The national media has done a great job of finding excuses for the Boston Celtics, who are facing a Game 7 elimination Saturday night against a Philadelphia 76ers team that really has no business getting this deep into the playoffs. One of the excuses is that the Celtics are without starter Avery Bradley, who is a nice player but isn’t even one of the Big 4 that people talk about.

A source tells WEEI in Boston that Bradley actually underwent surgery on both of his shoulders on Friday and will begin four-month long rehab process that could take place this summer or he can wait until early fall or mid-late winter. It’s believed that he’ll start now.

This news means that Bradley will be questionable for tonight’s Game 7. He’ll most likely be a game-time decision.

If you’re like me, you’ve been holding on to Michael Morse in your fantasy baseball league, waiting for him to come off the DL. He was shut down on April 11th with a torn lat muscle. Sounds painful.

But, according to manager Davey Johnson, Morse will “for sure” be activated by June 8th for their series against the Boston Red Sox.

“There’s some people thinking it might be accelerated ahead of that,” Johnson added. “We’ll see on Friday how he comes out of that game.”

He’s going to start making his rehab starts this week. Micah’s fantasy team could use him in the lineup. Let’s get going here.

Well, the good news is that this wasn’t much worse. Michael McKean, who is most famous for playing Lenny on “Laverne & Shirley” and David St. Hubbins from “This is Spinal Tap,” was injured in New York City on Tuesday when he was struck by a car.

Reports say that he broke his leg, but is otherwise fine.

Whew!!

Spinal Tap cannot afford to lose any more members. You’ve seen how many people have been in this band, there have been 37 people over the years. Mainly, it’s because all of the drummers have died. Stumpy Pepys, who played with them when they were the Thamesman, died in a bizarre gardening accident that the authorities said was better left unsolved.

So, we’re thrilled that McKean (St. Hubbins) is going to be okay. Seriously, he’s a brilliant comedic actor who we’d miss greatly. Meanwhile, Jack Black is alive and kicking. Go figure.

While the offense of the Philadelphia Phillies has picked it up a bit as of late (thanks, Chooch), it’s still hardly a well-oiled machine. It’s not the one-run debacle that it was earlier this season, but they could use help.

And according to Danny Knobler of CBSSports.com, that help could be on the way in June.

He says that there is “a growing feeling” that Ryan Howard (Achilles) and Chase Utley (knee) could re-join the team in June. Howard is considered the first to come back and his return is more certain. Utley just began fielding ground balls and he hasn’t had a chance to see how his knee will react to the increased activity.

Neither player has a timetable for his return.

The Phillies are in the basement of the NL East, but are currently riding a six-game winning streak. Who knows what Howard and Utley will even be when they come back, but it could at least help get other guys to their proper spots in the lineup.

The 2012 season has not been too good to the Philadelphia Phillies. They’ve been in last place most of the season and just got their first three-game winning streak of the season on Tuesday. Not good for a team with a huge payroll and World Series aspirations.

Now, the team gets some more good news. One of their reliable starting pitchers (the only part of this team that has been solid this year), Vance Worley, has been placed on the 15-day DL with elbow inflammation.

Anyone see Tommy John in the future?

Not saying that will happen, but elbow trouble isn’t good. GM Ruben Amaro says that they will know more about the inflammation some time on Wednesday. Can’t wait to hear that report.

The designation is retroactive to May 12, but that doesn’t mean he’ll come off of the DL as scheduled.

Phillies fans: Hold your breath. This team can’t afford to take on more water.

The 2012 season of the Philadelphia Eagles got off to a bad start in late March when Pro Bowl LT Jason Peters ruptured his Achilles tendon. There was a smidgen of hope that he might be able to play this year, but you can squash that talk.

A league source tells Derrick Gunn of CSNPhilly.com that Peters ruptured the tendon for a second time. Apparently, he was maneuvering in his kitchen when his Roll-A-Bout device broke. It’s expected to set him back about three weeks.

Peters had to have a second surgery to repair his heel.

Ouch. That sucks.

According to Gunn, Peters plans on suing the manufacturer of the device.

After lighting it up for my fantasy football team in 2011, Tennessee Titans WR Kenny Britt decided it would be a good time to tear his ACL and MCL in his right knee. It not only ended his season, it ended my fantasy season.

