Zebby Matthews Hits Injured List with Strained Right Shoulder. How Will Minnesota Twins Patch Rotation?

It looks like the Minnesota Twins will be patching together a thinner starting rotation than hoped, for longer than expected. Pablo López suffered a strained teres major muscle last week during the team's visit to West Sacramento, Calif., and now, Zebby Matthews is also on the injured list, with a strained shoulder. Twins manager Rocco Baldelli called it "very likely" that Simeon Woods Richardson would be recalled to join the rotation, although that won't happen Sunday. With Matthews down, the Twins reactivated left-handed reliever Danny Coulombe, who made a rehab appearance with Triple-A St. Paul Saturday and was ready to return, anyway. They'll operate with a nine-man bullpen in the series finale with the Toronto Blue Jays.

Matthews said this is his first stint on the injured list (and first time truly missing starts) in professional baseball. He began to feel the shoulder barking before his latest start, so we can rule out the mound at Sutter Health Park as the culprit for this particular malady.

"I kind of felt it after the bullpen in Tampa there," Matthews said Sunday. "I was able to throw through it in Seattle and Sacramento, but ultimately, now I'm feeling it a little bit more, so gotta take a little time off. Hopefully, it's not too long."

There's no constant pain. Matthews said he mainly feels the problem during the "last part of the throw" when delivering the ball. Until that's no longer the case, though, and until he starts to feel "normal", he'll pause throwing. The timeline for returning to throwing (let alone getting back onto a big-league mound) will depend on how he responds to rest and treatment.

Matthews said he underwent an MRI Saturday morning, which showed the strain, but neither he nor the team had an official diagnosis to share right away.

"No real details were really discussed," Matthews said of his meeting with the team about the results of his imaging. "It was more about how I feel, and a timetable of how long they think I'll be out, that sort of stuff."

Baldelli said this possibility was on the team's radar for days, before they took action.

"It wasn't a complete shock to us, despite the fact that it is disappointing," the manager said. "We knew that this was something that he was dealing with, going back to his start in [Sacramento]. It's something we were prepared for, and we were thinking about. So we've been assessing him over the past few days, to see what shape he's in, and then we got him looked at, got some imaging done. He's gonna be down at least for a little while."

While Matthews struck an optimistic tone and Baldelli and other Twins officials were extremely circumspect, it doesn't sound like Matthews will be back at the end of the 15-day term for which he's required to be shelved. That he's shut down for the time being says that, in itself. Pitchers who have suffered shoulder strains, since the start of 2021, have averaged more than 10 weeks to return to action, and the median is right around eight weeks. The distribution of possibilities is wide with this injury, which is not especially specific. For instance, the teres major issues that Joe Ryan and López have battled can fall under the umbrella of shoulder strains, but so can more minor issues with smaller muscles that provide stability instead of power to the pitcher. It's possible Matthews returns before the end of the month, but more likely that he's not back until the All-Star break.

Woods Richardson will get the first chance to replace Matthews, from the sound of things, but with both him and David Festa in a rotation that also features Bailey Ober's diminishing velocity and no longer has López at its head, there will be added pressure on the bullpen. Long man Travis Adams could make a short trip back to St. Paul after his next extended outing, to facilitate Woods Richardson's arrival. but he becomes an essential cog in the pen if the team ends up needing to lift starters earlier than has been their tendency or preference of late.

"We're just gonna have to keep kind of moving, and bringing guys up and challenging guys the way we have, and we're gonna continue to operate like that," Baldelli said. "If we have to get creative with the rotation or the way that we're filling up some of these innings and winning games, then we'll do that."

Ryan will be the first pitcher to take the mound in the knowledge that the team's rotation is under this much pressure. Baldelli said he hopes the newly minted Twins ace won't place undue pressure on himself.

"I don't think that Joe Ryan has to do anything differently. I don't want him thinking about anything differently. I don't want him approaching his outings differently," the skipper said. "He's been pitching great. Why would he do anything more than what he's doing? All we want our guys to do is get ready for their start, go and give us a chance to win. That's it."

That's all any one pitcher can do, of course, especially in the modern age. Even a top-tier starter can't generally spin a few complete games to help a tired bullpen stabilize. That's why, increasingly, the injuries to the rotation appear to threaten the viability of Jorge Alcala as the last man in the team's bullpen. How the team works around their latest setback is hard to say, but one thing is clear: the excess depth they might have hoped they had is turning out to be depth, but not excess. In fact, it might not even turn out to be enough.