The Baltimore Orioles will be without two key pieces for the remainder of the 2024 Major League Baseball season.
Orioles general manager Mike Elias announced a swift gut-punch on Friday afternoon to the team and their fans. Pitchers John Means and Tyler Wells both sustained UCL injuries and will miss the rest of this season.
MLB reporter Chelsea Janes reported on Elias’ announcement of Means and Wells’ injuries.
Mike Elias just announced that both John Means and Tyler Wells need UCL repairs and are done for the year. Particularly brutal for Means, who was trying to come back from surgery and just never got over the hump.
— Chelsea Janes (@chelsea_janes) May 31, 2024
Prior to injury, Means posted 20.2 innings of work with a 2.61 ERA. So, he didn’t quite get his feet set this season. And since he’s out now for the rest of the year, it’s yet another lost season for the 31-year-old left-hander.
Wells, meanwhile, posted an 0-2 record in just 15.1 innings of work before his injury. Wells came on the heels of a solid season last year as a 28-year-old, but had a ballooned 5.87 ERA in those 15.1 innings.
It’s a tough blow though for the Orioles, who have two fewer pitchers to use this season. So expect Baltimore to go on the hunt for starting pitching once the trade deadline gets closer.
The MLB world reacted to the news on the Orioles and their injured pitchers.
This is more than likely the end of John Means' tenure in Baltimore.
Through the rough rebuild years, we'd all get excited every fifth day because we all knew that is was John Means Day. It was win day, at a time when wins were hard to come by. He was our only All-Star… pic.twitter.com/XUflXZJlf0
— The Baltimore Battery (@TheBmoreBattery) May 31, 2024
John Means could've had such a great career. I feel so bad for him
— Ryan Stickel (@RStickel24) May 31, 2024
#Orioles SPs John Means and Tyler Wells will both undergo elbow surgery and miss the remainder of the 2024 season, per GM Mike Elias.
Absolutely brutal.
The elbow injury epidemic continues. pic.twitter.com/o766F9yYn5
— MLB Deadline News (@MLBDeadlineNews) May 31, 2024
It really sucks John Means is going out like this.
— Casey (@caseybnew) May 31, 2024
About Chris Novak
Chris Novak has been talking and writing about sports ever since he can remember. Previously, Novak wrote for and managed sites in the SB Nation network for nearly a decade from 2013-2022