Braves RHP AJ Smith-Shawver diagnosed with torn UCL, placed on 60-day injured list
Atlanta Braves pitcher AJ Smith-Shawver walks to the dugout after being pulled during the third inning in the first baseball game of a doubleheader against the Philadelphia Phillies Thursday, May 29, 2025, in Philadelphia. (AP Photo/Matt Slocum)
Atlanta Braves' AJ Smith-Shawver pitches during the second inning in the first baseball game of a doubleheader against the Philadelphia Phillies Thursday, May 29, 2025, in Philadelphia. (AP Photo/Matt Slocum)
Atlanta Braves' AJ Smith-Shawver pitches during the second inning in the first baseball game of a doubleheader against the Philadelphia Phillies Thursday, May 29, 2025, in Philadelphia. (AP Photo/Matt Slocum)
Atlanta Braves pitcher AJ Smith-Shawver walks to the dugout after being pulled during the third inning in the first baseball game of a doubleheader against the Philadelphia Phillies Thursday, May 29, 2025, in Philadelphia. (AP Photo/Matt Slocum)
Atlanta Braves' AJ Smith-Shawver pitches during the second inning in the first baseball game of a doubleheader against the Philadelphia Phillies Thursday, May 29, 2025, in Philadelphia. (AP Photo/Matt Slocum)
ATLANTA (AP) — Atlanta Braves rookie right-hander AJ Smith-Shawver has a torn UCL in his pitching elbow, the team said Friday.
Smith-Shawver left Thursday's 5–4 loss to the Philadelphia Phillies in a doubleheader opener and said he felt a 'pop.' The 22-year-old was initially placed on the 15-day injured list before being moved to the 60-day IL on Friday.
Advertisement
'(His evaluation) showed a tear on his imaging,' Braves manager Brian Snitker said before Atlanta opened a three-game series against Boston. 'He'll consult with the physicians or doctors and they'll decide what the next step is.'
Snitker said he didn't know if Smith-Shawver would need Tommy John surgery.
On Thursday, Smith-Shawver appeared to say 'pop' toward Snitker after a third-inning pitch to Trea Turner. He gave up a go-ahead, two-run homer to Rafael Marchán, then took a 96.6 mph line drive off his right ankle on a a ball hit by Bryson Stott with one out.
Smith-Shawver threw a warmup pitch and stayed in the game, then left after wincing while allowing a flyout to Turner on the fourth pitch of the at-bat.
Advertisement
Smith-Shawver is 3-2 with a 3.86 ERA in nine starts and 44 1/3 innings, striking out 42 and walking 21.
'It's tough for all (young pitchers) when it happens,' Snitker said. 'Especially where he was, feeling good about himself and throwing good.'
___
AP MLB: https://apnews.com/hub/mlb
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Yahoo
20 minutes ago
- Yahoo
Air quality worsens in eastern US as Canadian wildfire smoke hangs over Midwest
PORTLAND, Maine (AP) — Smoke from Canadian wildfires started making air quality worse in the eastern U.S. on Wednesday as several Midwestern states battled conditions deemed unhealthy by the federal government. The fires have forced thousands of Canadians to flee their homes and sent smoke as far as Europe. In the U.S., the Midwest is bearing the brunt. Smoke lingered on the skylines of cities from Kansas City to Minneapolis, and a swath of the region had unhealthy air quality Wednesday, according to an Environmental Protection Agency map. Iowa issued a statewide air quality alert through early Thursday, urging residents to limit certain outdoor activities and warning of possible health effects due to the thick smoke. Wisconsin officials made similar suggestions as the smoke drifted southeast across the state. In Michigan's Upper Peninsula, authorities advised people shut windows at night, avoid strenuous activity outside and watch for breathing issues. Parts of Maine, Vermont, New Hampshire and New York had areas of moderate air quality concern, and officials advised sensitive people to consider reducing outdoor activity. New Hampshire authorities hoped conditions would improve by late Wednesday. 'The particle air pollution event is the result of extensive wildfires in central and western Canada,' the state's Department of Environmental Services said. 'Wind patterns are forecasted to transport plumes of smoke from these fires across much of New England and New Hampshire.' Unhealthy conditions persist in Midwest The Minnesota Pollution Control Agency issued an alert for almost the entire state into Wednesday, but the Twin Cities area got the worst of it in the Midwest on Tuesday. 'As the smoke continues to move across the state Tuesday, air quality will slowly improve from northwest to southeast for the remainder of the alert area,' the agency said. 