Orioles’ Elias says Rodriguez could return in September; Updates on Webb, McDermott, Kjerstad, Westburg, Coulombe, Bautista

ST. PETERSBURG, Florida—After Grayson Rodriguez stopped his pregame preparation for Tuesday night’s start in Toronto, the Orioles hoped his injury wasn’t serious.

The 24-year-old right-hander was placed on the 15-day injured list with right lat/teres discomfort. On Saturday, executive vice president/general manager Mike Elias said he was hopeful Rodriguez would pitch again before the end of the regular season.

“He has a strain that looks pretty mild to the region involving his lat and more so the teres major muscle, so he’s got a strained shoulder muscle, basically,” Elias said. “We’re going to shut him down from throwing for a period of at least 10 days and in about three weeks, we’ll probably reimage the injury and see where we’re at and come up with a plan at that point.

“We’re optimistic the strain appears relatively mild and much less severe than the one he had in 2022 in a similar region, and we’re also hopeful that we will be able to get him back up and running before the end of the regular season and position him and us for playoff baseball, which obviously he would be an enormous part of for us.”

Reliever Jacob Webb, who’s also on the 15-day injured list with right elbow inflammation, should be back relatively soon, Elias said.

“Basically, just his elbow is barking. It’s been a long year,” Elias said. “There’s nothing structurally concerning in the imaging. Hopeful at this point that it’s kind of a two-week blow and a short IL stint, but obviously, you never know.”

Chayce McDermott, who’s on the minor league injured list with a right scapula stress reaction, may not be able to pitch again this season.

“He’s going to be down for a while, so I don’t have a timeline on him,” Elias said. “It may be a close call with the end of the regular season, the major league and minor league regular season. Not at the point yet of landing the plane on the timeline for Chayce.’

Updates on Kjerstad, Westburg, Coulombe, Bautista:

Heston Kjerstad returned to the injured list with concussion symptoms on Wednesday. The outfielder/designated hitter was hit on the helmet by a pitch on July 12^th, went to the 7-day concussion injured list the next day, and returned a week later, but was 2-for-18 and optioned to Triple-A Norfolk on August 1^st.

“He reported symptoms so as soon as that happened, we immediately took him back to our doctor and then an outside doctor that the league uses for concussions. There were still some persistent issues that he was reporting,” Elias said. “We’ve backed off baseball activities, but he is doing some to tolerance. It’s very mild, but we obviously take that really seriously. Somebody says that we’re experiencing concussion symptoms again, and he got hit in the head pretty dramatically against the Yankees. These things often linger. Hopefully, he’s not out for too much longer, but it’s going to be a little while we make sure we’re totally out of the woods again.”

Infielder Jordan Westburg broke his right hand when he was hit by a pitch on July 31^st.

“We’re still optimistic we’ll get him back before the end of the regular season,” Elias said. “It’s a bone, and it’s got to heal, and then we’ve got to do some buildup for the muscle and get him back playing baseball. We think there’s still time, but look, anybody who gets injured right about now, it’s kind of a close call. Our plan is to have him back before the end of the regular season.”

Left-hander Danny Coulombe, who’s on the 60-day injured list after surgery to remove bone chips from his elbow, also could be back next month.

“I’d put him in a similar timeline bucket with Westburg and Grayson, where I think it’s going to be deeper into September,” Elias said. “We do think we’ll have enough time to get him back for the regular season and also kind of ready them for what’s looking like playoff baseball as we go down the stretch here … Hopeful for sometime in September, but hopefully enough time where it’s not right at the end of the regular season.”

Last season’s premier closer, Félix Bautista, who had Tommy John surgery last October, will throw off a mound in Sarasota next week but isn’t a candidate to pitch in 2024.

“We’re ruling out October,” Elias said. “We’re just going to steer things for next spring training and make sure we get everything right to get him ready for 2025.”