SEATTLE — The Seattle Mariners’ struggling rotation probably won’t get right-hander Hisashi Iwakuma back anytime soon.
Manager Lloyd McClendon told reporters before Tuesday’s game against San Diego that the 2013 Cy Young candidate is still at least two weeks away from returning to action. Iwakuma is eligible to come off the 15-day disabled list this week but has had his rehab delayed by tightness in the latimus dorsi muscle that he strained in April.
“His rehab has not gone as well as we thought it would have,” McClendon said before the Mariners won their fourth consecutive game by hitting a season-high six home runs to hammer the Padres 11-4 on Tuesday night.
Iwakuma was placed on the disabled list on April 24, retroactive to April 21, after feeling tightness in the muscle that attaches his right shoulder to the back. Tests revealed only a minor strain, but the injury hasn’t healed as the Mariners had expected.
“It’s a tough situation,” Iwakuma told reporters through translator Antony Suzuki before Tuesday’s game. “I took about a week off and then started throwing for about a week. But I still felt something inside. It’s not pain, it’s more tightness. We want to make sure I feel nothing when I throw next time.”
When that will be is still to be determined, but it appears that the Mariners won’t count on having Iwakuma back in the rotation before the end of the month. That puts even more of an onus on lefty Roenis Elias, who has been filling in for Iwakuma in the rotation. Elias was originally scheduled to start Wednesday’s game against San Diego but had that outing moved back a day because the Padres have so many right-handed bats; he is now listed as Thursday’s starter for the opening game of the Boston series.
Getting Iwakuma back is important to the Seattle rotation, but the bigger issue is his long-term health. He hasn’t looked right since going into a late-season fade last September, and the days of Felix Hernandez and Iwakuma being listed among the top two starting combos in baseball seem to be in the distant past.
If the Mariners can get Iwakuma back on the mound by early June, that could give this team a shot in the arm. If Seattle can get him back and pitching like he was in 2013 and the first half of 2014, it could be the missing piece the team needs to live up to its billing as a legitimate American League contender.