Friday, June 20, 2008

"What we've got here is failure to communicate."

Disturbing news from Kevin Pearson:

More on this in the morning paper, but it appears that RHP Hiroki Kuroda, on the DL with shoulder tendonitis, has been dealing with the issue for 3 weeks, which not coincidentely is how long he has been struggling.

What makes this a major issue is the fact that he has been seeing the trainers for three weeks to get treatment and get medication but somehow there was a lack of communication to Joe Torre and Ned Colletti that this may have been a serious issue. He hasn't made it out of the third inning twice in three starts and has a 7.71 ERA since this issue popped up.

Torre, who gets daily medical reports, said he should have realized that Kuroda's name was on the list more often lately than it was early in the season and that the blame fell on him. Trainer Stan Conte, who is not allowed to talk to the media, apparently failed to tell Torre that Kuroda had a shoulder issue.

"If I had paid more attention or inquired a little more I would have known sooner," Torre said. "I don't usually pay attention to guys who go in there on a regular basis. That's my wrongdoing in this case. I probably could have asked more questions, not of him, but from the trainers.

"There are a lot of things where I wasn't diligent enough in going to ask more questions. I'm not trying to find a reason why I wasn't. It's my responsibility because the trainers did their job and documented it."

And to make the lack of communication even worse, neither Torre or Colletti told Kuroda he was going on the DL. The player said he heard it from someone else not involved in the decision making process.

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