Here’s the latest on some injury news around the game …
- Astros righty Lance McCullers Jr. has been scratched from a scheduled rehab outing tomorrow, Jake Kaplan of the Houston Chronicle reports (Twitter links). Skipper A.J. Hinch says that the young starter hasn’t experienced any kind of set-back, but hadn’t recovered quickly enough from his most recent work. Houston obviously wants to be certain that the 22-year-old’s shoulder is free and clear of problems before ramping him up, but the club is surely anxious to plug him back into a rotation that has had its share of struggles in the early going.
- Meanwhile, the division-rival Angels have their own starter coming back slowly from shoulder problems in C.J. Wilson. As Jeff Fletcher of the Orange County Register reports on Twitter, Wilson is still throwing off of flat ground and has yet to move past sixty feet. He “still has a long way to go” to returning to a big league hill, Fletcher adds.
- Yet another AL West club, the Athletics, received more promising news today on their own shoulder-plagued pitcher, righty Henderson Alvarez. He impressed the club with a two-inning sim game, as MLB.com’s Jane Lee reports, though he still may need two more before undertaking a rehab assignment. Soon to turn 26, Alvarez was signed to a one-year, $4.25MM deal in hopes that he’d recover from shoulder surgery and return to the solid form he’s displayed in the past with the Marlins.
- The Nationals still don’t have a timeline for the return of center fielder Ben Revere, as Byron Kerr of MASNsports.com reports. Washington has fared well in his absence, but will look forward to adding his left-handed bat back to the top of the lineup. Fellow outfielders Jayson Werth and Michael Taylor are off to slow starts, though both had more promising results in tonight’s action.
