Astros stars Jose Altuve and Carlos Correa are both being evaluated by the team’s medical staff for potential injuries, the team told reporters Tuesday (Twitter links via Jake Kaplan of The Athletic). Altuve was already on the injured list but reported feeling fatigue and soreness his right leg after playing minor league rehab games on consecutive days. That’s all the more notable given that Altuve underwent right knee surgery following the 2018 season. As for Correa, he was scratched from tonight’s lineup due to discomfort in his ribs and is being evaluated back in Houston. President of baseball operations Jeff Luhnow downplayed the potential for a serious issue, however, stating that he doesn’t expect either issue to be a long-term problem (Twitter link via the Houston Chronicle’s Chandler Rome). It’s possible that either could be out “a couple weeks,” per Luhnow, although obviously an exact timeline is impossible to gauge until the medical staff has completed its tests.
Some more injury notes from around the league…
- The Pirates announced that right-hander Jordan Lyles exited tonight’s game due to hamstring discomfort. Lyles has been one of the best one-year signings of this past offseason, but he struggled through a second straight rough Tuesday, surrendering three runs on three hits and a pair of walks in four innings of work. Though his last two outings haven’t been sharp, Lyles still boasts a 3.09 ERA, 9.1 K/, 3.1 BB/9, 0.81 HR/9 and a 43.1 percent ground-ball rate in 55 1/3 innings. The Pirates have placed Jameson Taillon, Chris Stratton and Keone Kela on the injured list in May. If he requires a trip to the IL, the Bucs could turn back to top prospect Mitch Keller, who was recalled for a spot start yesterday but optioned back today.
- Giants right-hander Nick Vincent exited tonight’s game with trainers, and The Athletic’s Andrew Baggarly notes (via Twitter) that Vincent was motioning toward his neck/collarbone area as he departed the game. He’s been used heavily by the Giants, frequently pitching two- or more innings at a time. Prior to the 2019 season, Vincent had never thrown more than 64 2/3 innings in a Major League season, but he’s already up to 30 2/3 frames on the year. Correlation certainly doesn’t equate to causation in this instance, but the uptick in workload is at least worth a mention. Vincent looked like a potential trade chip less than three weeks ago, as he had a 2.25 ERA and a 25-to-6 K/BB ratio in 24 innings back on May 10. Since then, he’s surrendered 13 runs in his past four appearances — a span of just 6 2/3 innings.
- It appears there’s some concern regarding young Blue Jays right-hander Sean Reid-Foley, as Gregor Chisholm of MLB.com tweets that Reid-Foley exited Tuesday’s start for Triple-A Buffalo in what looked to be “a lot of discomfort.” The former second-round pick loaded the bases and walked in a run before exiting the game with a member of the Bisons’ training staff. Reid-Foley has had a tough season in Buffalo so far, entering play Tuesday with a 6.60 ERA through 45 inning of work. To his credit, he’s picked up 50 strikeouts in that time, but he’s also issued 34 walks, hit four batters and thrown four wild pitches. [Update: Chisholm tweets that the Jays are calling the injury a back strain but hopeful that he can avoid even missing a start in Buffalo.]
The Pirates are absolutely snakebitten this year with injuries.
Easily the worst year that I recall.
They actually had a pretty good pitching staff at the start of the year.
But no more.
Of course he’s injured. But more than that, the Pirates have no one to back-fill, no depth, and have done little in the off season up to now to suggest anything will be done about the lack of depth. But hey, they’re shooting for the playoffs, right? I guess that covers it. This management group is severely underachieving.
I can empathize some with NH as this amount is way beyond normal,but he should have had another starter,and two relievers as backup or replacements for 2-3 of the pitchers that he carried north.
Injuries happen.It is up to the GM to be prepared for them.
But also in his defense,the AAA pitchers that have been promoted have all been utter failures.Holmes and Davis are the only two with decent ERA’s.It really makes one wonder about the coaching squad.
Keller, Dario Agrazal and Luis Escobar may need to grow up in a really big hurry if this keeps up. The Bucs don’t want to rush those three to the big league rotation, but they may not have any other choice soon. The regular rotation guys are hurt, and every single fallback depth option so far has been a disaster.
I wouldn’t call anyone with upside to this big league roster. The way things are they will end up injured
This may be anathema to say,but I think that the absolute importance of striking out as many as possible so that your ERA equivalent is very good may very well help to cause so many arm injuries.
It is getting to the point where every pitcher has had at least one TJ surgery.
One does not see any pitchers any more with a height below at least six feet.Not sure if anyone smaller even gets a chance anymore.
You can be the greatest pitcher ever but if your body cannot hold up to the physical stress then what good are you to the team?
It would seem that the smaller pitchers would tend to have more control,and if they have good movement on their ball,could still be a good pitcher,with much less chance to be continually injured.
Little guys have arms that blow up too. See Sean Burnett who just retired. 5’11” and he fit the control part but he had 2 TJ surgeries along the way. Back in the day, most pitchers threw in the 80s and if you had one who threw in the 90s, man he had the heat. Once on a great while, you had a Nolan Ryan who could hit 100. Now, all of these guys throw in the upper 90’s and several can hit 100. That speed and the movement they have is why umps have trouble calling pitches. I still remember an old book by former AL ump, Ron Luciano. It was called “The Fall of the Roman Umpire.” He described the first time he was behind the plate for Ryan. The first 100 mph fast ball that Ryan threw, Luciano thought something was wrong with his eyes. He said the ball looked like it exploded in front of him. Imagine having to try to see that same speed not just a handful of times but a good percentage of the pitches thrown in a game. Imagine the additional stress put on the human arm now compared to the pitchers I grew watching in the 60’s and 70’s That extra speed and all of the crazy breaking stuff is what is killing the arms in my very humble opinion.
Luciano was a real character.
It seems to me that the umpires now do a very good job calling pitches.This is according to the grid on the I pad that I see “watching” the games.I could not say the same thing in the late 90’s when certain pitchers seemed to get extra credit.
Burnett may be one example but I do not know whether he is representative although the sample size for pitchers of his stature is very much smaller these days.
My point,although somewhat unclear,was that this change to faster and faster is of limited success if the pitchers cannot stay on the mound.