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Stephen Strasburg’s Doctor Says He Wasn’t Consulted About Shutting Down Stephen Strasburg

Dr. Lewis Yocum, the man who performed Tommy John surgery on Nationals ace Stephen Strasburg, says he didn’t tell the team to shut down their best pitcher.

In an effort to protect Strasburg’s surgically repaired right elbow (and their $15.1 million investment), the Nats made the controversial decision to cap his innings count and end his season early, despite the fact that they’ll be the first Washington baseball team to play in the postseason since 1933 and could be in the midst of a World Series run.

It was obviously a decision their fanbase didn’t want them taking lightly, and the Nats told anyone that would listen that they consulted the right experts and talked to the right people. Obviously, Yocum, one of sports medicine’s most respected orthopedic surgeons (and the guy who was knifing around inside Strasburg’s elbow in September 2010) would fall under the category of “the right people.”

Except the doctor says he never got a call.

“I wasn’t asked,” Dr. Lewis Yocum told the Los Angeles Times.

[...]

Yocum said that, had he been asked, he would not have been able to provide conclusive information about whether Strasburg’s long-term health would be best served by shutting him down.

“There’s no statistic as far as studies,” Yocum said.

Today, Strasburg’s agent Scott Boras said Yocum had indeed been consulted, he just forgot or something.

“I know from the discussion I’ve had with the Nationals that there has been repeated communication between the Nationals’ doctor and Dr. Yocum,” Boras said. “There was a conversation between Dr. Yocum and Rizzo sometime in August.”

One person close to Rizzo said Yocum and Rizzo spoke on Aug. 13 and called Yocum’s comments “very curious.”

So: Strasburg’s doctor is saying no one asked him about shutting down Strasburg, but Strasburg’s agent is saying that Strasburg’s doctor was consulted and just doesn’t remember. Either way, Nats fans: COMMENCE CONFUSION AND OUTRAGE.

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