{"id":577803,"date":"2026-02-17T16:56:29","date_gmt":"2026-02-17T16:56:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/577803\/"},"modified":"2026-02-17T16:56:29","modified_gmt":"2026-02-17T16:56:29","slug":"pablo-lopez-diagnosed-with-ucl-tear","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/577803\/","title":{"rendered":"Pablo L\u00f3pez Diagnosed With UCL Tear"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Twins received brutal injury news this morning, as right-hander Pablo L\u00f3pez<\/a> has been diagnosed with tearing in his right elbow\u2019s ulnar collateral ligament, general manager Jeremy Zoll announced to reporters (via Dan Hayes of The Athletic<\/a>). He\u2019s going for a second opinion, but season-ending surgery is on the table for L\u00f3pez.<\/p>\n

L\u00f3pez felt some elbow discomfort following a recent bullpen session. The Twins sent him for imaging but framed that as a precautionary measure. The situation has obviously taken a dramatic turn for the worse. The vast majority of UCL tears require surgical repair, whether it\u2019s an internal brace to repair\/strengthen the existing ligament or a full reconstruction (\u201cTommy John\u201d) procedure. Either situation would end L\u00f3pez\u2019s season before it begins.<\/p>\n

The 29-year-old L\u00f3pez missed considerable time with injury in 2025, making it into only 14 games and pitching 75 2\/3 innings. A Grade 2 strain of L\u00f3pez\u2019s teres major muscle was the primary issue, but he finished the 2025 campaign on the shelf due to a forearm strain.<\/p>\n

Now-former<\/a> president of baseball operations Derek Falvey said early in the offseason that L\u00f3pez could have kept pitching through what the team described as a mild forearm strain had the club been in postseason contention. The veteran righty, who\u2019ll be 30 early next month, had a normal offseason. It seems the UCL tear is a new injury that popped up in camp (although even if there was a quiet inkling of a UCL issue late last season, the timing would remain largely unchanged; L\u00f3pez would\u2019ve been expected to miss the 2026 season regardless).<\/p>\n

More to come.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Twins received brutal injury news this morning, as right-hander Pablo L\u00f3pez has been diagnosed with tearing in…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":577804,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[5,4,1997],"class_list":{"0":"post-577803","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-mlb","8":"tag-baseball","9":"tag-mlb","10":"tag-pablo-lopez"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@mlb\/116087028848660637","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/577803","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=577803"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/577803\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/577804"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=577803"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=577803"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=577803"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}