So, obviously Britt had surgery to repair the injuries, but it’s possible that he could need more. While no second surgery has been scheduled for him, he could possibly need a second, less-invasive surgery to fully repair the knee.

“I think it always is (possible),” head coach Mike Munchak said. “I don’t know if he will at some point, but I think that’s something that’s common with that injury. Derrick went through it last year. The good thing is that even if you do have it, it’s not a huge setback. It’s not something that sets you way back. But that is obviously part of the process, or could be, if that arises down the road.”

The good news is that a second surgery isn’t expected to set him back much.

“We don’t look at as a big deal. You have to look at it as why it’s happening, but it’s something that with guys who have had ACLs this is very common, something that’s gone on at times,” Munchak said. “Sometimes it happens much sooner than Derrick’s did, and sometimes it happens like Derrick’s did, once you get more active. We’ll see. He’s been doing well, running hard, and we’ll just have to see how the knee responds.”

Well, this isn’t good. In the early 2011 draft season, there were many mock drafts and experts who had Clemson DE Da’Quan Bowers as the No. 1-overall pick. Yep, the top pick. But, as we got closer to the draft, his stock fell due to concerns about his knee, which had microfracture surgery on it.

Ok, fair enough. But, he clearly had top-end ability, so I thought it was a great move by the Tampa Bay Buccaneers when they nabbed him in the second round. And while most of his rookie season didn’t produce much, he did show signs of his ability towards the end of the year, even if they entire defense stunk on ice.

Well, now things just got worse. Bowers will undergo surgery after tearing his Achilles tendon during the offseason program Thursday. This virtually assures that Michael Bennett and Adrian Clayborn will be starting defensive ends this year.

This doesn’t help Tampa’s defense at all, and it was awful before this. If you’re planning on betting on the Tampa Bay Buccaneers this year, I’d take the points as they are probably going to be getting a lot of them.

Not sure what to think of Bowers’ prospects moving forward, but microfracture knee surgery and a torn Achilles would certainly have to take its toll on him.

The Washington Nationals are having a good-news/bad-news type of day. The bad news is that they obviously had to place Jayson “I hate all Philadelphia fans and will firebomb that city when my wrist is healthy” Werth on the disabled list. You’ll remember that he broke his same troublesome wrist on Sunday night against the Phillies.

Werth is likely to miss some 6-12 weeks (depending on which reports you believe), so whether he’s on the 15-day DL, 60-day DL, 135-week DL….it doesn’t matter. Cut him from your fantasy baseball team.

But, the Nationals do get some good news here. 3B Ryan Zimmerman will be activated off the DL, so his bat will be a welcomed addition.

We now wait to hear when Zimmerman will go back on the DL, which should be any time soon.

The Washington Nationals have been pretty damn excited lately and they’ve had good reason to be. They are off to an 18-10 start and own first place in the NL East.

However, they’re taking on a bit of water. 3B Ryan Zimmerman is already hurt, as is Michael Morse, who was supposed to the be the cleanup hitter. Well, now you can add another injury to that list.

Outfielder Jayson Werth dove for a ball Sunday night and tore up his left wrist. And, according to Amanda Comack of the Washington Times, it’s busted.

“Broken left wrist for Jayson Werth. He’ll be out “a while.” Will see specialist tomorrow, consulting w/Mayo Clinic surgeon,” she tweets.

“It’s a clean break,” manager Davey Johnson said. “He’s going to be out for a while.”

Supposedly at least six weeks. That’s a blow to a young team trying to make headway in the division for the first time in…ever.

“All of a sudden we seem to be getting a little more healthy and then boom, another one of our main guys goes down,” Johnson said. “We’ve dealt with it before we’ll deal with it again. We’re not alone. It seems like it’s rampant right now. It’s a tough blow.”

Guess we can kill any idea of Bryce Harper getting sent back down.

Still, for Werth, this is a big issue. He busted his same left wrist back in 2005 with the Dodgers and it was a career-threatening injury. Hopefully, this won’t be similar.

I can’t think of much worse news for the New York Yankees. On Thursday night, closer Mariano Rivera was in the outfield during batting practice before their game. That’s all well and great until he collapsed in a heap holding his knee and had to be carted off the field.

The end result? A torn ACL.

“Girardi said preliminary report on MRI showed Rivera has a torn ACL. Will go back to New York,” tweets David Waldstein (no idea who that is).

