Photo by Andy Ward for TalkNats
Get used to games with no television coverage, and enjoy that we have some radio coverage. Tonight we do have to rely on the other team for the audio on KMOX. Yes, even though the Nats are playing at home, the Cardinals are the only radio voice. Cade Cavalli is set to make his 2026 Spring Training debut for this one.
Expect to see a few more normal starters in this game tonight. The lineups have been getting split with two to three starters and some bench players in each starting lineup.
An update as we see James Wood, Daylen Lile, Brady House, and Harry Ford in tonight’s game as well as Nasim Nunez, Robert Hassell III, Keibert Ruiz and Andres Chapparo. That’s a total of eight players who started games in the 2025 season in the MLB. The one surprise might be Seaver King as the only pure minor leaguer in the group. He was the team’s top pick in the 2024 draft — and we named him as the top player due for a do-over this year after some noted coaching issues during the 2025 season by The Athletic’s Keith Law.
There has been a lot of conversations about how today’s pitchers seem to take longer to recover from their Tommy John surgeries compared to pitchers of 15-20 years ago like Jordan Zimmermann and Stephen Strasburg who were back close to 12 months after surgery. We have not seen Josiah Gray pitch in an MLB game since early April of 2024. We talked with Cyrus Press M.D., an orthopaedic surgeon for The Centers for Advanced Orthopaedics, who shared commentary on Gray’s recovery. Dr. Press specializes in complex shoulder and elbow surgeries.
Here is the interview:
Gray’s timeline really isn’t “crazy long” for a starting pitcher trying to return to MLB effectiveness, even if it felt long compared with a couple of famous Nationals examples.
1) First, Gray’s actual surgery matters
Reports were that Gray had Tommy John surgery with an internal brace. Different subtleties exist depending on the actual tear pattern and tissue quality—details we are not privy to—and those factors can influence both the surgical approach and the rehab timeline.
2) The key misconception: “back throwing” ≠ “back as an MLB starter”
A lot of the “it used to be 12 months” discussion mixes endpoints.
A pitcher can return to competitive throwing/games earlier, but returning as a fully built-up MLB starter (velocity, command, pitch mix, workload tolerance) often takes longer. By that standard, ~16 months is not unusual.
3) Why recoveries seem longer now
It’s less that recovery is dramatically longer, and more that teams now define “ready” differently:
- More conservative ramp-ups to reduce re-injury risk
- Higher modern pitching intensity(velocity/max effort)
- Better tracking of biomechanics, strength, and performance benchmarks
- Greater focus on durability, not just appearing in a game
So the clock often runs to “fully ready to start” rather than simply “medically cleared.”
4) Was Gray an outlier?
Probably not.
He looks like an outlier only if the comparison point is a best-case, early return-to-games timeline. If the standard is modern MLB starter readiness and durability, his recovery fits the normal range.
It hasn’t so much become longer as it has become more performance and workload-based. A pitcher may get back to games in roughly a year, but getting all the way back as an MLB starter—stuff, command, recovery, and durability—often takes longer. Gray’s timeline fits modern norms more than it breaks them.
So when will we see Gray pitch in a Spring Training game? That could be coming soon.
Thanks to Dr. Press for his valuable time and all of this information. Speaking of TJ surgeries, have we heard anything on Alejandro Rosario who came to the Nats via the MacKenzie Gore trade and was to be scheduled for surgery?
St. Louis Cardinals vs. Washington Nationals
Stadium: CACTI Park of the Palm Beaches
1st Pitch: 6:05 PM EDT
TV: N/A
Radio: KMOX in St. Louis and via the MLB app
