Add another name to the list of the hard-throwing young pitchers needing Tommy John elbow surgery, as Dodgers reliever Chris Withrow has been diagnosed with a torn ulnar collateral ligament and is headed under the knife.
Withrow has been fantastic since debuting for the Dodgers last season at age 24, posting a 2.73 ERA with 71 strikeouts in 56 innings while holding opponents to a .157 batting average. It doesn’t get much more dominant than that, especially when combined with a 95.7-mph average fastball.
Now he’ll be out until at least mid-2015 and the potentially extra-bad news for Withrow is that he was optioned back to Triple-A on May 21 to make room for Hyun-Jin Ryu on the 25-man roster and wasn’t called back up before being shut down with the injury. Which means, unless someone files a grievance on his behalf, Withrow won’t collect MLB service time or MLB paychecks while he’s rehabbing.
UPDATE: Withrow is indeed now on the MLB disabled list, so the above scenario won’t be an issue.