Halos' Burnett hopeful mound return nearing

ANAHEIM -- Sean Burnett threw his second simulated game in Arizona on April 5, and for some reason, his left elbow, surgically repaired last August and the cause of infinite frustration since his first season with the Angels in 2013, "just swelled up."

"It wasn't really painful," Burnett said from the Angels' clubhouse on Monday. "It just swelled up pretty bad on me. Obviously it was some type of fluid, but we don't know where it came from or what caused it. Doctors didn't have an answer for me. It went away in a couple days, and it's felt great since."

Burnett was planning to throw on Monday for the first time since the setback, his second of 2014, and is hopeful of getting back off the mound "in a couple days." The 31-year-old left-hander doesn't feel like this is anything like what happened last season, when he was limited to 13 appearances and could never get over the final hump, because he hasn't necessarily felt any pain in his arm.

"Yeah, I'm frustrated, but any time you have surgery, there's always bumps in the road," Burnett said. "When I threw here [in a sim game at Angel Stadium on April 2], before I went to Arizona, it was a huge positive, a step in the right direction. But for some reason, the elbow swelled up and I never got an explanation for it. They didn't figure it was anything big; they didn't even run any tests on it."