How do you treat a broken rib? Zack Greinke

Broken ribs zack greinkeThis is a funny injury. Zack Greinke is arguably one of the better pitchers in Major League Baseball today and he was traded in the off-season from the Kansas City Royals to the Milwaukee Brewers. He passed all his health checks and was looking forward to a great season, but he broke a rib. Nothing funny about that, right?

He did it playing basketball.

Yes, one of the league’s best young pitchers broke a rib playing basketball.

His rehab isn’t going well and the plan is have him miss four starts. Ouch.

Treating Broken RibsHere is Mark McLemore talking about the injury. He says they used to play basketball all the time during spring training, but it has faded due to what is on the line now. I assume he is talking about the money paid to the players. MLB doesn’t have a video embed feature, so you need to click the link above.

While we’ve written about the treatment for broken ribs before, I wanted to point out a few things people typically miss:

  1. How can you prevent broken ribs? Don’t get hit in the chest. No, seriously, you can wear a Chest Protector.
  2. How painful are broken ribs? It depends on the severity, but they are usually very painful. It is odd since the rib itself is usually sore and it is the breathing that causes the pain.
  3. What sport has the most broken ribs? The sport with the most broken ribs is football, which seems obvious. The trauma associated with tackling and blocking leads to the higher thoracic injury rate. The second sport is more surprising and it is hockey. Football checks in with 1.5% of injuries reported being rib based, while hockey is 1.4%.

The bottom line is Zack should put away the basketball until his baseball career is over.

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