The Los Angeles Dodgers rotation suffered a major loss earlier this month when Yoshinobu Yamamoto was placed on the 15-day injured list because of a right rotator cuff strain.

The right-hander was removed from his start against the Kansas City Royals after throwing two scoreless innings. Yamamoto had been dealing with right triceps tightness, but felt he could pitch through it.

Yamamoto is expected to return this season, but he will likely miss an extended time due to the tricky nature of shoulder injuries.

Dodgers manager Dave Roberts said the 25-year-old is making progress but still hasn’t begun a throwing program, via Bill Plunkett of the Southern California News Group:

Roberts said right-hander Yoshinobu Yamamoto is recovering well but has not started a throwing program yet.

Dodgers general manager Brandon Gomes also has not provided a timeline for when Yamamoto may resume throwing, which suggests he is still in the early stages of his recovery.

The Dodgers will presumably exercise caution with Yamamoto, who is in the midst of his first big league season and has already established himself as the co-ace of the rotation, along with Tyler Glasnow.

Yamamoto was 6-2 with a 2.92 ERA, 2.66 FIP, 1.07 WHIP and 10.2 strikeouts per nine in 74 innings pitched over 14 starts prior to landing on the IL.

Why did Yoshinobu Yamamoto pitch with triceps tightness?

Yamamoto’s start against the Royals was pushed back two days partly because of right triceps soreness that emerged after throwing a season-high 106 pitches against the New York Yankees.

There were reports that Yamamoto informed Dodgers pitching coaches of tightness during warmups, but Roberts had no knowledge of the more potentially serious injury. “No, no, no. I didn’t know,” Roberts began.

“He had soreness. From what I understood, he had soreness during the week. Tyler’s going to have soreness during the week, and they get through it, they pitch and they make their starts.

“I knew he had soreness, that’s why we pushed him back, but again, I didn’t know until the second inning that he couldn’t go back out there for the third inning. And so again, if we would have known that he couldn’t pitch, we would have done something about it, but we just didn’t know.”

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