Rangers right-hander Kohei Arihara will undergo surgery on his throwing shoulder, Texas GM Chris Young told reporters (including MLB.com’s Manny Randhawa and Sports Illustrated’s Chris Halicke). The surgery will fix an aneurysm that was found in Arihara’s shoulder earlier this week. It will be 12 weeks before Arihara can even resume throwing, so it is quite possible that Arihara’s 2021 season is finished.
Arihara was already on the injured list due to a contusion on his right middle finger, an issue that was revealed as being related to the aneurysm. Young suggested that the aneurysm impacted Arihara’s performance over three starts prior to the IL placement, as Arihara was hit hard to the tune of a 17.28 ERA over 8 1/3 innings.
Baseball is hardly the first matter of concern at this point, however, as Young described the issue as “a very serious condition if it’s not treated, and we’re very fortunate that this was caught early and we didn’t continue to push it with [Arihara].”
Arihara signed a two-year, $6.2MM contract with Texas in the offseason, a deal that cost the Rangers an additional $1.24MM in posting fees to Hokkaido Nippon-Ham Fighters, Arihara’s NPB team. Arihara was a stalwart member of the Fighters’ rotation from 2015-20, posting a 3.74 ERA over 836 innings with a pitching repertoire that relied more on control and off-speed pitches rather than velocity. (Arihara’s fastball averaged only 91mph this season.)
The Rangers and their fans saw some of this during Arihara’s first four starts of 2021, presumably before his aneurysm problems developed. Arihara had a 2.21 ERA over his first 20 1/3 innings pitched in the big leagues, issuing 13 strikeouts against three walks. If this is indeed it for Arihara in 2021, he’ll finish his rookie campaign with a 6.59 ERA/5.57 SIERA in 28 2/3 innings.
Young didn’t comment on how Texas would address Arihara’ rotation spot, though Hyeon-Jong Yang would seem like the favorite to remain in the starting five. Drew Anderson, Brock Burke, or Wes Benjamin are some of the most likely options at Triple-A if the Rangers dipped into the farm system.
Aneurysms are scary. Wish Arihara the best and I hope he’ll be alright.
Rangers29, if you happen to see this, isn’t this the Rangers pitcher you wrote your first article about? It seemed like you were high on him at the time because of the number of different pitches he threw. I was pretty skeptical at the time due to his age and lack of velocity. He reminded me of when the Braves signed Kenshin Kawakami. Kawakami had won the Japanese version of the Cy Young award multiple times but he was about the same age as Arihara. Kawakami also didn’t throw very hard. When he came to Atlanta I think the Braves gave him a 3-year $24 million deal and ended up eating the last $8 million by releasing him before the 3rd season. Kawakami was literally never any good at all in America. I don’t understand how he was ever considered one of the best pitchers in Japan. At least the Rangers were smart enough to not pay Arihara that much. Even including his posting fee Frank Wren’s Braves decided to pay Kawakami more money per year than Arihara’s entire contract. Wren agreed to do that every year for 3 straight years. The Braves tried to get Kawakami to agree to spend some time at Triple-A and figure things out since he never pitched well at the major league level but he refused. I don’t know why anyone thought a soft tossing pitcher around 30 years old with zero MLB or even MiLB experience was worth $8 million a year. Only Frank Wren was that dumb. That’s not surprising though were each worth about $15 million per year on even longer term deals. Hopefully Arihara turns out better for the Rangers but I don’t see it. MLB players don’t care about how many pitches a pitcher can throw like they do in Japan. I’ve heard of guys from there who could supposed throw 10 or even 11 pitches but they get lit up over here. When you throw that many pitches it’s usually indicative that you have to because you don’t throw any pitches very well. If a pitches has 2 or 3 good pitches he can get away with only throwing the pitches he’s good at. Mariano Rivera could only throw one pitch and he is in the Hall of Fame. 10+ pitches seems like it is intertwined with a lack of overall command. Command, movement (or spin rate) and velocity are all far more important the the number of pitches a pitcher throws. At least the Arihara contract isn’t big enough to be considered prohibitive for the Rangers. The Kawakami contract was for the Braves. Back then the Braves could have used that $8 million a year on a player that was actually very productive instead a guy who turned out to be a detriment to the team and refused to take the time to adjust so he could eventually help the team.
Aww, man.
Totally sucks.
This guy is a blast to watch throw. 7 (maybe 8) distinct, viable pitches. I love watching pitchers work who have a unique style.
Hope he recovers quickly & completely.
All these injuries are such a drag.
Agreed Ducky. He’s lots of fun, plus it’s actually kind of better to watch a pitcher that doesn’t rely so much on strikeouts. It’s getting tough to watch 10 strikeouts from every starter nowadays. It’s to the point where I’m ecstatic every time I see three balls put into play in a row now!
Saw him throw 6 shutout against the Angels.
He absolutely flummoxed them.
His 4 seamer is going to get squared up sometimes. My guess anyway. But that split finger FB is a good pitch. He was around 95 with it. That’ll play. & then he threw a half dozen (what I thought were anyway) other basically average MLB pitches.
He seemed to have a definite plan when he was on the mound. Really mixed speeds & movement. He’s another bright spot on that Rangers squad.
Sounds a lot like Maeda when he first came over. I enjoy a good KBO transition story. Hope this is relatively minor
One of the quotes sounded pretty bad if they hadn’t found the aneurysm
Mark, you mean Wes Benjamin?
As usual Jon didn’t do his homework!