{"id":98139,"date":"2025-03-25T13:53:41","date_gmt":"2025-03-25T17:53:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/?p=98139"},"modified":"2025-03-25T13:53:41","modified_gmt":"2025-03-25T17:53:41","slug":"nationals-dj-herz-elbow-injury","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/2025\/03\/25\/nationals-dj-herz-elbow-injury\/","title":{"rendered":"Nationals Starter Hits Injured List with UCL Injury"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The Washington Nationals announced this morning that left-hander DJ Herz will start the season on the injured list with a left elbow injury. The 24-year-old, who was optioned to Triple-A last Friday, is heading to the 15-day major league injured list after spraining his left UCL in big league camp. Washington has not shared a return timeline or treatment plan, but depending on the severity, it could require season-ending Tommy John surgery or an internal brace procedure.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\">\n<p dir=\"ltr\" lang=\"en\">The Nationals have placed left-handed pitcher DJ Herz on the 15-day Major League Injured List with a left elbow UCL sprain.<\/p>\n<p>\u2014 Nationals Communications (@NationalsComms) <a  href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/NationalsComms\/status\/1904521572343271503?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">March 25, 2025<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Acquired <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/2023\/07\/31\/cubs-trade-nationals-candelario\/\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_self\">in the trade<\/a> sending <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.baseball-reference.com\/players\/c\/candeje01.shtml\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Jeimer Candelario<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> to Chicago, <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.baseball-reference.com\/players\/h\/herzdj01.shtml\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">DJ Herz<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> made his MLB debut with the Nationals last June. He was the first pitcher since <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.baseball-reference.com\/players\/s\/strasst01.shtml\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Stephen Strasburg<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> with 13 strikeouts and no walks in one his first three games. In 19 starts during his rookie campaign, Herz tossed 88 \u2154 innings with a 4.16 ERA and 106 strikeouts. The second-year southpaw opened camp as the favorite for Washington\u2019s fifth starter role before experiencing dead arm and decreased velocity.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<h3>UCL Sprain Lands Nationals Starter DJ Herz on the Injured List<\/h3>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Herz, who walked 19% of batters in Triple-A last year, radically improved his command in the majors, cutting his walk rate down to 9.4%. His strong season between Triple-A Rochester and Washington made him a popular breakout pick heading into Spring Training. But he looked less than impressive in his four spring outings, which before the dead arm, signaled something was amiss. Over 9 \u2154 total innings, Herz allowed nine runs (seven earned) on 10 hits, walking nine while striking out four. For a pitcher who struck batters out at a 27.7% clip and held them to a .224 average, it was surprising how hittable he was. His diminished velocity, however, has been the most concerning.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Herz averaged 93.5 mph on his fastball last season but topped out at 91 mph in Grapefruit League play. His struggles led Washington to assign him to Triple-A to open the season, giving <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.baseball-reference.com\/players\/p\/parkemi01.shtml\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Mitchell Parker<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> the fifth starter role. Earlier this month, Herz insisted that there was no injury concern saying, \u201cSpring Training wear and tear kind of hits me a little harder.\u201d But the \u201cdead arm\u201d feeling in his elbow was concerning enough to warrant additional tests and an injured list stint.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The severity of the injury, which by definition, indicates a stretching or tearing of the ulnar collateral ligament, is unclear. Herz could opt to receive a platelet-rich plasma injection and try the rest and rehab route first, but UCL injuries often require season-ending Tommy John surgery. At minimum, Herz is likely to be out a few months, and in all likelihood, much longer.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>Main Photo Credits: Jonathan Dyer-Imagn Images<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Washington Nationals announced this morning that left-hander DJ Herz will start the season on the injured list with a left elbow injury. The 24-year-old, who was optioned to Triple-A last Friday, is heading to the 15-day major league injured list after spraining his left UCL in big league camp. Washington has not shared a [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4975,"featured_media":98191,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"no","_lmt_disable":"","sfio_featured_image":false,"sfio_embed_code":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[19],"tags":[5884],"class_list":["post-98139","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-nationals","tag-dj-herz"],"modified_by":"Evan Mazza, Site Editor","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/98139","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4975"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=98139"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/98139\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":98192,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/98139\/revisions\/98192"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/98191"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=98139"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=98139"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=98139"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}