Nationals notebook

By TODD JACOBSON

Date published: 9/3/2006

By TODD JACOBSON

WASHINGTON--Right-hander Garrett Mock, one of two pitchers the Nationals acquired from the Arizona Diamondbacks in an Aug. 7 trade for veteran Livan Hernandez, had surgery to repair a tear in the patella tendon of his left knee yesterday and will need four to five months to rehabilitate the injury.

"From what the doctor tells me, the surgery went really smoothly, and it was something that needed to be done," Mock said. "It was something that aggravated me for a while."

The injury has lingered for much of Mock's professional career and dates to his final season at the University of Houston, when he broke his right ankle and altered his delivery to compensate.

The resulting knee problems have plagued him since Arizona drafted him in the third round of the 2004 First-Year Player Draft and the Nationals traded for the hard-throwing righty with full knowledge of his problematic right knee.

At 6-foot-4 and 215 pounds, Mock's body and makeup have drawn comparisons to Roger Clemens, and like the future Hall of Fame fireballer, he relies on his legs and a huge amount of torque to reach 95 mph with his fastball.

"Obviously we knew about it," general manager Jim Bowden said. "I knew about it and [vice president for baseball operations] Mike Rizzo knew all about him when we traded for him."

Rizzo was the Diamondbacks' vice president of scouting, and drafted Mock before he was hired by the Nationals in July

"We want to take time to fix it now because we don't want him to get to the big leagues and be winning 12 games and have to have him hold up and do it then," Bowden added.

Ben Shaffer, the Nationals' team doctor, performed the surgery in Washington yesterday. Mock said he'll head to the Nats' complex in Viera, Fla., later this month to rehabilitate before finishing his rehab in Houston.

It's been a difficult year for Mock, who during the offseason was named the Diamondbacks' seventh-best prospect by Baseball America. However, he didn't blame this year's poor numbers solely on his knee problems.

Date published: 9/3/2006