Percival Puts Shoulder Pain in the Past

TEMPE, Ariz. —  It was supposed to be a simple arthroscopic procedure to clean out some debris, but when Dr. Lewis Yocum got a peek inside closer Troy Percival’s shoulder last October, it looked like the scene of a multi-vehicle accident.

A bone chip about three centimeters wide and two centimeters long with jagged edges that Percival said “looked like a shark’s tooth” had wreaked havoc on his shoulder.

“It acted like a meat grinder,” Percival said. “There were two minor tears in my rotator cuff, some tears in the labrum and supraspinatus. I laughed when I got to camp, because some guys thought I got scoped and it was an easy procedure. But I got cut open, and the surgery lasted 3 1/2 hours.”

While the operation raises some questions about Percival’s future, it also answered some questions about his past. The bone chip never showed up on any MRI tests or CT scans, but it explained why Percival felt so much pain in 1999 he couldn’t “comb my hair, drive or hold my baby with my right hand,” and why he was sidelined for the last 10 days of the season.

The chip caused swelling and inflammation after he threw, and Percival believes it could have been at the root of shoulder problems he experienced going all the way back to 1997.

“Now we know that every symptom I had was consistent with having a bone chip,” Percival said. “Dr. Yocum said he couldn’t believe I pitched for so long with it.”

Now that the chip is off his shoulder, “I feel a huge difference,” Percival said. “There’s a lot less pain, and my range of motion is a lot better.”

So much so that Percival hopes to revive the overhand curve that helped make him so effective in 1995 and ’96. He simply couldn’t raise his arm slot high enough to throw the pitch in recent years.

The biggest question, though, is whether Percival can regain the velocity of his fastball, which has been clocked from 95 to 97 mph. He appears to be throwing in the 90-mph range in early spring bullpen workouts, and he is confident his fastball will return, but he won’t fully test the shoulder until early or mid-March.

*

There were no freak accidents and no broken bones during Wednesday’s first full-squad workout, but the Angels did not emerge unscathed. Outfielder Darin Erstad was held out of practice because of a sore left shoulder that has been bothering him for several weeks. Erstad was diagnosed with an inflamed bursa sac last week, but an MRI test revealed no abnormalities. He received a cortisone shot Wednesday and hopes to return to action today or Friday. . . . For the record: Gary Sutherland has been promoted to special assistant to General Manager Bill Stoneman. It was incorrectly reported Wednesday that Dale Sutherland, Gary’s brother and an Angel scout, got the job.