MLB, Pittsburgh Pirates

Pirates reliever Nick Burdi suffers apparent injury on the mound vs. Diamondbacks

Pirates reliever Nick Burdi suffered an apparent right arm injury on Monday night, two years removed from Tommy John surgery.

A scary scene played out in Pittsburgh on Monday night, as Pirates reliever Nick Burdi appeared to suffer some type of injury to his right arm. The injury was reported and witnessed by a host of reporters in attendance, including Mark Faller of azcentral, Kevin Gorman of the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, Rob Biertempfel of The Athletic and Matt Freed of the Pittsburgh Post Gazette.

As Freed notes, the injury came in the eighth inning against the Arizona Diamondbacks at the Pirates’ PNC Park. Biertempfel Tweeted, “Burdi grabbed his right bicep and sank to his knees on the mound. He’s still down, in tears.” Twitter user @zachleft had video of the injury:

https://twitter.com/zachleft/status/1120512615170621441/video/1

Burdi arrived in Pittsburgh in trade from the Philadelphia Phillies, and pitched just 1.1 innings in 2018. This year, however, he’s been a bigger part of the Pirates’ bullpen, appearing in 10 games and pitching 8.1 innings. He’s allowed seven hits and has 17 strikeouts on the season.

Most notably, however, is that Burdi underwent Tommy John surgery on his right arm in May 2017 when he was with the Minnesota Twins. The worry is that he has now suffered another significant injury to his pitching arm; if that is the case, his professional pitching career could be cut short.

The Pirates also need to maintain consistency in their pitching while trying to keep hold of their position atop of NL Central standings. Pittsburgh went into Monday night’s game with a 12-7 record, though they were trailing the Diamondbacks, 12-4, when Burdi went down in the eighth inning.

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An update about Burdi’s status and condition will likely come from the Pirates soon. It’s possible they will have to dig into the well to find another reliever.

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