Clevenger placed on DL with oblique strain
Clevenger placed on DL with oblique strain
"As of right now, I'm going to head back to Chicago and get all my treatment in and go from there and do whatever they tell me to do," said Clevenger, who injured his right oblique during batting practice before Friday night's 5-1 win over the Phillies at Citizens Bank Park. "You can't really get too frustrated. That's baseball. I am a little disappointed, but you can't dwell on that. You just have to get healthy and get back ready to go."
"The concerning part about [Clevenger's] injury -- when I've had run-ins with this sort of thing -- is when they have trouble talking or coughing, it's usually more than a couple of weeks," manager Dale Sveum said.
Clevenger made the team out of Spring Training as the backup to Geovanny Soto. In 10 appearances, he is batting .500 (11-for-22) with five doubles. Now, Clevenger faces the uncertainty of an injury he's never experienced before and a stint on the DL.
"I never had an injury just out of nowhere. It's a big shocker," Clevenger said. "I really have no idea, so what they tell me is on me, and I'm going to do everything I have to do to get back on the field. I haven't taken any tests yet. I've heard a lot of bad things about the oblique area."
His eagerness to stay with the team may have hurt the Cubs on Friday, as he waited to tell the coaching staff what was going on until he went to the cages in between innings. Compounding matters was the fact that Geovanny Soto felt tightness in his back, but things worked out.
"We didn't know," Sveum said. "I told [Soto] he better not get kicked out. I'm not sure who would have caught. Probably [Darwin] Barney. He caught in high school."