Daisuke Matsuzaka was placed on the disabled list yesterday with an elbow injury and today the Red Sox announced that an MRI exam revealed “elbow tightness consistent with a UCL sprain and flexor mass strain.”
Alex Speier of WEEI.com reports that Matsuzaka will be re-examined again in two weeks, but UCL sprains often end up requiring Tommy John elbow surgery that would knock him out for 12-18 months.
For now there’s no reason to assume that Matsuzaka will need to go under the knife--and the Red Sox indicated to Speier that they’re relieved to have caught the problem relatively early--but he won’t be rejoining the rotation any time soon.