Houston Astros : Paulino Injured; Berkman Leaves Game Early

Great... another injury...

Right-hander Felipe Paulino flew back to Houston on Monday to be examined by team medical director David Lintner after complaining of soreness in his upper right arm.

"He told [head athletic trainer] Dave Labossiere he's had some discomfort for a while," general manager Ed Wade said. "I wish he had spoken up a little bit sooner, but we'll go ahead and get it addressed. ... Hopefully it's something minor."

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I have(had) high hopes for Paulino... I don't know why, but had a sneaking suspicion that he would be at least a good part of the team this year. This injury kind of scares me though... hopefully he won't have to go the route of Backe(season before last) and have a major surgery to repair his arm.

Maybe I'm sounding immature... but I really kind of wish they would have kept Matsui's injury in less specific terms. It wouldn't have bothered me if they would have left it at "stomach" problems... Astros.com is going as far as reporting it as "anal fissure" now... WHY DO WE NEED TO KNOW THAT!

So Berkman left the game today because of tightness in his leg. Doesn't seem to be anything real serious, but he is the Big Puma, and this will be the 2nd time he's missed any sort of playing time this Spring Training due to heath reasons.

"I had to tag and score on a short fly ball," Berkman said. "After that, I felt it a little bit and struck out in my next at-bat. So, I hadn't done anything for an hour and a half. I hit that double and I was thinking about if I should go for third on that one. When I got up to speed, I definitely felt it. It's Spring Training. During the season, I wouldn't have come out of the game."

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On a lighter note, the Astros did manage to beat the Blue Jays today 4-3 taking their Spring Training record to 5-8. Berkman was exceptionally well coming up a single short of a cycle. Roy-O went 4 innings and gave up 3 runs.