Los Angeles Dodgers pitching prospect River Ryan has met another hurdle to his major league return — another injury.
Ryan still has prospect status due to his limited MLB time with the Dodgers, and despite now being 28, he remains one of the top young players in baseball.
While his age and minor league experience make him extremely polished for a “prospect,” his road back to the majors has been long, with no MLB innings since 2024.
A shoulder issue and Tommy John surgery are both things Ryan battled in 2024, the latter of which led to him missing the 2025 season.
This year, despite pitching well in Spring Training, the organization decided against starting him on the major league team; instead, he began the year in the Triple-A rotation, with plans to call him up later in the season.
Already, the Dodgers’ decision has been somewhat justified, with Ryan moved to the injured list early in the Triple-A season due to a hamstring issue, and now he is going back on the injured list with another hamstring problem.
“The good thing is it’s not anything overly serious,” Dodgers general manager Brandon Gomes said, per The Athletic’s Fabian Ardaya.
“(Ryan) will be able to keep throwing, just not off the mound. Obviously, we’ll continue to look at what are the things we can do to make sure this doesn’t happen again.”
How the injury impacts how the Dodgers view Ryan
Gomes made it no secret that injuries like this make the team hesitant to unleash him with a major-league starter’s workload — not the talent or production.
“Of all of the things, this is what’s hard with him,” Gomes said. “At every turn, the velocity has been excellent. The stuff has been really good. Now it’s about getting over the hump with this kind of stuff.”
“It’s frustrating for River and unfortunate that he’s not able to continue right now. Now we’re just looking towards figuring out how to handle this and put it behind him, so he can be an option for us in a few weeks moving forward.”
With so much talent and promise in his right arm, the hard part for the Dodgers and Ryan is over — he is a good pitcher with potential to be great.
However, there is the very real hurdle of keeping him upright that needs to change before fans get what they want — to see him in the big league rotation.
