CHICAGO -- Carlos Rodon had arthroscopic surgery on his left shoulder Wednesday by Dr. Neal ElAttrache in Los Angeles, as announced by White Sox general manager Rick Hahn during his final press conference of the season Thursday.
Significant bursitis was found in the White Sox southpaw's shoulder and a debridement of the area was done. Both the rotator cuff and labrum were viewed as normal, and Rodon is expected to make a full recovery. Hahn said the timeline for Rodon's recovery was anywhere from six to eight months, meaning he could be back as early as Opening Day or as late as June 1 per that timeline.
"The timing as to his return to a Major League mound is still difficult to pinpoint at this point and will be dependent on how his rehab goes," Hahn said. "We will not know more of the specifics of that timing until Carlos completes his rehab and begins throwing in Spring Training.
"So there won't be any updates on timing there until we get to Glendale next spring. All things considered, it was obviously as good of a result as we could hope for, knowing we got to the point where he needed to have this arthroscopy to determine exactly what was troubling him in the shoulder."
Rodon, 24, threw only 69 1/3 innings this season over 12 starts. Biceps bursitis delayed his debut until June 28, after he made only one start during Spring Training. Rodon last appeared in a game on Sept. 2.
Shoulder inflammation shut down Rodon the second time, after he was scratched from a Sept. 7 start against the Indians during his pregame warmup. From July 25 to Aug. 21, Rodon posted a 2.93 ERA with 48 strikeouts in 40 innings.
Some signs certainly were there of the talent possessed by the No. 3 overall selection from the 2014 Draft, who has 383 strikeouts over 373 2/3 career innings. And Wednesday's procedure may provide physical results the White Sox and Rodon needed.
"Part of it was that he obviously returned to form for a stretch there so when he started to regress a little bit and you did see some of it in some of his starts where it took him a few innings to get loose, you could tell from watching him it wasn't quite right," Hahn said. "Then when we had to scratch him from his pregame bullpen, [and] you know this issue wasn't going away and it needed to be explored to try to get to the bottom of it.
"Certainly we were cautiously optimistic that it would be bursitis-based but we didn't really know until they went in there and took a look yesterday. Prognosis is for a full and complete recovery and return back to the pitcher he was.
"Again, any time you go into someone's shoulder, you do so with the utmost caution and we don't try to prognosticate too much on what's going to wind up happening," Hahn said. "But in terms of what was medically performed and what they saw inside the shoulder, it was as good as we could hope."