Eduardo Rodriguez out for the season with heart issues due to Covid-19

The Gray Eagle

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This was mentioned in another thread, but surely our expected #1 starter being out for the rest of the season with a serious health condition is worth its own thread.

View: https://twitter.com/alexspeier/status/1289663818197422080

Alex Speier
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"Eduardo Rodriguez is out for the season. Prognosis hasn’t changed but timetable has."

Hopefully he will completely recover, but the timetable being pushed back isn't great news. Get well soon E-Rod.

As for the impact on the team, our horrible pitching staff is not going to be getting a boost from him returning. Wonder how him being officially out for the season now changes the team's approach, short term and/or long term.

Bloom in the Athletic:
https://theathletic.com/1968010/2020/08/01/eduardo-rodriguez-out-red-sox-pitching-plan/
“Due to the fact that it is persistent and the amount of care we need to take with this and the time left in the season, he’s not going to be able to come back and pitch this year,” chief baseball officer Chaim Bloom said Saturday. “We’re going to shut him down for the season. We are confident he’s going to make a full recovery and that his long-term prognosis is excellent, but the fact of the matter is there just isn’t enough time left this season to safely ramp him back up to pitching.”

Red Sox pitching has not inspired much confidence through the first week-plus of the season. So without Rodriguez, what is the plan?

“A lot of these guys have only pitched once or twice,” Bloom said of the pitching staff. “Even though that represents a much larger percentage of the season, it doesn’t mean those one or two outings tell us any more about the player than one or two outings in a 162-game season. So we don’t want to be complacent, but we also can’t rush to judgment.”

Bloom has continued to monitor the trade market as well as prospects on the 60-man roster at the club’s alternate site in Pawtucket, specifically Tanner Houck and Bryan Mata.
But it doesn’t sound like Houck and Mata are on the fast track to Boston, either.

“The priority now is to make sure they’re both getting innings so they have a chance to contribute as starters,” Bloom said, noting Houck is a bit further along than Mata.

“If (Houck) is going to have as much success as he possibly can in the big leagues, we need to help him in his plan with his effectiveness against left-handers,” Bloom said. “That’s an emphasis over there in Pawtucket and something we’re going to work on in targeted fashion. He certainly has the stuff to be able to do it and the ability to do it. How well he does it is going to determine his ultimate ceiling.”

With regard to Mata, the club’s top-ranked pitching prospect, Bloom called the right-hander’s simulated game Friday “really, really impressive.” But he tempered expectations of an immediate call-up.

“Sometimes you have a guy whose arm is that good, whose stuff is that tantalizing, and it’s tempting to take shortcuts,” Bloom said. “I don’t even necessarily mean on the timetable, but in terms of development and what you’re trying to help him to do. I think it’s really important not to do that if we’re going to help someone reach their ceiling.”
 
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Stanley Steamer

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Not good. 3/4 of mild to moderate cases of Covid are having heart issues.

"Up to 78% of them had structural changes to the heart, while 76% had evidence of a biomarker signaling cardiac injury typically found after a heart attack, and 60% had signs of inflammation. "

https://www.zmescience.com/science/coronavirus-patients-heart-damage-31072020/
Not a great article, but interesting nonetheless. I think the crux will be the degree of heart failure patients with myocarditis from Covid will experience. It may well cause damage but be more or less self-limited, or it may lead, and likely will in some, to more chronic CHF. I will hope that Eduardo finds himself in the former category.
 

JimD

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Eduardo's health is of paramount importance of course, so this is the right move.

Likewise, the team should not be making any fast-track moves with Houck, Mata or other prospects that will compromise their long-term development. The 2020 season is already lost.
 

InsideTheParker

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The national news focuses on mortality from C-19, but especially for younger people, the risk of lasting physical damage should be reason enough to be cautious, if caring for others carries no weight. I wonder how many of the baseball players are aware of Eduardo's story?
 

YTF

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The national news focuses on mortality from C-19, but especially for younger people, the risk of lasting physical damage should be reason enough to be cautious, if caring for others carries no weight. I wonder how many of the baseball players are aware of Eduardo's story?
If the MLBPA hasn't had a representative discuss this with each and team they've done their membership a terrible disservice.
 

CR67dream

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Not a great article, but interesting nonetheless. I think the crux will be the degree of heart failure patients with myocarditis from Covid will experience. It may well cause damage but be more or less self-limited, or it may lead, and likely will in some, to more chronic CHF. I will hope that Eduardo finds himself in the former category.
I'm curious what you are referring to when you say the article is not great (I definitely wouldn't classify it as great writing). Is it the presentation or the data that you find flawed? I was going to bring this over to the general Covid discussion thread, but if it's not accurate in its claims, I don't want to add more noise there.
 

snowmanny

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The national news focuses on mortality from C-19, but especially for younger people, the risk of lasting physical damage should be reason enough to be cautious, if caring for others carries no weight. I wonder how many of the baseball players are aware of Eduardo's story?
It’s not even just the actual physical damage. Will Eduardo, or any young person with COVID-19, be able to buy life insurance or disability insurance or even health insurance (depending on pre-existing condition laws) or, in the case of a pro-athlete, injury insurance against future earnings?

