According to Jason Beck of MLB.com, Tigers' pitcher Joel Zumaya will undergo exploratory elbow surgery next Tuesday. The procedure is being performed in the hopes that doctors can discover what exactly is ailing the hard-throwing Zumaya's elbow. The surgery will likely mean that Zumaya will not pitch at all in 2011, and in my opinion, his career is done.

Zumaya has been plagued by injuries since the offseason following a stellar rookie year in 2006. I'm really afraid that this latest setback spells the end of Zumaya's time in the majors (almost certainly it ends his Tigers' career). I just can't see Zumaya returning to the majors being able to thrown with effectiveness, especially after so many injuries have diminished his velocity. We already saw his fastball lose several miles per hour in 2009 and 2010. Now add another surgery just to discover the problem, another long rehab, perhaps even one more surgery to fix the problem. There's only so much injury, surgery, and rehabilitation an arm can take before it becomes time to call it a career.

I hope I'm wrong. I really do. Joel Zumaya is a good guy, and his rookie season was a hell of a performance. No one in Detroit piqued the sports fans' interest more than Zumaya and his 103 mph fastball. I hope that a year from now, if I'm still writing blogs for this website, I can look back and say "Good. I made a mistake".