Results tagged ‘ LaTroy Hawkins ’

Hawkins weighing shoulder surgery

Brewers reliever LaTroy Hawkins is considering exploratory surgery to provide some answers on the lingering stiffness in his right shoulder. He’ll make a decision by Friday. 

Hawkins visited Dr. Lewis Yocum in Los Angeles on Monday and underwent an MRI scan which provided no new clues since his last scan in May. Yocum discovered “wear and tear,” Hawkins said, but no serious damage. 
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Hawkins will get second opinion

Frustrated Brewers reliever LaTroy Hawkins has a Monday morning appointment at the Los Angeles offices of Dr. Lewis Yocum, a renowned orthopedist who will offer a fresh opinion on Hawkins’ balky right shoulder. Hawkins will undergo an MRI scan. A similar scan back in May revealed inflammation but no serious damage. 

Hawkins was placed back on the 15-day DL on Thursday with what the Brewers continue to call “right shoulder weakness.” Hawkins, who spent nearly three months on the DL with the same ailment earlier this season, said there is indeed weakness in the joint but also tightness, a sensation that prevents him from getting full extension on his pitches. He was feeling fine until one fastball in Monday’s outing against Arizona. 
“I want to be able to carry my own weight,” Hawkins said. “Shoot, I can’t carry my own weight right now. It’s miserable being out there in the bullpen and you can’t carry your own weight.”
The Brewers did get better news on the Ryan Braun health front. As expected, the left fielder is back in the lineup after missing four starts with a strained left wrist. 
Here’s the full lineup:

Rickie Weeks  2B
Corey Hart  RF

Ryan Braun  LF
Prince Fielder  1B
Casey McGehee  3B
Craig Counsell SS
Lorenzo Cain  CF
George Kottaras  C
Randy Wolf  LHP
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Hawkins back to DL, McClendon up

LaTroy Hawkins’ return from nearly three months on the disabled list lasted all of five outings. 

The Brewers placed Hawkins back on the 15-day DL on Thursday morning with the same right shoulder weakness that landed him there in the first place in early May. Hawkins was replaced by right-hander Mike McClendon, a 25-year-old right-hander who was an All-Star for Triple-A Nashville this season. 
To make room for McClendon on the full 40-man roster, the Brewers shifted catcher Gregg Zaun to the 60-day DL. Zaun is out for the season after shoulder surgery. 
His own shoulder injury has prevented Hawkins from contributing to the Brewers in the first season of the two-year $7.5 million contract he signed during December’s Winter Meetings and exasperated the Brewers’ lousy luck with free agent pitchers. They also signed Randy Wolf to a three-year, $29.75 million contract, and he entered Thursday’s start against the D-backs with a 4.81 ERA and a 5.29 fielding independent ERA (FIP), up from 3.96 last year with the Dodgers. The Brewers’ other big signing was left-hander Doug Davis, who missed two months with swelling around his heart and is currently sidelined indefinitely by elbow tendonitis. 
McClendon will wear No. 58 for the Brewers. He posted a 2.44 ERA in 25 appearances at Nashville after a promotion from Double-A Huntsville, and surrendered only one home run in 55 1/3 innings. The Brewers made McClendon their 10th round Draft pick in 2006. 
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Villanueva optioned out, clears path for Hawkins

Carlos Villanueva’s forgettable eighth inning on Wednesday will be his last appearance in a Brewers uniform for some time. He was optioned to Triple-A Nashville after the Brewers’ 10-2 loss to the Reds to clear a path for fellow reliever LaTroy Hawkins to return from the disabled list on Friday. 
Hawkins is on the 60-day DL with right shoulder weakness but will be back in uniform Friday night against the Astros. The Brewers will have to make another move to open a 40-man roster spot when they formally activate Hawkins, but that won’t be a problem. Catcher Gregg Zaun, finished for the season after shoulder surgery, can be moved from the 15-day to the 60-day DL. 
Villanueva has not pitched in the Minors since 2007. He has a 4.96 ERA in 45 appearances this season, including a bad one on Wednesday in which he surrendered five runs. Four of those runs scored on a booming, 450-foot grand slam by Reds second baseman Brandon Phillips that hit Bernie Brewer’s slide high above left field. 
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Successful first outing for Hawkins

Rehabbing Brewers reliever LaTroy Hawkins made his debut at rookie-level Arizona last night and pitched 1 2/3 scoreless innings. He allowed two hits and struck out two in his first outing since May 6, when Hawkins surrendered a game-winning grand slam to the Dodgers’ Andre Ethier and insisted to reporters that his arm felt fine. Three days later, he was placed on the disabled list with shoulder fatigue. 

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Hawkins to pitch Thursday in Arizona

After two months on the disabled list, LaTroy Hawkins will finally return to the mound Thursday, for the Brewers rookie league team in Arizona.

 

Hawkins is scheduled to pitch one inning in Arizona against the Cubs rookie league squad. If all goes according to plan in that outing for Hawkins, the veteran reliever will go to Nashville to continue his rehab with the Brewers’ Triple-A affiliate.

