9:18pm: Both Cash and McClanahan expressed some amount of optimism postgame McClanahan wouldn’t need to miss much time (Topkin links). That won’t officially be determined until tomorrow’s imaging results come back, of course.
6:52pm: Rays ace Shane McClanahan was scratched from tonight’s start against the Marlins shortly before game-time. The star southpaw felt discomfort while warming up in the bullpen and was visibly upset (video link provided by Rob Friedman). The club later announced his preliminary diagnosis as a shoulder impingement (h/t to Tricia Whitaker of Bally Sports Florida). He’s set to undergo additional imaging tomorrow, tweets Marc Topkin of the Tampa Bay Times.
The team will provide more information in the coming days, but it’s obviously a worrisome development. Shoulder issues are a concern for any pitcher, and it wouldn’t be a surprise if McClanahan winds up on the 15-day injured list. Even a brief absence would be a notable blow for a Tampa Bay club that currently occupies the top Wild Card spot in the American League. The Rays are just a half-game up on the Mariners and a game clear of the Blue Jays, with a three-game gap between themselves and the nearest current non-playoff team (the Orioles).
Their place in the standings makes the final five weeks crucial as the Rays look to lock down a fourth straight playoff appearance. One could argue there’s no player more pivotal to those efforts than McClanahan, the American League’s All-Star Game starter and one of the top pitchers in the sport. After a productive rookie season in which he posted a 3.43 ERA through his first 25 big league starts, McClanahan has placed himself among the game’s elite arms this year. He’s worked to a sparkling 2.20 ERA across 24 outings and 147 1/3 frames. The former first-rounder has struck out an elite 32.5% of batters faced and induced ground-balls at a huge 52.3% clip while only walking 5.4% of opponents.
McClanahan has made a strong case for AL Cy Young award consideration, jointing the likes of Justin Verlander (who landed on the IL this afternoon), Dylan Cease and Framber Valdez among the Junior Circuit’s top starters. If healthy, McClanahan would be skipper Kevin Cash’s obvious choice for Game 1 of a possible playoff series.
The Rays have dealt with myriad pitching injuries this season. The bulk of those have come in the bullpen, but they’ve been without Tyler Glasnow all season as he rehabs from last year’s Tommy John procedure and have lost high-end prospect Shane Baz for two extended stretches. It’s possible both Glasnow and Baz could factor into the mix down the stretch, giving Tampa Bay a potentially enviable stockpile of arms if they’re at full strength.
Another Rays pitcher going down
Another big guy going down this week. Gee wiz
Nobody this year has even come close to the amount of injuries as this team. Absolutely insane
Uhhh, you didn’t watch the Angels
The reds lead the majors in games missed by players and then the Rays.
Is there a handy website that tracks those types of numbers, Mets69? Most IL days, most Team games “lost” to injury, etc.?
https://www.spotrac.com/mlb/disabled-list/cumulative-team/
https://twitter.com/ManGamesLostMLB/status/1561372876292427778
Or if you’re willing to pay:
https://www.mangameslost.com/category/mlb/mlb-2022-season/
Thanks Steve! I’ve never seen that option on Spotrac, I’ll stick to that one. Was the Padres ’21 a record? The 2581 games lost to injury?? I do recall the team being “on pace” to set that record but never took note if it was indeed the “most ever”… cheers!
Okay but look at lost war of the players on the IL
A Rays fan posted a comment earlier about how many Rays have been injured this year.
Is it not reasonable to wonder about the franchise’s training and conditioning regimen?
Sure, training is part of it. They’re doing something right, obviously, they win a lot of games.
This happens all the time with every team you nimwad. Just look at the dodgers may, buehler, gonsolin. It’s a fair accusation to wonder about a franchise’s training and conditioning regimen impacting these types of things but singling out the rays here is erroneous.
Julio Urias spent a significant time injured as well
Why the insult, Michael? Is that just your usual attitude, or is it because you falsely inferred a comparison between the Rays’ training and conditioning staff and other teams’ staffs when no such comparison was implied in my question?
you and your wittiness floyed – i was just making a point that its wrong to single out one team when these things happen all around the league, so I don’t know that it’s falsely inferred (sounds like you need to go back to college too cheep scape)
Additionally your confused response makes me wonder if you are on the same drugs as the Pink Floyd lead singer. Fans will be fans.
McClanahan is a very good pitcher having a Cy Young type of year. Hope his injury is of a very short duration. Pitchers with his determination, class, and talent are very hard to come by. Wish a very speedy recovery.
Your name calling was not called for and any argument you are trying to make is very much weakened when you resort to nam calling.
“i was just making a point that its wrong to single out one team when these things happen all around the league”
The Yankees have about a dozen players on the IL, so I have no motivation to compare the Rays’ injury history against any other teams’ injury problems.
Im just relaxing – the credibility of your response is weakened by your misspellings buddy
There are no misspellings in my comments. There are several errors in yours, including in your last one, so you probably shouldn’t try to equate errors in writing with the validity of comments on a baseball discussion board.
Again confusing in your response it must be alcohol in your system
I’ll leave it to others to judge which of us sounds more like he’s posting drunk.
Good night, Michael.
Are you assuming im from the United States? And for the record the misspellings response was to MICKEY (though not mantle) goodnight Fink Ployed!
Plus a lot of these injured Rays didnt even come up with the Rays
Were they injured before or after they joined the Rays?
After they joined the rays – players get hurt its part of the game. All of the best ones have gone down this season (for the most part) tatis, trout, Harper, buehler, Flaherty, sale ;), mckenzie gore, Shane Bieber last year… there’s plenty of them. Acuna last year. Soroka, Sixto Sanchez. Erroneous to say oh the rays are doing this, they are doing that – causing their players to get hurt. And again, i do think there is some credibility to your comment but its not just one franchise it happens all around the league and mainly just with pitchers the way they are deployed at the minor league level
Just watched the video link of him in the bullpen. Not a good sign if he needed a hug.
Obviously, this sucks. Mckay and now Clanny. Taj B. pitched last night so it makes sense for him to slide in for Shane’s next start. Plus I think we have another off day this week. Yonny Chirinos is also throwing shorter stints maybe he gets the call if they feel Taj needs to prove it a little more in Durham.
Patino’s rehab start got rained out in Durham, so I have a feeling he may be next up. Maybe soon since the Rays had to do a bullpen day because of McClanahan’s scratched start.
They still have a shot to make things interesting for the Yankees with a couple big series upcoming.
The Mariners sure have been lucky with no injuries to their pitchers at all. Though we’ve had a few key batters out for stretches.