Baltimore Orioles closer Felix Bautista of Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic will have Tommy John Surgery according to Jake Rill of mlb.com. He is not expected to pitch again until the 2025 Major League Baseball season. The injury is a massive blow to the Orioles who are one of eight teams left in the 2023 MLB playoffs, and a franchise that is looking to win its first World Series since 1983.
How did Bautista get hurt?
Bautista has not pitched for the Orioles since August 25. In a 5-4 Orioles win over the Colorado Rockies, Bautista left the game with pain in his arm after slipping off the mound with two outs in the ninth inning. At the time, Danny Coulombe of St. Louis, Missouri came in to pick up the save. Bautista ended up recording his only hold of the 2023 MLB regular season.
Bautista’s 2023 MLB Statistics
Bautista, an American League All-Star this season, had a record of eight wins and two losses with an earned run average of 1.48. In 56 games and 61 innings pitched, he had 33 saves, one hold, and 110 strikeouts, and gave up 30 hits, 10 earned runs, four home runs, 26 walks and seven wild pitches, to go along with a WHIP (walks and hits per innings pitched) of 0.92. Quite simply, Bautista has emerged as one of the game’s elite closers.
Who will take over from Bautista?
At this time it appears to be a variety of relievers who will get save opportunities. The list includes Yennier Cano of Ciego de Avila, Cuba, Cionel Perez of La Habana, Cuba, Coulombe, and Tyler Wells of Tulsa, Oklahoma. However, the reliever who should be on the top of the Orioles’s depth chart when it comes to closing out games is Cano. Like Bautista, Cano was an All-Star in 2023. He pitched in 72 games, had a record of one win and four losses, with eight saves and an earned run average of 2.11.
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