Under The Knife 6/14/23
Stanley in Vegas
Jon Weisman stole my intro. He does a great story on Stanford’s Quinn Matthews, who pitched his Cardinal into the College World Series with a 156-pitch win. No MLB pitcher had done that since Tim Wakefield in 1997 and yes, Matthews is a prospect.
I’ve gone on record before saying that there’s exceptions to the rule. I don’t love when a high school pitcher goes 160 in a final, but I understand it. Some of these kids won’t play baseball again and I can tell you virtually everything about the playoff games I played. The chance to raise a trophy means something, even if I’m not entirely sure that high school kids can really have informed consent. (I’m even less sure about their parents.)
For Matthews, I’m curious. Will some teams see him as a bulldog, or will some see him as a risk given his huge workload over the past couple weeks? Was he built up to a high chronic workload by the Stanford staff, or was he on fumes? I don’t know the answers here, but I’ll be watching to see how Matthews does in Omaha, and in the draft, coming up next month in Seattle.
For now, on to the injuries:
JON GRAY, SP TEX (blister/finger)
JACOB DEGROM, SP TEX (sprained elbow)
Losing a pitcher to a blister is often more annoying than worrying. The situation with Jon Gray - a simple blister on his finger - is just that, an annoyance, but it gets more complicated when the team just lost Jacob deGrom and is struggling to find someone to take over the back of the rotation. Cody Bradford will take Gray’s start, but he’s been shaky in the majors despite dominating in Triple-A.
Beyond that, Gray should just be delayed, so the rotation can be shuffled a bit. Assuming Gray doesn’t need a week for the blister to get under control, they’ll have time to make a decision. I’d like to see the Rangers use their tandem system at the major league level, but that doesn’t appear to be under consideration.
The Rangers have been very quiet about simple things, so don’t expect to hear when Gray will slot back in until the day of. Surprisingly, the Rangers have called up Owen White, a top prospect, from Double-A Frisco, though that could be just to fill-in until Gray is back. Scott Lucas had a great breakdown of White’s stuff and if you’re a Rangers fan, you probably already read Scott regularly. Even if you’re not, he’s worth checking out. White pitched two innings and took the loss in his debut, backing four innings from Bradford.
As for deGrom, we’re still in the dark on his elbow and recovery timeline. While the Rangers continue to call the surgery he had this week a “repair”, there’s no specifics on if it is truly a repair, or whether it was actually Tommy John surgery. Let’s assume that deGrom is going to be back at the park soon and within a week or two, we’ll either know via the scar, or deGrom will wear long sleeves all the time and we’ll have to watch when the brace comes off for a clue.
JOEY VOTTO, DH CIN (strained shoulder)