After losing their first two affairs in their three-game series with the Texas Rangers, the Washington Nationals placed closer Koda Glover on the disabled list with lower-back stiffness.
Koda Glover Hits 10-Day DL with Lower-Back Stiffness
Nats have reinstated RHP Joe Blanton from the DL & placed RHP Koda Glover on the 10-day disabled list with lower back stiffness.
— Dan Kolko (@masnKolko) June 11, 2017
As Dan Kolko notes, the Nationals will reinstate long-reliever Joe Blanton to fill Glover’s roster spot.
Koda Glover’s Up And Down Season
The Nationals bullpen has been the team’s achilles heal all year long; however, some in the organization felt they had found their ninth inning solution in Glover.
After a shaky start to the year in a setup role, Glover began to come into his own and, as a result, garnered manager Dusty Baker‘s trust, to the point where he awarded him the ninth inning nod. That decision panned out well, at first.
Executing seven out of seven save opportunities, Glover became a reliable arm in the ninth inning for the Nationals. However, Glover was roughed up in a big way this past week.
Entering the inning with a seven run cushion, Glover couldn’t find his command in the ninth and surrendered five earned runs. He was pulled after getting just one batter out. Glover redeemed himself by closing out the Nationals Tuesday night matchup in Los Angeles. However, he then fell back into bad habits in yesterday afternoon’s affair.
Entering the ninth with a 3-1 lead, Glover gave up a leadoff home run and surrendered another run, ultimately blowing yet another save. The Nationals went on to lose in extras, 6-3. However, news has now arisen that Glover injured his back the morning before the Nationals Saturday night matchup, but in a bizarre and very peculiar way.
“I was taking a shower, bent over to get my body wash, stood up and had a little kink,” Glover told reporters.
Glover continued addressing the incident: “With some issues I’ve had lately, I kind of pushed myself. I didn’t want to take a day off. I’ve had three days off already, so I pushed the limits today, tried to pitch through it. And it’s one of them things where it was out of my control and I should have said something early. I didn’t and now my back’s in pretty bad shape.”
By essentially hiding the injury from the Nationals, and allowing himself to pitch in a save situation, Glover only hurt himself more, and will now miss the next ten games.
Glover has recorded a 5.12 ERA in 19.1 innings pitched, while converting eight out of ten save opportunities.
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