Two notable and unique bits of surgery news from around baseball this afternoon.
First, suspended Padres star Fernando Tatis Jr. is going to have shoulder surgery while he’s out, which seems a wise use of his time away:
You may remember that Tatis dealt with shoulder issues last year, and the thinking was it could be a long-term issue until and unless he had surgery to address the problem. He decided to play through it last year, and was set to do so again this year. But now, since he’s out anyway, he takes the Padres up on their advice and gets the surgery. I would assume the return timeline is probably pretty close to even with the time he was going to be suspended (sometime in May of next year?).
Meanwhile, another unique surgery situation with Dodgers righty Walker Buehler, who was known to be getting SOME kind of surgery, but it wasn’t known to be this:
I’m not sure if this is what happened, but there are situations where you’re going in for surgery on one area – say, the flexor mass – but the surgeon can see while in there that Tommy John is going to be advisable, too (all pre-discussed with the patient as possible). So they just do it while they’re in there. I’m aware of it happening in at least a couple situations before, so maybe that’s why the Dodgers were cagey about exactly what surgery he was having when they previously announced that he was done for the year.
In any case, this being Buehler’s second Tommy John surgery, and it being late August, you can pretty much rule him out for all of the 2023 season. He will then return for the 2024 season, his walk year before free agency.