DENVER -- Caleb Smith left Sunday's 8-5 win over the Rockies with left shoulder tightness after a pitch to Gerardo Parra with one out and nobody on in the bottom of the second. The full extent of Smith's injury isn't known yet, but he seems destined for the disabled list.
"I don't know a whole lot," manager Don Mattingly said. "Obviously, he's going to be on the DL and he'll get more testing tomorrow. I think you always want to wait until you see the images and all that kind of stuff."
Smith winced after the pitch, drawing the attention of the training staff and Mattingly, who came out to see what was wrong. Smith appeared to be in pain as he left the mound and later explained that he started feeling the tightness in the previous at-bat, when he struck out Tom Murphy.
"I felt really good coming into today," Smith said. "I felt good up until the second pitch of the second inning."
The left-hander said he's never had any experience with this kind of injury before, but it is telling that without test results, the Marlins seem to have no doubt that Smith will be out of commission for at least 10 days,
"It's super disappointing," Smith said. "The DL's the last place I want to be. I want to be able to go out there every fifth day and help my team out, try to give them a chance to win. Now I won't be able to do that for a little while."
Smith pitched 1 1/3 innings, allowing two runs on a hit and a walk while striking out one. After walking leadoff hitter DJ LeMahieu and getting Charlie Blackmon to fly out to right, Smith yielded a towering two-run shot to Nolan Arenado, a 415-foot homer to left that brought the Rockies within one.
Drew Rucinski came in to relieve Smith and completed the inning with a pair of ground-ball outs.
The injury comes on the heels of Jose Urena's trip to the DL retroactive to Thursday with left shoulder impingement. The 5-4 road trip is promising, but the blow of losing two starting pitchers in the course of a week could be a setback for the resurgent Fish.
"We win two out of three in Baltimore, we win two out of three here," Mattingly said. "We won the first game in San Fran. and let that one get away, so that was disappointing. But overall, we've been on the road a lot. We finished with two 11-day trips this month and we've hung in there. It geels good to finish up like this."