Los Angeles Dodgers shortstop Rafael Furcal has had another rough season with injuries, and his latest one is a strain of the dreaded, mysterious oblique muscle. He was put on the DL on Saturday, and Dylan Hernandez of the Los Angeles Times has more:
Furcal: received PRP injection. Expected back in 25-30 days.
A PRP injection sounds ominous, but it's a fairly new procedure that involves taking platelet cells from your own blood and injecting them in the injured area to speed up the healing process. The treatment might not be the most exciting story, but Hernandez also gave a timeline for the first time, with Furcal expected to miss a month or so.
The Dodgers called up the organizational Lou Gehrig to Furcal's Wally Pipp, promoting top prospect Dee Gordon and inserting him into the lineup right away. Furcal was frustrated enough with an earlier injury that he openly contemplated retirement, so the ambiguity of an oblique muscle -- finicky enough to torment even the youngest athletes -- seems like an especially bad match for Furcal.