Torres expected out 6-9 months, maybe more; GM, coach, Evans react

Sounders center back Roman Torres will miss the remainder of this season and some -- if not all -- of next season with an ACL injury.

Below are some comments from general manager Garth Lagerwey, coach Sigi Schmid and captain/sometimes centerback Brad Evans.

LAGERWEY

On Torres: Roman is out for the season. You can’t get a full evaluation of the knee until you go in for surgery. We don’t have a date for that set yet, but it will come within the next week or so. You have inflammation issues and things like that where you want the knee to calm down a little bit. So we’ll have all those details forthcoming, but he’s done for the season. Today is the roster freeze deadline, as you guys know, and Damion Lowe is going to be activated into his spot on the roster.

Prognosis: Standard ACL is six to nine months – which is obviously a big window. What all the doctors are careful to say is, ‘Look, until we get in there and we understand was there other ligament damage was there cartilage damage … setting a rehab timetable is not worth speculating about. It could be longer than what the standard is – I think it’s fair to say it’s not going to be shorter than six to nine months, at least to my knowledge.

On Torres contribution: He was a big presence. I thought he had done a great job for us since we added him. It’s just a tough, tough injury. He was so excited to be here and we were so excited to have him. That said, we’ve got good options there. Zach Scott has been doing it for 15 years for the Sounder in their various iterations, and Brad Evans I thought did a very good job. It was never a comment on Brad’s ability that we brought in Roman back there. … I think Zach and Brad bring different qualities to the center back position.

On ACL affect play going forward: I don’t think he’s Derrick Rose where he has to explode to the rim 30 times a night. But he’s got to be able to get up in aerial duels and he’s got to battle, and that will take some strength. But if you’ve seen him, he’s a pretty powerful physical specimen as well, and he’s got a lot to work with naturally. The thing you’ve got to worry about in these situations is getting him right, getting him healed, making sure you put these guys in the right position to succeed. If you look at that injury, he’s up in the air, he get bumped as he comes down. You want to control for everything … and sometimes you get things that you can’t control. This is a bad injury, and you can’t control it and we’ll do the best we can with it to try and help Roman and try to let him know that we support him and will be behind him throughout the rehab process, and hopefully he’s back in a Sounders uniform next season at some point.

On the club’s many injuries: It’s not the time of year to be reflecting on how hard your life is, it’s the time of year to be saying, ‘How do we win the title.’ And the way you’re going to win the title is overcoming. I said it back in the summer, you go through adversity, and it’s how you respond to it. If you respond positively and you overcome it, it bodes very well for what your prospects will be when all the chips are down in October, Novermber and December. The team is setting up well to make a stretch run, and that’s what we’re looking forward to.

On saying Torres “hopefully” returns next year: It depends, man. Until you get in there and you understand the full extent of the injury, we don’t know. That’s why I qualify my answer by saying ‘hopeful.’ A normal ACL rehab, you’d expect him back next year. But until you get in there and you understand, you have to qualify it. Maybe I’m over-lawyering it … but we’re hopeful. We’re optimistic.

SCHMID

On Torres implications: Obviously we’ve had Brad play centerback before, and we’ve got Scott. Zach can play centerback. We’re looking a little bit long-term, a little bit short-term what the best solutions are. Brad and me chatted today. So no matter what the solution is, maybe he’s playing the odd game back there if we’re going with Zach, or he may he goes back there and plays. We’ll see.

On Damion Lowe’s ability to help: I think S2 for him this season has been very helpful. He has had a little bit of a knock and missed some games with Olympic qualifiers with Jamaica. But we were very happy with how he looked at practice today and he’s somebody as we move forward certainly deserves some consideration.

EVANS

On possible return to centerback: I think it’s something that we’ll talk about with the coaching staff and see where we go from here. There’s five games left; what’s best for the team. Plus a Champions League game. So there will definitely be rotation. So plug in here and there, or play out the rest of the season there. That’s something that we’ll talk about. I’ve got to get ready for this weekend before we think about what I’m doing and where I’m playing. If today goes well with the doctor, then we’ll talk, be in for a fitness session tomorrow on everybody else’s day off, and then we’ll see where we plug in. But obviously a massive loss for us. A guy who integrated into the team. Very, very disappointing.

This story was originally published September 15, 2015 at 1:05 PM with the headline "Torres expected out 6-9 months, maybe more; GM, coach, Evans react."