Guardians' Daniel Espino: Shoulder to blame for missed time

Espino, who was originally shut down in May with patellar tendinitis, ended up missing the rest of the season with a sore right shoulder, Mandy Bell of MLB.com reports.

It was generally accepted that some other non-knee injury must have popped up to keep Espino from making any starts in 2022 beyond April. There's no doubting Espino's stuff, but he now has a lot of developmental time to make up and he needs to build back up his workload after throwing just 18.1 innings in four April starts at Double-A and failing to make it back in time for fall or winter ball. Given Cleveland's impressive rotation depth, Espino may not make his MLB debut until 2024.