Of course, a torn ACL means that he will be out for the year. But, the bigger question is: Is Mariano done?

According to Waldstein, even Mariano thinks he could be done.

“[F]ighting back tears, Mariano Rivera said he didn’t know if he would ever pitch again,” he tweeted.

It’s not crazy to think that he’s done for good. He’s 42-years old and we’ve been wondering when the end will be for him for about eight years. It takes a year to recover from an ACL and he wouldn’t be himself until probably 2014. But, at that point, what would “be himself?”

I’d have to think that Mariano is done.

Look for either David Robertson or Rafael Soriano to take over closing duties for the Yanks.

New Jersey Devils forward Ilya Kovalchuk missed the team’s Game 2 victory on Tuesday night with a back issue. It probably helped the team win considering he was so god awful on defense in Game 1.

But, on Thursday, he says he’s healthy and ready for Thursday’s Game 3, which will be played on Thursday of this week.

“I feel good and I’m ready to go,” Kovalchuk said.

Head coach Pete DeBoer, however, says that Kovalchuk will be a “game-time decision.”

“I think with players, these guys know their bodies better than doctors, coaches, anybody else,” DeBoer said. “So, it’s not me seeing something. It’s him knowing what we need out of him and whether he feels his body is capable of giving us that. That’s where we’re at. Players have to make those decisions.”

It sounds like Ilya already made that decision then. Looks like he’ll be suiting up in New Jersey for a crucial game in the series tied at 1-1.

“Why would you sit there and rest if you feel better and you’re ready to go?” Kovalchuk asked. “Now, Pete, he will decide what he wants to see in the lineup tonight.”

As those of you who read OTR religiously know, Baltimore Ravens LB Terrell Suggs tore his Achilles tendon recently. Okay, so we never mentioned that, but you’re not a religious OTR reader anyway, so you wouldn’t know.

So yeah, Suggs tore his Achilles recently and will have to have surgery to repair it. That usually means (like in the case of Philadelphia Eagles T Jason Peters) that you’re done for the season. But, Suggs says that it was just a “partial Achilles tear” and that he’ll be back by midseason.

Suggs says that all the reports that had him out for the season “make it so much sweeter when I run out of that tunnel and prove everyone wrong.”

He also thinks that he’ll be better than he was before once he gets healthy.

“I’ve never had a real bad injury before,” Suggs said. “Sometimes you have to go through something like this to make you better.”

It’s never easy when you get hurt and can’t help your team, especially during the playoffs. But, it must hurt that much more when your injury was self inflicted and the result of acting like an idiot.

Yep, we’re talking about New York Knicks big man Amar’e Stoudemire. You probably heard that Monday night after another loss to the Miami Heat, he decided to punch a fire extinguisher outside of the locker room. He cut his hand up pretty good, and according to Al Iannazzone from Newsday, he’ll miss Game 3 and most likely the rest of the series against the Heat (let’s be honest, he’s done for the year).

“Amare is seeing a hand specialist right now. He won’t play in Game 3 and a return this series is doubtful,” Iannazzone tweets.

Well done, Amar’e. The good news is that the Knicks seem to play better without him.

Good news, Yankees fans! Remember how excited you were when you sent Jesus Montero and others to the Seattle Mariners for Michael Pineda? Yeah, unless you run into him in a bar or restaurant, you won’t be seeing him for quite a while.

Pineda developed arm issues and the diagnosis is pretty bad. According to Yankees blogger Mark Feinsand, it’s a torn labrum and he’ll miss the entire 2012 season.

“Pineda has a tear in his labrum. Arthroscopic surgery scheduled for next Tuesday,” he tweets.

It’s officially an “anterior labral tear” and it unofficially sucks for the Yankees, who could have used his arm this season.

The Philadelphia Phillies might have one of the worst lineups in all of baseball. Check that, they do have one of the worst lineups in all of baseball. I don’t even have the stats in front of me, but I’ve learned enough through empirical data.

Many fans in Philly can’t wait for the return of Chase Utley and Ryan Howard, both of whom are out with nasty injuries. “Once we get Utley and Howard back, we’ll be great again!” Not true at all, but whatever. Utley has what appears to be degenerative conditions in both knees (although he says the one that was hurt last year is fine now) and Howard tore his Achilles tendon, so who the hell even knows what the Phils will get out of them when they are cleared to play.

