The timetable for NC left-hander Koo Chang-mo (26) to return to the KBO has become a little more uncertain after another injury was discovered during his rehabilitation. After being scratched from the roster on March 3 due to a flexor strain in his forearm, Koo received a new diagnosis of a fatigue fracture in his forearm during a re-examination this week.
The news is “bitter” for both his club, NC, and the Hangzhou Asian Games baseball team.
According to NC head coach Kang In-hwa, Koo was initially told to “rest for the next three to five weeks”. The team will then re-examine the injury and reschedule him at a later date. However, even if the injury is completely healed and the pain is gone, it will take a few more weeks before he can start playing catch and get up to speed in practice. It’s hard to say how or when he’ll return.
Then again, it’s the forearm.
Pitchers who struggle to stay healthy with nagging injuries usually suffer from shoulder or elbow problems, but Koo has been suffering from forearm pain all along, which has been a problem for the team.
It’s not uncommon for pitchers to be sidelined by forearm discomfort. Recently, NC Foreign Ace Eric Peddy also returned to the field after skipping one rotation last week due to forearm discomfort. KT’s Choi Soo-joon, who is rehabbing from elbow ligament reconstruction surgery in May, also missed a rotation early in the season due to forearm pain. However, it’s rare to see an injury to the forearm go as deep and as often as Koo’s.
After joining the NC in 2015 and breaking into the first team in 2016, Koo threw 133 innings in 2018 and 107 innings in 2019, winning 10 games (7 losses) but never reaching the required 144 innings.
Koo has been plagued by forearm injuries and missed the 2020 Tokyo Olympics in August 2021 with a microfracture in his forearm. At the time, she initially started her rehabilitation with a forearm inflammation, but the microfracture was later discovered, prolonging her treatment. “I’ve been eating everything that’s good for my bones,” she said at the time, adding that she’s been working hard to increase bone density in her forearms.토토사이트
This time, Koo was found to have a microfracture in the anterior part of his forearm where the pin had been inserted. While he may have gained the wisdom to deal with the injury and rehabilitation on his own, the mental anguish of repeated injuries to the same area is likely to be high.
Officials will be watching closely as the team prepares for the Asia Games, which begin on Sept. 23. The KBO’s Power Enhancement Committee used one of its three wild cards on Koo Chang-mo to secure a solid left-handed starter. At the time of the announcement on Sept. 9, Koo was still out of the first team due to an anterior abdominal muscle injury, but with more than three months to go before the tournament, it was believed that he would be able to recover. However, with the discovery of the new injury, it will be necessary to monitor his recovery a little more closely.
The Tokyo 2020 Olympics was also a time of great disappointment for Koo Chang-mo. In the KBO, the entire league has pitches and pitches.