When you've been in this business awhile, you become pretty jaded about the way teams report injuries. After Matt Wieters pulled up on Friday night after a first-inning single against the Gwinnett Braves, the early indication was that he suffered some kind of hamstring strain.
Not that complicated.
The Orioles and Norfolk Tides, clearly aware of the heightened fan interest in Wieters, tried to water it down by calling it a "hamstring cramp" while waiting for him to be re-examined today. Now, the injury has been upgraded slightly to a mild strain, but team officials continue to say he'll be out only a day or two.
Maybe I'm crazy, but it has been my experience that guys who come back in two or three days from hamstring strains usually end up on the disabled list, like Melvin Mora did this past week.
Nobody's lying here or trying to put anything over on anybody. It's just the industry standard to soft sell injuries until it is obvious they are more significant. In this case, you have to believe the organization will handle Wieters with kid gloves and keep him on the sidelines for a week or more to make sure the hamstring is 100 percent healed. It's not like those Triple-A games count in the AL East standings.