The Mets placed reliever Drew Smith on the 15-day injured list, retroactive to June 24, before tonight’s win over the Yankees. The right-hander is dealing with an elbow sprain. It’s not yet clear how long he’ll be out or whether there’s a chance he’ll need to undergo surgery. It’s the second IL stint of the season for Smith, who missed around six weeks between late April and the start of June with shoulder soreness.
While there’s never a good time for a pitcher to battle shoulder and elbow concerns, it’s particularly poor timing in Smith’s case. The 30-year-old is a few months from his first trip to the open market. Smith misses enough bats to have a decent shot at a multi-year deal if he’s healthy. Between 2021-23, he combined for a 3.38 ERA while striking out more than a quarter of opposing hitters across 143 2/3 innings. That comes with a few more walks and home runs than ideal, but the former third-rounder has generally looked the part of a solid setup option. Smith has been effective this season when healthy, turning in a 3.06 ERA with 23 strikeouts over 17 2/3 frames.
A few more injury updates around the game:
- The Cardinals have been without Tommy Edman all season. The versatile switch-hitter has had a longer than expected rehab after undergoing right wrist surgery last October. As he’d finally begun ramping up baseball activity, Edman hit another snag. Manager Oli Marmol told reporters this afternoon that Edman sprained an ankle while fielding a ground ball (relayed on X by Jeff Jones of the Belleville News-Democrat). While there’s nothing to suggest it’s a significant sprain, his rehab will be halted for at least a few days. Edman was slated to enter the season as the everyday center fielder. Michael Siani has taken hold of the position on the strength of his glove, but he hasn’t provided much offensively. Cardinal center fielders — mostly Siani, Victor Scott II and Dylan Carlson — entered play Wednesday with an MLB-worst .198/.241/.259 batting line through 268 plate appearances.
- Astros starter Luis Garcia is likely to begin a rehab assignment with the team’s Florida Complex League affiliate this weekend (via the MLB.com injury tracker). He’s expected to throw two innings in what will be his first game action since undergoing Tommy John surgery last May. Garcia is coming up on 14 months since the procedure. He’ll likely need upwards of a month before he’s ready for MLB action but could be an option for Houston around or shortly after the trade deadline. Getting Garcia back would be the rare piece of positive injury news for an Astro rotation that has lost Cristian Javier, José Urquidy and JP France to season-ending surgeries.
- The Rays’ infield depth took a hit this week when Jonathan Aranda landed on the minor league injured list. Marc Topkin of the Tampa Bay Times reports (on X) that the left-handed hitter suffered an oblique strain and will be down between four and six weeks. Aranda has appeared in 18 big league contests with Tampa Bay this season, hitting .213/.288/.319 through 52 trips to the plate. He’s hitting .189/.336/.295 with a massive 37.9% strikeout rate in Triple-A. While Aranda hasn’t hit big league pitching in scattered looks over the last three seasons, this year’s Triple-A struggles are uncharacteristic. The 26-year-old is a career .312/.411/.535 hitter in more than 1000 plate appearances at that level. He’s in his final minor league option season and could find himself on the roster bubble next winter.
Is Cole injured? His velocity was down significantly last night.
Pedro Martinez was commenting after the game last night that he believes there is an issue with Cole’s shoulder. Could have just been an after effect of his first start or could be compensating for the elbow. Either way he never had his stuff last night and the one thing the Yankees don’t need for him to wreck his shoulder and go down for another lengthy absence
Siani has started hitting quite well over the last two weeks. Let’s see if it’s a hot streak or if he’s finally figured it out. I don’t see Edman coming back before the end of the year. He’s been out for almost a year now. It’s going to take a while to get back to playing form.
While I agree that Siani has started hitting…Edman will be back at least after the all-star break…probably before…late July is the projection
Drew Smith might need TJ again? He had it in 20199, but only got 168 MLB innings on that repaired elbow. Does Dr. Altchek offer extended warranties?
“He had it in 20199”
That’s how bad it’s gotten. Pitchers are looking for any way to improve their situation. Smith hopped in a time machine traveling nearly 20,000 years into the future to get his elbow fixed and it still only lasted 168 innings.
Sadly, it seems we’ll never improve elbow surgery beyond where it is now…
Haven’t you ever had a stuck key? Sorry I offended your literacy by not adequately proofing my work.
Relax man. I was having a little fun at the typo.
I wasn’t attacking you.
I saw the opportunity for some very mild humor and I took it.
No problem. We can still be friends. 🙂
He was throwing more cutters and less sliders than normal, Ron Darling suggested it was because it’s less stress on the inflamed elbow but the slider looked pretty flat on a few