A's Zack Gelof Pulled From Rehab Assignment

A's manager Mark Kotsay told reporters ahead of Monday's game against the Seattle Mariners, "Zack's been brought back from his rehab assignment. He's got a new injury. It's a stress reaction to his ribs, and he's shut down right now from swinging. There's no real timeline right now. No immediate timeline that I can give you for when he's going to return to swinging."

Gelof began his rehab assignment with Triple-A Las Vegas last week, which was supposed to last a minimum of 35 at-bats. Gelof only had seven at-bats in three games with Las Vegas last week, where he hit .143 with an RBI.

Cincinnati Reds second baseman, Matt McLain, suffered a stress reaction in his ribs last August, and he was paused from swinging for two weeks. McLain suffered the reaction on August 2nd and did not start swinging again until August 16th.

McLain was working himself back from the shoulder surgery he had in March of last year, but due to the setback and it being late in the MLB season, the Reds opted to cancel his rehab assignment.

The positive to take from this, as it relates to Gelof, is that McLain started swinging again two weeks later, and it was not an injury that held him out for an extended period of time. It is unclear the severity of Gelof's stress reaction at this time, but two weeks may be a rough estimate.

Unfortunately, this means A's fans and Gelof will have to wait even longer for him to rejoin the big league club. Gelof was looking forward to putting his sophomore slump behind him and hitting the ground running in 2025, as he did in Spring Training. However, this unfortunate injury bug has halted those plans.

The A's will have to wait a little longer to get their former top prospect back with the big league club. Gelof will be a huge boost to the A's, not just offensively, but defensively and in the clubhouse too, as they have struggled as a team in the defense metrics.

The hope is that when Gelof does return, so does his bat from 2023, when he hit 35 extra-base hits in 69 games, and his career .989 fielding percentage.