Puk has setback after 2nd rehab outing with Triple-A Reno

CINCINNATI – A.J. Puk’s comeback from left elbow surgery has hit a snag.

The Diamondbacks and Puk now have to wait on an MRI to determine just how big a snag it will be and how much longer that will prolong his return after Puk reported discomfort in his left shoulder following his last rehab outing on June 5.

Puk did not undergo full Tommy John UCL reconstruction, but rather an internal brace procedure in June 2025 that gave him a chance at a return in the middle of this season.

The left-handed reliever then experienced a setback in his rehab after beginning an assignment with Triple-A Reno on June 2. He was scheduled to throw a bullpen session on Wednesday and work toward returning to game action this weekend. Before this week, Puk made three scoreless appearances in the Rookie-level Arizona Complex League during late May.

“We’re going to pull back on him,” Diamondbacks manager Torey Lovullo said before Friday’s series opener in Cincinnati. “He’s had a little setback with left shoulder discomfort. What does that mean? We're getting that taken care of right now. We're going to start to look at it and see where he's at, get some more imaging. … So, it's not great news on A.J., but he spoke up, and we’ve got to find out what's going on in there.”

Lovullo said the MRI should be completed by Saturday and then the team can plot a course forward.

“I know he's not throwing a ball [and] he hasn't thrown a ball for several days,” said Lovullo. “So I think, depending on what that imaging shows, it might be a total shutdown. And I know if it's a shutdown, it's usually for several weeks, it's not just 10 days. It's usually two weeks or more, but yeah, I think there's going to have to be a buildup again, left shoulder discomfort.

“We thought him throwing a bullpen on Wednesday might be a good tell for us to find out where he was at, but it never happened, and we just pulled completely back. ... He felt something after his last outing in Reno, I think it was 22 pitches or 24 pitches, and coming off of that, he felt a little bit of shoulder discomfort. We don't know exactly where it's at or what's going on right now, but we're going to get that figured out.”

The D-backs were hoping Puk would be part of a massive three-headed reinforcement to their pitching staff, with Corbin Burnes and Justin Martinez both in line for returns from 2025 Tommy John surgeries in the second half of the season.

“We're looking forward to getting all of our guys healthy, right? And I knew the layering of it, I knew [it would be] Puk first, probably then Burnes, and then J-Mart,” Lovullo said. “I hurt for the players because I know how hard they've been working to get back, and then you have the setback [hoping it] is just … a little bump in the road for them.

“I know they'll both be back here but we need them and I know it's frustrating for all of us, especially them. So I want to align with them, but then I have to support the group that's here and continue to work with the group that's here, knowing that we're going to figure it out as long as we can without them, and they'll be back at some point, hopefully sooner than later.”