“I don’t know exactly what the schedule is, but he’s going to get back-to-back days and he’s going to get a two-inning stint also,” Brewers manager Ken Macha said. “Hopes are that he may be back around the Cincinnati series [on July 26-28].”

The true test over the next two weeks for Hawkins will be the back-to-back days he pitches with Nashville, Macha said based on his conversation with pitching coach Rick Peterson.

“It’s broken up into back-to-back days and then a two-inning stint, and I think the back-to-back days are right before the Cincinnati series,” Macha said. “Rick’s feeling is if he’s fine after the back-to-back days he should be ready to join us.”

– Jordan Schelling, Associate Reporter

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Positive progress for Gallardo

Brewers general manager Ken Macha offered good news on the Yovani Gallardo front Friday: The injured right-hander played catch for 10 minutes from 90 feet during the afternoon in his first activity since straining a rib-cage muscle on Sunday in St. Louis. 

“Today would have been his day to pitch, he got some throwing and I asked him afterwards how he felt and he said, ‘Pretty good,’” Macha said. “That’s a very positive sign.”
Gallardo, who was placed on the 15-day disabled list retroactive to Monday with a strained left oblique, is eligible for reinstatement beginning July 20, when the Brewers are scheduled to play the second of four games in Pittsburgh. Macha couldn’t say whether it was realistic to think that Gallardo could actually return on that date. 
“We’ll monitor that as we progress with his throwing,” Macha said. 
Gallardo will have to continue his rehabilitation off-site, because he will be in Anaheim next week for All-Star Game festivities. He was selected to the National League squad on the same day he suffered the rib-cage injury.
Macha should have another injury update on Saturday, when reliever LaTroy Hawkins is scheduled to throw a simulated game at Miller Park. Hawkins has been on the DL since May 9 with right shoulder fatigue. 
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Riske returns, Hawkins way behind

The Brewers announced in their media notes today that reliever David Riske had been reinstated from the 60-day disabled list and would be in uniform tonight for the series opener at Miller Park against the Cubs. Riske takes the 25-man roster spot vacated over the weekend by Todd Coffey, who was placed on the 15-day DL with a thumb injury, and takes a 40-man roster spot from LaTroy Hawkins, who was shifted to the 60-day DL. The only diagnosis the Brewers have offered for Hawkins is “right shoulder fatigue.”

More on those moves to come. Here’s the lineup:
Rickie Weeks  2B
Carlos Gomez  CF
Prince Fielder  1B
Ryan Braun  LF
Casey McGehee  3B
Corey Hart  RF
Alcides Escobar  SS
George Kottaras  C
Yovani Gallardo  RHP
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Macha not naming Axford as closer, yet

MILWAUKEE — With John Axford getting the call in the ninth inning of the Brewers’ 8-6 victory on Saturday, many began to assume it meant he was the team’s closer.

 

Not so fast, manager Ken Macha said in his postgame press conference.

“I’m not eliminating Trevor,” said Macha, referring to all-time saves leader Trevor Hoffman. “I want to give [Hoffman] a few more innings. But it’s going to be nice if we have coverage like that.”

Axford, a flame-throwing 27-year-old right-hander, is 2-for-2 in save opportunities on the season. Along with his save at the end of the 2009 season, Axford is a perfect 3-for-3 in his short big league career as a closer.

Though his career total is still 593 less than that of Hoffman, Axford doesn’t let the pressure of the situation get to him.

“It’s a tough situation to be in, I guess,” Axford said. “I don’t hold a flame to Trevor Hoffman. So I’m not thinking about that really. I’m just trying to get my job done.”

While Macha has been impressed by Axford’s recent performance out of the bullpen, he sees greater value in having several pitchers comfortable with pressure situations in the late innings.

“There’s no problem having a couple,” Macha said. “My last year in Oakland, we had six guys with saves. I’d like to get Trevor back. … The more guys you’re can bring in pressure situations and they’re able to get outs, that makes your bullpen that much stronger.

“I’d like to get [LaTroy] Hawkins back too. When all those pieces get back together, it starts to give you a lot of options. … I’m not selling any of those guys short.”

When asked about his bullpen in his morning session with the media, Macha said he hoped to get Hoffman in the game on Sunday. He did not, however, specify an inning in which that might happen.

But with the way Axford has pitched lately, Macha admitted after Saturday’s game that “it’s hard not to bring him in.”

“He has the stuff,” Macha said. “There’s no doubt about that.”

– Jordan Schelling, Associate Reporter

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Hawkins to DL; Stetter up from Nashville

LaTroy Hawkins is hurt, after all. 

The Brewers will place the veteran reliever on the 15-day disabled list Sunday with weakness in his right shoulder and will recall left-hander Mitch Stetter from Triple-A Nashville. Hawkins, who surrendered a walkoff grand slam to the Dodgers’ Andre Ethier in his last outing on Wednesday, had previously declined the notion that he was hurt. 
But his location has been missing for some time and lately his velocity has dropped. On Saturday night after the Brewers announced the roster move, Hawkins owned up.
“Something wasn’t right,” he said. 
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