With the Cincinnati Reds set to start a big weekend series tonight against the hottest team in baseball, they announced some bad news on Friday afternoon. The team has placed right-handed pitcher Chase Burns on the 15-day injured list with a right flexor strain.
Arm injuries are never good for pitchers. There are worse injuries than a flexor strain – shoulder injuries are almost always worse – but more than a few pitchers have gone from flexor strains to Tommy John surgery rather quickly. Nearly 11 years ago to the day the Reds placed Homer Bailey on the then disabled list with a right flexor strain. He would have Tommy John surgery the next spring and didn’t pitch in any games between his August 16th placement on the injured list and the surgery – even in spring training the next year.
Not all flexor injuries lead to Tommy John, though. Some guys have missed as few as four weeks with the injury before returning to the mound. The typical flexor mass injury will have a pitcher on the shelf for 1-2 months before they return to pitching.
At the point in time in which the club announced that Chase Burns would be heading to the injured list they had not made any statement about how long they expected him to be out. Manager Terry Francona should be meeting with the media around 3pm ET for his usual pre-game media scrum and we will likely get more information then when he either opens up with a statement or the first media member who gets to ask a question asks for more information. We will update this with more information once it’s available.
Based on the history of the injury, it’s not likely that Burns will miss the minimum 15 days with the injury. But the timeline could also mean he could return in the regular season and potentially pitch in the playoffs if the Reds can play well down the stretch of the season.
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