Pittsburgh Pirates News: No Surgery for Nick Burdi

(Photo by Joe Sargent/Getty Images)
(Photo by Joe Sargent/Getty Images) /
facebooktwitterreddit

The Pittsburgh Pirates have dealt with countless injuries to their pitching staff in 2020.  They received somewhat good news on one key arm.

Some players can seem to never catch a break.  This seems especially true for Pittsburgh Pirates reliever Nick Burdi.  Burdi has thrown a grand total of 11 innings for the Pittsburgh Pirates over the last two season.  In general, he has only thrown 12.2 innings in the Major Leagues since 2017, all with the Bucs.  The guy cannot catch a break.

The biggest issue that has followed Burdi has been injuries.  In 2017, he underwent Tommy-John surgery and missed basically all of 2018 before returning in September.  Last year, Burdi had a strong start to the season before losing his stuff and once again returning to the Injured List.  He would then undergo thoracic outlet surgery.

When Nick Burdi was placed on the Injured List with discomfort in his throwing arm, many started to fear the worst.  The Bucs had already seen Jameson Taillon undergo a second Tommy-John surgery, what would the chances of another pitcher needing a second operation?  The good news is Burdi will not need surgery.  This is something we learned early yesterday morning and has now been confirmed by the Pittsburgh Pirates.  Alex Stumpf of DK Pittsburgh Sports tweeted:

This was going to be a big season for Nick Burdi.  Early on he was given a chance to take the Pittsburgh Pirates closer role and he did.  He was finally putting together his elite stuff and getting better results.  Overall he threw just 2.1 innings but struck out four hitters.  The only runs he gave up came in his final outing before the injury was announced.

Next. Deadline Targets. dark

While it is bad news that Burdi will likely miss the remainder of this season, it is good news that he does not need surgery.  Strains are much easier to work back from and if nothing gets worse he should be 100 percent for the start of next year.  If he would have needed any type of surgery, the odds would have been very against him being his third one in as many years.