Section 435 An Atlanta Braves blog. From the upper deck at Turner Field.

Was Tim Hudson’s Bad Night More Than Just a Bad Night?

Does anybody else find the description of Tim Hudson’s woes last night to be really, really eerie:

“I felt fine physically,” Hudson said. “Just one of those nights I went out there and just couldn’t get anything behind the ball. It was kind of a weird feeling. My heater [fastball] is normally a lot better than that. Just wasn’t coming out of my hand good, for whatever reason.”

Here’s what Mike Gonzales said last year a few days before he went down for Tommy John surgery:

“You don’t see me throwing anything less than 89 or 90 miles an hour,” Gonzalez said. “Tonight, I was maxing out at 82 and 83. It’s definitely frustrating. The pain isn’t there. So it’s hard to distinguish what is going on. Maybe it’s just a bad day.”

There’s no indication from anyone that it is that serious, but that’s a pretty classic description of the symptoms of elbow ligament damage. And Huddy is the kind of hard sinkerballer who is more susceptible to the elbow problems. I think reading the headline from the AJC this morning, “Hudson puzzled by loss of velocity,” was the first time I’ve been really worried about this season.

[...] 7, Washington 3. Hudson returned to the mound tonight after his wonky start last week. The public address announcer referred to his performance as solid when naming him the player of [...]

[...] losing Tim Hudson for most of next year to Tommy John surgery (and I’m wondering if I prophesied this way back when), it’s not quite such a sure thing that we should be looking to compete in 2009. With Hudson [...]