Seattle Mariners Provide Mixed Bag of Injury Updates on Star OF, Ace Reliever
The Seattle Mariners provided a mixed bag of injury updates on Tuesday. There was good news on star centerfielder Julio Rodriguez and a more ominous update on ace reliever Matt Brash.
With regards to Rodriguez, the following comes from Daniel Kramer of MLB.com:
Rodríguez hit the field and played catch with Ichiro Suzuki for the second straight day, and he said in passing that he's feeling "all good" with the minor inflammation on the back of his left hand.
"He feels much, much better," manager Scott Servais said.
That's certainly good news, and the hope is that Rodriguez can make his Cactus League debut soon. He's the most important player on the M's roster heading into 2024.
Already one of the best players in baseball, the 23-year-old hit .275 with 32 homers and 103 RBI a season ago. He also stole 37 bases and made the All-Star Game for the second straight year.
It was quite the follow-up performance to his Rookie of the Year season in 2022 when he hit .284 with 28 homers and 75 RBI. In addition to being an All-Star, he was the runner-up in that year's Home Run Derby.
Rodriguez will be leaned on heavily again in 2024 as he pairs with newcomers Mitch Garver and Luke Raley, catcher Cal Raleigh, and outfielder Mitch Haniger to make up the nucleus of the Mariners middle-of-the-order.
As for Brash, the following comes from M's social media user @MarinerMuse:
Scott Servais was asked on @SeattleSports about the status of Matt Brash.
“We will hear more in the next couple of days…he felt some soreness the other day.”
Asked multiple times about the location of the soreness, he said “arm” repeatedly and wouldn’t specify where it is.
Given that the team is waiting a few days for answers, that likely means they are awaiting the results of testing, which is scary enough in its own right.
The 25-year-old native of Canada led all of baseball in appearances in 2023 with 78. He pitched to a 3.06 ERA and struck out a whopping 107 batters in 70.2 innings. Along with Andres Munoz, he makes up a dynamite back-end of Seattle's bullpen.
The team acquired hard-throwing Gregory Santos in a trade from the Chicago White Sox this offseason, but he also has been slowed in camp by "lat soreness."
Given the youth in the Mariners' rotation and the questions about their overall offensive productivity, they can ill-afford to have that bullpen banged up, which it has been thus far.
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