Duff On The Way Back

So far, you’ve heard from two out of the three pitchers listed on the Trenton Thunder disabled list; Jeremy Bleich and Alan Horne.

Well, I was able to track down the third one as well.

Big, hard-throwing reliever Grant Duff hasn’t pitched since June 27, 2010, the result of a stress fracture that was discovered in his right pitching elbow.  Prior to the detection of the fracture, the friendly fireballer initially tried to use rest to heal the injury, but he experienced discomfort during a side session and was shut down.  The fracture was then discovered, and Duff hoped to avoid surgery, but instead had a screw inserted into his arm.

I exchanged a few messages with Duff early this afternoon, and he wrote the following: “Things are going pretty good.  I pitched in my first game on Saturday and my arm felt good.”

Duff told me he will throw in an extended spring training game tomorrow, and then another on Friday, and is then hoping to receive an assignment to a team, presumably Tampa for the time being. 

Duff said he was initially discouraged by some discomfort in his arm that he experienced after long toss or throwing harder, and that getting used to having the screw in there took some getting used to.  But he reports that he was hitting 90-94 MPH on the radar gun and joked he has “no complaints about that.”  He said, as Nardi Contreras also told me, that his split was good.

Unfortunately, the righty was sidetracked at an inopportune time.  Duff had made great strides towards pitching in the big leagues.  He had been selected to pitch in the Arizona Fall League in 2009, and was pitching well out of Trenton’s bullpen, primarily serving as the team’s closer.  He also received his first call-up to Triple-A Scranton.

Mike Ashmore, mashmore98 AT gmail.com