Berkman to Matheny: ‘I’ll be back’

Cardinals manager Mike Matheny got a call from Houston about mid-day today. He expected the caller to be a little punchy after anesthesia, but Matheny heard first baseman Lance Berkman loud and clear.

Berkman, after having meniscus and cartilage tears repaired in his right knee, told Matheny, “Yeah, I’m going to be back.”

The Cardinals announced that Berkman was likely to be out eight to 10 weeks worth of rehabilitation and recovery, but that was better than the alternative. Berkman had feared there would be damage to the anterior cruciate ligament but none was found, according to Matheny.

“I think he was surprised,” said Matheny. “He thought it probably was worse. I was interested to hear from him that soon. I thought he would still be medicated.

“But it was great to hear his voice and hear that excitement. He’s thinking about counting down the days until he’s back.”

Berkman will spend the early days/weeks of his rest period in Houston before he is scheduled to come back to St. Louis. But it appears the Cardinals will have their middle-of-the-order threat back well before the end of the season.

“It was great news,” said Matheny “As good a news as we could get. The doctors were extremely optimistic about what they saw.”

Read more: http://www.stltoday.com/sports/baseball/professional/cardinal-beat/berkman-to-matheny-i-ll-be-back/article_b920f5a8-a6b2-11e1-9f95-001a4bcf6878.html#ixzz1vvFmHi1h

Bernie Miklasz noted Berkman’s spring admission his knee was feeling “unstable” and the additional cartilage damage that was addressed today, there was also mention of a possible follow up procedure being necessary as well. Cards spinning focus on the “There’s no ACL damage” narrative with other concerns being downplayed.

Early reports have Puma returning to STL for rehab to spend as much time with the team as he can when he could have easily chosen to stay in Houston with his family and base from there.

Mozeliak is going to be on am1380 in the 3PM hour, listen online here:

http://www.kfns.com/Other/streamtheworld-1380.html

I am just applying the sage advice of the Bush Stadium Streaker (hakuna matata). If you can do something about it, then do it…worrying does no good. If you can’t do something about it, worrying still does no good….so….hakuna matata….then apparently you get naked and run around on national TV and in front of 40,000 people.

Besides, you have to look at things with the long-term in mind, otherwise you think signing Erik Aybar to a $36M deal is a good idea…or signing Pujols to $254M deal is a good idea….or signing ARod to a $275M deal is a good idea….or you are irresponsible with your credit….or become frustrated with teaching/training/learning when progress is slow. Few things in life that are good happen quickly…they usually require a lot of small investments over time and patience (in contrast, many horrible things in life happen suddenly and without warning…you deal with them as they come…worrying about things that may never happen is also a waste of energy).

Baseball is better when you are playing…

Get well Lance.

DH in Houston next year?

1. The knees may be hell, but he hasn’t lost bat speed yet.
2. Having said that, even if he has recovered in ten weeks it is starting to be hard to see how he could be ready for playoffs pitching with a relatively short time to get back in the game.

We will try to be optimists, though.

Glad it isn’t a torn ACL though….wouldn’t mind seeing him back as a bench player/depth guy next year.

We know what happened with both of those…

They tend to bright side it publicly so I wouldn’t be surprised if this is indeed the case here as well..