Athletics' A.J. Puk: Needs shoulder surgery

Puk will undergo shoulder surgery next week, Susan Slusser of the San Francisco Chronicle reports.

Shoulder issues first popped up for Puk in early March, and his health has become something of a saga since then. He appeared to be on the mend before being shut down in late July, but he'd been making more encouraging progress since then. He was shut down a second time earlier this week, however, and will end up losing the remainder of the season. Depending on the exact nature of the surgery, it's possible he misses a meaningful portion of the 2021 campaign as well. It's been a brutal stretch for the young lefty, who missed all of 2018 and much of 2019 due to Tommy John surgery. He'll enter 2021 having thrown just 36.2 total innings over the last three seasons.