The beleaguered Los Angeles Dodgers pitching staff got some rare good news on Tuesday. Tony Gonsolin, who has not pitched in the Majors this season, will begin a rehab assignment Tuesday night in Oklahoma City. It will be his first time on a professional mound since August 13, 2023.
It is the 15th time this season that a Dodgers pitcher has made a rehab start for the team's Triple-A affiliate, Alex Freedman of the Oklahoma City Baseball Club noted.
Gonsolin pitched through an elbow injury for much of 2023 before going on the IL and having Tommy John surgery late in the season. The injury could explain why his numbers that season were significantly worse than they were for his career to date. He went 8-5 last year with a 4.98 ERA and 1.223 WHIP. His 7.2 strikeouts per nine innings were a career low.
Part of that dip comes from a decrease in his fastball velocity. His fastball averaged 92.4 mph last year, compared to 93.1 mph the year before. His splitter and slider both experienced velocity drops as well.
“I’m looking forward to a fresh start,” Gonsolin said last season. “I get to start over from the beginning and use this as an opportunity to get the rest of my body in a really good spot and overall get my arm in the best shape it can be in.”
The door for Tony Gonsolin to pitch for the Dodgers this season is ‘slightly open'
With Clayton Kershaw and Gavin Stone both hitting the IL in the last few days, the Dodgers' pitching depth is once again a point of concern — even with the team activating Yoshinobu Yamamoto on Tuesday.
Before those injuries, manager Dave Roberts said Gonsolin pitching in the Majors this season was “slightly open.”
“And I think that’s a good mindset for Tony to kind of shoot for something this year,” he said. “If all things line up, great, and if it doesn’t, then we can pivot to ’25. But I think that his mindset that the door is not completely closed on ’24 is a good thing.”
Now, injuries have made Gonsolin's return all the more important. The Dodgers need to be careful, however. Gonsolin admitted last season that he felt the need to pitch through his injury, which eventually cost him over a year of action.
“I thought I had the capability to do it, but it just got to the point where the stuff really wasn’t performing,” he said at the time. “I went through a lot of tough outings to get to that realization, but overall I kind of knew surgery was the end goal. I was just hoping to make it through the season with good numbers and post.”
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