But, if you’re one of the many Philly fans who thinks that they just need to get these guys healthy to get back on the World Series track, then I have some sort of good news. According to Jim Salisbury, Utley took early batting practice today in Arizona.

“Utley took early BP. Manuel said his legs look stronger. No timetable. Utley to chat w reporters later,” Salisbury tweets.

Well, I guess it’s better than him not taking batting practice, but it hardly signals his return. And let’s be clear again: you have no idea what he is going to be when he comes back. He could just be an average hitter who isn’t as good on defense as Freddy Galvis.

The Philadelphia Phillies just keep rolling. It’s not enough that they struggle to even score one run against poor pitchers, but now they keep getting good news. First, we found out that Cliff Lee had to go on the 15-day DL with a side strain. Now? The one guy they have who can hit the baseball has a sore shoulder and will miss Monday night’s game against the Arizona Diamondbacks, according to Jim Salisbury.

“Pence out of lineup w sore L shoulder, Manuel says. He banged into wall in SF a week ago,” he tweets.

Awesome.

We don’t know the severity of the injury right now, but if Pence needs a DL stint, the Phillies should just immediately become sellers and have a fire sale. This season is going to be a complete waste as it is, let alone losing a guy of Pence’s caliber.

John Mayberry, Jr. will take Pence’s place in right field, and stink up the joint when he steps in the batter’s box.

The Philadelphia Phillies are off to a rough start. They are hovering around .500 while the rest of the division (minus the Marlins of course) is thriving. Not only that, their offense is absolutely butt awful.

So, they’ll need that starting pitching, huh? Of course they will! Well, they better hope some other people step up, because Cliff Lee isn’t going to be able to help for the next 15 days. That’s right, he was placed on the DL with an oblique strain.

Hooray?

The good thing is that it’s not tough to replace a guy with a 1.96 ERA who is borderline unhittable at times. Not when you have Kyle Kendrick it isn’t. The journeyman bullpen/spot starter should be a right-handed Cliff Lee if all goes according to plan.

In all honesty, I’m not sure I see the Phillies making the playoffs this year.

The Golden State Warriors have been a bit stumped all season by the continuing setbacks that Stephen Curry has had with his ankle. Well, now they might truly find out what has been going on.

According to Marc J. Spears of Yahoo! Sports, Curry plans to have surgery on the troublesome ankle on Wednesday.

“Warriors @StephenCurry30 will have ankle surgery Wednesday in Van Nuys, CA. Timetable for return to be named after surgery,” Spears tweets.

Photo Caption: Curry’s “raise the roof” defense was a failure for most of the strike-shortened season.

They are calling it “exploratory” for right now, but they’ll know more after they go dig in there. This is big news as the Warriors continue to make their playoff push. They are 17 games back in the division with four games to play, so they’ll need Curry at full strength as soon as possible.

Without Curry, the Warriors have little change of making a deep run this season.

Wow. One one hand it’s kind of weird that Shea Weber didn’t get any punishment at all for his hit on Henrik Zetterberg, and now we see that the NHL is going to drop the hammer on Phoenix Coyotes forward Raffi Torres.

Torres has been suspended for 25 games for his hit on Chicago Blackhawks forward Marian Hossa. Brendan Shanahan felt that Torres knew that Hossa didn’t have puck and that he deliberately violated the rules of charging, check-to-the-head, interference, rape and gang rape.

We don’t know exactly how long Torres is out because we don’t know how long the Coyotes will be in the playoffs. He’ll serve whatever games in the playoffs and then it will carry over into next regular season. He will not be allowed to play in any preseason games either.

It’s estimated that this suspension will cost him $21,341 per game heading into next year. Ouch. Don’t think that doesn’t hurt.

Still…nothing for Shea Weber??

As if the defense of the Philadelphia Flyers just couldn’t get worse after they gave up 10 goals on Wednesday night to the Pittsburgh Penguins, they will now be without yet another key defensman. Nicklas Grossman was hit in the head twice in Game 4 and will miss Game 5 with a concussion.

This means that rookie Erik Gustafsson will make his playoff debut Friday night.

“Our team has done has an exceptional job this year,” coach Peter Laviolette said. “Guys moving up in their role.

