The slow-news trickle on Seattle Mariners' right-hander Matt Brash and his injury doesn't appear to be very good.
Let's re-set the stage:
1) Brash was shut down from throwing last week because of some arm discomfort. He said he didn't think it was a big deal and he was "banged up."
2) Manager Scott Servais went on a Seattle radio station on Tuesday and wouldn't provide any details about Brash and said we'd know more in a few days. That essentially means they were waiting for test results.
3) And then in the latest piece of not good information, there's this from Ryan Divish of the Seattle Times, which suggests that Brash could miss the entire season potentially.
"Right-hander Matt Brash was shut down from throwing after feeling "banged up" following his bullpen session last Tuesday. The young reliever didn't provide many details but looked down at his elbow during the conversation. Mariners manager Scott Servais had no details on the situation both this morning media sessions and in a recent radio interview. He wouldn't provide details on where Brash was hurting. Servais said they will have an update to the issue in the next couple of days. Industry sources believe that Brash could miss an extensive amount of time, possibly the season."
If you're looking at this from an optimistic point of view, the words "could miss" and "possibly" the season don't mean anything conclusive. If you're looking at this negatively, you're just waiting for bad news to surface officially.
A loss of Brash for any period of significant length would be a huge blow for the Mariners. The 25-year-old native of Canada led all of baseball in appearances in 2023 with 78. He pitched to a 3.06 ERA and struck out a whopping 107 batters in 70.2 innings. Along with Andres Munoz, he is supposed to make up a dynamite back-end of Seattle's bullpen.
The only saving grace in all of this is that its still early enough in the offseason that the M's can make adjustments to cover for Brash. They have an internal great arm in Carlos Vargas who arrived in a trade from the Arizona Diamondbacks this offseason. Perhaps he can grow.
Furthermore, they've signed former closer Ty Buttrey and if he still has something left, that would be a positive. There is also free agency, where an accomplished reliever like Ryne Stanek is still available.
The M's also have former White Sox closer Gregory Santos - but he's battled his own issues this spring and shouldn't necessarily be counted on.
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