He's a pitcher only, so doesn't have any other options. I remember the old saw about playing with pain or discomfort as opposed to playing when injured, but it is tougher to apply when it is your son for sure. While there is cause for concern, he isn't, at this point, injured. When I told the doctor my thoughts, about just getting through tryouts and making the team, THEN shutting him down, she didn't say anything like "Oh my God no!" or "That is literally the dumbest thing I have ever heard" or "That idea is just ... the worst."
He did throw a bit last week, between the MRI and the review with the doctor, and didn't complain of pain. At the meeting the next day with the doctor, she could tell that things had gotten better from where they were a week before. That is what is fueling my interior debate on this. I strongly suspect the weighted baseballs putting the extra strain on his arm.
But I can read the temperature of a room, and I know for sure that I'm not the smartest person in it. The JV coach is his travel ball coach. He's seen my son pitch for a year, and to be honest the best case scenario for him this year is to play JV and be one of the big three pitchers in the starting rotation. as opposed to making "Var" and pitching five innings in three months, as he did last year. I'll talk to the JV coach after practice tonight and lay everything out for him. To be honest, my biggest fear (other than the injury) would be the coaches saying to us "Well, if you had been honest with us from the beginning we probably could have worked something out, but now there's nothing we can do."
Thank you everyone for your input on this. I'll keep you posted.