{"id":822323,"date":"2026-07-25T05:11:26","date_gmt":"2026-07-25T05:11:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/822323\/"},"modified":"2026-07-25T05:11:26","modified_gmt":"2026-07-25T05:11:26","slug":"trevor-mcdonald-diagnosed-with-ucl-sprain","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/822323\/","title":{"rendered":"Trevor McDonald Diagnosed With UCL Sprain"},"content":{"rendered":"

Giants starter\u00a0Trevor McDonald<\/a> has been diagnosed with a moderate UCL sprain in his elbow, manager Tony Vitello told reporters on Friday (link via Adrian Garro of MLB.com<\/a>). He\u2019ll go for a second opinion this weekend to determine a treatment plan.<\/p>\n

McDonald went on the 15-day injured list earlier in the week. Vitello implied he\u2019s unlikely to pitch again this season. It\u2019s unclear if surgery is a possibility. If the ligament damage is extensive enough that McDonald were to go under the knife, he\u2019d miss most or all of 2027 as well.<\/p>\n

The 25-year-old McDonald had brief big league stints in 2024 and \u201925. This has been his first season with decent run at the MLB level. He has held a rotation spot since early May, taking 14 starts and tossing 70 1\/3 innings. McDonald pitched well early but has struggled over the last six weeks and now carries a 5.12 ERA on the year. He has gotten ground-balls at an excellent 55.2% clip but has a modest 18.4% strikeout rate.<\/p>\n

McDonald\u2019s last appearance came on Monday. Tyler Mahle<\/a> and\u00a0Landen Roupp<\/a> rounded out that series against the Royals. The Giants were off yesterday and have\u00a0Logan Webb<\/a> and\u00a0Robbie Ray<\/a> for the first two games of this weekend\u2019s set against the Angels. They haven\u2019t announced a starter for Sunday\u2019s finale in what\u2019d be McDonald\u2019s spot, but the simplest option would be to move\u00a0Adrian Houser<\/a> back up from the bullpen.<\/p>\n

Vitello also provided a discouraging update on Harrison Bader<\/a>, who has been down since the end of May with plantar fasciitis in his left foot. The speedy outfielder has been shut down from baseball activities with continued soreness. Vitello said the Giants are still hopeful of getting him back this season, but it\u2019s not going to be anytime soon.<\/p>\n

Bader is in the first season of a two-year, $20.5MM free agent contract. He has been limited to 30 games and has a .198 on-base percentage. It was already clear the Giants weren\u2019t going to be able to drum up any trade interest. They\u2019ll hope to get him back at some point in the final two months to try to build positive momentum into the offseason.<\/p>\n

Both players could move to the 60-day injured list at some point, as could lefty reliever Matt Gage<\/a>. The Giants already have two openings on the 40-man roster. They\u2019re likely to trade Luis Arraez<\/a>, Ray, Mahle\u00a0and potentially JT Brubaker<\/a> within the next week and a half. They\u2019ll have ample flexibility to take some shots on the waiver wire for players who get pushed off other rosters after the deadline. Carson Whisenhunt<\/a> and\u00a0Blade Tidwell<\/a> should get rotation auditions once Ray and Mahle are moved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Giants starter\u00a0Trevor McDonald has been diagnosed with a moderate UCL sprain in his elbow, manager Tony Vitello told…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":822324,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[558],"tags":[64,63,33137,591,85,321448],"class_list":["post-822323","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mlb","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-harrison-bader","tag-mlb","tag-sports","tag-trevor-mcdonald"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/822323","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=822323"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/822323\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/822324"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=822323"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=822323"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=822323"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}