The Orioles rotation just doesn’t have any health luck at all.
Whenever you were mentally counting on Grayson Rodriguez being back in the Orioles rotation, go ahead and throw that timetable off. The O’s injured righty, who has been working his way back after having elbow inflammation in spring training, had a side session scheduled for Thursday scratched due to soreness in his shoulder. The O’s told beat reporters that Rodriguez has been sent for an MRI on the shoulder.
It’s now been about a month and a half since Rodriguez reported triceps soreness to manager Brandon Hyde and that was relayed to the public. After getting a cortisone shot to deal with inflammation that the Orioles were confident was not in his ulnar collateral ligament (the one that requires Tommy John surgery if it’s damaged), the O’s had Rodriguez rest and then working back slowly from that.
Although Rodriguez had started his season buildup somewhat before the elbow inflammation, the Orioles indicated that he would be going through the full ramp-up process once he was healthy and throwing again. He had not even gotten back on any kind of timetable for a return, according to Mike Elias’s update of all of the injured pitchers two days ago.
Now, Rodriguez is back on the shelf again with an entirely different injury in the shoulder. We can all hope that the MRI doesn’t reveal anything concerning and that Rodriguez just needs a week or two of rest and then he’ll be back to it, but why would anyone get their hopes up too much at this point?
Simultaneous elbow AND shoulder issues are about as lamentable as a pitcher can get when it comes to injuries putting a hurting on his ability to perform. Rodriguez will not be around to help the Orioles rotation any time soon.
So who IS still working back towards the Orioles rotation and when? More pitchers mentioned by Elias a couple of days ago, as transcribed by Roch Kubatko:
- Zach Eflin: “Playing catch in a few days. Hopeful that his stay on the IL will be measured more in weeks than months.” (So, no firm timetable.)
- Kyle Bradish: “With everything we’d want to do to get him back in game shape and build him up and return to skill that we aren’t thinking about any sooner than kind of the later half of the summer.” (So, no firm timetable.)
- Tyler Wells: “(About two weeks behind) Kyle. Also somebody that we expect back well before the end of the season.” (You get the idea.)
- Chayce McDermott/Trevor Rogers: “Getting ready to face live hitters in Florida next week. … In the conversation for activation before the end of May.”
Late spring training signing Kyle Gibson is not injured but is still building up in Norfolk. Elias alluded to needing to have Gibson on the major league roster by May 1 due to the contract Gibson signed. He’s not a candidate to start on Saturday, which is still TBA for the Orioles.
As things are going right now, Gibson might be the first of these pitchers to get into a game with the Orioles. They’re going to have to do the best they can with what they’ve got now for at least a couple more weeks.