The trainer is not the team doctor. He is not the team surgeon or orthopedist. He is not the strength and conditioning coach. He is not the medical director or the physical therapist. The Royals front office lists SEVEN MDs on staff plus a chiropractor. Schwartz was not responsible for medical diagnoses, or for failing to order appropriate tests, or for mishandling serious injuries. Those aren’t his areas of responsibility or expertise. He is the bandage man. He carries his little numbing spray and checks to see if an ankle looks broken.

Rany’s breathless rant was as incomprehensible as it was out of line by focusing on Schwartz. The Royals are an organization that does virtually everything wrong, including the treatment and prevention of injuries. Schwartz simply has the misfortune of being the face of the team’s medical staff because he is the one we see. But he is a very minor figure on that staff and has been unfairly maligned. If he were the worst trainer in baseball he still couldn’t be responsible for our injury problems if he tried, short of substituting a ball-peen hammer whack for the Lidocaine. Good luck, Nick, you deserve better.

and I can’t remember what its from

and I think you’re right about Schwartz’s role, but our injury problems tend to be that once we identify a problem we fail to test it thoroughly and treat it properly, not that we suffer more injuries overall than most clubs, except when we do stupid things like overusing an obviously struggling pitcher or contract injury-prone players. We’ve even read stories recently about how low an opinion our own minor leaguers have of the organization’s handling of medical issues. These problems extend far beyond Nick’s reach. Hopefully the Royals are learning from mistakes and the condition will improve because of changed organizational behavior.