An MRI Wednesday revealed Washington Nationals right-handed pitcher Joe Ross has “more of a sprain” in his elbow ligament than originally thought, according to Mark Zuckerman of MASN Sports.
Ross will undergo further tests Friday to decide the direction he and the team will go with handling his latest setback.
Ross was shut down in August last season with a partially sprained UCL in pitching elbow. Then during spring training he underwent a procedure to remove bone spurs from his elbow He landed on the 60-day injured list to start the season.
He rehabbed to work his way to a rehab start with Double-A Harrisburg Senators Tuesday night. However, he exited the game after three scoreless innings after experiencing tightness in his elbow.
Now an embattled Ross faces the possibility of having a second Tommy John surgery. He had his first in 2017 and missed the 2018 season recovering.
Ross returned during the Nationals’ World Series season in 2019. He initially came out of the bullpen in an effort to limit his innings in his first season back. He started Game 5 of the World Series in place of an injured Max Scherzer.
After opting out of the 2020 season during the COVID-19 pandemic, Ross came back in 2021. He made 19 starts before his season-ending elbow sprain.
The Nationals were hoping to get Ross along with Stephen Strasburg to re-enforce their struggling starting rotation. Now Ross may have to be put back on the shelf after already going through a long road of rehabbing.
Ross will no longer be under team control at the end of the season. He’ll be eligible for free agency for the first time of his career. Battling an elbow issue and not pitching in an MLB game since Aug. 10 of last year, makes his situation more frustrating.
Through six seasons with the Nationals, Ross has appeared in 98 games, including 76 starts. He has a 4.26 ERA, 1.333 WHIP and 8.2 strikeout rate per nine innings through 443 ⅓ innings.
