7:32pm: If Nelson does require surgery, the procedure he’d undergo carries a success rate of better than 90 percent, Rosiak tweets.
12:46pm: The Brewers announced that Jimmy Nelson will miss the rest of the season with a right rotator cuff strain and a partial anterior labrum tear. General manager David Stearns said Saturday that it’s unclear whether Nelson will require surgery, according to Todd Rosiak of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel (on Twitter).
The premature end to Nelson’s year is a devastating development for the 73-68 Brewers, who trail the NL Central-leading Cubs by four games and sit three games back of the Rockies for the league’s last wild-card spot. The Brewers are currently in the midst of a three-game series against the Cubs and took the opener on Friday, 2-0, behind Nelson. The 28-year-old tossed five innings of four-hit, two-walk ball and added seven strikeouts, and he threw one of those frames with a labrum tear, Adam McCalvy of MLB.com tweets. Nelson suffered the injury on the base paths after hitting a fifth-inning single.
Like his team, Nelson has been a surprising success story this season. The emergent ace posted spectacular numbers across 175 1/3 innings and currently ranks fourth among major league starters in fWAR (4.9), ninth in strikeouts per nine innings (10.21), 10th in groundball rate (50.3 percent) and 15th in ERA (3.49). While Nelson’s brilliant work this year came at a near-minimum salary, his price tag will rise in the offseason. Nelson will take his first trip through arbitration, where the ERA, innings, strikeouts and 12-6 record he logged in 2017 should each help his cause.
As for the Nelson-less Brewers, they’ll likely look to their minor league system for down-the-stretch rotation help, Stearns announced (via McCalvy, on Twitter). Candidates to come up include Triple-A right-hander Taylor Jungmann and Double-A righty Aaron Wilkerson, per McCalvy.
He’s was having a breakout year, looking like a true ace. That’s very unfortunate for the Brewers and baseball.
Though fortunate for Cubs playoff chances
This has little impact on Cubs chances, the Cardinals are better than Milwaukee.
Yea but the Cards aren’t better then the Cubs..
Head to head Brewers V. cardinals would say otherwise.
Sure they are
look I’m a Cardinals fan the Cardinals aren’t even in the same class is the Brewers
that would be totally incorrect. Milwaukee is much better than the Cardinals even without Jimmy Nelson. the proof of this comment will occur with the Brewers face the Cardinals later in the month
Yeah, the have the same record, they’re better
Cardinals are 7-9 against the Brewers this year. Explain to me how they’re better than the Brewers.
Thank you for your objectivity. Sure wish more of your fan base could be the same.
I don’t think a one-game difference gives any information either way.
Sure it does. Cardinals have only 7 wins compared to the Brewers having 9 wins. 9 is greater than 7. Therefore the Brewers greater than the Cardinals. Do you need math manipulatives as well?
F the cubs
Well said.
Where’s the like button?
Now we’re stuck with garza starting…..goodbye playoffs
as long as Garza is on the roster of the Brewers never had a chance of making the playoffs
Is Luis Ortiz or Corbin Burnes on the 40 man? If Jimmy goes on the 60 then they can be brought up. Taylor Jungman or Jorge Lopez could come up? Adrian Houser?
Here come the “Pitchers shouldn’t hit because they’ll get hurt” people
Pitchers shouldn’t dive head first into FIRST BASE is more like it
Nor should hitters
they shouldn’t. it’s a better quality game with the DH. pitchers are automatic outs.
No it’s not
Ya, it is
No. It’s not.
I too like loud Michael Bay movies…
I’ll take a good 2-1 NL game where the runs matter over a mindless 9-7 AL game almost any day.
And there is no reason that pitchers cannot actually work at the craft of hitting.
For a sport that loves to talk about finding inefficiencies, go find some pitchers who can actually hit a baseball.
There are pitchers who can hit. Most of them can’t pitch particularly well. You’re asking a player to devote enormous amount of time to learn one or the other. There’s a reason pitchers have, historically, not been able to hit. Pitching is hard enough to learn.
I get that. I disagree that they don’t have the time to practice, but I get that that is the mindset.
What I’m saying is that if there are only 10-15 pitchers who are good hitters, an NL team should try to get at least 3 of them on their roster.
Having 9 real batters vs. your opponents 8 and being able to pinch hit them on days they don’t start is a real advantage if taken.
It’s a boring game with the dh. No baseball strategy whatsoever. Guys that can’t play defense get to only hit. Not the way the game was meant to be played. Of course now you can’t take out the middle guy on a double play and you can’t crash into the catcher to knock the ball out. Now with the dh and no strategy baseball this game is headed the wrong way. I’ve even seen exciting plays on an intentional walk but not anymore.
