Breaking: Dodgers Place Another Starting Pitcher on Injured List With Shoulder Inflammation
The Dodgers placed right-handed pitcher Gavin Stone on the injured list Friday, depriving the team of the only starting pitcher who’s been in the rotation all season without missing a start due to injury.
Stone, 25, is 11-5 with a 3.53 ERA this season and was poised to start early in a potential postseason series.
The right-handed pitcher was placed on the 15-day injured list in a series of roster moves prior to the Dodgers’ series opener against the Cleveland Guardians on Friday night.
The Dodgers also optioned right-handed reliever Michael Peterson to Triple-A Oklahoma City and activated right-hander Landon Knack and left-hander Justin Wrobleski. Knack is starting Friday. Wrobleski, in theory, could take Stone’s place in the Dodgers’ rotation.
It’s just the latest blow in a series of season-long setbacks to the Dodgers’ rotation.
Opening Day starter Tyler Glasnow has gone on the injured list twice this year with back and elbow ailments. The Dodgers are hopeful he can return for October, but time is running out.
Yoshinobu Yamamoto signed the largest contract ever given a pitcher last December — $325 million over 12 years — but has been sidelined with a rotator cuff injury for three months.
Clayton Kershaw started the year on the injured list recovering from offseason shoulder surgery. He returned in July and showed some promise, only to leave his last start with a bone spur in his left big toe. Kershaw is currently throwing in a walking boot.
Walker Buehler and Bobby Miller are both healthy now, but have spent time on the injured list with hip and shoulder injuries, respectively. Neither has returned to his peak form that the Dodgers were hoping for.
Rookies River Ryan and Kyle Hurt weren’t expected to be part of the rotation this season. But both would likely be in there as a result of injuries to their more experienced teammates — if Tommy John surgery had not interrupted their seasons.
Meanwhile, Dustin May, Tony Gonsolin and Emmet Sheehan have also been recovering from the ligament-replacement procedure named for the former Dodgers pitcher. None is expected to pitch this year.
Against this backdrop, the injury to Stone — with less than four weeks remaining in the regular season — couldn’t come at a worse time. Knack (2-2 with a 3.00 ERA in 10 starts) figures to get a long runway to show he belongs in the major leagues — in the regular season at least, if not the postseason as well.
Stone, the Dodgers’ fifth round pick in the 2020 draft, had never been on the injured list in his career.
Photo Credit: Isaiah J. Downing-USA TODAY Sports
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Stating the obvious? Given the number of lost pitchers and walking wounded the Dodgers are counting on to pitch for the club, it becomes harder and harder to see the Dodgers lasting through the playoffs. There’s only so much one can do with smoke and mirrors to make this club look like a serious contender. Just too many injuries and those counted on to recover didn’t pan out.
Here we go again. And again, and again. Stone, Ryan, Hurt, Sheehan, May, Gonsolin, Yamamoto, Ferguson, going back to Stripling – you could put an all-star team together with the young pitchers that Roberts has overworked and kept in tough situations they should not have been in. Roberts is a good manager in terms of motivating players, and in situational decisions, but he has terribly mis-managed rookies especially, and others. It can’t be all bad luck, there is a reason behind it.
I don’t think it is a coincidence that Yamamoto goes down shortly after pitching 8 innings in New York, Stone after 7. There has to be a more creative way to limit the strain on their arms. How about a more frequent use of openers, use multiple starters for 4 innings each. How about an expanded pitching roster (you could drop Taylor and not lose much). With the money the Ds have, they could do an MRI on every pitcher after every outing. Either do something or stop doing something, but this is ridiculous.