Report: St. Louis Cardinals pitcher Adam Wainwright undergoes surgery on throwing arm

On Monday, St. Louis Cardinals general manager John Mozeliak and manager Mike Matheny held a joint press conference at Busch Stadium. After the Cardinals' ace, Adam Wainwright, battled through an injury-plagued season with concern about his health most recently expressed by Matheny during the playoffs (before the organization walked back the manager's statements), one of the topics of discussion was the fitness of the righthander's throwing elbow. Mozeliak told the media, as reported by Derrick Goold of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, that Wainwright's throwing arm was fine and that the righty would not require offseason surgery:

Adam Wainwright had a full battery of exams on his right elbow and the irritation inside it has not persisted to a point where he'll need a medical procedure. Rest has been prescribed. His schedule will be modified come spring training to save him some mileage before the season begins.

Apparently the full battery of exams in fact did reveal bone spurs of the surgery-requiring kind.

On Friday afternoon, Will Carroll, an injury analyst formerly of Baseball Prospectus and currently with Bleacher Report, tweeted the following:

Ok, now I can confirm that Adam Wainwright has - or is scheduled to have - elbow surgery. It's a bone spur situation, which is usually minor

— Will Carroll (@injuryexpert) October 24, 2014

So we've gone from arthritis in June that was likened to tennis elbow by Mozeliak, which required an anti-inflammatory injection and a start off, to a dead arm in August, to an aggravation behind Wainwright's right elbow in early October, to bone spurs that requiring surgical intervention in late October.

For those of you (like me) thinking back to 2007 when Chris Carpenter was pulled from the season opener against the Mets with pain in his right throwing arm that resulted in surgery to remove bone spurs and then Tommy John UCL replacement, Carroll tweets not to fret:

Whether this is chips or spurs is actually a big deal for Wainwright. Spurs and TJ are an odd symbiosis. Chips are no big deal.

— Will Carroll (@injuryexpert) October 24, 2014

UPDATE:

It turns out that Wainwright underwent elbow surgery on Friday afternoon:

Wainwright had ligament trimmed in right elbow today, after seeking a second opinion this week in STL. News posted @StlToday #cardinals

— Derrick Goold (@dgoold) October 24, 2014

From Goold's stltoday.com article:

Wainwright had a surgical procedure done Friday on the backside of his pitching elbow, multiple sources have confirmed. Wainwright had a ligament trimmed in his right elbow, a Cardinals official said.

2ND UPDATE:

Jenifer Langosch of MLB.com reports Wainwright had cartilage and not a ligament trimmed.

Wainwright is expected to be ready to go on opening day. With four years and $78 million remain on Wainwright's contract with the Cardinals, let's hope they're correct and the righty's throwing elbow is 100% come spring.