KANSAS CITY, Mo. – Kris Medlen was scheduled to start against the Braves on Sunday, which would’ve been the first time he pitched against his former team and could’ve been another benchmark of sorts in the long road back from his second Tommy John elbow surgery.
Instead, Medlen was placed on the 15-day disabled list Thursday with a sore pitching shoulder. The good news for one of the more popular Braves of the past decade: An MRI exam Friday revealed only inflammation in the shoulder, and Medlen believes he could be back in a couple of weeks.
“I don’t want to play the victim here, but I just can’t catch a break,” Medlen said Saturday, seated at his locker in the Royals clubhouse. “I worked so damn hard, especially this past offseason. It’s, like, the hardest I’ve worked. Everyone does that around here — eats right, all that stuff. It’s just real contagious. I’m just waiting for this to kind of pass, and I can really get things going.”
It’s been a difficult early season for Medlen, 30, who is 1-3 with a 7.77 ERA in six starts, including a 12.46 ERA in his past four starts. He could barely lift his arm the morning after his last start, which raised red flags, obviously. But the soreness improved significantly within two days and he said an MRI showed no structural damage, no tear in the labrum or rotator cuff.
“I struggled a lot this year with consistency,” said Medlen, who gave up nine hits and seven runs in 3 2/3 innings of an April 23 start against Baltimore, then allowed just one hit and one run but walked five in 5 1/3 innings of a start six days later at Seattle.
This from a guy who issued only 23 walks with 120 strikeouts in 138 innings during his best season with the Braves in 2012, when he was 10-1 with a 1.57 ERA in 50 games (12 starts) and twice was voted the National League’s pitcher of the month.
“I had another start (this season) where I pitched into the seventh and I had only given up one hit against Oakland,” he said. “But other ones where it’s two or three innings, seven runs, eight runs, five walks. I haven’t been hit around, but just uncharacteristic as far as not being in the zone and all that.”
A reporter asked if the shoulder inflammation might’ve resulted from overcompensating to protect his twice-surgically repaired elbow, or if the command issues were a by-product of the shoulder issue.
“Could it have been an underlying thing kind of not letting me throwing normally?” he answered. “I don’t know. I just chalk it up to a bad start to the season. But yeah, that last start in New York I definitely felt that, where I was, like, making sure I was putting it in the right spot, I just was kind of guiding pitches in instead of being comfortable throwing.”
In his only full season as a full-time starter in 2013, Medlen went 15-12 with a 3.11 ERA in 197 innings. He blew out his elbow during 2014 spring training and missed the entire season and. After the Braves didn’t make a competitive offer to keep him, he signed a two-year, $8.5 million deal with the Royals that included a $2 million salary for 2015, even though they knew he’d miss much of the season completing his rehab, then a $5.5 million salary this season.
There’s a $10 million mutual option for 2017 that has a guaranteed $1 million buyout regardless of which side declines.
Medlen debut for the Royals in July 2015 and went 6-2 with a 4.01 ERA in 15 games (eight starts) during the regular season, then pitched six solid innings in two postseason relief appearances including one in the World Series.
