The Los Angeles Dodgers continue to have high hopes for River Ryan, who is trying to work his way back from undergoing Tommy John surgery in 2024.
The right-hander is considered the organization’s top pitching prospect and could rejoin the Major League roster later this season. He has spent the entire year with Triple-A Oklahoma City thus far, making eight starts and recently returning from a right hamstring injury that sidelined him for one month.
President of baseball operations Andrew Friedman explained the Dodgers are focused on building Ryan’s workload before he possibly becomes an option for them, via Katie Woo of The Athletic.
“Before he got hurt, that was a big focal point of ours, just to continue to build up some volume tolerance,” Friedman added. “Then obviously he got hurt, and so now that focal point remains the same, which is to continue to build up volume for him, especially being that he hasn’t pitched much in his life.”
The Dodgers want to make sure Ryan is completely healthy as they envision him potentially contributing during in the postseason.
“Obviously (Ryan) is incredibly talented, and he’s going to be a big part of what we do going forward,” Friedman said. “But we’ve seen it with a lot of our young guys coming back from major surgery; it’s tough. And as much as we can ease that process along to have him in as good a spot to not only help us at the major-league level, but also be a very strong option for us in October, the better.”
Even with Blake Snell and Tyler Glasnow still unavailable due to injury, the Dodgers are in no rush to call up Ryan. That is partly due to the likes of Roki Sasaki, Justin Wrobleski, Emmet Sheehan and Eric Lauer all finding varying degrees of success at the back end of their starting rotation.
Though, Sheehan’s recent regression could end up creating an opportunity for Ryan in the coming weeks.
But for the time being, the Dodgers are committed to having Ryan establish a foundation before he returns to the Majors. The 27-year-old needs to show that he can go deeper into games and effectively utilize his pitch mix to its fullest potential.
River Ryan’s 2026 season
Ryan has gone 3-1 with a 4.46 ERA, 1.29 WHIP and 10.7 strikeouts per nine in 36.1 innings for the Comets this season. He is coming off his worst start of the year, which saw him allow eight runs on 10 hits in 4.1 innings against the Sacramento River Cats (San Francisco Giants affiliate).
Ryan went 1-0 with a 1.33 ERA and 1.18 WHIP in four starts for the Dodgers during the 2024 season before suffering his right elbow injury that ultimately required surgery.
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