The Marlins are now 7-30 over the past 37 June games in the past two seasons. While the Marlins have struggled, the team still is positioned five games behind the division leading Washington Nationals. Now is not the time to panic if you are a Miami Marlins fans.

The first game of the Marlins-Red Sox series will be broadcasted on ESPN on Monday night. Yes, it seemed like a mistake to me as well and I still believe it might be one, but just do not say anything and we may actually get away with it!

As usual, to preview the series, I had a quick chat with a Fansided writer of the opposing teams site. Over the past few days, I had an opportunitiy to chat it up with Derek Stykalo, the editor of BoSox Injection. Derek and his staff do an excellent job on their site, if you ever get a chance, please do check them out.

Here is a look at our chat:

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“I just got scared. I couldn’t move. I couldn’t rotate,” [Ramirez] said Monday before taking treatment. “I was hoping I could play today, but I can’t. I’ve just got to go day to day. I’m feeling it in my legs, down the left side. A tingle in my leg. That’s not a good sign. That’s what we’re worried about right now, the feeling in my legs. Hopefully it’ll be better in a couple of days.”

The combination of lower back stiffness and a few of those symptoms he mentioned sound like classical symptoms of a herniated disc. Right now, the injury is being classified as lower back stiffness, but it is possible that the swing that supposedly brought on the onset of the back stiffness could have been enough trauma to cause a herniation. Having said that, Ramirez also mentioned that he had felt his back was not well prior to the incident, so it could have easily been an injury from earlier in the season that was only aggravated during that swing.

A herniated disc is a situation where the nucleus pulposus of the intervertebral discs slips or bulges out of its normal position. The nucleus pulposus is the soft aspect of the disc that serves as a “shock absorber” for the spine. A tear in the annulus fibrosus, or fibrous tissue ring, surrounding the nucleus pulposus can allow the nucleus to bulge out of its positioning and potentially impinge on nerves originating from the spinal cord. The parenthesia or tingling that Ramirez is describing is a possible sign that the herniation of the nucleus pulposus is impinging on nerves serving his leg. The sciatic nerve originates the lumbar spine around that region and is the primary origin of many of the nerves of the lower leg; a pinching of that nerve could cause this problem.

Of course, without doing a physical examination, I could not determine whether or not a slipped disc is the cause of injury, but that was the first thing that I thought of. If it is anything more serious than simple stiffness or inflammation, there is a good chance Ramirez will miss time on the disabled list, and that could be seen as either a good thing or a really bad thing.

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