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Catcher to have surgery today for elbow. Barfield also out with finger injury
By Sheldon Ocker
Beacon Journal sportswriter
Published on Friday, Jun 13, 2008
CLEVELAND: Add two more to the Indians' disabled list, which is becoming overcrowded with some of the team's best players.
Besides Travis Hafner, Fausto Carmona and Jake Westbrook, the bloated DL now includes catcher Victor Martinez and second baseman Josh Barfield.
Dr. Mark Schickendantz will perform arthroscopic surgery today at the Cleveland Clinic to remove bone chips from Martinez's right elbow, correcting a condition that has plagued him for the past six weeks. He is expected to miss six to eight weeks.
''Victor has loose bodies in the back of his right elbow,'' head trainer Lonnie Soloff said. ''The loose bodies are a foreign element that cause inflammation and pain when the elbow is extended.''
For a baseball player, that means it only hurts when he throws and bats.
''I started feeling it five or six weeks ago, when the elbow started swelling up,'' Martinez said. ''I wanted to keep myself in the lineup to help the team, but it got worse and worse, to the point I couldn't do it; I could barely swing.''
The breaking point for Martinez was his first at-bat Wednesday night.
''There's no question that Victor was playing in pain,'' Soloff said. ''Some days were worse than others. Certainly, it affected his swing. But he did not want to come out of the lineup.''
Should manager Eric Wedge have forced Martinez to accept the reality of his injury? He has no home runs for the season and has batted .224 since May 1.
''Whether you shut a guy down depends on if he is better than the alternative,'' Wedge said. ''With Hafner already out, it was tough to be without Victor, too.''
Martinez has been undergoing treatment for several weeks, and he received a cortisone injection about four or five weeks ago.
''That made the swelling go down,'' he said. ''But I still had sharp pain.''
The hope of club officials was that Martinez could make it through the season before repairing the elbow surgically.
Martinez also has been playing while nursing a strained hamstring, sustained on Opening Day. Now that he won't be on the field for at least six weeks, the hamstring might heal completely.
''If it's not fine by then, I'm going to cut it myself,'' he said. ''Between the hamstring and the elbow, they are trying to get me crazy.''
Soloff described Barfield's injury — a strained ligament in his left middle finger — as unusual in baseball.
''It is very uncommon for us,'' he said. ''I have never seen it in one of our players.''
As he checked his swing Tuesday night, Barfield forced a ligament that holds a tendon to come out of a groove.
Barfield will visit hand specialist Dr. Tom Graham in Baltimore on Monday to determine whether rest and rehabilitation can resolve the problem or whether surgery will be necessary.
Sheldon Ocker can be reached at socker@thebeaconjournal.com.
CLEVELAND: Add two more to the Indians' disabled list, which is becoming overcrowded with some of the team's best players.
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