Gagne’s Surgery Is Quick and Easy

PHILADELPHIA â€”  Eric Gagne’s elbow surgery Friday was “a very simple little thing,â€� according to Dr. Frank Jobe, and the All-Star closer could be back by late May.

Jobe and Dr. Ralph Gambardella removed a sensory nerve that caused pain when Gagne threw, digging just beneath the skin and cutting it out in a 30-minute procedure.

Last June the same doctors moved the nerve away from the ulnar collateral ligament and cleaned scar tissue from it. Jobe said he did not remove the nerve at that time because doing so would have caused numbness in the skin covering the elbow.

This time there was no choice. The nerve had developed a benign tumor.

“The nerve was like a rubber band sliding across the tissue,� Jobe said. “He was getting a tingle every time he threw.

“[In June] it looked swollen and I moved it. But it pulled itself back to the original position.�

Jobe said the ligament appeared strong. “Now it’s just a matter of the skin healing,� he said.

The Dodgers can only hope Gagne’s recovery goes as smoothly as Jobe predicts. Last year, Gagne suffered a sprained elbow ligament at the end of spring training because he had rushed back from a knee injury, then had the June surgery after appearing in 14 games.

This spring his fastball was noticeably slower and he was vulnerable to the long ball, giving up three home runs in 10 innings. Surrendering home runs was a problem when Gagne was a starter -- he gave up 44 in 253 innings in 2000 and 2001. As a closer the next three years, he gave up only 13 homers in 247 innings.

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Manager Grady Little said the closer role will go back to Gagne when he is healthy regardless of how well Danys Baez throws in the interim.

“It’s very safe to say that,� Little said. “An injury is not a reason a guy should lose that position.�

Baez is fine with eventually getting bumped from the ninth to the eighth inning.

“Hopefully he’s going to be back soon,� he said. “We need him. There isn’t a significant difference between set-up and closing.�

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Little had a conversation with Derek Lowe about staying focused despite the bitter divorce he is going through and the recent revelation that the pitcher takes medication for adult attention deficit disorder.

“We are doing what we can to make him as right as he can be in his next outing� today against Philadelphia, Little said.

Little said the problems confronting Lowe were not issues in 2002 and 2003 when Little was Boston’s manager and Lowe a Red Sox pitcher.

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The Dodgers moved outfielder Jayson Werth from the 15-day to the 60-day disabled list to make room for reliever Takashi Saito on the 40-man roster. Nobody bothered to tell Werth, who is traveling with the team to get daily therapy on his injured wrist.

“I’m on the 60-day now?� he said. “I didn’t even know.�

He believes he will be ready for a minor league rehabilitation assignment in about a month, but there is no hurry now. He won’t be eligible to come off the disabled list until May 31.

“I would really like to think I’d be able to play by then,� he said.