Erik Swanson has yet to pitch this season due to a median nerve entrapment in his right arm, but the reliever’s path back to the Blue Jays roster hit a snag in the form of some soreness in his right forearm. The issue prevented Swanson from a planned minor league rehab outing earlier this week, and the good news is that initial tests revealed no structural damage. However, Swanson told The Athletic’s Mitch Bannon and other reporters that more tests are set for Monday, as it hasn’t yet been determined what exactly is causing the forearm discomfort.
Swanson had some bouts with forearm soreness at a few different points in his career, such as in each of the last two Spring Trainings, and also a minor strain that sent him to the injured list for a little over three weeks during the 2020 season when he was pitching with the Mariners. Though the medicals have been clean so far on his current issue, obviously all parties will be cautious in dealing with any forearm-related injury. In the short term, the problem has delayed Swanson’s recovery, and adds more uncertainty over when exactly the reliever will make his 2025 debut.
More from around the AL East…
- Speaking of pitchers on the injured list, Walker Buehler was sidelined earlier this week due to bursitis in his right shoulder. The injury wasn’t thought to be overly serious, and Buehler told reporters (including The Athletic’s Jen McCaffrey) today that he would’ve pitched though the discomfort if it had arisen during a late-season scenario. Buehler has a 4.28 ERA over 33 2/3 innings for the Red Sox, as a rough first two starts of the year gave way to a much smoother 2.59 ERA over his last four outings.
- It has been almost a month since Zach Eflin was sidelined by a right lat strain, but the Orioles right-hander has now started a rehab assignment with the team’s high-A affiliate. Eflin looked sharp in tossing four scoreless innings on 58 pitches for Aberdeen today, and while we’ll know more once Eflin recovers, he told the Baltimore Sun’s Matt Weyrich on Saturday that he was hopeful that he’d just need the one rehab outing. While the O’s aren’t going to rush a player back from the IL, the team obviously needs all the help it can get, given how the rotation has been ravaged by injuries and poor performance.
- One of those injured Orioles pitchers came off the 15-day IL today, as Baltimore activated Chayce McDermott and optioned the righty to Triple-A Norfolk. McDermott suffered a right lat strain early in Spring Training and didn’t throw any Grapefruit League innings, and his 2025 workload to date has consisted of two appearances and 5 2/3 innings during a minor league rehab assignment. This assignment to Triple-A will give McDermott more time to fully build himself up, with an eye towards possibly returning to the Show later in 2025. McDermott is a well-regarded pitching prospect who made his MLB debut last July, tossing four innings in his lone big league appearance to date.