Strasburg May Need Tommy John Surgery

[broncofan]

That sucks, I had to drop him from my fantasy team.

Stephen Strasburg had to get through a few hours of anger, confusion and certainly a few more volatile emotions before he was ready to accept the sobering news expressed in three disheartening words.

Tommy John surgery.

The Washington Nationals rookie sensation is done for the season -- and maybe next season as well -- after the team announced Friday that he has a torn ligament in his right elbow. He will travel Saturday to the West Coast for a second opinion, but the 22-year-old right-hander has accepted the fact that he will need the ligament replacement operation that requires 12 to 18 months of rehabilitation.

"It's a new challenge," Strasburg said. "I want to be the best at everything, and right now I want to be the best at rehabbing and getting back out here."

It's a blow to Strasburg, of course, and to a baseball world that has spent the summer gasping in awe at his 100 mph fastball, bending curves and wicked batter-freezing changeups, but the biggest punch to the gut is to a Nationals franchise that had made the young phenom the centerpiece in their plans to climb out of perpetual last-place irrelevancy.

"There's no words that I can put in place here that would indicate we could possibly replace Stephen," manager Jim Riggleman said. "But we have to do it a different way, different names, different staff members who will go out there and fulfill the rotation until Stephen comes back."

Strasburg grimaced, grabbed and shook his wrist after throwing a 1-1 changeup to Domonic Brown in Philadelphia on Saturday. It turned out to be his last pitch of the year. The Nationals initially called the injury a strained flexor tendon in the forearm, but an MRI taken Sunday raised enough questions for the Nationals to order a more extensive MRI in which dye was injected into the prized right arm.

http://sports.espn.go.com/mlb/news/story?id=5502866