Pittsburgh Pirates Director of Sports Medicine Todd Tomczyk met with the local media prior to Wednesday’s afternoon game against the Colorado Rockies for some injury updates.
UPDATED: In the original report seen below from Todd Tomczyk, he said that Rob Zastryzny will be shut down for 7-10 weeks. A second statement was given later in the day that Tomczyk misspoke, and it’s only 7-10 days before he’s reevaluated. That’s quite a huge difference, and a much better update than likely not returning before the All-Star break.
The headline was that first baseman Ji-Man Choi is expected to miss extended time. Choi went on the 10-day Injured List on Saturday with an ankle injury that turned out to be an Achilles strain. The Pirates said since then that he was going to miss more than the minimum time, but now we are hearing that he is expected to miss eight weeks.
Choi was hitting .125/.125/.344 over nine games at the time of the injury. He has connected on two solo homers for his only RBIs. He has zero walks and 15 strikeouts in 32 plate appearances.
Tomczyk also gave thee pitching updates and two of them are bad news. Jarlin Garcia is still unable to grip a baseball, which means he is nowhere near close to being ready to join the Pirates. There is no timetable for his possible return. He has not pitched this season.
Rob Zastryzny is dealing with left ulnar neuritis. Tomczyk said that he will be shut down for 7-10 weeks. Even under the best case scenario, he won’t start throwing again until early June, which means we are unlikely to see him in Pittsburgh before the All-Star break.
The one bit of good news on the injury side is that Chase De Jong will throw a live BP in a few days. He was placed on the Injured List five days ago with a back issue.
