A quick, reluctant note before we begin.

Baseball's Friday news dump was brutal today.

We've learned that Shohei O'Connie would be going on the disabled list, not just with a blister,

but with a grade 2 sprain of his ulnar collateral ligament.

He also received a PRP and stem cell injection.

I don't have to tell you that this is pretty terrible news about a player whose success has been one of the highlights of the season.

According to analyst John Rojelle's records,

16 of the 33 pictures who had PRP injections eventually had Tommy John's surgery,

and the track record for pictures who had stem cell injections for UCL injuries is perhaps even worse.

All of them either missed many months or had Tommy John's surgery or both.

So O'Connie won't do anything for three weeks, he'll be re-evaluated,

and we'll see whether he can avoid becoming another distressing statistic.

Of course, the news is not shocking, in that O'Connie is a picture,

and a picture who throws extremely hard,

and already had a UCL strain and a PRP injection last year,

but he's so much fun that we all hope this could be avoided.

If he does ultimately have Tommy John's surgery, he won't hit while he's hurt.

And if that happens, we'd likely be looking at him missing 2019 too.

So we will wait and worry.

But these concerns had not yet surfaced when we recorded the episode you're about to hear.

So for the next hour plus, please enjoy a podcast that was recorded in happier times,

when a blister was the worst of our worries.

...