{"id":102455,"date":"2025-06-14T05:15:14","date_gmt":"2025-06-14T05:15:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/102455\/"},"modified":"2025-06-14T05:15:14","modified_gmt":"2025-06-14T05:15:14","slug":"a-j-puk-halts-throwing-program-with-elbow-discomfort","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/102455\/","title":{"rendered":"A.J. Puk Halts Throwing Program With Elbow Discomfort"},"content":{"rendered":"

Diamondbacks reliever\u00a0A.J. Puk<\/a> has paused his throwing program after experiencing renewed elbow soreness, manager Torey Lovullo told reporters on Friday (link via Nick Piecoro of The Arizona Republic<\/a>). Puk will visit Dr. Neal ElAttrache before deciding on next steps. Lovullo called it \u201cslight discomfort\u201d and noted that the star southpaw initially hoped he could continue throwing through it.<\/p>\n

Puk has been out since the middle of April with a flexor strain. The organization has remained hopeful that he\u2019ll be able to rehab the injury without requiring surgery. That\u2019s presumably still the case, but any kind of setback for a forearm\/elbow injury is worrisome. That\u2019s especially true considering Puk has a 2018 Tommy John surgery on his medical chart. Even if the follow-up visit goes well, the shutdown will push back his return timeline to some extent.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s the latest bad news for a reeling Arizona bullpen. Puk and\u00a0Justin Martinez<\/a> were supposed to serve as Lovullo\u2019s 1-2 punch in the late innings. Puk made eight appearances before his IL stay. Martinez got into 17 games and suffered an elbow injury of his own last week. That one immediately proved serious, and the team announced this evening that he\u2019s headed for the second elbow surgery<\/a> of his career.<\/p>\n

Arizona\u2019s bullpen has been a huge weakness. They entered play tonight with a 5.21 earned run average that ranks 27th in MLB. The injuries to Puk and Martinez are the biggest factors, but they\u2019ve also seen former key contributors Ryan Thompson<\/a> and Kevin Ginkel<\/a> struggle through rough years. Low-cost acquisitions\u00a0Shelby Miller<\/a> and\u00a0Jalen Beeks<\/a> have been their most reliable relievers. The D-Backs will need to acquire multiple bullpen arms if they\u2019re in position to add at the deadline.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Diamondbacks reliever\u00a0A.J. Puk has paused his throwing program after experiencing renewed elbow soreness, manager Torey Lovullo told reporters…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":102456,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[1118,5,4],"class_list":{"0":"post-102455","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-mlb","8":"tag-a-j-puk","9":"tag-baseball","10":"tag-mlb"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@mlb\/114680019487209329","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/102455","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=102455"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/102455\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/102456"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=102455"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=102455"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=102455"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}