Michael Grove made his first start of the season for the Los Angeles Dodgers on Monday after earning the final spot in the starting rotation in place of Tony Gonsolin, which originally went to Ryan Pepiot but he was put on the 15-day injured list due to an oblique strain.
Meanwhile, Gonsolin has made considerable progress over the past week since his recovery from a sprained left ankle was initially slower than expected.
He threw multiple bullpen sessions and was scheduled to face hitters at Camelback Ranch on Wednesday for the first time since his injury. Although Gonsolin made just one start in Spring Training and couldn’t be on the Opening Day roster, a silver lining has come from his ankle injury.
“I feel like I’m in a better spot now, actually,” Gonsolin began.
“I started to create a little bad habit with landing. The arm action was a little weird, the timing of the throw was a little weird. So got with Mark Prior and C-Mac (Connor McGuiness), and they saw it immediately. They’re like, ‘Hey, man, if you’re going to throw, you need to do it the right way.’
“So it’s a blessing in a way that I was able to correct some of the mechanical stuff or feel like I’ve corrected some of the mechanical stuff.”
When Gonsolin first suffered his ankle injury, the Dodgers were optimistic he would not miss much time. “Absolutely,” Gonsolin answered when asked if he was surprised by the severity of his sprain.
“First day, it was pretty tender to touch and couldn’t really move it well. It was pretty swollen the first day. And then second day, really couldn’t put any pressure on it at all. I was like, ‘I’m going be back in a week, week and a half, ready to go again.’
“After a week, I really couldn’t put ample pressure on it to even throw like normal. So yeah, definitely surprised by how severe it was.”
Gonsolin described how his injury occurred and believes it was a fluke. “It was just kind of a freak thing. I was trying to throw the ball kind of across my body, be a little athletic, and my body was done being athletic for the day,” he explained.
“So just kind of caught it wrong. I don’t know if a cleat got stuck or just landed weird. But yeah, just kind of happened.”
Tony Gonsolin timeline for return
Another positive for Gonsolin while recovering from the ankle sprain is that he never stopped throwing and should not need much time to build up.
“This throwing phase has gone really smooth,” Gonsolin noted. “It was just a matter of being able to put weight into my foot and seeing that it’s my lead foot, being able to land on it and transfer the weight appropriately.”
Gonsolin will need to make rehab starts prior to returning to the Dodgers rotation, which manager Dave Roberts estimated would be around the end of April.
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