ANAHEIM, Calif. -- Cal Eldred is at least a month away from pitching again for the Chicago White Sox this season -- if at all.

	Eldred

The 10-year veteran right-hander hasn't pitched since July 17, when he came out of a game against St. Louis after experiencing pain in his elbow.

"If he could play catch today, he'd probably miss all of August," White Sox trainer Herm Schneider said on Friday. "We'd have to spend the month of August to get him ready to pitch in September. But if we can't, there's no days left at the back end."

Eldred, 32, who was 10-2 with a 4.64 ERA and a team-high 93 strikeouts, had reconstructive surgery on the elbow in 1995.

"I don't think it has anything to do with that, and they told me the same thing," said Eldred, who is on the disabled list for the sixth time in his career. "It just needs some rest."

Dr. Lewis Yocum, who performed the surgery on Eldred, examined him prior to Thursday night's game against the Anaheim Angels. He looked at a bone scan, an MRI, an ENG and two sets of x-rays, one that was done in February that the White Sox acquired from Eldred, and another one that the team had done right after Eldred was injured last month.

"Dr. Yocum was in total agreement with our diagnosis -- that it's nerve-related," Schneider said. "Structurally, his elbow looks fine. But with a nerve-related problem, you can't put your finger on a time schedule. That's the problem.

"It's mostly up to Cal. It's not something that we can diagnose for him or help him through, because there's nothing for us to see or tangibly work on"

Eldred, who has tried to throw twice since the injury and felt pain both times, last played catch on Sunday at Boston. Schneider wants him to get a full week's rest before playing catch again this Sunday for about five minutes. If the pain persists, he'll have to wait another week before picking up a ball again.

"If he feels anything, it will be another week," Schneider said. "It'll go a week at a time until we get to the point where we just say, `You're done.'

"Now he's getting to the point where he's getting out of pitching shape. Before long, it'll be a month that he's missed without picking up a ball. His shoulder's getting out of shape and his endurance for pitching is gone. So that means you've got to rebuild him from scratch to pitch again."

The next step after playing catch would be four or five sessions of long-toss, separated by a day off each time -- which means at least another 10 days. If they try to cut corners with the regular season slipping away, Eldred would run the risk of a chain reaction of problems that could affect his shoulder and back.

So even if there are no more setbacks, the earliest Eldred could throw off a mound again would be eight to 10 days after he starts the long-toss procedure. And once September comes, he won't have anywhere to go to pitch and make rehab starts because the minor league season will be over by then.