Baltimore Orioles: Yovani Gallardo possibly hurt

Yovani Gallardo left the Baltimore Orioles’ 4-2 loss to Kansas City after two innings with shouder soreness.

Yovani Gallardo got beaten around in the first inning of last night’s game in Kansas City for the Baltimore Orioles. He faired better in the second inning, however he was mysteriously pulled out of the game once the inning was over. Gallardo’s line: 2 IP, 5 H, 4 R, 1 BB, 0 K.

Gallardo informed manager Buck Showalter that his shoulder “just didn’t feel right,” and Showalter immediately lifted him. This is a major concern for the Orioles, who of course hesitated to sign Gallardo after seeing something on his physical – that something was regarding his shoulder. Gallardo is flying back to

Baltimore this morning where he’ll have testing done. His next turn in the rotation wouldn’t be until Tuesday, however my personal opinion is that he’ll be on the DL by then – just a prediction.

Gallardo gave up a two-run homer to Moustakas in the last of the first and the Orioles immediately trailed. Morales would add an RBI-double, and an inning later Moustakas would add on another run with an RBI-double of his own. The good news for the Orioles is that those were the only runs that they yielded all night. Kansas City only put runs across against a pitcher who we later found out was hurt.

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The bad news of course is that Kansas City only really needed those runs and only those runs. J.J. Hardy would smack an RBI-single in the fourth,  and two innings later in the sixth Manny Machado would add a solo home run. But that aside, the Kansas City bullpen shut the down. Incidentally, the Oriole ‘pen also shut down Kansas City. T.J. McFarland was excellent in long relief, and it really saved a few arms in a bullpen that figures to get taxed this weekend in Kansas City and next week in Tampa.

However the main concern is Gallardo, who as I said might be headed to the DL. Now with that said, if there’s ever a “good time” for such a move I suppose it’s now for the Orioles. Kevin Gausman will need to be activated from the DL and he’s going to need a rotation spot. So this in theory would defer a decision in sending someone else down – if it ends up being a DL situation. However you hate seeing these things “work themselves out” by someone else getting injured. 

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Gallardo noted after the game that he wasn’t feeling right from the beginning, and in fact the sensation started while he was warming up in the bullpen (quote courtesy of Steve Melewski, MASNsports):

"My shoulder just didn’t feel right. To be honest, it was one of those feelings that I’ve never had my whole career. I’ve never had any issues with my shoulder and I hadn’t been. For some reason, in the bullpen, it just didn’t feel right.I wasn’t able to extend to get that release point. I think that’s why the ball was just up and all over the place. Felt like the ball was coming out of my hand and the strength wasn’t there. Hopefully, it wasn’t anything serious. I’ll go back to Baltimore tomorrow to see a doctor and we’ll go from there."

And here’s a spot where you have to give Gallardo a bit of credit. Over the past few seasons we’ve seen various Orioles know that they weren’t feeling right, but they’d neglect to tell Buck Showalter about it in hopes that it would go away or something like that. And in a way I understand that mentality. Certainly if it was something serious they would have to say something, however at the end of the day guys don’t want to lose their jobs by not being able to play.

But being a veteran, Gallardo knew that he was brought to Baltimore to help get the Birds back to the “promised land.” And him not feeling right wasn’t going to serve him well, nor would it have served the team. So he told Showalter that something was wrong, and they went on from there.

Next: Baltimore Orioles' Matt Wieters spouts off

The series continues this evening in Kansas City with Tyler Wilson coming out of the bullpen to make the start in game two of the series. He’ll be opposed by Kansas City’s Kris Medlin. Game time is set for 7:15 PM.