Joe Strauss and Kyle Lohse are two points often used to triangulate bad news, but this is even more absurd than I was expecting. From the Post-Dispatch:
Hand and wrist specialist Dr. Steven S. Shin met with Lohse for less than an hour at the Kerlan-Jobe Orthopedic Clinic about 90 minutes north of San Diego. Shin found Lohse to be suffering from extreme compartment syndrome, a condition in which the sheath covering a muscle in the pitcher's forearm fails to allow it to expand.
The condition is more closely associated with distance runners and motocross riders.
What?
The condition is apparently more common in not just motocross riders, but European motocross riders.
The Cardinals can't be allowed off the hook for a bad contract just because of the bizarre circumstances under which it fails, but an injury like this is strange even for pitchers. The first hit for '"compartment syndrome" baseball', unpleasantly enough, is this article about Noah Lowry:
March 07, 2008|By Henry Schulman, Chronicle Staff Writer
Tempe, Ariz. - Manager Bruce Bochy tried to put the best face on Thursday's news that Noah Lowry will undergo surgery on his throwing arm today. Bochy termed the procedure minor, said Lowry might begin throwing "in two, maybe three weeks" and could return to the mound in late April.But the truth is, Lowry has been diagnosed with a very unusual injury for a baseball player, called exertional compartment syndrome. The Giants have not been able to find another pitcher who has had the same surgery, and their prognosis is more of a guess.
Lowry's injury—fortunately, I guess—was misdiagnosed, as it turned out; he had a different shoulder problem, and his agent later blamed his career derailment on the Giants' failure to get it right the first time. So provided the Cardinals got this one right it might not mean that he misses two and a half years. In the meantime, the Cardinals will look for somebody in America who's even done this before.