Daisuke Shut Down With New "Injury"

Daisuke Matsuzaka  (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

The Red Sox announced today that Daisuke Matsuzaka will not return to the teams rotation anytime soon due to "pain in his right trapezius muscle" which he has reportedly received an injection for.

Whether or not the injury is real is open to speculation, but the bottom line is, it will give the Sox an opening that they've been looking for since realizing the right handed starter wasn't close to returning to the major leagues.

With just 5 days remaining on his rehab assignment, the righty either had to return to the big leagues or the Red Sox would be forced to report a "setback" to the commissioners office asking for an extension. It appears that's exactly what they did, but they'll never admit to it.

The loophole that was reported by Nick Cafardo will apparently require Dice-K to sit out 7 days before starting the clock over on his rehab assignment, meaning we won't see the Japanese pitcher in a Red Sox uniform for quite some time.

This was Bobby Valentine's comment on the injury,

“That’s been nagging him for quite a while and we’ve got to make sure that that’s 100 percent before he’s going out there again,” manager Bobby Valentine said. “I talked to him [Saturday] about it being sore. He said he would maybe pitch through it. They examined him and didn’t think it was wise.”--Excerpt from boston.com's Extra Bases.

You be the judge.



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