Arrieta essentially waves white flag with elbow
PHILADELPHIA » After giving what manager Gabe Kapler considered was a ‘heroic’ effort, Jake Arrieta has essentially pulled himself from the Phillies’ desperate season plans.
Another bad outing Sunday moved Arrieta to realize the bone spur he was trying to ignore in his pitching elbow simply wasn’t something Arrieta could deal with every five nights.
“I wanted to try and make it work for as long as possible while I could remain effective and help the team,” Arrieta said Wednesday before a game against the Cubs. “I think after my start in San Francisco I realized that I’m not able to give the team what it needs. I’m confident and we’re confident that we have options that can contribute to a further level than (what) I was able to (get to). The pain is something I can deal with, but it’s the loss of feel and the ineffectiveness as the outings wear on.”
Arrieta, who is 8-8 with a 4.64 ERA in 24 starts, gave up seven hits and five runs in three innings in what became a 9-6 loss to the Giants Sunday. In seven starts in July and August, he made it into the sixth inning only once, and averaged just four innings per outing in three starts this month.
The plan had been for Arrieta to give everything his aching elbow would allow when he pitched, with converted starter Nick Pivetta and other long relievers ready to take over on an asneeded basis.
But Arrieta says the plan has run its course. Now he’s scheduled for an MRI Thursday, which Arrieta said is “just to kind of get a better picture of the extent of the spur and see if there’s any loose bodies that might be in there as well.”
But Arrieta thinks the prognosis is predictable.
“I’ll probably miss the remainder of the season,” he said, ‘but there’s no doubt that I’ll have a completely healthy offseason going into next year.”
For now, the Phillies will roll Zach Eflin back into the rotation, even if he hasn’t pitched all that well in the last two months. For his part, Arrieta expressed confidence in Eflin.
“I think that the time is right to make it happen now and get a guy in the rotation that has pitched really well for us and give him an opportunity to get back to the form where he was at earlier in the season for us,” Arrieta said. “I think we’ll be in good hands.”
Kapler said Eflin will start Saturday against the Padres at home. He was also an available reliever against the Cubs Wednesday.
But Eflin lost six of his last seven decisions dating to June 12 prior to going to the bullpen a couple of weeks ago. Over the last couple of months his ERA has ballooned from 2.81 to 4.49. And he’s in the middle of a rotation now that really doesn’t have a No. 2 starter.
Bone spurs or not, losing Arrieta is another killer blow to the limping Phillies.
“We gave this a chance to work and every fifth day he, despite being uncomfortable and not being able to execute his pitches the way he wanted to, gave us everything he had,” Kapler said of Arrieta. “It was genuinely a heroic effort in a lot of ways.”
Arrieta had a similar surgery in 2011, saying he’s “pretty comfortable with the process after the recovery. It’s not a long period of time where I’ll be down.”
He expects surgery to take place in Philadelphia within a week after the MRI, though it’s still possible he may pursue a second opinion.
“I would’ve liked it to go different,” Arrieta said. “I would’ve liked to obviously pitch the remainder of the season healthy. It’s just something I really couldn’t control. The spur stayed pretty dormant for seven or eight years, (then) decided to give me trouble and get to a size now where this is really the only option for me to get back to the pitcher that I am. That’s OK. This is what I have to do.
“I’ve been doing this for a long time. I know what I need to do to execute certain pitches. I’m physically limited at this point. I don’t have the ability to do those things.”