To say that Cole Hamel’s tenure with the Braves has been off to a rough start is a bit of an understatement. Before he made an appearance this spring at all, you know....before a global pandemic cancelled basically everything, Hamels got held out of workouts with a shoulder injury that he suffered during offseason workouts.
While Hamels’ status impacted roster decisions at that time including whether or not to carry Felix Hernandez on the roster, etc., those points became moot when the season was delayed and many thought that the downtime COULD help Hamels recover and not have to miss any amount of time.
Those hopes did not work out.
Hamels was not able to throw his scheduled side today because of triceps tendinitis. As I said the other day, time is running out, even if they were to push him to the fifth spot and limit that first outing to 2-3 innings.
— Mark Bowman (@mlbbowman) July 11, 2020
There are a couple of things to note here. One, it seems unlikely that Hamels will be ready for opening day if Bowman’s notes at the end mean anything and Bow is not a guy who would float something like that without having a good reason for it. Second, it is unclear if this injury is related to the shoulder injury he suffered this offseason or if this is a new ailment that has popped up. Unfortunately, both are plausible given that Hamels is an older pitcher with a lot of miles on his arm and with some injury issues in his recent past.
Finally, this means that the Braves are going to have to dip into their considerable pitching depth even further to start the season. The team had already talked about piggybacking starters to start the season which, by its definition, requires more arms and the team already lost Felix Hernandez when he opted out of the 2020 season. It will be interesting to see which young arms get a look during these scrimmages.