ST. LOUIS -- The latest MRI scan of Brandon Woodruff's ailing right shoulder showed a new injury to the anterior capsule, a rather ominous development that requires further consultation with doctors before the Brewers and Woodruff set a course of action.
Woodruff, who had to exit his last start on Saturday at Arizona and traveled back to Milwaukee for testing, will get a second opinion from Dr. Keith Meister in the coming days.
When Meister repaired Woodruff’s anterior capsule in October 2023, it required a multi-year rehabilitation that didn’t deliver Woodruff back to a Major League mound until July 2025. Since then, he’s been effective when healthy but has had three injury setbacks -- last September when he was diagnosed with a season-ending right lat strain, and twice this season when his velocity plummeted in starts that each happened to come against the Diamondbacks.
When he went down in April, he needed a minor surgery for a cyst that had developed in the shoulder joint and spent nearly two months on the IL. Saturday’s start in Arizona was his third outing since returning from the IL.
Now he’s on the 15-day IL again, awaiting a plan for what comes next.
“We’ve got a lot of information. We’re not ready to speak about it,” manager Pat Murphy said. “It’s hard, but he’s trying to be strong, and he’s trying to look for the positive in all of it. He was so good when he was pitching. He makes the whole room relax.”
Woodruff, 33, is on a one-year, $22.025 million contract with the Brewers after accepting the club’s qualifying offer last winter.