SEATTLE — Robbie Ray knew he’d blown out his arm the moment he threw the pitch in 2023. The pain felt like a knife through his left elbow. He was only two innings into his first start of the season for the Seattle Mariners .
He instantly understood that his year was over. He also figured that he couldn’t do more damage by continuing to pitch. So he finished the inning.
Then he threw another. He tried to get through the fourth, too, but with nothing behind his pitches, he retired just one of the four batters he faced. Advertisement “Didn’t want the bullpen to wear all of that,” Ray recalled on Sunday, when the sun came out in Seattle and he returned to the mound at T-Mobile Park.
It was Ray’s first time pitching off that mound since he tore his flexor tendon along with his ulnar collateral ligament here and consigned himself to the 16 months of recovery and rehab that come with reconstructive elbow surgery. When the Mariners’ front office found itself under orders to cut costs this past winter, and the San Francisco Giants were willing to take on the remaining three years and $75 million of his contract, Ray’s rehab protocols were transferred to San Francisco. And upon his return with the Giants .
.. Ray walked off the mound with a trainer again.
In the fourth inning again. But this time it was with a different injury and a different thought process. He will get an MRI to determine the severity of a strained left hamstring.
Ray is hopeful that he will benefit .