Nationals right-hander Josiah Gray has been diagnosed with a flexor strain, the team announced. He has been placed on the 60-day injured list and will miss at least the first two months of the season. That opens a 40-man roster spot for lefty reliever Cionel Pérez, whose contract has officially been selected. Washington also placed righty reliever Paxton Schultz on the 15-day injured list, retroactive to March 22, with elbow inflammation.
It’s a tough blow for Gray, as he’d seemingly just gotten healthy after undergoing Tommy John surgery two years ago. Gray missed the entire ’25 season rehabbing from the operation, which took place the previous July. The ligament damage was ominously preceded by a flexor strain diagnosis three months earlier.
The Nats hadn’t provided any indication that Gray was dealing with renewed elbow discomfort. His most recent Spring Training appearance came on March 7, though it’s common for teams to give pitchers additional rest in camp when they’re coming off a significant injury. The Nationals announced last week that Gray had been optioned and would begin the season in Triple-A. That’ll be rescinded with the flexor sending him to the major league injured list instead.
Manager Blake Butera will presumably provide some kind of update on Gray’s health outlook in the coming days. It’s not clear whether another procedure is a possible outcome, though any significant arm injury this close to a previous surgery is disheartening. Gray is making a $1.35MM salary this season and under arbitration control through 2027.
I’m going to crash out
What a nightmare for him.
Josiah is a fine young man, and this is areal blow for him, but never, repeat never, trade with the Dodgers. Trea Turner and Max Scherzer for Josiah Gray and Kiebert Ruiz.
It definitely felt like a decent deal at the time.
There was some moaning about losing a year-plus of Turner (Scherzer was a rental and the writing was on the wall), but what were the Nats ever going to do with him but waste his time and theirs?
There was you know a money difference too on that and stuff
Never heard of this type of injury. Must be uncommon.
It is a fairly regular injury usually related to TJ.
Jeez Louise y’all at this point
Now that’s some colorful language !
The dodgers prospects are the most overrated system in MLB. They can’t stay healthy or never live up to the hype.
For sure. Players like Seager, Bellinger, Busch, Alvarez, Smith pages just haven’t lived up to expectations.
It’s always relevant to point out that the Nats had a losing record with Turner, Scherzer, and Juan Soto the year after their WS crown. Granted, Rendon was gone and Strasburg was hurt, but the club piled everything into their window and it worked.
They were 26-34 in the COVID-shortened season and 48-55 when Max & Trea were traded. I love this team, but forever and always believe the teardown was right. Rendon during that time hit .265 with 15 HRs for the Angels. He wasn’t the answer either.
Good call to rebuild. The rebuild just didn’t work, and that’s on them as player development failures, but trading Turner and Scherzer (and Soto, the next year) was the right call.
The haul for both was fine. Ruiz was well regarded enough to be extended. Josiah Gray became an All-Star as did Mackenzie Gore, James Wood, and CJ Abrams from the Soto trade.
The player development woes continue. Hopefully the new guys can get Dylan Crews on track and help Wood diagnose off-speed pitching. I don’t blame ownership for not spending until a player or two proves capable of having back-to-back good seasons without meltdowns.
Also recall they were 19-31 to start their WS season. This team was the best team in baseball for 123 games to end the 2019 season (and also the oldest team in MLB). They were ordinary is 2018 and awful from 2020 forward. That’s Rizzo consistently missing on player (and coach) evaluation.
Agree, the Gray / Ruiz trade was a decent deal at the time but none of the players acquired panned out. The Soto trade will end up being a net negative as well but also looked good on paper at the time. Gore’s not a top of the rotation guy, Abrams is terrible defensively and streaky offensively, and Wood is still to be determined. Hoping Susana develops into a closer eventually.
The Soto trade looks better now than it did then.
Getting three all-star caliber starters plus a possible lottery ticket future one is better than anyone could reasonably expect from five prospects.
Gore might surprise you. And all the rest of us. He never seemed happy in DC.
As you said, the Nats were basically a 72-90 team with both Soto and Turner playing at MVP levels on cheap contracts (relatively cheap for Turner and extremely cheap for Soto). They had to trade them b/c how were they going to improve after giving one or both of them huge contracts?
The trade with the Dodgers seemed fine at the time, but has really turned sour recently.
The trade with the Padres seemed good at the time, and has gotten even more impressive as time passed. Unfortunately, none of their other drafted prospects panned out recently.
my username is undefeated