Orioles’ John Means and Tyler Wells will undergo season-ending surgery for second torn UCL

Both the left and right arms in the Baltimore Orioles rotation need fixing and it will cost the team two pitchers for the rest of the season.

Orioles left-hander John Means and right-hander Austin Wells will undergo season-ending surgery to repair torn UCLs in their throwing arms, general manager Mike Elias told reporters on Friday. according to Jake Rill of MLB.com.

It has not yet been determined whether these surgeries will be Tommy John. Both pitchers have undergone the dreaded procedure — Wells in 2019, Means in 2022 — but there may be other options, such as braces surgery that has become increasingly preferred in recent years. It’s notoriously difficult to come back from a second Tommy John surgery, with more intense rehab and a longer time frame to return to the mound.

The Orioles entered Friday with a 35-19 record, two games behind the first-place New York Yankees and the third-best starting pitcher ERA in MLB with a 3.03 mark. Means and Wells combined to start just seven of those 59 games.

Without them, Rill speculates the Orioles will move forward with a rotation of Corbin Burnes, Kyle Bradish, Grayson Rodriguez, Cole Irvin and Albert Suárez.

Is this it for John Means and the Orioles?

This latest news is a brutal blow to Means in particular, and could spell the end of an Orioles tenure that began with such great promise.

Means felt like a real bedrock for Baltimore in 2019, a time when building blocks for tank organization were hard to come by. He finished second in AL Rookie of the Year voting with a 3.60 ERA in 155 innings, a welcome surprise given that the smooth-throwing lefty was an 11th rounder and peaked at No. 29 on the prospect list. Orioles from MLB Pipeline.

He pressed on through the COVID-19-shortened 2020 season and went hitless in May 2021, but went on the injured list a month later with a shoulder issue, the first in a series of health issues that led to him being underwent TJ surgery two years ago.

Now the 31-year-old Means is sidelined for the rest of the season and will almost certainly have to sit out a large portion of 2025 as well, with no guarantee it will be the same when he returns. It’s pretty bad timing considering he’s about to hit free agency this offseason.

Players in this situation have a few options. They can spend the rest of their time with the team, hit free agency, and hope someone is willing to offer them a two-year deal, with the understanding that the second, hopefully healthy, year is what the team is paying for. They could also enter free agency and wait until they are healthy to find a team.

There’s also the possibility of a cheap extension if the Orioles want to keep Means around and hope he can still help them fight for a World Series. Given the team’s stocked farm system, however, it may not be a good fit.