PITTSBURGH, Pa. — Right-hander Jeff Karstens underwent an MRI on Friday and got some different results. After exiting from his rehab outing with Triple-A Indianapolis on Thursday, Karstens was originally diagnosed with tightness in his right groin. The righty later found out it was his hip flexor that he injured.
“I thought it was my groin originally, but I come to find out its my hip flexor,” Karstens said. “It’s kind of a better sign I think because I did my groin in 2008 and it wasn’t very fun. I missed almost two months. Right now it’s day to day. It feels a lot better than it did yesterday. I felt it on the pitch. I threw a warm-up pitch and I didn’t really want to take it any further because I didn’t want to aggravate it any more. I felt like if I stopped then, I could prevent it from getting worse. I think we did that. It was more precautionary. I did feel something there. The MRI didn’t show a ton but when we did the test with the doctors and stuff, it was more my hip flexor that was bothering me, not my groin. ”
Karstens exited his start after just 4.1 innings after feeling the injury. He said immediately after he felt something was wrong, he decided not to push it further and removed himself from the game.
“I gave up the hit and the guy was about to score and I couldn’t even run back up,” Karstens said. “I didn’t want to run back up. It’s just extremely frustrating because I’ve been working so hard to get back and that was supposed to be my last outing to get back and now it’s a minor setback. Where I’m at on the mound right now, I can’t complain. I was in a good place yesterday. I was throwing the ball really well. I’m just going to take it in stride. Hopefully tomorrow I’ll feel better and kind of just go from there.”
The start on Thursday was expected to be Karstens’ last before joining the rotation in Baltimore. He was placed on the disabled list on April 18 due to right-shoulder inflammation, and said that he shoulder feels really good. Karstens has made four rehab starts, three with Triple-A.
“It feels great,” he said. “I haven’t had any, ‘knock on wood’, set backs with my shoulder. That’s defiantly a positive for me. I think we’re going to try and play catch tomorrow. It’s more day-to-day so it’s really encouraging for me.”
