Jasson Dominguez, nicknamed “the Martian” for to his extraordinary strength and ability with a baseball bat, came on the Major League scene in a truly explosive manner. Dominguez made headlines when he hit a monstrous home run in his first turn at bat in the Major Leagues and against three-time Cy Young Award-winning pitcher and future Hall of Famer Justin Verlander.
He did not stop hitting until he suffered a lesion in his right elbow. As a result, he was evaluated by the physicians of the New York Yankees, and the result was that he needed to undergo a procedure known as “Tommy John” surgery.
Now decades old, this surgery was first performed on left-handed pitcher Tommy John of the Los Angeles Dodgers back in 1974. The injury to the Ulnar Collateral Ligament (UCL) of the elbow is repaired using a ligament from another part of the body, such as below the knee or from the forearm of the uninjured arm. The results have been amazing. Thousands of young athletes have undergone the procedure, now considered routine.
For Dominguez, the latest power hitter in the Yankee’s lineup, the operation will require months of rehabilitation and training. He is expected to resume playing late in the 2024 season. He posted a picture on his social media platform, showing the very complicated-looking sling that protected his reconstructed elbow, saying, “now I am truly bionic.”
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El Caribe
25 September 2023