No wonder the cubs finally won.
Except this is the third Brewers starting pitcher to miss significant time getting hurt on offense this season. Bring on the DH.
As soon as 23 of 30 owners want the DH in the NL, it will happen.
It’s just one of many arguments to favor the implementation of the DH rule in both leagues.
The primary argument with the DH, or lack of it, is the lunacy of having separate rules for each league. What other professional team sport does this? What other sport has to deal with differing rules in it’s postseason? None.
One way or the other, the rule must become standardized. Either abolish it all together or implement it in both leagues. With the DH being prevalent in amateur and international baseball and mandatory at the rookie and a-ball levels of minor league baseball it’s becoming more apparent that the rule will be eventually become standard issue at the MLB level.
I hate the DH rule. I would rather expand the rosters to 27 and bring back the strategy to the AL. I’m likely in the minority on this
Automatically bunting isn’t strategy. And four-man benches have pretty much eliminated the double-switch, which barely qualifies as “strategy” anyway.
When you look at the 7th to 9th inning in a NL game, there’s actually a lot of strategy. Which bench bat do we use now? If this game goes to extra’s which bench players will be have left, which pitcher has the best chance of producing offensively, how can we keep players at all 8 spots.
Ive seen Roy Oswalt in left, Chooch to third, Ibañez to first and John McDonald, Jeff Francouer, Casper Wells and Wilson Valdez on the mound. It becomes like a game of chess.
I don’t know, it kind of seems to me the kind of people who want to see Roy Oswalt in LF are the same kind who hope for a 20 car pile-up on the freeway. Something just ain’t quite right with those kind of folks.
Your argument *might* have been interesting 15 years ago. Some NL teams carry as few as 3 bench players, most only carry 4, one of which is the “do not use ever”backup catcher, so the whole “sorting through bench bats” thing is barely applicable anymore.
Gotta love pitchers pitching around the 7th and 8th hitters with 2 outs early in the game just so they can face the opposing pitcher. So much strategy involved there. Really makes baseball fun to watch.
I dislike the DH as well but realize I’m in the minority.
That said, I would trade instituting the DH in both leagues for three-batter minimums applied to any reliever who does not get the third out in an inning.
Bye bye Brew Crew!
Noticed several rotator cuff issues this season after not seeing it for years really crop up among pitchers. This was the one injury all pitchers dreaded and career ending at one time.
Wonder why it’s returning? Have read in some stories that player conditioning was a reason it gradually went away, tho that couldn’t be why have seen more.. Is it harder throwing pitchers now?
He hurt his shoulder sliding back in to 1st base after a base hit yesterday.
Yet another pitchers either shouldn’t hit or should learn how to slide/run the bases. A shame for the Brewers. Why didn’t this end when Chen Mein Wang broke his foot and was never the same.
Whatever happened to statistical significance? Pitchers have batted thousands of times this year and there have been a small handful of injuries on the base paths. As many pitchers have gotten hurt falling in the shower, tumbling down stairs, and lifting weights. In other words, we are in the realm of statistical anomalies. Conclusions are weakly supported by data. The plural of anecdote is not data. Instead, we are witnessing some decision-based evidence-making. Let’s be honest in our arguments. If there’s a good argument for the DH, injuries is not it.
Pitchers can’t hit, worse is that too many are terrible bunters and they get hurt eating breakfast. However miniscule why not prevent one way they get hurt. Would also allow pitchers to pitch deeper and keep an extra pitcher in the bullpen.
Then let’s ban breakfast for pitchers.
Be careful gocincy. You might end up making too much sense.
Pitchers continue to drop like flies in MLB! Only proves the point you can never, ever have too much pitching.
What really sucks is that this injury occurred while Nelson was on the base paths, perhaps furthering the argument that the DH rule be applicable for all of MLB.
Nelson ran poorly (albeit back to the base) and the rules should be changed?
Shutting him down is the right move. Give him as much time as he needs to get healthy, competing this year was never really the goal anyway, I’d rather see him healthy when it matters. This club has an exceptionally bright future.
Hey here’s a team that will and benefit sighing Derek Holland. Go get him brew crew
Pitchers shouldn’t hit. Diving back to 1st base… stay on the bench.
Pitchers should hit, they shouldn’t get big leads so that they dive back to first potentially exposing themselves to injury and hurting their team.
Even a “good” hitting pitcher is terrible by normal hitting standards though. Take Madison Bumgarner, who everyone thinks is a good hitter simply because he hits a few bombs every year. What is Madbum’s career OPS? That would be
.560. As in….terrible.