Injury pauses Tony Gonsolin’s pursuit of unfinished enterprise

PHOENIX — 

The damage regarded so innocuous within the second, Tony Gonsolin’s teammates initially chuckling at his one improper step.

After a spherical of fielding drills for Dodgers pitchers on a backfield at Camelback Ranch earlier this month, Gonsolin was slowly trotting away from the mound when his left foot out of the blue gave manner on the infield grass, twisting his ankle and knocking him off stability.

At first, a bunch of fellow pitchers standing close by discovered humor within the sight, razzing their feline-loving teammate for failing to land on his ft.

Inside a couple of minutes, nonetheless, the temper turned extra severe.

Gonsolin grabbed at his ankle in apparent ache. He walked gingerly to the dugout to be checked by a coach. Then he hopped in a golf cart and was pushed away.

The pitcher, it turned out, had suffered a sprained ankle, and it could possibly be some time earlier than he seems in a sport once more.

Virtually two weeks faraway from the damage, supervisor Dave Roberts confirmed Friday that Gonsolin received’t be wholesome in time for opening day.

“To say he’s gonna start the season,” Roberts mentioned, “that’s not gonna happen.”

A precise timeline for Gonsolin’s return is unclear. If his restoration doesn’t velocity up — which appears unlikely after Roberts cautioned a number of occasions will probably be a “slow” course of — the pitcher could possibly be in peril of lacking a number of begins to start the season.

“Long-term, I don’t think it’s gonna be an issue,” Roberts mentioned. “But that speaks to how we’re gonna handle this thing on the front end.”

Contemplate it certainly one of 9 lives burned for the so-called “Catman” — a freaky, ill-timed, literal misstep that received’t derail his 2023 season, however is delaying his pursuit of “unfinished business,” as Roberts termed it, from final yr.

Whereas Gonsolin had a profession common season in 2022 — he went 16-1 with a 2.14 ERA to earn his first All-Star choice — he was certainly one of many Dodgers who didn’t carry out of their abrupt postseason elimination.

After lacking most of September due to a forearm damage, Gonsolin flopped in his lone outing towards the San Diego Padres, getting solely 4 outs in a Sport 3 begin the Dodgers had been hoping would final 4 innings.

Whereas Gonsolin gave up only one run, his early exit helped put the staff behind the eight ball for the remainder of that sport, which resulted in a loss, and the sequence, which ended with a shocking four-game defeat an evening later.

The frustration lingered into the beginning of Gonsolin’s offseason, turning into the most recent in a sample of playoff disappointments for the four-year veteran.

“It sucked,” he mentioned when requested about his end to the yr following his first, and solely, Cactus League begin this spring on March 3. “I really feel like I did it back-to-back years in 2021 and ‘22.”

Gonsolin turned the setbacks into motivation while crafting his personal goals in 2023.

“Go wall to wall,” Gonsolin declared. “Go from start to finish.”

The start, now, has been complicated.

While Gonsolin denied multiple requests from reporters in the last week to discuss his injury, Roberts said the 28-year-old’s discontent has been clear.

“You work all offseason to get to a certain point to come into camp, and then to have this setback early on, yeah, he’s frustrated,” Roberts mentioned.

Requested the place the randomness of Gonsolin’s ankle roll ranked amongst accidents he’s seen in his profession, Roberts acknowledged it was “up there.”

“It was something very, obviously, benign,” Roberts mentioned. “A guy like Tony, to have something like this happen, to be up to this point costly, it’s very freakish.”

The problem now for Gonsolin and the Dodgers can be ensuring the pitcher stays primed for a powerful return and, finally, end to 2023, when he’ll as soon as once more be anticipated to function an anchor of the staff’s beginning rotation.

“Tony talked about finishing the race or finishing the season strong, that’s still in play,” Roberts mentioned. “But I think, to make sure we nip this and don’t have it linger, is very important.”

Dodgers pitching coaches had been attempting to strike a unique sort of stability previous to Gonsolin’s damage, holding his focus narrowed on the day-to-day whereas searching for big-picture enhancements to be produced from final season.

“It’s all about just keeping everything in perspective,” assistant pitching coach Connor McGuiness mentioned. “I think it’s frustrating for all of us, and frustrating for him of course, that he had the year he had, and then had a little hiccup there at the end. So I know it’s front of mind. … But we just don’t want him thinking too much into the future. If he just takes it day by day, we know he’s going to be outstanding for us.”

After throwing two-plus scoreless innings in his Cactus League debut initially of the month, Gonsolin felt he was making such strides.

“I had a better understanding of what I was preparing for,” he mentioned. “Just kind of figuring out the routine, the day-to-day routine and being able to build my body up in a way to withstand the innings load.”

Whereas that work is on maintain, Gonsolin’s greater targets for this season — steadily bettering over the course of a full marketing campaign, and pitching his greatest when it issues down the stretch — stay intact.

It’s an essential step in his burgeoning profession.

He’ll be hoping it goes smoother than the one which left him with the aching ankle that may delay the beginning of his season.

“As long as we stay on the same page with him, he should be good to go,” McGuiness mentioned. “He’s an absolute beast. He’s going to be back out there soon.”