An encouraging update on Logan Gilbert and Bryce Miller headlines this week of injury updates
It’s the first day of a long Mariners homestand, and longtime readers know what that means: time for some injury updates from Mariners GM Justin Hollander.
Let’s start with the most exciting and positive update: Logan Gilbert is scheduled to start a rehab assignment this week, likely three innings in Tacoma’s game on Thursday. This will not be Gilbert’s only rehab assignment, Hollander emphasized, and the team will make a determination on how much volume he needs to build and for how long based on how he feels coming out of Thursday’s game. If you’d like to see Gilbert in action, tickets are still available, but act quickly: the number of tickets is limited.
Also in Tacoma, but [Magenta voice] not for very much longer, reliever Jackson Kowar continues his rehab stint apace. He’s gone from pitching every 3-4 days to now pitching every other day (three appearances in five days), which was the last hurdle he needed to clear, and he’s ready to be activated at any moment now that he’s officially eligible to come off the 60-day IL.
In other news, Bryce Miller threw a bullpen yesterday and it went well. The cortisone injection has done its job at clearing out the inflammation and he’s feeling much better. The team anticipates him rejoining the rotation late in the homestand with no need for a rehab stint since he hasn’t been down too long. As for those remarks where Bryce made mention of how he had something in his elbow that couldn’t be dealt with until the off-season lest he be shut down all season, leading many of us to suspect bone chips, Hollander was able to offer clarification that it is a small bone spur in the back of Miller’s elbow. The team will monitor to make sure the spur isn’t causing Miller pain or any further inflammation now that this initial bout has died down, but they feel like Miller is in “a good place” with the elbow right now and they don’t anticipate needing to do any further management of it this season.
There’s more good news about Luke Raley, who will travel to Seattle tomorrow (Wednesday) to ramp up the swinging part of his return to baseball activities. Obliques are tricky injuries to predict, says Hollander, but if all goes well—as it has been—he could start a rehab assignment the week of June 3rd. How long he’ll need to build back to playing a full nine innings isn’t clear yet, but Raley continues to trend in a positive direction and hit all his benchmarks in his recovery.
Victor Robles’s latest scan showed “stability and good healing” of his shoulder fracture. The next step for him, now that he’s graduated from his sling, is to start building back strength, which will take “a while” to build up. He won’t even begin ramping up to baseball activities until July, and likely won’t be able to return until September.
Now for some reliever updates. Post-knee surgery, Gregory Santos has begun a throwing progression; he’s “on track” for game activity, but “not for a while”—likely July, per Hollander. Tayler Saucedo has returned to a throwing program and is on a similar timeline to Santos. Trent Thornton, recovering from an emergency appendectomy, was scheduled to throw a bullpen today, and then a live BP on the 30th of this month, after which he’ll begin a rehab assignment if all has gone well.
On the minor-league level, if you’ve been concerned about where top prospect Felnin Celesten has been, Hollander offered some clarification on that. Celesten experienced some “dizziness” while ramping back up to activity after missing some time with a sore hamstring, and the team held him out to evaluate him further. Dr. Google informs me that vertigo can be triggered when returning to strenuous physical activity, especially repetitive motions, but Celesten has returned to game action as a DH for now; he’s played in Modesto’s last three games and has a total of six hits already, so hopefully the vertigo was a one-off and Celesten can get back to tearing up the California League.