Zac Gallen is going for a second opinion on the elbow inflammation that has shelved him, Diamondbacks general manager Mike Hazen told Steve Gilbert of MLB.com on Wednesday, with no timeline attached until the results come back.
That is the quietest sentence a contender can hear about its former ace. Gallen has fought through a career-worst 6.34 ERA across 19 starts this season, and the elbow now hangs over any hope that the second half brings the version of him Arizona built its rotation around. A second opinion is not a diagnosis, but it is the step teams take when the first answer wasn’t good enough to act on.
The injury news didn’t stop there. Arizona placed rookie outfielder Tommy Troy on the 10-day injured list with a sprained AC joint in his right shoulder, retroactive to July 12. Troy, hitting .223/.299/.364, will miss at least the first six games of the second half; the club doesn’t need a corresponding move until it resumes play against the Cardinals on Friday.
The stakes are plain. The Diamondbacks sit 2.5 games out of the final National League wild card, close enough that every rotation start matters and every deadline decision cuts both ways. What Hazen hears back on Gallen’s elbow — rest, rehab, or something worse — will shape whether Arizona shops for pitching before Aug. 3 or starts weighing what its own pending pieces are worth.
Until that answer arrives, the second half opens Friday with the club’s biggest question mark wearing a sling of uncertainty rather than a uniform.
