Piotr Trochowski, the Hamburg left-winger, had got in the way of a left-foot shot from Elano, the ball ricocheting off the back of his elbow, but it was harsh when the Italian referee, Nicola Rizzoli, put the whistle to his lips.
Mixing in an occasional fastball, he worked in and out of trouble in the second and third innings and survived a scary moment when a line drive hit by Ryan Howard bounced off his left elbow.
Chad Billingsley, coming off his second elbow surgery, will likely join the group.
He'd wash his hands over and over, and then, as he left the bathroom, turn the lights off with his elbow so as not to get germs on his hands.
"It's a historic day," said Hussein Awada, one of the riders, as he showed off a scar on his elbow that he said he had received in the 2006 war.
But he was coming off ligament replacement surgery on his elbow in August 2000, and he expects to keep building strength.
The recently acquired Michael Pineda said he weighed 280 pounds and wanted to get down to 270.... Joba Chamberlain, who is recovering from reconstructive surgery on his elbow, threw off the half-mound and reported no problems in his recovery.
One patron, Kevin Long, a 26-year-old professional skateboarder known as Spanky, showed off a new tattoo on his elbow, which depicted a small broken bottle, a teardrop and the letters M and F.
