Diamondbacks Reliever Gives Important Health Update

Arizona Diamondbacks reliever Kendall Graveman has recently been dealing with back tightness, something he originally felt during a bullpen session last Saturday. He underwent imaging but things came back cleanly.

The right-hander was signed to a one-year $1.35 million deal by the D-backs earlier this spring, after sitting out all of 2024, having undergone shoulder surgery at the tail end of 2023.

Graveman had already thrown muiltiple bullpens and was progressing well before this newest setback. Jack Sommers of Arizona Diamondbacks ON SI got a chance to catch up with the former Astros reliever.

"Played catch today, feeling better," said Graveman. "I've never dealt with it before, so a lot of it's new and trying to figure out what's going on. I think the natural progression of my arm feels great and the body is trying to figure out how to pitch with full intensity again."

Now a critical part of Arizona's bullpen, the right-hander figures to slot in near the back end of the relief core, joining arms like Justin Martinez, A.J. Puk, Kevin Ginkel, and Ryan Thompson. While there is protection around him, and more arms waiting for a chance to pitch in high leverage, Graveman will get some big outs for the D-backs in 2025.

From 2021-2023 he collected 24 saves, pitching to a 2.74 ERA over 187.1 IP. He is certainly a big bounceback candidate and with a return to form could transform the Diamondbacks' pitching staff as a whole.

"The training staff did a great job. I took a couple of days to get off my feet. I threw today, and felt good. I have a little plan going forward if everything keeps trending well to throw off the slope this weekend or before the weekend," the reliever continued.

Graveman was also asked how this potential injury may have originated he responded, "Definitely from pitching...probably just being in camp, being back on your feet. The whole deal is stuff you aren't used to just standing around. And not pitching and performing since September of 2023. My arm has felt great, now we just need the rest of the body to get ready to pitch too."

Graveman took three total days off throwing, including Tuesday's off-day. "Even after a live session I played catch for a few days, but then I decided to just let it heal for a couple days."

Body adjustments and discomfort are certainly not unexpected after such a long absence for strenuous baseball activity. Graveman will get back to work this week, and he, as well as manager Torey Lovullo hope to get him into spring games soon. See Lovullo's comments about Graveman in the video below: