Injuries abound early in 2009

Every year it’s the same but more.  Earlier and earlier, injuries are taking their toll on the players.  Reading the baseball news is like a who’s who in the injury report.  Santana, Wood, Bonderman, the list goes on…

Now we hear Boof Bonser is out for 2009. 

Milton Bradley barely made it out of the dugout in the first game before coming out because of tightness in his quad.  (To add insult to injury, Mark DeRosa is off to a good start, with a homerun under his belt).

Granted, some of these are not serious and for the most part precautionary moves to prevent something that would impact their teams down the road.  That said, playing these kind of games this early in the (pre-) season doesn’t bode well for any (ok, most) teams who have to deal with this.

Query:  How much does steroids (or maybe, the withdrawal of steroids) have to do with increase of injuries in the MLB right now?