HBT: 'I wasn't asked,' Strasburg's doctor says

All throughout the Strasburg Shutdown drama, we repeatedly heard how the doctors were all saying that it?s advisable to shut Strasburg down. That doctors were consulted and that the Nats? plan was medically sound. Those of us who didn?t like the decision were told that we had to defer to the team and their cadre of medical experts because we, after all, are not doctors.

Only one problem: no one with the Nationals ever asked the guy who performed Strasburg?s surgery what he thought about it and, more significantly, the guy who performed the surgery tells the L.A. Times today that there are no studies supporting the proposition that shutting him down will protect him at all:

The doctor who performed elbow surgery on?Stephen Strasburg?said he did not tell the?Washington Nationals?to shut down their ace pitcher.

?I wasn?t asked,? Dr. Lewis Yocum told the Los Angeles Times ? Yocum said that, had he been asked, he would not have been able to provide conclusive information about whether Strasburg?s long-term health would be best served by shutting him down.

?There?s no statistic as far as studies,? Yocum said.

Yocum further notes that it?s GM Mike Rizzo who came up with the 160 inning shutdown standard himself. That he imposed it in the case of Jordan Zimmermann, and that he?s doing the same with Strasburg without the aide of any medical directive.

Which, hey, that?s OK in and of itself. Zimmermann has worked out so far, so maybe Rizzo has stumbled upon a bold and effective new standard here. And it is his team and he can do what he wants and what he thinks is best for it.

But given the lack of studies on the matter, those people supporting the shutdown decision have to give up shaming those of us who don?t into silence with some notion that medical necessity or insight governed this decision. ?End the erroneous appeals to medical authority ? like Scott Boras has done repeatedly ? and own up to the fact that it?s Mike Rizzo, not medical science, making this call.

Source: http://hardballtalk.nbcsports.com/2012/09/13/strasburgs-doctor-there-are-no-studies-supporting-the-nats-decision-to-shut-him-down/related/

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