Injury Notes: Burnes, Blackburn, Hendricks, Haniger

Brewers ace Corbin Burnes called for the trainer and exited last night’s game after recording the first out in the sixth inning, with 85 pitches under his belt. After the game, manager Craig Counsell told reporters that Burnes had a minor strain of the left pectoralis in his chest (link via Todd Rosiak of the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel). Burnes incurred the injury in the fourth inning after picking off Eugenio Suarez at second base, catching him in a rundown, and stretching to make the tag on the play. Burnes explained that the injury cramped up beginning in the sixth inning. “I had zero command and then clearly the velo started to drop,” said Burnes, who began the inning with a four-pitch walk.

It’s a surely a relative sigh of relief for Brewers fans, though the team figures to have more info on Burnes in the next day or so as he progresses. For now, it seems the 2021 NL Cy Young winner has avoided a major injury, which is particularly important with righty Brandon Woodruff facing a lengthy absence due to a shoulder strain.

Some more injury scenarios to monitor around the league…

• Right-hander Paul Blackburn’s return to the Athletics could be further delayed by a blister issue on his pitching hand, tweets Matt Kawahara of the San Francisco Chronicle. The 29-year-old Blackburn rode a first-half breakout to an All-Star nod last summer, but his season went off the rails in mid-July, when he was torched for 21 runs in a span of 14 1/3 innings. He was diagnosed with a torn tendon sheath in his pitching hand, which ended his season. Blackburn looked to be on track for the 2023 campaign, but a fingernail avulsion shelved him briefly. He’s made a pair of rehab starts but will see his third rehab outing delayed by the current blister troubles. Through his first 16 starts last season, Blackburn pitched to a 2.90 ERA with a below-average 18.8% strikeout rate but strong walk and ground-ball rates of 6.2% and 48.7%, respectively, while yielding just an 87.7 mph average exit velocity.
• Cubs righty Kyle Hendricks threw 36 pitches in a two-inning simulated game yesterday and came away from that session feeling good, tweets Maddie Lee of the Chicago Sun-Times. Assuming he doesn’t incur any setbacks in the coming days, that could put Hendricks on pace for a minor league rehab stint sooner than later. He’d likely need multiple starts to build up, which generally aligns with Hendricks’ previous statements that he’s aiming to be on a rehab assignment by May. The 33-year-old Hendricks was one of the NL’s most durable and consistently effective starters from 2015-20, pitching to a 3.17 ERA over the life of 967 innings in that time. He’s stumbled to a 4.78 ERA in 48 starts over the past two seasons, however, as he’s become increasingly homer-prone. Hendricks is entering the final guaranteed season of a four-year, $55MM contract, though the Cubs hold a net $14.5MM decision on him for the 2024 campaign ($16MM option with a $1.5MM buyout).
• Mitch Haniger is slated to begin a minor league rehab assignment today, tweets Susan Slusser of the San Francisco Chronicle. The Giants signed Haniger to a three-year, $43MM contract over the winter (which contains an opt-out after 2024), but he’s yet to make his team debut after suffering an oblique strain during spring training. He went 3-for-10 with a pair of doubles in 10 official spring at-bats before sustaining the injury. Haniger dealt with myriad injuries in 2019-20 and 2022 but played in 157 games apiece in 2018 and 2021, slugging a combined 65 home runs between those two seasons. Once healthy, he’ll add some more thump to a Giants lineup that somewhat surprisingly ranks fourth in the Majors with 25 homers so far.