Brandon Woodruff to hit Injured List with oblique strain

Things got off to a rocky start for Brandon Woodruff this afternoon in his start against the Arizona Diamondbacks, as the hurler yielded four runs across the first three innings of the ballgame. The offense breathed new life into the ballgame with a grand slam to tie the game off the bat of Tyler Saladino in the top of the fourth and Woodruff went back out to the mound to keep things going in the bottom half of the inning. But he lasted only two pitches, getting pulled mid at-bat with in an apparent injury situation.

Our Hero Junior Guerra took over with an 0-2 count against Tim Locastro and completed the punchout on his way to striking out the side. There is no word yet on what Woodruff’s injury might be or how serious it is, so for now all we can do is hold our collective breath and hope that whatever is afflicting the All-Star right-hander is nothing serious.

UPDATE:

The Brewers have deemed Woodruff’s issue as “abdominal discomfort,” so thankfully it is nothing regarding his arm or shoulder or anything like that. It sounds like the team may have dodged a bullet here.

UPDATE #2:

So, it turns out that Woodruff’s issue is indeed something that will cost him some time on the active roster:

One day after getting Gio Gonzalez back from a lengthy IL stint, Milwaukee will lose arguably the best starter in their rotation to the Injured List. No work yet on exactly how long we can expect Woodruff to be out, but in the past this type of injury has taken other players some four to six weeks to fully recover from. With their top hurler now on the shelf, the need for David Stearns to add to the starting rotation before the July 31st trade deadline becomes even more acute.