{"id":463429,"date":"2026-02-09T08:36:14","date_gmt":"2026-02-09T08:36:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/463429\/"},"modified":"2026-02-09T08:36:14","modified_gmt":"2026-02-09T08:36:14","slug":"injury-notes-mcclanahan-canning-kemp","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/463429\/","title":{"rendered":"Injury Notes: McClanahan, Canning, Kemp"},"content":{"rendered":"

Rays fans have been waiting two years to see Shane McClanahan<\/a> on a big-league mound. The electric lefty missed all of 2024 while recovering from Tommy John surgery, then lost another season to a nerve issue in his triceps. McLanahan is on track to be ready for the 2026 campaign, according to Marc Topkin of the Tampa Bay Times<\/a>, though the southpaw will likely have his workload capped in some fashion.<\/p>\n

McClanahan was solid in his 2021 debut, then morphed into an AL Cy Young candidate the following season. He put together 28 starts of a 2.54 ERA with more than a strikeout per inning in 2022. McClanahan capped off the year with a strong start against the Guardians in the Wild Card round. He tossed seven innings of two-run ball, but was outdueled by Shane Bieber<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Even if he faces some sort of innings limit, adding McClanahan back to the rotation will be a welcome sight for a depleted Rays staff. Drew Rasmussen<\/a> and Ryan Pepiot<\/a> sit atop the group, but the certainties end there. Shane Baz<\/a> tied for the team lead with 31 starts last season, but he is now pitching in Baltimore. Veterans Zack Littell<\/a> and Adrian Houser<\/a> are no longer in the organization. Taj Bradley<\/a> was sent to Minnesota at the trade deadline. Joe Boyle<\/a>, free agent signee Steven Matz<\/a>, and trade acquisition Yoendrys Gomez<\/a> are candidates to fill out the rotation, and Littell could also potentially come back<\/a> in free agency.<\/p>\n

Griffin Canning<\/a> is recovering from his own major injury. The free agent right-hander is working his way back from a ruptured Achilles tendon suffered with the Mets last season. Canning threw for interested teams on Friday and hit 93 mph on the radar gun, Will Sammon of The Athletic<\/a> reports.<\/p>\n

The Cardinals, White Sox, and Mets have been mentioned<\/a> as possible destinations for Canning. The veteran was putting together a strong campaign before going down in June. Canning had a career-best 3.77 ERA through 16 starts after signing a modest one-year, $4.25MM deal with New York. He ramped up his slider usage while tweaking the characteristics of the pitch with his new team, and Canning added more than three inches of vertical drop and 1.5 inches of horizontal movement to his primary breaking ball. He also made adjustments to his changeup. The tweaks helped Canning regain some of the strikeout ability he lost in his final season with the Angels.<\/p>\n

On the position player side, utilityman Otto Kemp<\/a> is expected to be a full go for the upcoming season. Kemp fractured his kneecap less than two weeks after getting called up last year. He played through the injury for the rest of the campaign. Kemp underwent offseason surgery to fix the issue and also had a cleanup procedure done on his shoulder. He told NBC Sports Philadelphia in an interview<\/a> that he\u2019s bouncing back well from the operations.<\/p>\n

\u201cFeeling back to 100%, which is awesome,\u201d Kemp said. \u201cIt\u2019s refreshing to feel that way after playing a lot of baseball banged up.\u201d<\/p>\n

The now 26-year-old provided some pop in his first taste of the big leagues, hitting eight home runs in 62 games. He finished with a .411 SLG, though it came with a strikeout rate above 30%. Kemp is among<\/a> the internal options to compete for platoon work alongside Brandon Marsh<\/a> in the outfield.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Rays fans have been waiting two years to see Shane McClanahan on a big-league mound. The electric lefty…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":463430,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[435],"tags":[49,48,1511,462,105970,14253,82],"class_list":{"0":"post-463429","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-mlb","8":"tag-ca","9":"tag-canada","10":"tag-griffin-canning","11":"tag-mlb","12":"tag-otto-kemp","13":"tag-shane-mcclanahan","14":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/463429","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=463429"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/463429\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/463430"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=463429"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=463429"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=463429"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}