Neal Huntington spoke to the media prior to Sunday afternoon’s game with the Brewers about the condition of Gerrit Cole’s arm injury that has placed him on the 15-day DL (retroactive to 6/4).
Manager Clint Hurdle broke the news yesterday that Cole had “right shoulder fatigue” and Huntington confirmed the diagnosis today.
“All the tests that we’ve done so far have confirmed shoulder fatigue and Gerrit feels good with it,” said Huntington. “We feel good with it and we’ll see how the treatments progress and how he responds.”
It was Cole that came to Hurdle about his tired arm immediately which could save him from more time on the DL.
“Give Gerrit a ton of credit for making us aware that it just didn’t feel right,” said Huntington. “He felt a little tired and we talked about do we just skip him this time and try to have him come back his next time and at the end of the day we felt it was probably better to just be aggressive with it now to get ahead of it and give him a little bit of down time to get that fatigue out of there.”
Cole showed visible signs of the arm ailment in his previous start in San Diego where his fastball velocity was down as much as 5 mph at times from the fourth inning on. The team has seen other signs that could have played a part over the course of this season, as well.
“Just as you look at it globally, we’ve got a 23 year old pitcher that pitched in some big situations the second half of last year, that is just coming off of two starts at home in California which add to the intensity,” said Huntington. “He’s pitched a little bit less efficient this year than he did a year ago meaning more pitches per inning. He’s pitched with a little bit more baserunners on a consistent level this year which means a little bit more stress, so even before Gerrit made us aware that his shoulder was getting tired, we’ve been talking about it and Clint has been more aggressive getting him out of the game an inning early vs. an inning later.”
When you have a guy like Cole, who has been the team’s only consistent starter to this point, you don’t want to risk anything with his arm, which is exactly what the Pirates are doing. Instead of skipping a start, they are giving him more time for rest and treatment on the DL.
“We walked through it and hit him hard with some treatments. The thought was, once he made us aware that this start was in jeopardy then the discussion became the next start through with the off days. If everything goes as planned, he will come right back out after the DL stint, but if we need a little bit more time then we’ll give him a little more time.”
Hopefully, Cole caught this in time before any damage has been done. If not, the Pirates season and long-term plans could be in jeopardy.
(Photo Credit: Charles LeClaire-USA TODAY Sports)
