NEWSLETTER
Today was initial testing day for David Bote’s dislocated – not separated (more on that in a moment) shoulder. As you may have noticed anecdotally over the years, a player can suffer a shoulder dislocation, but not necessarily miss a ton of time. If the arm pops out of the shoulder socket but does not cause significant structural damage, it might be a minimum IL stay, as we saw earlier this year with Fernando Tatis, Jr., for example.
So, at an initial level, then, it was really good news to hear that today’s tests did not reveal significant damage in Bote’s shoulder (NBCSC):
“We got the best news we can possibly get on him,” Ross added after the Cubs’ 5-1 loss to the Reds.
Bote hit the injured list Sunday after dislocating his shoulder sliding to break up a double play during Saturday’s win over the Reds. He was helped off the field by Ross and a trainer.
The Cubs medical staff popped his shoulder back into place after he exited Saturday’s game, and an MRI Sunday revealed stretched out ligaments and tendons, but no fractures, according to Ross.
“If there is such good news, it looks like it is on the better side of the news,” the Cubs manager added.
You still can’t precisely predict a timeline for Bote’s return, because it depends a great deal on how long it takes for the inflammation to subside and the stretched ligaments and tendons to heal. It still might be a month or more. But based on this news, you can start to see why the Cubs opted to put Bote only on the 10-day IL today, rather than immediately on the 60-day IL. There’s a suggestion here, between the test results and the Cubs’ IL move, that Bote could be back long before two months. That’s great news.
You will recall, the initial diagnosis – or at least what the Cubs said initially (maybe someone misspoke) – was that Bote had suffered a separated shoulder, not a dislocated shoulder. The injuries are not the same thing, with the former involving damage to the ligaments that hold the shoulder blade to the collarbone, and generally coming with a six to eight-week timeframe on the optimistic side for recovery. To be sure, a dislocation *can* be worse depending on how much damage occurs during the dislocation, but it can also be better, if there wasn’t significant damage. A separation, by contrast (from everything I’m reading, anyway), seems like it’s always pretty bad for an athlete.
So, then, compared to what I was expecting, today’s news is pretty great. Again, it doesn’t mean Bote will be back in a month or less. But it does mean that he could be.
