KANSAS CITY, Mo. – Ten months removed from elbow surgery, Sean Doolittle will begin pitching in competitive games again. For now, that will still be at the minor league level.
Doolittle is scheduled to join the bullpen at High-A Wilmington and make his season debut Saturday, Nationals manager Davey Martinez said. It will be the left-hander’s first actual game appearance since April 19, 2022, when he suffered a partial tear of his ulnar collateral ligament in a win over the Diamondbacks.
Doolittle spent the next several months attempting to return without surgery, hoping to make it back for the season’s second half. But when the elbow pain returned during bullpen sessions, he opted to go under the knife.
Rather than have the more invasive Tommy John surgery, which would’ve knocked him out for 12 to 18 months, Doolittle decided to go with an internal brace procedure, a relatively new option for pitchers in which the damaged ligament is wrapped and strengthened instead of replaced altogether.
Doolittle had that surgery done in July, and at the time hoped it would allow him to be ready for the start of the 2023 season. But his timeline was slowed during spring training, and the Nationals shut him down and had him start the rehab process all over again in late March.