Padres starter Dinelson Lamet made his much-anticipated 2021 debut Wednesday afternoon in Petco Park against the Brewers. The fun lasted for about two innings before subsiding into doom. He was removed early, raising concerns about the elbow sprain that hampered him last postseason and caused him to get a late start in the spring. Sure enough, the Padres have indicated that Lamet left with right forearm tightness.
Update from the clubhouse: Dinelson Lamet left today’s game with right forearm tightness.
— San Diego Padres (@Padres) April 21, 2021
Lamet looked pretty much like himself in the first inning, striking out three hitters (all swinging strikes) after a leadoff single. In the second, he got a pair of outs before a walk and then closed it down with a strikeout.
And then that was it. Uh oh.
Immediately, it seemed like something had to be wrong. Lamet threw just 29 pitches in two scoreless innings, striking out four while allowing just the one walk and one single.
It would've been awfully conservative to pull him unless he was injured again. He was sitting 96-97 mph with his fastball and that's about where it's been in the past when he's healthy. This wasn't like he was starting from scratch without being stretched out. He'd been working his way up at the alternate training site, throwing five innings and roughly 70 pitches last time out.
Now, it sounds like they were planning on being conservative with him anyway. Via manager Jayce Tinger's Zoom conference on Tuesday (sandiegotribune.com):
"Whether he starts off and looks like last year or he struggles, the most important thing for us is getting our feet on the ground, back in the major leagues. We want to see him come out healthy. That would be a win."
However, to ramp a pitcher back up to 70 pitches and have him then make a start in an actual MLB game and pull him after 29 pitches with no real run-scoring threats made very little sense. Perhaps the forearm was just a little bit tight and they were being overly precautionary?
The big worry here, of course, is the UCL for Lamet. It was a sprained UCL last fall that hampered him. A torn UCL leads to Tommy John surgery and that leads to a year-plus of rehab before trying to ramp things back up for a return to the mound. We've seen "forearm tightness" many times be a precursor for a torn UCL and then TJ surgery.
Hopefully that is not the case here.
Lamet, 28, was a breakout star last season for the Padres. He was 3-1 with 2.09 ERA, 0.86 WHIP and 93 strikeouts against 20 walks in 69 innings. He finished fourth in NL Cy Young voting in a very crowded field.
The Padres are already without starter Mike Clevinger for the year due to Tommy John surgery and it was recently revealed Adrian Morejon needs the procedure as well.
If Lamet joins them on the shelf, the Padres still have a five-man rotation. They were planning on going to six with the addition of Lamet behind Yu Darvish, Blake Snell, Joe Musgrove, Chris Paddack and Ryan Weathers. If there is need at any point down the road, everyone's eyes will remain on lefty prospect MacKenzie Gore.
