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The Rays hit a speed bump last night when Carlos Pena was pulled from Game 1 after just two innings with blurred vision, but he has his sights on playing tonight. (Get it? "His sights?" Okay, moving on ... ) As Marc Topkin explains in the St. Petersburg Times, Pena suffered the ailment on Wednesday:

Pena was relaxing at home early Wednesday night when he felt something in his left eye and rubbed it. The result, he found out after some extreme pain and an emergency visit to team eye doctor Mark Sibley, was a scratched cornea and some significantly blurred vision.

He initially tried to play through the injury but was worried about making throws. Fortunately, with the help of eye drops, antibiotics and a clear contact, his vision should be back to normal tonight.

In hindsight, it's somewhat amusing how little press Pena's absence received. Evan Longoria provided more than enough firepower to get the job done, but Pena led the team this year with 31 home runs and 102 RBI. Can you imagine the uproar had this happened to Aramis Ramirez or Derrek Lee? There would've been thousands of words in Chicago's newspapers today about how the Cubs are cursed and how even particles of dusts are part of the cosmic conspiracy.

Update: According to the St. Pete Times, Pena was in the original lineup but was scratched at the last second after having trouble fielding grounders. So that's that.

Red Sox fans can breath a sigh of relief: Josh Beckett, who's battling a strained oblique, threw a 27-minute, 65-pitch side session in Los Angeles on Thursday without any setbacks. From Michael Silverman of the Boston Herald:

"Provided there's no concerns coming out of his exams after the bullpen or the follow-up tomorrow, he should be on line for Sunday," pitching coach John Farrell said. "That hasn't been an official announcement but I will tell you that from the look in his bullpen today, he looks ready to go Sunday."

The workout was especially encouraging considering Beckett didn't hold anything back -- he was able to throw all of his pitches without any discomfort. It remains to be seen whether that translates into actual success come game time, but it's worth pointing out that he posted a 2.16 ERA in his last four starts of the regular season.

Of course, if the Red Sox win tonight (and Boston is currently riding a nine-game winning streak in the playoffs), Beckett's start on Sunday will be an elimination game. Nothing against the Angels, but given all of Beckett's postseason theatrics throughout his career, it's hard to imagine a scenario in which he doesn't come through with his "A" game, injury or not.

Boston third baseman Mike Lowell gritted through Game 1 in Anaheim Wednesday night with a torn labrum in his right hip. He even stung a ball hard against Angels ace John Lackey. But his injury is so painful there's no guarantee he'll be in the lineup Friday for Game 2.

"We may have to make some changes as we go in the series," Terry Francona said. "I spent a lot of time talking to Mike Lowell this morning. It's not just like a little nagging hamstring he's dealing with. I really don't know what we're going to do tomorrow. It's actually a very difficult decision for me. You've got a guy who's the ultimate gamer. He'll go out there every day. We're going back in a couple days to Fenway, facing a lefty. It's very important having his bat in the lineup.

Perhaps the most interesting thing Francona said was this, though:

"Mikey Lowell, what he's going through right now, he's going to pay for this later. He knows that. He's beating his body up.

Lowell is a former World Series MVP and a consummate professional, but it's painful to watch him right now. It seems like he's wincing with every check swing and every slow roller to third.

He's important to the Red Sox's chances of a repeat title, but with a win in their pocket already in the ALDS and with J.D. Drew looking healthy and Josh Beckett on schedule to start, they should be as judicious with Lowell as possible. If Boston picks its spots and rests Lowell appropriately, it's possible he can be a factor in another World Series run.

After losing their best hitter, Carlos Quentin, for just about all of September, the White Sox nearly missed the playoffs this season, and needed to win three straight games against three different teams to get to Tampa. The reason for this is because the White Sox offense lost any kind of consistency it had while Quentin has been relegated to the bench.

They're a team that relies heavily on the home run, and without Quentin in the lineup they've become more long ball dependent than ever before. While Carlos still lead the team with 36 homers this season, he's the one White Sox slugger who decides to throw some doubles, singles, and walks in his arsenal as well, and when Jermaine Dye and Jim Thome hit their moonshots, he's usually on base.

Of course, not having Quentin available for their series against the Tampa Bay Rays won't help their chances to get by the young upstarts, but should they pull it off, Carlos thinks he might be available for the ALCS.

