BREAKING: Auburn RHP Joseph Gonzalez to miss up to six more weeks with shoulder injury
Auburn head coach Butch Thompson announced righthander Joseph Gonzalez is being held out of play for up to six more weeks as he's still feeling soreness in the right shoulder, the same injury that held him out of early spring practice.
"We anticipated and was hopeful that he'd pitch at Arkansas [...] We're going to take a few more weeks, maybe up to six weeks. Joseph still feels something - fully external - when he cranks it up to full speed, still feels a little bit. The positive news with Joseph is we don't feel there's any surgery on the horizon (or) in the future for what he's experiencing now, but we think it's going to cost us a few more weeks."
The junior from Puerto Rico is meeting with Dr. James Andrews today for further evaluation - Andrews, a world-renowned orthopedic surgeon considered the foremost expert on repairing damaged ligaments, serves as the Orthopedic Surgeon for Intercollegiate Sports at Auburn University and handles all procedures from his Andrews Institute for Orthopaedics and Sports Medicine in Gulf Breeze, FL.
Gonzalez, who was the staff ace on the 2021 team that went to the College World Series, went 7-4 with a 3.22 ERA in 15 appearances (14 starts), with 54 strikeouts to 15 walks. After returning from a finger injury in early April, he had a stretch in conference play of four consecutive quality starts (6 innings with 3 runs or less), including a complete game against Vanderbilt with only one run allowed.
In 2023, he pitched on opening weekend against Indiana - expected to go only two innings, he threw five innings of two-hit, scoreless baseball on just 41 pitches. But, the shoulder soreness returned in his bullpen the next week, and Auburn shut him down for three weeks hoping that it wouldn't linger.
It lingered. Throwing in a bullpen late last week, the soreness continued and the decision was made this week to get him to a specialist to rule out any sort of underlying structural issue.
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