{"id":584066,"date":"2026-02-21T02:50:15","date_gmt":"2026-02-21T02:50:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/584066\/"},"modified":"2026-02-21T02:50:15","modified_gmt":"2026-02-21T02:50:15","slug":"twins-pitcher-pablo-lopez-has-torn-elbow-ligament-will-undergo-season-ending-surgery","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/584066\/","title":{"rendered":"Twins pitcher Pablo L\u00f3pez has torn elbow ligament, will undergo season-ending surgery"},"content":{"rendered":"

Pablo L\u00f3pez’s season is over before it even began.<\/p>\n

The Minnesota Twins’ starting pitcher has \u201csignificant tearing\u201d in his ulnar collateral ligament, general manager Jeremy Zoll said Tuesday via MLB.com’s Matthew Leach<\/a>. At the time, Zoll said Tommy John surgery<\/a> was \u201cvery much on the table.”<\/p>\n

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L\u00f3pez got a second opinion on his elbow this week and revealed Friday that he will indeed require elbow surgery<\/a> and miss all of 2026. It’ll be the second Tommy John surgery of his career.<\/p>\n

The 29-year-old right-hander cut short a Monday bullpen session after he felt soreness in his elbow. The two-inning workout was part of the pitcher’s preparation ahead of representing Venezuela at the World Baseball Classic<\/a>. He will no longer participate in the tournament.<\/p>\n

The Twins’ Opening Day starter each of the past three seasons, L\u00f3pez made only 14 starts during an injury-hampered 2025. He landed on the injured list in early June due to a Grade 2 teres major strain in his right shoulder.<\/p>\n

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Three months later, L\u00f3pez returned to action but made only three more starts before his season came to an end due to a right forearm strain.<\/p>\n

In three seasons since coming over in a trade with the Miami Marlins for Luis Arr\u00e1ez, L\u00f3pez has made 78 starts for the Twins, throwing 455 innings, striking out 505 batters and recording a 1.16 WHIP. He was an All-Star in 2023.<\/p>\n

The Twins went 70-92 last season and finished last in the AL Central<\/a>. They have made the playoffs just four times since 2017 and have won only one playoff series \u2014 the 2023 AL wild card \u2014 since 2002.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Pablo L\u00f3pez’s season is over before it even began. The Minnesota Twins’ starting pitcher has \u201csignificant tearing\u201d in…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":584067,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2388],"tags":[5,12793,38145,85,66415,58,822,60,3190,4,1997,811,6408,148,13780,4820],"class_list":["post-584066","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-minnesota-twins","tag-baseball","tag-elbow-surgery","tag-jeremy-zoll","tag-luis-arraez","tag-matthew-leach","tag-miami-marlins","tag-minnesota","tag-minnesota-twins","tag-minnesotatwins","tag-mlb","tag-pablo-lopez","tag-starting-pitcher","tag-tommy-john-surgery","tag-twins","tag-ulnar-collateral-ligament","tag-world-baseball-classic"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@mlb\/116106351346374258","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/584066","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=584066"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/584066\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/584067"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=584066"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=584066"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=584066"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}