“Guys coming into the lineup, who had been out of the lineup a little bit. Recalls we’ve used from our minor-league affiliate. I think our team has handled those situations well.

“The fact that we’ve lost another defenseman is hard to take. But in saying that, our team has filled this spot all year long. We had close to 450 man games to injury. This isn’t something new to us. We’d much rather have Grossmann in there … that’s not an option right now.”

The team traded for Grossman during the season and he’s been great in blocking shots and improving the overall defense. This is a huge loss for a team that umm…just gave up 10 goals in a single game.

Since signing a mega-deal with the Boston Red Sox last offseason, Carl Crawford has been a waste of space. He did next to nothing last year, and now is hurt so far this season. Crawford underwent wrist surgery in January and then had a setback with elbow soreness.

So yeah, he’s not helping the Red Sox again so far this year. But, according to manager Bobby Valentine, Crawford is set to see action in an extended spring training game in Florida on Tuesday.

“He’d like to play at least by Tuesday,” Valentine said.

Crawford’s biggest problem right now is throwing the baseball, which some experts think is an important aspect of playing the outfield.

“He’s taken a lot of batting practice,” Valentine said. “He might have even been part of the inspiration for our play yesterday. He was taking it during the game in the cage. The sound was so loud that I think it inspired some of our guys to hit the ball hard. He was really making a loud noise in that batting cage.”

The Boston Red Sox are aware of what life is like without Jacoby Ellsbury. In 2010, he was on the DL almost all year, but bounced back to have an MVP-like 2011. Well, it’s good that they are used to living without him, because he won’t be playing baseball any time soon.

Tampa Bay Rays infielder Reid Brignac landed on Ellsbury during the Red Sox home opener while throwing the ball to first. Ellsbury has a subluxed shoulder and will be out probably until the All-Star break.

The Red Sox not only lose their leadoff man, but it’s another dagger to the outfield. As it is, the multi-, multi-, multi-million dollar man Carl Crawford is just not getting in some rehab games.

The Sox will recall Che-Hsuan Lin from AAA Pawtucket and use guys like Cody Ross and Ryan Sweeney to plug the gaps until Ellsbury can get healthy. Even if no one is exactly sure when that will be right now.

It doesn’t take long for things to go south for the New York Mets. They started out 4-0 and seemed poised to win all 162 games this season. But, while it’s still very, very possible, it’s going to be much more difficult now that David Wright will have to sit down for a bit.

Monday night, Wright dove back to a bag and messed up his pinkie finger. And according to Andy McCullough of the Newark Star-Ledger, the finger is busted.

“David Wright has a small fracture in his pinkie. No surgery. Will wear a splint. Timetable is unclear right now,” McCullough tweets.

While there is definitely a crack in the pinkie, Wright is hoping that he doesn’t have to hit the DL.

“No one ever really wants to go on the DL. Hopefully, that’s not the case this time,” Wright said.

As of now, Wright is out indefinitely and we’ll have to see what the team plans to do with him. Obviously, not letting the finger heal properly this early in the season (with an undefeated season on the line) is a bad idea.

UPDATE: Sadly, the Mets lost. So there goes the undefeated season.

The Philadelphia Flyers have some concerns heading into their playoff series with the Pittsburgh Penguins. Will Ilya Bryzgalov continue his stellar play in net? Will they get healthy quick enough? Can they minimize the defensive breakdowns?

Well, they got a bit of good news today when they found out that defensman Nicklas Grossman will be back for the start of the series.

“Grossmann said he is 100 percent. #Flyers,” tweets beat writer Sam Carchidi.

Grossman was an in-season trade who has helped a ton on the back end. Recently signed to a thee-year extension, Grossman blocks a lot of shots, which was a huge key when the Flyers made their run in 2010.

Can’t wait for Wednesday! Should be an awesome series regardless of whether you care about either of these teams.

Oakland Raiders RB Darren McFadden was brilliant for parts of last year. But, like always, he got hurt. And he screwed a lot of fantasy owners in the process, because the team kept saying he was doing better and would be back shortly.

Yeah, that didn’t happen. So you didn’t make alternate plans to fill his void and stuck with him, only to watch your fantasy season slip away.

Well, now we know why. While the Raiders never said, McFadden went on Sirius Radio and said he actually had a Lisfranc injury.

