Cedar Pointe Chiropractic blog
A Rare Injury
If you are a Toronto Blue Jays fan, you will no doubt be aware that short stop Troy Tulowitzki has a “cracked scapula”. It is not known exactly how long he will be out of action.
First, lets look at how it happened (mechanism of injury).
On Saturday in the second inning of the first game there was a flyball hit into shallow centre field. Tulowitzki backpeddled into position under the ball and felt he had stopped moving. Seconds later centre fielder Kevin Pillar ran into Troy’s back after the shortstop had caught the ball. Reports and video show Pillars chin connecting with Tulowizki’s left shoulder blade. The collision is not as violent as I expected to break bones but often it is just the right amount of force at the wrong time. Good thing Pillar was not knocked out by the hit to the chin but I bet he has a sore jaw.
Secondly, what does the shoulder blade do?
It connects your arm to your body. Breast bone connected to the collar bone, collar bone connected to the shoulder blade, shoulder blade connected to the upper arm bone. Or Gray’s Anatomy sternum to clavicle to scapula to humerus. The scapula has attachments for the rotator cuff muscles which are very important to throwing a baseball and swinging a bat.
Lastly, estimates have Tulowitzki out for 3 weeks.
It must not be a big fracture site inorder for him to get back so quickly. It will be hard to sleep and he will not be able to do much if any upper body work until there is no pain from the area. It could be much worse if it was a full break or if ligament damage happened.
For now all Jays fans can do is enjoy the new players at short stop in the interm and hope for Tulowitzki to have a speedy return in time for playoffs.