Tigers reliever Phil Coke, who pitched in tonight's game before Joel Zumaya came in, was very emotional in an interview with Fox Sports Detroit's Ryan Field. Although he was happy that the Tigers won and moved into first place, he, like all of us, said that it wasn't worth it if it meant losing a guy like Zumaya.
Coke also said that watching Zumaya's injury was the third time he has seen somebody's elbow explode. The severity of the injury and what exactly happened won't be known until Zumaya has an MRI (scheduled for tomorrow morning), but everybody seems to have a bad feeling about this, understandably considering how much pain Zumaya was in.
At the end of his interview, Coke actually blamed himself a bit for the injury, saying that if he had pitched better, Zumaya wouldn't have had to be in the game so early and maybe wouldn't have gotten hurt. Field said that Coke shouldn't beat himself up over it, but you could tell Coke really felt bad about what happened. It obviously wasn't his fault, but Coke was definitely contemplating the different "what if" scenarios in his head.