Photo Caption: Sheldon Brown making Ray Ellis proud!

“It’s a long recovery from a Lisfranc injury,” he said. “… But I’m feeling pretty good now.”

Well that explains that! Lisfranc injuries are nasty and I really wish I had this information a long time ago. Despite the injuries though, McFadden says he won’t change his playing style.

“If you get hurt,” he said, “you just get hurt.”

Yep, and he usually does.

The Boston Red Sox traded for Oakland A’s closer Andrew Bailey this offseason to replace the departed Jonathan Papelbon, who signed a big-money deal with the Philadelphia Phillies. However, it looks like they’ll have to wait a little bit before they see their closer in action.

According to Peter Abraham of the Boston Globe, Baily will see a specialist to see if he needs to have surgery on his ailing thumb.

“#RedSox closer Andrew Bailey will be in Cleveland on Tuesday to get a second opinion on his injured right thumb,” Abraham tweets.

Bailey had the thumb checked out in Boston and Abraham heard that the news “was not good.” There is no telling just how long he could be out of action if he indeed needs to go under the knife. So yeah, don’t draft him high in your fantasy baseball draft.

Mark Melancon and Alfredo Aceves would most likely get shots at closing duties while they wait for Bailey to come back.

There has been a ton of speculation about Philadelphia Phillies 2B Chase Utley. He’s got chronic knee conditions (not a specific injury, mind you) and he hasn’t done much of anything all spring training in terms of doing baseball stuff.

So what’s wrong? How bad are his knees? Will he play in 2012? Is he going to have surgery? Will he just hang ‘em up?

Well, Chase spoke to the media on Sunday, and according to Ken Rosenthal of Foxsports.com, Utley says he’ll play this season and won’t have surgery.

“Utley: No surgery. No retirement. Won’t be ready for opener. Visited new specialist. Working on strengthening areas around knees. #Phillies,” Rosenthal tweets.

We’ll see what happens with him this year, as this was a condition that kept him out of a significant portion of last season. It remains to be seen what he’ll even be when/if he does return.

Phillies fans better hope to fall in love with Freddie Galvis quickly.

Jonathan Toews will not play for the Chicago Blackhawks on Sunday when they take the ice to skate with the Nashville Predators. It’s the 16th consecutive game that he will miss due to a concussion.

However, he has skated with his teammates in practice for five straight days, so that’s a good sign. Still, Toews has gotten close before, so he’s dialing back expectations.

Toews is “being a little bit more realistic with myself,” he said. “Even if I do feel completely 100 percent you might need a day or two just to make sure it’s going to stay that way.”

Toews says he’s optimistic about returning to the ice.

“I getting back to that stage where I’m progressing and getting closer to feeling the right way,” Toews said. “I’m just staying positive and hoping this is the time we break through.”

There are seven games left in the regular season and then the playoffs. The Hawks currently have the 6th seed and are relatively safe with Phoenix a full five points behind them.

Toews isn’t overly concerned with his injury and says he “absolutely” believes he will play again this season.

“I’m positive and just telling myself I’ll get through this,” Toews said. “(And) not let those little setbacks that have happened weigh me down and find a way to get back to 100 percent.”

As a Philadelphia Phillies fan who reads this story, all I can say is a big “phewww!” At one point this offseason, there was reportedly a four-year, $44 million contract on the table for Ryan Madson, who just came off a great year of closing for the Phillies.

Then, all of a sudden, they pulled the offer and within a day or so, Jonathan Papelbon was the closer in Philadelphia.

Madson bounced around from visit to visit with other MLB teams. He never got close to getting another offer like he got from the Phils, and he ended up signing with the Cincinnati Reds for $8.5 million for the 2012 season.

That money is in the toilet now.

Madson is now out for the year as he needs Tommy John surgery to fix his elbow (where else can Tommy John surgery fix a ligament?). The ligament in his elbow was off the bone, according to John Fay of the Cincinnati Enquirer.

“Tommy John for Madson. Ligament was torn off the bone. #reds,” he tweets.

Yikes. This is awful news for Madson, and worse news for the Reds, who now have to scramble to find a closer on their roster. Sean Marshall? Can Aroldis Chapman get his act together and use those fireballs for good and not evil?

Regardless, with all of the problems the Phillies have had this spring, fans have to be glad that they didn’t keep Madson.