Brent Suter goes on the DL with forearm tightness, Brewers call up Aaron Wilkerson

The Milwaukee Brewers are being dealt another injury to their starting rotation, and — not to be too melodramatic — this one could be bad.

Less than 24 hours before his next scheduled start, Brent Suter is going on the disabled list with forearm tightness. Aaron Wilkerson is being called up to make the emergency start Saturday afternoon.

Normally, a little muscle tightness wouldn’t be a big cause for concern. But when forearm tightness has become known as the precursor to elbow problems — specifically, the UCL tears that require Tommy John surgery — the sirens begin to go off a little more.

Suter says he felt the forearm tighten in the first inning of his last start against the Twins, but stayed in the game. He ended up giving up 5 runs on 9 hits in 5 innings, with almost all of the damage coming in that 5th inning when he loaded the bases and gave up a grand slam to Robbie Grossman.

We probably shouldn’t get too ahead of ourselves before the team sees how Suter responds to rest or gets him an MRI, and it’s possibly a good sign he’s optimistic (although Brent Suter may be the most optimistic and generally happy person in the world) but right now it’s hard not to feel for Suter if that’s the road he may be headed down.

As unlikely a successful big leaguer as you can imagine, Suter has largely pitched well for the Brewers this year, putting up 1.2 fWAR with an ERA of 4.53 (4.23 FIP) in 18 games, 16 of them starts. He was especially good in June, putting up an ERA of 3.60 in 5 starts and holding opponents to a .198/.254/.321 batting line.

Statistics courtesy of Fangraphs