Just when the Dodgers thought their pitching staff was getting healthier, they announced yet another significant injury on Friday.
Rookie right-hander Gavin Stone was placed on the injured list with shoulder inflammation, the team said, leaving the 25-year-old’s late-season status unclear amid a breakout campaign.
Landon Knack and Justin Wrobleski were called up from triple A (reliever Michael Peterson was also optioned in a corresponding move).
Stone had been the one member of the Dodgers’ opening day rotation not to go on the injured list this year, becoming just the fifth Dodgers pitcher in the last four years to make 25 starts in a season.
However, in start No. 25 last weekend in Arizona, Stone threw just 84 pitches in five innings before manager Dave Roberts decided he was out of gas and pulled him from the game.
While Stone said that day he felt he could have gone 100-plus pitches, his condition apparently took a turn this week, making him the Dodgers’ latest rotation question mark — along with other current IL members Yoshinobu Yamamoto, Tyler Glasnow and Clayton Kershaw — with three weeks remaining in the regular season.
After top deadline acquisition Jack Flaherty, Stone seemed like the safest lock to be in the Dodgers potential postseason rotation.
In a reversal of his dismal debut 2023 performance, Stone blossomed this year with a new pitch mix, going 11-5 with a 3.53 ERA.
With that success though, came a heavy workload. Stone’s 140 innings this year had already surpassed the career-high he set last year of 131 between the majors and triple A.
Without Stone, Walker Buehler figures to become a more important piece of the Dodgers’ pitching plans, after shaking off his early-season struggles in his past two outings.
Stone’s injury shouldn’t harm the team’s NL West chances too much, with the Dodgers entering Friday five games up on the San Diego Padres.
But, he stood to play a crucial role in the playoffs.
Instead, he is another uncertainty as the club’s pitching staff continues its injury-plagued limp to October.