Diamondbacks Suffer Surprise Injury, Call up Two Players

The Arizona Diamondbacks have suffered another injury to their pitching staff. Right-hander Cristian Mena will go on the 15-day injured list with right shoulder inflammation. In addition, the D-backs have called up veteran catcher Aramis Garcia.

Right-handed reliever Christian Montes De Oca has also been recalled, serving as the 27th man for game two of Saturday's doubleheader. Corbin Burnes has been placed on the 60-day IL with a sprained right UCL after news broke Friday that he would require Tommy John Surgery.

Mena entered in the sixth inning of Friday's game in relief of Eduardo Rodríguez. Due to the downpour of rain, Mena had difficulty gripping the ball, leading to a game-tying home run. The game was then suspended prior to the seventh and resumed on Saturday morning, but the damage had already been.

Arizona has suffered a rough batch of pitching injuries. Mena, naturally a starter, has made three long relief appearances for the D-backs this season. The home run in Friday night's game was the only run he had surrendered over 6.2 major league innings.

With Ryne Nelson back in the rotation due to the difficult news surrounding Burnes, Arizona will need to look elsewhere for long relief.

Meanwhile, catcher Gabriel Moreno was also injured in Friday's game due to the conditions. A wild pitch caught him in the throwing hand. Though it was reported that his initial x-rays came back clean, Moreno clearly could not grip the baseball, and there was significant swelling in his hand.

Jose Herrera came in in relief of Moreno, but will likely give way to Garcia for the second game of Saturday's doubleheader.

Garcia, 32, was signed to a minor league deal in the early offseason. He's enjoyed a healthy .273/.417/.582 in Triple-A with 10 homers. Garcia has not seen significant major league playing time since 2022, playing for the same Reds Arizona now faces.

Montes De Oca was called up to the major league roster on May 16 following a string of excellent performances with the Reno Aces, but the right-hander was never able to actually make his MLB debut. Despite multiple instances of opportunity, he was never called onto the mound.

Montes De Oca has a 4.07 ERA in the extremely offense-heavy PCL, and has struck out 26 over 24.1 innings with just six walks issued in that timeframe.

He's been bit for multiple runs in his past two outings, but has an arsenal that profiles him as a potential major league-caliber arm. It's quite likely that game two of Saturday's doubleheader will become Montes De Oca's debut, but that is yet to be seen.

One more injury note is that Corbin Carroll is still nursing some kind of undisclosed injury and is out of the lineup for the second straight game. He pinch hit on Saturday, but is not starting game two of the double header