Last season Ricky Nolasco pitched horribly for two months before finally admitting to the Twins that he was playing through an injury, so when he had a rough 2015 debut Wednesday afternoon I joked on Twitter that they should save time and simply ask him if he’s hurt again.
Turns out it wasn’t really a joke. Nolasco revealed that he felt pain in his elbow three batters before leaving the loss to Detroit and is now headed back to Minnesota to undergo an MRI exam.
There was some optimism surrounding Nolasco because he pitched well down the stretch last season after letting his injured arm heal and looked healthy during spring training, but now that’s all out the window. This is the second season of a four-year, $49 million contract that the Twins regretted almost immediately.