Percival Puts Pain in the Past
It was supposed to be a simple arthroscopic procedure to clean out debris, but when Dr. Lewis Yocum got a peek inside closer Troy Percival’s shoulder last October, it looked like the scene of a multi-vehicle accident.
A bone chip about three centimeters wide and two centimeters long with jagged edges that Percival said “looked like a shark’s tooth” had wreaked havoc on his shoulder.
“It acted like a meat grinder,” Percival said. “There were two minor tears in my rotator cuff, some tears in the labrum and supraspinatus. I laughed when I got to camp, because some guys thought I got ‘scoped and it was an easy procedure. But I got cut open, and the surgery lasted 3 1/2 hours.”
While the operation raises some questions about Percival’s future, it also answered some questions about his past. The bone chip never showed up on MRI tests or CT scans, but it explained why Percival felt so much pain in 1999 he couldn’t “comb my hair, drive, or hold my baby with my right hand.”
The chip caused swelling and inflammation after he threw, and Percival believes it could have been at the root of shoulder problems he experienced going all the way back to 1997.
Percival appears to be throwing in the 90-mph range, and he is confident his fastball, which had been clocked from 95 mph to 97 mph, will return, but he won’t fully test the shoulder until early- or mid-March.
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Outfielder Darin Erstad was held out of Wednesday’s first full-squad workout because of a sore left shoulder that has been bothering him for several weeks. He received a cortisone shot and hopes to return to action today or Friday. . . . For the record: Gary Sutherland has been promoted to special assistant to General Manager Bill Stoneman.