But the subsiding pain has raised Quentin's confidence to the point where he thinks he could be ready should the Sox advance to the AL Championship Series.

It wasn't hard to see this coming, but it's still disappointing: Ben Sheets conceded Monday that he almost certainly will not pitch in the postseason. He tried to play through pain after an MRI revealed a torn muscle in his pitching elbow in late August but an MRI earlier this week revealed the injury is getting worse. From MLB.com:

"I'm going to keep pushing like it's series-to-series," Sheets said. "But I don't know if that's realistic. I would say I'm out, most likely, unless I can hit. And I can't hit.

"We went aggressive at it," Sheets added. "I tried acupuncture, I tried massage. We tried everything. I tried it, and it didn't work."

Sheets posted a pedestrian 13-9 record, but the Brewers won 18 of his 31 starts this year, thanks largely to his 3.06 ERA, the second-best mark of his career. There's no chance at all this team could have made the playoffs for the first time since 1982 without his contributions, so it's unfortunate he can't help them take the next step.

The timing of the injury couldn't be worse for Sheets on a personal level, as well. He'll be a free agent this winter, and considering he was already battling a reputation for being injury prone, the fact that he'll finish the season on the trainer's table should cost him more than a few dollars. But who knows, maybe this will work out for the Brewers in the end. If enough teams are scared of Sheets' injury history, he just may be enough of a bargain for the Brewers to re-sign him.

The Yankees aren't in the playoffs, but Joba Chamberlain's shoulder continues to haunt the headlines!

George King III reports in today's New York Post that Joba left his final outing of the season on Sunday feeling tightness in his right shoulder. Although he didn't complain of any discomfort before last weekend, it's possible this has been plaguing him for a while:

According to a scout who recently tracked Chamberlain, tightness could be why his velocity was down during the final two weeks of the season. "He was throwing 91 mph and a lot of sliders," the scout said of Chamberlain, whose fastball was clocked at 97-98 mph before he spent almost a month on the DL with rotator-cuff tendinitis.

The ailment isn't considered to be too serious, but it's still a disheartening way to head into the offseason, especially considering the Yankees had toyed with the idea of letting him pitch winter ball to rack up a few more innings. Now, it seems like the prudent move would be to tie him up in bubblewrap and send him home for the winter.

Bad news for the Red Sox as they prepare to defend their title. Ace Josh Beckett will not start Game 1 of the ALDS against the Angels after suffering a strained oblique during a side throwing session over the weekend.

Initial reports from the Boston Herald indicated Beckett could miss the entire postseason, but manager Terry Francona seems optimstic that he'll be able to pitch in Game 3.

Q: Oblique injuries can be tricky. How confident are you Josh will pitch Game 3?
A: I don't think we would slot him in. Now certainly, if it goes the wrong way, we're going to use pretty good, hopefully very good, judgment. But I think that we're slotting him in there because we think he can pitch there. I don't think – Friday was actually discussed. I think after Theo [Epstein] and I and John Farrell talked about it more and more and more, we thought that was pushing it. Because then you're messing around with maybe cutting short a side session. It's not just health, but it's competing also. He has to be able to go out there and execute his pitches. I think he's going to be OK.

Beckett will throw a side session in Anaheim, and if he comes out of it fine, will be in line to start next Sunday, though it's possible Boston could adjust its plans for him depending on the state of the series.

It's been a tough season for him physically. He started the season on the disabled list and found himself there again in August because of some ominous tingling in his throwing arm.

As for the Red Sox, it's hard to say this news makes their chances of a repeat better. Beckett seems to have taken the mantle of baseball's best big-game pitcher from teammate Curt Schilling. On the other hand, Jon Lester and Daisuke Matsuzaka are more than capable of stepping up in his place.

Boston should be more concerned about the cumulative effect of all the injuries it has had to deal with this year. The Red Sox are deep enough to win a title without Mike Lowell or J.D. Drew or maybe even Josh Beckett, but without all three, the odds seem pretty long.

Earlier tonight, I ran a post here sharing the report by a Tampa Bay area TV station that Rays outfielder Rocco Baldelli had been diagnosed with a form of muscular dystrophy. If you check that post now, the links are all dead and if you check Marc Lancaster's blog at the Tampa Tribune, that's because the team is denying the report:

"The report issued by WFTS-TV Channel 28 is irresponsible and erroneous. We expect an immediate retraction and an apology to Rocco and his family."

