The Rays have shut down young left-hander Brendan McKay on account of tightness in his pitching shoulder, Marc Topkin of the Tampa Bay Times relays. The two-way player had been working back from a positive COVID-19 test at the Rays’ alternate training site before the team had to shelve him again.
There’s no word on how long McKay will be down from this injury. Unfortunately, though, shoulder problems aren’t anything new for McKay, a former fourth overall pick who dealt with them as a rookie in 2019, as manager Kevin Cash pointed out.
“Brendan has noted that he has had some issues, even dating back to last year,” Cash said to Topkin. “After his San Diego start (on Aug. 13) he said he didn’t feel right. I’m not totally sure that he has completely gotten past that of having no issue out there.”
McKay did pitch past last Aug. 13, even appearing in three of the Rays’ five playoff games in their ALDS loss to the Astros. Before that, he concluded the regular season with 49 innings of 5.14 ERA/4.03 FIP ball and 10.29 K/9 against 2.94 BB/9.
If healthy, McKay could have been a factor in a Rays rotation that’s currently missing Charlie Morton and Yonny Chirinos, who are on the injured list. And the Rays’ staff may have taken yet another hit Tuesday when righty Andrew Kittredge exited their game against the Red Sox in the first inning because of “discomfort” in his pitching arm, per Juan Toribio of MLB.com. Tampa Bay replaced Kittredge with righty John Curtiss.
This sounds like surgery, maybe not major, but still surgery and an IL stint.
Thanks for the diagnosis, doc.
Every day I open the mlb app or I see any news amaze my how many injuries are happening every single day and I hear all those people’s talking about conditioning,players strength
And computers involve in the game
And then find the problem
I always said between those 2 white lines computer don’t work
Let the players be themselves
to piggyback on your comment i think a lot of these injuries are happening cuz the players don’t ever have an offseason until retirement. imo i think a lot of players need to “just sit on the couch” for a few weeks and do light workouts to stay in shape (not competitive shape) after a grind like baseball is i feel like resting and recovering is just as important getting stronger besides what’s the point in getting stronger if you burn out and have to spend time on the il.
I think the answer is much more simpler: Athletes in all sports are constantly pushing their athletic limitations. The human body is not made to throw a baseball 90+ MPH or have a 250 or more pound football player run a sub-4.40. Injuries are always going to happen in sports just because players aren’t built to do most of what we see even the worst MLB guys accomplish on a daily basis.
It’s significantly higher this year just because there was only two weeks and no preseason for players to get into the shape that normally takes them 5-6 weeks to get into at spring training camp. Even most starting pitchers aren’t at capacity until 2-3 turn in the rotation.
Some bodies just handle the stress and wear on them better than others. I also believe it’s the player’s responsibility to maintain competitive shape when they need to. We’ll never know it, but teams often know which injuries happen because the player wasn’t in the shape they needed to be in.
Totally right,another thing pitchers upper body are so muscular and that don’t help to much ,you can work you lower body as much as you can and can help your upper body and be more injuries free
AND WATCH THIS
ANY PITCHER AFTER 5 O 6 HEALTHY SEASON THROWING OVER 190 INNINGS STARTS GETTING ARM PROBLEMS
Better question is why MLB isn’t doing anything about this? This is a major problem nobody wants to properly address.
Nothing you can really do at this point, except shutdown the season which is not going to happen due to injury.
Also the articles does say, McKay had a similar problem last year as well so this is not new and likely be in the same boat in a normal season.
Definitely not more simpler.
I hope in my lifetime I get to see a two-way switch hitter/switch pitcher.