{"id":576789,"date":"2026-02-17T03:51:13","date_gmt":"2026-02-17T03:51:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/576789\/"},"modified":"2026-02-17T03:51:13","modified_gmt":"2026-02-17T03:51:13","slug":"pablo-lopez-headed-for-mri-with-elbow-soreness","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/576789\/","title":{"rendered":"Pablo L\u00f3pez Headed For MRI With Elbow Soreness"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Twins are sending starter\u00a0Pablo L\u00f3pez<\/a> for an MRI after he experienced elbow soreness during a live batting practice session this morning (links via Dan Hayes of The Athletic<\/a> and Matthew Leach of MLB.com<\/a>). The righty had thrown two innings in a workout before experiencing the discomfort in what would have been his third frame.<\/p>\n

To this point, the Twins are framing the situation as precautionary. There\u2019s certainly no reason for L\u00f3pez to pitch through any kind of discomfort in the middle of February. It nevertheless comes as a concern any time a pitcher experiences elbow discomfort. That\u2019s particularly true in L\u00f3pez\u2019s case, as he\u2019s coming off a season that was cut short by a pair of arm injuries.<\/p>\n

L\u00f3pez suffered a Grade 2 teres major strain in his shoulder last June. He missed three months. The veteran was able to get back on the mound in early September, hoping to build positive momentum going into the offseason. That was not to be, as he experienced forearm soreness that shut him down for the year after three September starts. His velocity in those appearances was back to where it had been before the shoulder injury. The forearm soreness could have been a residual effect of the layoff. The Twins didn\u2019t seem especially concerned, announcing in early November that he would not have any restrictions over the offseason.<\/p>\n

Minnesota also took L\u00f3pez (and essentially all their other veteran players) off the trade market. They\u2019d been very aggressive deadline sellers but are going into the season with expectations to compete for a playoff spot. It remains to be seen if that\u2019s wishful thinking, but new ownership control person Tom Pohlad has said repeatedly over the past few weeks that he believes this roster capable of contending. Any optimism is built largely around the rotation, which could have an excellent one-two punch with L\u00f3pez and\u00a0Joe Ryan<\/a>. If the former misses any time, an already uphill path to a playoff spot becomes more difficult.<\/p>\n

The Twins have a decent amount of upside in the starting staff.\u00a0Simeon Woods Richardson<\/a>, Bailey Ober<\/a>,\u00a0Taj Bradley<\/a>,\u00a0Mick Abel<\/a>,\u00a0Zebby Matthews<\/a> and David Festa<\/a> are all in the mix for rotation spots. Prospects\u00a0Kendry Rojas<\/a>, Connor Prielipp<\/a> and Andrew Morris<\/a> probably need more time at Triple-A but are on the 40-man roster. Any of them could factor in at some point this year. There\u2019s reason for optimism with everyone in that group, but all of those pitchers who have logged MLB time have had their share of ups and downs. They\u2019ll also probably need some of these pitchers to factor into a patchwork bullpen if they\u2019re to put together a contending pitching staff.<\/p>\n

L\u00f3pez has a Tommy John surgery in his history, undergoing the procedure when he was an 18-year-old prospect back in 2014. He\u2019d been very durable for most of his MLB career. A rotator cuff injury cost him a couple months in 2021, but he didn\u2019t miss a start in any of the next three seasons. He was limited to 14 outings last year but was as effective as ever on a rate basis. L\u00f3pez turned in a 2.74 ERA with a 23.4% strikeout rate over 75 2\/3 innings.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Twins are sending starter\u00a0Pablo L\u00f3pez for an MRI after he experienced elbow soreness during a live batting…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":576790,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2290],"tags":[5,1997],"class_list":{"0":"post-576789","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-baseball","8":"tag-baseball","9":"tag-pablo-lopez"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@mlb\/116083942026947736","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/576789","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=576789"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/576789\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/576790"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=576789"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=576789"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=576789"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}