The Texas Rangers have revealed that pitcher Matt Bush underwent surgery to repair his shoulder. How will this impact his 2018 season, and when will he be ready to pitch?
Despite having shoulder surgery the Texas Rangers believe reliever Matt Bush will be ready for Spring Training.
This surgery does not need a long period of time to recover from and Bush should be able to pitch once spring rolls around.
Covering the Rangers for MLB.com, T.R. Sullivan noted the following:
"The 31-year-old underwent a procedure described as an arthroscopic acromioclavicular (AC) joint resection in his right shoulder. It involves removing a segment of bone at the end of his clavicle to relieve the pain in his AC joint."
During much of the season Bush was bothered by his shoulder. He was given a pain-relieving injection in April, but never went to the disabled list because of his shoulder. Could his shoulder be part of the reason he struggled in 2017?
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Bush appeared in 57 games posting a 3.78 ERA with 10 saves and 58 strikeouts. It wasn’t a horrible season from Bush, but he did have more success the season prior in 2016. He pitched to a 2.48 ERA that season in roughly the same amount of games, and he was better in just about every statistic.
His WAR went from 2.1 in 2016 to a rough 0.2 during the ’17 campaign. The Rangers even promoted him to the closer role, and he still struggled to hold that down. He eventually was pulled from closer and lefty Alex Claudio took over in July.
It’s safe to say the Rangers would’ve like Bush to play a bigger part in their 2017 bullpen.
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Hopefully the shoulder surgery will help and he can go back to dominating in Arlington next season.