Gallen's Shoulder Bruise: A Scary Moment for Diamondbacks

0:00On April 26th, Arizona Diamondbacks pitcher Zach Gallon had to leave his start against the San Diego Padres early on Saturday after a scary moment. He was dominating the first three innings with sharp stuff, but a 92-mile-per-hour comebacker from Padres' catcher Freddie Ferman nailed him, right in the shoulder. The team called it a right-shoulder contusion, basically just a bruise, which sounds promising. Gallon stuck around to wrap up that third inning after chatting with trainers and manager Tori LeVulo, but they swapped him out for Brandon Fayette. Before the fourth, this happened up in Mexico City at over 7,000 feet elevation, where his knuckle curve and slider were still generating whiffs like usual. LeVulo said postgame that Gallon's shoulder started bothering him more once he hit the dugout, so pushing him didn't make sense. Fans and the team were bummed because he looked locked in, especially with his season ERA sitting at a solid 3.14, despite some underlying struggles.

1:00Digging into his numbers, Gallon's giving up the hardest contact of his career, and his strikeout rate is a career low 14.2% with, and expected ERA around 4.93 hinting at rough times ahead, then made those early innings feel like a breakthrough. For now, it seems like Gallon dodges major time on the shelf and keeps building momentum, but we'll watch how that shoulder holds up over the next few. Diggies, this has been MLB News Today, powered by AI.