Tuesday, August 13, 2024
Copyrighted by Sarah Morris, 2024
On Tuesday, the Los Angeles Dodgers announced River Ryan will undergo season-ending Tommy John surgery. He probably will miss the 2025 season.
Since May 2021, the Dodgers and most major league teams have had many injured pitchers, and most of them needed Tommy John surgeries. Baseball needs to study the situation seriously and come up with solutions to prevent their pitchers from injuring themselves.
Dustin May needed Tommy John surgery in May 2021, and after his courageous comeback, he needed another one in June 2023. He will not pitch this season because he ruptured his esophagus after eating a steak dinner.
Walker Buehler, who was the Dodger best starter from 2018 to 2021, performed poorly in early of the 2022 season. Before he went to the minor leagues and immediately after he was drafted, Buehler underwent Tommy John surgery. In August 2023, he underwent his second Tommy John surgery. On Wednesday, he will start his second try to regain his dominance in the major leagues.
Tony Gonsolin pitched for most of the 2023 season with a sore arm. He finally was ineffective and underwent his first Tommy John surgery in August 2023. He probably won’t pitch this year.
Emmet Sheehan was a bright star of the 2023 Dodger starting rotation, and the Dodgers planned to use him this year. During spring training, Sheehan’s elbow gave out. In May 2024, Sheehan underwent Tommy John surgery, and he should be able to pitch sometime during the 2025 season.
Kyle Hurt was a promising young pitcher who would have played an integral role in the 2024 season if he hadn’t injured himself. In June, Hurt had Tommy John surgery.
In 2021, Clayton Kershaw faced Tommy John surgery and missed most of that season before getting a PRP injection. The injection worked.
Now, Ryan must undergo Tommy John surgery. He was an extraordinarily promising young starter. In his brief time in the major leagues, he had 1 win and no losses with 1.80 ERA and 18 strikeouts. The Dodgers were going to rely on him during the postseason. Ryan will return in the 2026 season.
The Dodgers also have had Shohei Ohtani rehabbing from his second Tommy John surgery since 2019. He will be ready to continue his impressive two-way career in the 2025 season.
Not only elbow injuries, the Dodgers have dealt with shoulder injuries. I am not counting Kershaw even though he had his first major arm surgery in November 2023. After sixteen years in the major leagues, any pitcher probably will have an arm injury and need surgery.
The Dodgers planned to have Bobby Miller in their starting rotation after his brilliant 2023 season. He looked good during spring training. He had a marvelous first start of the 2024 season against the Saint Louis Cardinals. However, after that, he was ineffective and went on the IL with right shoulder inflammation. He missed two months and came back to the major leagues but was ineffective. The Dodgers demoted Miller to have him work on his mechanics.
Yoshinobu Yamamoto came over from Japan before this season. He didn’t have injuries in Japan partly because he has a unique training method. To help Yamamoto be more effective, the Dodgers unlocked something in his delivery. During his start against the New York Yankees, Yamamoto was great, averaging 97 miles-per-hour on his fastball. In his postponed next start, Yamamoto left it after the third inning with two innings with right triceps tendonitis. Nevertheless, later Yamamoto was diagnosed with a right rotator cuff strain. The Dodgers and Yamamoto hope he can return and be effective in the postseason.
The Dodgers have had Michael Grove, Brusdar Graterol, and Joe Kelly missed significant time with shoulder injuries. Graterol, currently, is on the IL with a strained hamstring.
The Dodgers and Major League Baseball must figure out how to protect pitchers, particularly the young, from having major arm injuries. It is not the pitch count or limiting the number of innings a pitcher throws. The Dodgers have limited their pitchers’ pitches and innings well, and they are still snake bit by pitches.
The pitchers across the major leagues are throwing with higher velocity and more spin rate than ever before. During the 1970s, 1980s, 1990s, 2000s, and 2010s fans never heard about spin rate. Now, with modern technology, you can’t turn on a telecast without hearing about a spin rate. Every team has at least one pitcher throwing 100 or more an hour. Every team wants strikeout pitchers.
The increased velocity and spin rate puts strain on the pitchers’ arms. Teams sometimes tell pitchers to go as hard and long as they can. When I heard this with the Dodgers telling Landon Knack, I thought it was a recipe for disaster. Major League starters must learn how to pace themselves through five or six innings to save their arms and bullpens.
Everyone loves to see a strikeout, and every major league pitcher needs the ability to get a strikeout when he has runners in scoring position or the bases loaded with less than two outs. However, they need to rely on their defense to get their majority of outs. This will limit their number of pitches and have quicker innings. During the 1980s, most major league starters had a sinker that produced many ground outs. Yes, the hitters had higher batting averages, but the teams needed to have many hits together to score.
The relievers need to be able to throw hard for short periods.
Yesteryear, the pitchers ran all the time to have leg strength and endurance. Now, no one talks about pitchers running. Strong legs are needed to have good deliveries without much stress on their arms.
Pitchers throw many bullpen sessions a week to work on their deliveries, velocities, and spin rates. The bullpen sessions put undo stress on their arms. Kershaw works on his delivery with no ball, and shadowing his delivery has seemed to lessen the stress on his left arm and enabled him to have good mechanics.
Now, pitchers don’t seem to worry about their deliveries putting stress on their arms. Both May and Ryan have unconventional deliveries. Teams might want to concentrate on finding a comfortable delivery that hides the ball and puts less stress on the arm.
The advent of the pitch clock made pitchers work faster than ever before. Yes, pitchers were taking too much time between pitches. Most successful pitchers worked quickly even without the pitch clock. I would like to see a thirty-second window between batters. If a pitcher makes a defensive play, he should have a minute before he must throw a pitch. On Saturday, Ryan made a fantastic defensive play in the first, and he had no time to rest before he made the next pitch. In the third, he started feeling right forearm tightness.
Having great pitchers is necessary for baseball success. No fan likes to see or hear about their favorite pitcher getting hurt and needing major arm surgery. Every year the World Series is decided on a team that doesn’t have as many injuries or could navigate the injuries the best.
