Left-handed Tigers reliever Bobby Seay has missed the entire season with a shoulder injury, and now that injury will cost him another full season.

Seay, who had shown some late-inning promise the past couple of years, was told late in spring training that he had a torn rotator cuff. He decided to try to rehab the injury this season rather than having surgery, but it hasn't worked, and now he'll have an operation that will knock him out at least 10 months.

The operation "is something I know I need to do," Seay, who has no contract after this season, told the Detroit Free Press. "If I didn’t get anything done, my chances of pitching again are zero percent.”

The odd thing is that the operation will be on his labrum, and his rotator cuff is apparently not injured at all. It took six months to figure that out? If the injury had been correctly diagnosed in the first place, perhaps Seay, 32, would have had surgery right away and been on track to pitch in 2011. Seems like someone somewhere has some explaining to do.

-- David Andriesen

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