MESA, Ariz. — A UCL sprain diagnosis is usually the death knell for a pitcher’s season, but A’s starter Jharel Cotton is still holding out hope.
Arriving back to A’s camp Friday morning from his visit with Dr. Will Workman in Walnut Creek the past two days where he learned of the UCL sprain in his right elbow which often leads to Tommy John surgery, Cotton was slated to fly to Dallas later in the evening to meet with Dr. Keith Meister for a second opinion.
“My elbow feels good today. That’s why I’m optimistic about it,” Cotton said. “I’m just gonna go to the doctor, see what he says, and go from there.”
Cotton had undergone an MRI for similar elbow issues last September, but the issues seemed to subside after a few treatment sessions. He envisioned a similar scenario this time around, but things obviously got worse.
There wasn’t a particular pitch in his last outing where Cotton could recall the issue arising in his elbow. He said it was more of a gradual development.
“I didn’t feel a pop, I didn’t hear anything, didn’t have any numbing sensation,” Cotton said. “My elbow has full strength.”
The most frustrating part of the injury for Cotton is the fact that he had been pitching so well before it. He had posted a 3.75 ERA with 16 strikeouts and just six walks through 12 innings of work as he looked to bounce back from a poor 2017 season.
“It’s tough. This year I wanted to go out and prove to these guys that I can pitch in the big leagues,” Cotton said. “I think I’ve done everything right to get better for this year. Now it’s just a little setback.”
While manager Bob Melvin was already leaning towards entering the regular season with an eight-man bullpen, Cotton’s injury coupled with none of the A’s starting pitchers having thrown over 70 pitches in a game yet have made that possibility all the more likely.
“We’ll see once we get there,” Melvin said. “You don’t want to throw too much at the starters. Good chance we’ll go with eight, but we haven’t committed to it yet.”
Although relief pitchers Yusmeiro Petit and Emilio Pagan both have the ability to throw multiple innings, Melvin said he’d like have another long relief man in the bullpen to avoid wasting Petit or Pagan in a blowout.
“Those are the middle guys that can give you multiple innings,” Melvin said. “They’re pretty valuable and you don’t want to have to use them in those down games. It’d be nice to have true long man that when you’re down four or five runs, you can run out there for three, four, or five innings.”
