It wasn't until the second day of camp that the Diamondbacks revealed concerning news regarding the health of one of their pitchers. Right-hander Kevin Ginkel, the club's best reliever last season, is suffering from elbow pain.
Based on what Diamondbacks officials have said, Ginkel's issue is not serious and likely won't prevent the team from starting the season on time.
But what is certain is that between the Diamondbacks' long run through October and the health of their pitching staff next year, it's inevitable that onlookers will be connecting the dots.
“It's always a concern,” general manager Mike Hazen said. “But I can be reactive in that area sometimes.”
The Diamondbacks played an extra month of baseball last year, resulting in a heavier workload and/or longer season than any pitcher on the roster has ever experienced before. is what happened. (Reliever Ryan Thompson was the only player to pitch in the World Series so far, but that came during the pandemic-shortened 2020 season.)
The pitcher most obviously affected is No. 1 starter Zac Gallen. Between the regular season and playoffs, Gallen logged 243⅔ innings. Not only did he set a new career high, he also erased his previous record of 184 innings, set in 2022.
But even athletes with new personal bests will have to contend with a shorter-than-usual offseason, reducing the downtime normally given to rest their arms over the winter.
“The last thing I want to do is stop a game based on the number of innings pitched,” pitching coach Brent Strom said. Houston Astros. “It's very easy to fall asleep and hibernate, so to speak. The body will do what you ask it to do to some degree, and if you keep up the work, it will respond. But when you sleep or hibernate, all of a sudden You might have to ask to come back, and that’s when you might run into problems.”
So Strom was encouraged by Gallen's pitching program during the offseason. Gallen said he essentially never stopped pitching during the 10-day period, rather than resting and recuperating, an approach he actually plans to implement before the Diamondbacks advance to the World Series. It is said that it was.
Gallen said he had heard other pitchers, including Max Scherzer, were pitching all year, and thought it was worth a try. He said at the start of camp that he felt better than ever and is glad he made it.
“I'm always trying to work on something,” Galen said. “So shutting down for 'x' weeks and then trying to rebuild is like starting fresh. My thought was that this would save me time. I'm starting from where I was, I'm happy with what I'm doing, and I'm trying to develop from there. When you look at it, it makes the most sense. I don't know why I didn't start earlier. ”
Closer Paul Swald said he follows an offseason schedule as well, adding that most other pitchers are doing the same, calling this a recent change in baseball as a whole.
“It’s like I’m going to take three weeks off anyway,” he said. “My three weeks didn't start on Nov. 1, I just got into Thanksgiving. It feels exactly like a normal spring training.”
Sewald also said that neither he, Thompson nor Ginkel pitched an exorbitant number of innings, 10 to 12, in the postseason.
“I played an extra month and only pitched 10 innings,” he said. “If I only pitched 10 innings in a month, it would be a bad month for us during the regular season. Innings don't matter.”
Other pitchers said they believe last October's experience will benefit them in the long run and establish the kind of baseline body and arm they'll need to survive the postseason. .
Still, the Diamondbacks enter this year with some guardrails in place. Gallen and right-hander Merrill Kelly, who also logged over 200 innings last year, will make their first spring starts a little later than usual, manager Tory Lovullo said. Sewald said he expects players to play slowly during camp and wouldn't be surprised if the team is extra cautious about how they use players during the first month of the season.
Ginkel took a few days off from pitching and played catch again on Saturday. Lovullo said the eighth-inning batter left practice feeling “really good” and the club may want to put a limit on him to keep him from trying to get in shape too quickly. He said internally he expects Ginkel to be ready for Opening Day.
Lovullo hopes the plans the organization's coaches, front office and medical staff have made for the offseason will help keep everyone healthy despite the increased workload last year.
“We've worked hard this offseason to come up with a game plan, give it to our players, meet with them via Zoom and make sure everyone understands how important it is to follow this protocol.” said Lovullo. “We want to stay away from things that are going to hurt us in the long run. We expect the usual tweaks and loss of time, but we want to do that with an arm that's going to be at the depth that we see here. We have budgeted for it, and we hope that there will be no major problems.”