[...]

"The report is erroneous. It is incorrect terminology," Weiss said this afternoon in comments relayed by a Rays spokesman. "He has mitochondrial myopathy, not muscular dystrophy. They are different diseases, both covered by MDA."

The key distinction, from what I can understand, is that muscular dystrophy is a degenerative condition and mitochondrial myopathy is not. That's a huge difference when it comes down to what the diagnosis means for Baldelli's future. While mitochondrial myopathy is a similar condition to MD and shares some symptoms it's just not the same thing.

There's no doubt that WFTS dropped the ball with their report, but it would be remiss if I passed the blame entirely to them. The fact is, there were some elements of their report that didn't add up and as a student of the sciences outside of FanHouse, I should've probably recognized them before I posted. I ran with WFTS's report for my initial post anyways. If bloggers are going to hold traditional media to a higher standards, we need to adhere to them ourselves and I'm sorry for not doing that tonight. Baldelli truly is an inspirational figure no matter how his disorder is characterized and I apologize for getting the story wrong.

For the past couple of years, Rocco Baldelli has been plagued with a series of leg problems that have seriously limited his playing time. This spring, he began feeling severely fatigued and doctors told him he had a mitochondrial disorder that likely contributed to his leg problems. Today, ABCNews in Tampa is reporting that doctors finally have a diagnosis for Baldelli: mitochondrial myopathy, a rare genetic disorder and a form of muscular dystrophy.

The good news for Baldelli is that while mitochondrial myopathy is incurable, his doctor seems to think he'll be able to keep playing. Baldelli himself seems to be taking it all in stride:

"Now that I know what it feels like to struggle with something like this, you kind of understand that people need support and they need help. I'm sure once I sit down this off season and start to deal with MDA more, I'll probably understand a lot more," Rocco said.

There's a video interview with Baldelli at the website of WFTS, the Tampa TV station that broke the story that expands on the quote from above. Impressively, all of the setbacks and tests haven't kept him off the field this year as he's been DHing for the Rays for the past month or so. So he's got a fatigue-causing genetic disorder, yet he's agreeing to work with the MDA in the off-season and helping the formerly hopeless Rays to their first playoff spot ever. If you can't find inspiration in Rocco Baldelli, I'm not sure you'll find it anywhere.

Tip o' the cap to SBB for finding this one.

UPDATE: Baldelli and Rays president Matt Silverman have both emphatically denied this report. "The report issued by WFTS-TV Channel 28 is irresponsible and erroneous. We expect an immediate retraction and an apology to Rocco and his family," said Silverman. Of the WFTS report, Baldelli said, "That's awful."

UPDATE: FanHouse's own Bruce Ciskie has just e-mailed me to let me know that while Hardy dislocated his left, non-throwing, thumb in the celebration last night, it's been popped back into place (what a visual) and he's playing tonight. The Brewers haven't commented yet, but he is in the starting lineup.

Whenever I watch a wild dog-pile at home plate celebrating a walk-off hit for someone, I invariably wonder why people don't get injured more often in those celebrations. Word has trickled out of Milwaukee today that J.J. Hardy may have done just that last night. Tom Haudricort at the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel has found reason to think that Hardy suffered a hand injury while celebratingRyan Braun's tenth inning walk-off grand slam last night.

[Brewers' media relations director Mike] Vassallo said [assistant GM Gord] Ash told him he would have no comment on the situation until Hardy reports to the ballpark today and is examined by medical personnel. That makes it sound as if something indeed happened to Hardy last night. Otherwise, Ash would have merely denied the speculation and said there was nothing to it.

So, it's not official but it sure sounds like something is up. Otherwise, Ash would have blown the speculation out of the water. Sounds as if the Brewers are waiting for an update on the situation as well.

Playing the Cubs with the pennant on the line and Craig Counsell starting at shortstop. That's what the Brewers face this weekend if Hardy hurt himself seriously enough to have to miss time. And it was celebrating a win over the Pirates that took ten innings. I know it was a big win in the playoff race and all, but I feel like celebrating after beating the Pirates is a really stupid way to injure yourself.

Thanks to reader Bob J. for the tip.