C. Trent Rosecrans just reported on twitter that Robert Stephenson has been cleared to throw off of the mound by the Reds.
Robert Stephenson cleared to throw off the mound, Bryan Price said #Reds
— C. Trent Rosecrans (@ctrent) February 22, 2015
While the team said that it was just a precautionary measure to hold him back from throwing, it’s never something you like to see when the top pitching prospect in the organization is not being allowed to throw a baseball and they say something about the shoulder. Shoulders are scary, scary things. Surgeons have come a long, long way in fixing elbows, but the shoulder just isn’t something they seem to have been able to figure out. It’s probably due to most shoulder issues involve removing cartilage, which you can’t replace, while in the elbow you just remove the UCL and replace it with a tendon.
The Reds now only have two guys not throwing in camp. Sean Marshall, who suffered a setback a few weeks ago and Jose Mijares. Mijares had trouble getting out of his home country of Venezuela, but is expected to arrive in Arizona today.