin into the finger, then sutured it all the way around.
Rolen did not think the injury was serious when it happened. He had been given the day off anyhow, so he packed his bag for the next day's trip to Sarasota, thinking he was going to play a night game against the Cincinnati Reds.
Wrong.
So there he was. A player who has battled left shoulder injuries for three years, who missed the final month of last season on the disabled list, was done in by a finger.
"There are things you can't control," he said, shrugging. "I wasn't screwing around. I was doing my work, and in that sense things like that happen. I guess the why-me factor comes into effect and the poor-me factor, because I had a new opportunity. A new challenge. I was excited about it. The shoulder, the problems I had, were fixed and I was going in the right direction. I was at a point in spring training where I wasn't panicking to play more games, where I felt good offensively and defensively.
"It's just something else, you know."
