Angels left-hander Patrick Sandoval left tonight’s start against the Dodgers in the third inning. After walking former teammate Shohei Ohtani, Sandoval began shaking his arm and called for a trainer. The Halos announced the initial diagnosis as forearm tightness.
It seems fair to presume Sandoval will head for imaging in the next couple of days. While it’s too early to know whether he’s facing a significant absence, the southpaw’s reaction on the mound and the diagnosis are clearly cause for concern.
Sandoval worked 2 1/3 scoreless innings tonight. He still has an uninspiring 5.08 earned run average over 79 2/3 frames on the season. The 27-year-old’s underlying indicators are quite a bit more promising. Sandoval has punched out a solid 23 percent of batters faced while keeping the ball on the ground 45 percent of the time. He has issued a few too many walks (9.9 percent rate), but he looks like a mid-rotation arm at his best. Sandoval carried an above-average 11.7 percent swinging strike rate into tonight’s start.
Between 2022-23, Sandoval was somewhat quietly one of the better starters in the league. He topped 140 innings in both seasons, combining for a 3.50 ERA over 55 starts. While Sandoval was more effective in 2022 than he was a year ago, he has generally been a bright spot amidst a tough few years in Orange County.
As MLBTR’s Steve Adams explored in a piece for Front Office subscribers just this week, Sandoval looked like a very appealing trade candidate. Steve noted the parallels between the Angels hurler and Miami’s Jesús Luzardo, who is regarded as one of the best (if not the top) controllable starting pitcher who is likely to move this summer. The Angels haven’t shown the same willingness to deal key players as the Marlins’ new front office has, yet Los Angeles GM Perry Minasian would get no shortage of calls on a healthy Sandoval.
Tonight’s injury at least complicates that possibility. An extended absence would take a deadline deal off the table entirely. The Angels control Sandoval via arbitration for two seasons beyond this one. He’s making $5.025M this season in his second of four arbitration years after qualifying as a Super Two player in 2022.
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