Blake Snell’s return from injury lasted just six days as the left-hander was scratched from his scheduled start on Friday. It was revealed that Snell had loose bodies in his left elbow— the same issue with Edwin Díaz— and was placed on the 15-day IL. He will undergo elbow surgery on Tuesday, with Dr. Neal ElAttrache performing the operation.
ElAttrache also performed the same operation on the reigning two-time AL Cy Young award winner Tarik Skubal, but instead of the standard two to three month prognosis for his recovery, Skubal was back to throwing only one week after the operation. Bill Plunkett of the Orange County Register reports that ElAttrache could use the same “NanoNeedle” he performed on Skubal with, allowing the expected recovery time to be much quicker than initially expected.
ElAttrache is also going to perform the surgery on Snell next week and the NanoNeedle is an option, according to a source. ElAttrache will determine whether he can extract the loose bodies using that procedure after determining the specific location of the loose body and how much it is integrated into the surrounding ligaments.
Dave Roberts has maintained optimism that Snell will return at some point during the regular season, and the Dodgers will get a better understanding of the prognosis following Tuesday’s operation, per Liana Handler and Maddie Lee of the Los Angeles Times.
“It’s supposed to be a lot quicker recovery, so we’re encouraged about that,” Roberts said. “We feel good about getting back to play sooner than later. We expect him, certainly, back this season… He said he was just excited to have a date on the calendar to get it taken care of, get back to playing catch and getting back to joining us,” said Roberts, who exchanged text messages with Snell.
Tyler Glasnow will be on the injured list for longer than the scheduled 15 days, and the Dodgers will look to either implement a bullpen game or have River Ryan potentially called back up to fill in for Glasnow’s spot, notes Sonja Chen of MLB.com.
With Tyler Glasnow also on the IL with lower back spasms, the Dodgers are running out of 40-man pitchers to plug into their six-man rotation. Glasnow’s IL stint will be longer than the minimum 15 days, but depending on how much longer he’s sidelined, L.A. could plug in bullpen games to keep its five starters on their regular schedule. The team could also look to Triple-A, where River Ryan returned from the Minor League IL on Friday and could be a “slim possibility” to fill Snell’s spot, per Roberts.
Read the full article here