Angels Place Patrick Sandoval On 15-Day IL With Elbow Strain

TODAY: The Angels announced this evening that Sandoval has been placed on the 15-day injured list with an elbow strain. Right-hander Guillo Zuniga was recalled from Triple-A to take Sandoval’s spot on the active roster. The severity of Sandoval’s injury is not yet clear, though he’s now set to miss at least the next two weeks of action.

June 21: Angels left-hander Patrick Sandoval left tonight’s start against the Dodgers in the third inning. After walking former teammate Shohei Ohtani, Sandoval began shaking his arm and called for a trainer. The Halos announced the initial diagnosis as forearm tightness.

It seems fair to presume Sandoval will head for imaging in the next couple days. While it’s too early to know whether he’s facing a significant absence, the southpaw’s reaction on the mound and the diagnosis are clearly cause for concern.

Sandoval worked 2 1/3 scoreless innings tonight. He still has an uninspiring 5.08 earned run average over 79 2/3 frames on the season. The 27-year-old’s underlying indicators are quite a bit more promising. Sandoval has punched out a solid 23% of batters faced while keeping the ball on the ground 45% of the time. He has issued a few too many walks (9.9% rate), but he looks like a mid-rotation arm at his best. Sandoval carried an above-average 11.7% swinging strike rate into tonight’s start.

Between 2022-23, Sandoval was somewhat quietly one of the better starters in the league. He topped 140 innings in both seasons, combining for a 3.50 ERA over 55 starts. While Sandoval was more effective in ’22 than he was a year ago, he has generally been a bright spot amidst a tough few years in Orange County.

As MLBTR’s Steve Adams explored in a piece for Front Office subscribers just this week, Sandoval looked like a very appealing trade candidate. Steve noted the parallels between the Angels hurler and Miami’s Jesús Luzardo, who is regarded as one of the best (if not the top) controllable starting pitcher who is likely to move this summer. The Angels haven’t shown the same willingness to deal key players as the Marlins’ new front office has, yet Los Angeles GM Perry Minasian would get no shortage of calls on a healthy Sandoval.

Tonight’s injury at least complicates that possibility. An extended absence would take a deadline deal off the table entirely. The Angels control Sandoval via arbitration for two seasons beyond this one. He’s making $5.025MM this season in his second of four arbitration years after qualifying as a Super Two player in 2022.