Friday marks two weeks since the last time Hyun-Jin Ryu threw off a mound, and he has no timetable to resume.
“We’re in the question mark phase,” Dodgers manager Don Mattingly said.
Ryu has spent the entire season on the disabled list as he recovers from a bout of inflammation in his left shoulder. Ryu had begun throwing fairly regularly in April until his last bullpen, when the injury caused enough pain for the Dodgers to order him to stop throwing for a few days. A few days has now become two weeks.
The plot here isn’t hard to follow. As long as Ryu’s shoulder isn’t feeling 100 percent, the Dodgers’ medical staff won’t let him back on a mound. Why isn’t it back to 100 percent after two weeks’ rest? This is probably where the term “question mark phase” comes in.
Brandon Beachy, meanwhile, is taking the opposite path in his return from Tommy John surgery.
Beachy will throw live batting practice to hitters at Dodger Stadium this weekend. A minor-league rehab assignment could follow, Mattingly said, but “we don’t want to put a timetable on Brandon. … We just want to let medical do their thing.”
Mattingly mentioned the case of Oakland A’s pitcher Jarrod Parker — a two-time Tommy John patient like Beachy — who was ahead of schedule in his rehab when he suffered this gruesome elbow injury pitching in a minor-league game last week.
Today, it looks as if Beachy could be pitching for the Dodgers before Ryu, which would be one of the bigger surprises in a season that’s already seen its fair share.