When Does Boon Logan's Elbow Stop Being A "Minor" Issue?

(Courtesy of Reuters)

Two weeks ago, we read about Boone Logan walking around camp with his left arm wrapped after a short throwing session and got the dreaded "just being cautious" explanation from pitching coach Larry Rothschild.  I say "dreaded" because it's never good to know that a pitcher coming off a career high workload the previous season is feeling discomfort in his pitching arm the following spring, especially when the discomfort is in his elbow.

Logan has thrown a few side sessions here and there in the last two weeks, but has still yet to get into a game this spring.  Of the pitchers who expected to be ready for the start of the season, only four haven't pitched in a game yet.  Two of them (Mo and CC) are recovering from surgeries, one of them (Hughes) hurt himself early in camp, and the other is Logan, who hasn't been officially diagnosed with any injury to his left arm but according to Sweeny Murti is being "shut down for a few days" after going for an MRI on his sore elbow yesterday.

The MRI came back clean, and there's still no official word on what, exactly, the problem is with Logan's elbow.  As a result, most of the MSM and blogosphere is calling this a "minor injury."  Not me.  I know it's still early in camp and he's got time to rest and get the elbow feeling good again, but there's no way a sore elbow on a pitcher coming off a career high workload that has prevented him from pitching in a game three plus weeks into Spring Training can be considered minor.  This is similar to how ManBan's injury status went last year when he was shut down and he ended up having TJS.

The Yankees are going to continue to do their best to get Logan healthy and ready for the season, but Clay Rapada, Francisco Rondon, and, to a certain degree, Cesar Cabral are on notice.  If Logan isn't ready to go to start the season, and if this elbow problem nags him throughout, a big role is going to open up in the Yankee 'pen and they're the group expected to fill it.  Part of me wants to say the Yankees expected something like this to happen, which is why Rondon was added to the 40-man and Cabral was retained after missing all of last season.  If that's the case then good on them for covering their bases, but too bad for Logan.  We haven't seen anybody get affected by the Torre Treatment since the other Joe took over, and now it's starting to look like Logan is going to be the first.

P.S.- If Logan ends up missing time, that also means Loone Bogan won't be around either.  I guess that's a fair trade-off.