St. Louis Cardinals ace Chris Carpenter led baseball in innings pitched in both the regular season and the postseason in 2011, but it's hard to say that connect overuse to his current injury problem: The Post-Dispatch is reporting that specialists have been called in to check up on the 37-year-old's stiff neck, which, according to Carp, could be either a muscle or a nerve-related condition.

Meanwhile, at Viva El Birdos, the experts check in: Reports injury-specialist commenter scoot, a "stiff neck for five days didn't pass the sniff test."

[Maybe] neuromuscular. As we know from the last time, Carp lost innervation to some of his muscle fibers, causing weakness. If he tries to continue to throw with this weakness, very bad things can happen.

He goes on to say that it's tough to pin down the amount of time recovery from a problem like this could take, given the vagaries of nerve-related issues. Which is not exactly what Cardinals fans will want to hear about their fragile ace, who, since 2009, has turned into one of the unlikelier workhorses in baseball.