Jimmy Rollins is either the most unlucky guy on the planet, or he doesn’t do nearly enough work during the offseason and throughout the regular season. Muscle pulls can, of course, be freak things, but three times in one year leads me to believe he simply doesn’t train hard enough.
When the muscle is worked properly, it gets stronger—obviously. You don’t need a medical degree to understand how that might work. It also doesn’t take a genius to understand that not only does training make it stronger, but it makes the muscle more resilient.
More resilient means fewer tweaks, strains, pulls and a much lower chance of a tear. So the fact that Rollins has now tweaked/strained/pulled a muscle in his leg three times in one season can most likely be traced back to laziness in the weight room.
No one is that unlucky. There has to be an explanation for it.
Jimmy has a reputation as a hard worker and a tough player which has led to a lot of games played and few missed. So the fact that he’s now been injured three times in 2010 would lead me to believe his training has dipped.
The fact that “dehydration” was listed as a cause of the injury doesn’t help. Is there anything easier to avoid? Just drink some water. He’s sitting on the bench for how long while the Phillies are batting and there’s no possible way he’s just too busy to have a cup of water.
If he’s truly being that lazy this season, he could probably have someone get it and bring it to him on the bench, so there’s no excuse for that to ever be an issue.
Basketball players, soccer players and maybe even hockey players might be able to use that as an excuse because they’re constantly going and truly might not have time to get enough water, but baseball players should never have that kind of trouble.
The bottom line is that Rollins has to step up and start doing the things expected of him. That means getting in the weight room, drinking some water and doing whatever else he must do in order to stay on the field and actually help his team, because right now Wilson Valdez is just a more reliable option at shortstop.
Yeah, Wilson Valdez. How about that?
Or, maybe my assumption is all wrong, and all Jimmy needs is a rabbit’s foot, a horseshoe and a four-leaf clover.
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