The status of 2-way player Shohei Ohtani of the Los Angeles Angels continues to hang in the balance. After a media report on Monday declared a Tommy John surgery “likely”, General Manager Billy Eppler was later cautiously optimistic that the Japanese could return in 2018.
In an interview with Ken Rosenthal of the MLB Network, Eppler said: “There are no changes in the diagnosis of Shohei Ohtani and neither our doctors nor our medical staff have advised or said that Tommy John surgery is likely”.
Manager Mike Scioscia agreed with him and told reporters that an elbow reconstruction “did not come up in any talks between me and the medical department”.
Jon Paul Morosi of MLB.com, on the other hand, reported that the Angels are at least cautiously optimistic that Ohtani could return to play at least as a designated hitter this season. But whether he will stand on the mound again in 2018 is less likely.
On Sunday, Pedro Gomez of ESPN had reported that an operation on the injured elbow was “likely”. Diagnosis is a second degree compression of the collateral ligament in his right throwing arm. In the previous week, the Japanese was therefore given platelet-rich plasma (PRP) and a stem cell injection to relieve the pain and start the healing process. He will then be examined again in about three weeks.
This article was published without previous view by the Major League Baseball.