ED: my concerns obviously apply to any person. I mention the young now because there is this widespread sense that for younger folks you have it and get over it and you’re done. But if you’re 27 now and you go to buy life insurance when you are 37 who knows what the insurance company will say about your COVID history?
 

Stanley Steamer

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I'm curious what you are referring to when you say the article is not great (I definitely wouldn't classify it as great writing). Is it the presentation or the data that you find flawed? I was going to bring this over to the general Covid discussion thread, but if it's not accurate in its claims, I don't want to add more noise there.
Yeah, perhaps I overstated it a bit. I think there can only be limited conclusions drawn from it, i.e., Covid affects cardiac tissue subacutely in asymptomatic individuals. What that means, we don't know. I'm not sure what they mean by "structural changes" to the heart on MRI, perhaps valvular or aortic root anomalies, but it is just an imaging tool, and captured only at one moment in time. Likewise, I assume they mean Troponin when they allude to a cardiac biomarker, and CRP or ESR as a marker of inflammation. In myocarditis, I would assume both to be elevated for a time, then normalize.
It is concerning for sure. It's just that it's hard to conclude what it will mean for affected individuals over time.
 

nvalvo

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I don't think that's the impression I'd take away. Remember, he was throwing bullpens and participating in workouts in Summer Camp before they identified the myocarditis. It's not like he couldn't walk.
 

Red(s)HawksFan

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I don't think that's the impression I'd take away. Remember, he was throwing bullpens and participating in workouts in Summer Camp before they identified the myocarditis. It's not like he couldn't walk.
Sure, he he was physically able to walk. The thing is the myocarditis was serious enough that the doctors were telling him not to walk...for over two months. That's significant.
 

amRadio

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I feel like being cleared to begin conditioning in preparation for a professional baseball season by "walking on a treadmill" being described as "the doctors were telling him not to walk... for over two months" is intentionally misleading.
 

jon abbey

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I feel like being cleared to begin conditioning in preparation for a professional baseball season by "walking on a treadmill" being described as "the doctors were telling him not to walk... for over two months" is intentionally misleading.
"You know the old saying that you need to walk before you can run again? That is literally true in the case of Rodriguez, who has essentially been idle at his house for over two months."

https://www.mlb.com/news/eduardo-rodriguez-cleared-to-walk-health-update
 

Red(s)HawksFan

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I feel like being cleared to begin conditioning in preparation for a professional baseball season by "walking on a treadmill" being described as "the doctors were telling him not to walk... for over two months" is intentionally misleading.
I feel you're intentionally and obtusely downplaying the severity of what ERod has been through. That he has only now been cleared to walk, whether on a treadmill or not, suggests he has either been physically unable to exercise or exert himself for the last two months or the doctors were concerned enough to have cautioned him against it until now. To me, either one of those is a pretty significant thing for a professional athlete otherwise in his prime.
 

steveluck7

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I feel you're intentionally and obtusely downplaying the severity of what ERod has been through. That he has only now been cleared to walk, whether on a treadmill or not, suggests he has either been physically unable to exercise or exert himself for the last two months or the doctors were concerned enough to have cautioned him against it until now. To me, either one of those is a pretty significant thing for a professional athlete otherwise in his prime.
Exactly. He hasn’t been immobile this whole time. I would guess that it’s been more akin to “modified bed rest” that some of our wives have dealt with while pregnant.
You’re fine to get up every hour or so to go to the bathroom or get some food, etc. but actually waking with the intent to elevate your heart rate is a no no.
 

Archer1979

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I'm going to start with the knowledge that every case is indeed different. However, a friend of my son's, a heathy 19 year old, recently graduated boot camp down in Florida. Came down with a nasty cold that took him two weeks to shake. About a month and a half later developed myocarditis as a result from the COVID that he hadn't realized he had caught. Cardio enzymes were four times what they should have been and the lad simply couldn't walk as the strain was too much. This was about a month ago. The airman is still in a similar situation but just able to stand.

In other words, there's a long road ahead and they're in uncharted territory. I have to believe that E-Rod is in the same exact situation. Just needs time to sort it through.
 
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Average Reds

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As someone who has had pneumonia (three times, sadly) I can tell you that the symptoms are very similar. Basically, your heart is so taxed that the simplest activities can be incredibly difficult.

When the inflammation recedes, strength slowly returns. Which sounds like where ERod is.

With no long term damage, he should be fine. Of course, we have no idea what the long term prognosis is.