{"id":573089,"date":"2026-04-09T03:37:09","date_gmt":"2026-04-09T03:37:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/573089\/"},"modified":"2026-04-09T03:37:09","modified_gmt":"2026-04-09T03:37:09","slug":"zach-eflin-undergoes-ucl-surgery","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/573089\/","title":{"rendered":"Zach Eflin Undergoes UCL Surgery"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Orioles announced that\u00a0Zach Eflin<\/a> underwent UCL reconstruction (Tommy John) surgery today. He\u2019ll miss the rest of the season and probably at least the first half of 2027.<\/p>\n

Things had seemingly been trending in this direction. Eflin, who turns 32 today, left his season debut citing elbow discomfort. The team announced last week that he was going for a second opinion, implying the initial prognosis wasn\u2019t good. The reexamination evidently confirmed the ligament damage that required surgical repair.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s another injury-wrecked season for Eflin, a mid-rotation caliber starter who has an unfortunately checkered health history. He battled chronic knee issues early in his career with Philadelphia. Eflin stayed mostly healthy between 2023-24 despite intermittent back discomfort, combining for a 3.54 ERA with a 23.1% strikeout rate over 343 innings between the Rays and Orioles.<\/p>\n

The more significant injuries have resurfaced over the past two seasons. Eflin sustained a lat strain early in 2025. That shelved him for a month. He quickly returned to the injured list with lower back discomfort. After a brief reinstatement, he underwent season-ending lumbar surgery. Eflin made an encouraging return from that procedure and entered this season with no restrictions, but he could only complete 3 2\/3 frames before his elbow gave out.<\/p>\n

Baltimore re-signed Eflin to a one-year, $10MM free agent contract last offseason. That\u2019ll go down as an unfortunately lost investment. Eflin, whom the O\u2019s have already moved to the 60-day injured list, will return to the open market at season\u2019s end. He\u2019ll likely look for a two-year deal to cover his rehab season. That might need to be a minor league contract given his age and recent durability record.<\/p>\n

Trevor Rogers<\/a>,\u00a0Kyle Bradish<\/a>,\u00a0Shane Baz<\/a> and\u00a0Chris Bassitt<\/a> remain Baltimore\u2019s top four starters. They recalled lefty\u00a0Cade Povich<\/a> as a potential fifth starter on Sunday. He was needed in relief of Bassitt, who was shelled and only made it through two innings against the Pirates. Povich tossed 5 2\/3 innings of two-run ball in relief.\u00a0Brandon Young<\/a> made a spot start on Monday and was optioned back to Triple-A postgame.<\/p>\n

The O\u2019s are off tomorrow and list Baz, Bassitt and Povich as the probable starters for their weekend series against the Giants. Rogers and Bradish, who started the final two games of this week\u2019s series against the White Sox, would line up early next week against the Diamondbacks. It seems they\u2019ll give Povich first look as Eflin\u2019s replacement in the rotation. Young and Dean Kremer<\/a> are on optional assignment with Triple-A Norfolk.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Orioles announced that\u00a0Zach Eflin underwent UCL reconstruction (Tommy John) surgery today. He\u2019ll miss the rest of the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":557737,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[99,39122],"class_list":{"0":"post-573089","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-sports","8":"tag-sports","9":"tag-zach-eflin"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/573089","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=573089"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/573089\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/557737"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=573089"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=573089"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=573089"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}