{"id":794643,"date":"2026-05-14T00:47:13","date_gmt":"2026-05-14T00:47:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/794643\/"},"modified":"2026-05-14T00:47:13","modified_gmt":"2026-05-14T00:47:13","slug":"marlins-place-robby-snelling-on-il-with-ucl-sprain","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/794643\/","title":{"rendered":"Marlins Place Robby Snelling On IL With UCL Sprain"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Marlins announced that left-hander Robby Snelling<\/a><\/strong> has been placed on the 15-day injured list with a sprain of the ulnar collateral ligament in his left elbow. Right-hander Pete Fairbanks<\/a><\/strong> has been reinstated from the IL in a corresponding move. Snelling had been scheduled to start Thursday\u2019s game. Lefty Braxton Garrett<\/a><\/strong> will be recalled to start for the Fish on Thursday.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s brutal timing for Snelling and the Marlins. The lefty is one of the top pitching prospects in the league. He started the season in the minors but the club recently decided to shake up their rotation. Just over a week ago, Chris Paddack<\/a><\/strong> was designated for assignment. Snelling then came up to take Paddack\u2019s rotation spot. Snelling made his major league debut on Friday, allowing three earned runs over five innings.<\/p>\n

Prior to today, there wasn\u2019t any indication that anything was wrong. Manager Clayton McCullough spoke with reporters, including\u00a0Marlins broadcaster Kyle Sielaff<\/a>, and said Snelling experienced some discomfort after throwing a between-starts bullpen session. The skipper confirmed that Garrett, who was scratched from his minor league start, would be called up to take the mound in the majors on Thursday.<\/p>\n

McCullough didn\u2019t have any more information about Snelling\u2019s status, apart from the fact that the southpaw would be undergoing more testing. UCL sprains are often precursors to major surgeries, such as Tommy John. That\u2019s not always the case, as some pitchers are able to return without surgery, though even those cases involve months of rehab.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s obviously very poor timing. Both Snelling and the Marlins hoped his promotion would be the start of a blossoming major league career. Instead, he\u2019s facing a significant injury and potentially a lengthy absence, though time will tell on the specifics. For Snelling personally, the one silver lining is that this injury occurred after his promotion. That means he\u2019ll collect major league pay and service time while he\u2019s on the IL. That would not have been the case if he were injured while still in the minors.<\/p>\n

If Snelling does end up requiring surgery, it could be a bitter development for the club. A lengthy surgery rehab could wipe out most of his 2026 and part of his 2027 as well, which would be a decent chunk of the club\u2019s window of control over the lefty. That could also potentially impact the club\u2019s trade plans this summer or in the coming offseason. The club\u2019s knack for developing pitchers has allowed them to continually trade starters for bats and then replace the arms internally. Subtracting Snelling from their rotation depth chart could make that less likely.<\/p>\n

For the short term, they will turn to Garrett. It\u2019s unclear if this will be a spot start or if Garrett will stick around, as Marlins could also turn to another prospect in Thomas White<\/a><\/strong>. At least for tomorrow, it will be Garrett.<\/p>\n

Garrett already has some major league experience under his belt, though it\u2019s been a while. His best season was 2023, when he tossed 159 2\/3 innings with a 3.66 earned run average, 23.7% strikeout rate, 4.4% walk rate and 49.1% ground ball rate. Shoulder and forearm injuries limited him to just seven starts in 2024, then UCL surgery wiped out his 2025 campaign entirely.<\/p>\n

He has been healthy here in 2026 but the Marlins have been cautious with him. They optioned Garrett to Triple-A Jacksonville at the end of spring training, opting to start the season with Janson Junk<\/a><\/strong> in the final rotation spot behind Sandy Alcantara<\/a><\/strong>, Eury P\u00e9rez<\/a><\/strong>, Max Meyer<\/a><\/strong> and Paddack.<\/p>\n

The Fish have given Garrett a lighter workload, giving him at least six days of rest between each start. He has pitched well with the kid gloves on, tossing 31 1\/3 innings over his six outings this year with a 2.30 ERA. His 12.3% walk rate is high but some rust isn\u2019t too surprising after almost two whole missed seasons. He has struck out 26.2% of batters faced while inducing grounders on 53% of balls in play.<\/p>\n

The Marlins are one game into a stretch of playing 16 days in a row. If the plan is to keep Garrett in the majors, he\u2019ll need to pitch on a more traditional five-man rotation, unless they try to get creative. They could go for a six-man rotation, deploy some bullpen games or have some other guys make spot starts.<\/p>\n

If this isn\u2019t just a one-and-done for Garrett, it will be notable for him from a career perspective. He came into 2026 with his service time count at three years and 168 days, which is just four days shy of the four-year mark. If he had spent all of 2026 on optional assignment, his path to free agency would have been delayed, but even a very brief stint in the majors will keep him on track for free agency after 2028.<\/p>\n

As mentioned, it\u2019s possible the Marlins consider involving White in some way. Snelling perhaps got the call first because he\u2019s a bit older and has more Triple-A experience, and because White had been slowed by an oblique strain in spring training, but prospect evaluators rank White ahead of Snelling in terms of his potential future impact. White has recovered from that oblique issue and has been in the Triple-A rotation of late. It\u2019s unclear if he\u2019ll be called up in the immediate future but Snelling\u2019s injury surely increases the odds of him getting the call at some point this year.<\/p>\n

Photo courtesy of Sam Navarro, Imagn Images<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Marlins announced that left-hander Robby Snelling has been placed on the 15-day injured list with a sprain…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":794644,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[10],"tags":[249370,183315,324292,62,67,132,68],"class_list":["post-794643","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sports","tag-braxton-garrett","tag-pete-fairbanks","tag-robby-snelling","tag-sports","tag-united-states","tag-unitedstates","tag-us"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/116570177484702971","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/794643","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=794643"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/794643\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/794644"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=794643"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=794643"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=794643"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}