'The smoke is expected to leave the state by Wednesday at noon.' The Iowa Department of Natural Resources warned that air quality in a band from the state's southwest corner to the northeast could fall into the unhealthy category through Thursday morning. The agency recommended that people, especially those with heart and lung disease, avoid long or intense activities and to take extra breaks while doing strenuous actions outdoors. Conditions at ground level are in the red The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's AirNow map showed a swath of red for 'unhealthy' conditions across Wisconsin and northern Iowa. Northern Michigan was also the site of many unhealthy zones, the agency said. The Air Quality Index was around 160 in many parts of the upper Midwest, indicating unhealthy conditions. The Air Quality Index — AQI — measures how clean or polluted the air is, focusing on health effects that might be experienced within a few hours or days after breathing polluted air. It is based on ground-level ozone, particle pollution, carbon monoxide, sulfur dioxide, and nitrogen dioxide. Particulates are the main issue from the fires The index ranges from green, where the air quality is satisfactory and air pollution poses little or no risk, to maroon, which is considered hazardous. That level comes with health warnings of emergency conditions where everyone is more likely to be affected, according to AirNow. There were areas of reduced air quality all over the U.S. on Wednesday, with numerous advisories about moderate air quality concerns as far away as Kansas and Georgia. The Canadian fire situation Canada is having another bad wildfire season. Most of the smoke reaching the American Midwest has been coming from fires northwest of the provincial capital of Winnipeg in Manitoba. Canada's worst-ever wildfire season was in 2023. It choked much of North America with dangerous smoke for months. The smoke even reaches Europe Canada's wildfires are so large and intense that the smoke is even reaching Europe, where it is causing hazy skies but isn't expected to affect surface-air quality, according the European climate service Copernicus. ___ Karnowski reported from Minneapolis. Associated Press writers Jack Dura in Bismarck, North Dakota; Kathy McCormack in Concord, New Hampshire; Tammy Webber in Fenton, Michigan; and Scott McFetridge in Des Moines, Iowa, contributed to this report.
San Francisco Chronicle
20 minutes ago
- San Francisco Chronicle
A Virginia museum found 4 Confederate soldiers' remains. It's trying to identify them
WILLIAMSBURG, Va. (AP) — Archaeologists in Virginia were excavating the grounds of a building that stored gunpowder during the American Revolution when they uncovered the eye sockets of a human skull. The team carefully unearthed four skeletons, including one with a bullet in the spine, and three amputated legs. They quickly surmised the bones were actually from the Civil War, when a makeshift hospital operated nearby and treated gravely wounded Confederate soldiers. The archaeologists work at the Colonial Williamsburg Foundation, a museum that owns the land and focuses on the city's 18th century history. They're now trying to identify human remains from the 19th century, a rare endeavor that will include searching for living descendants and requesting swabs of DNA. The museum has recovered enough genetic material from the men's teeth for possible matches. But the prospect of identifying them emerged only after the team located handwritten lists in an archive that name the soldiers in that hospital. 'It is the key,' said Jack Gary, Colonial Williamsburg's executive director of archaeology. 'If these men were found in a mass grave on a battlefield, and there was no other information, we probably wouldn't be trying to do this.' The archaeologists have narrowed the possible identities to four men who served in regiments from Alabama, Louisiana, South Carolina and Virginia. The museum is withholding the names as the work continues. Meanwhile, the remains were reinterred Tuesday at a Williamsburg cemetery where Confederate soldiers from the same battle are buried. 'Everyone deserves dignity in death,' Gary said. 'And being stored in a drawer inside a laboratory does not do that.' 'Shockingly costly for both sides' The soldiers fought in the Battle of Williamsburg, a bloody engagement on May 5, 1862. The fighting was part of the Peninsula Campaign, a major Union offensive that tried to end the war quickly. The campaign's failure that summer, stalling outside the Confederate capital of Richmond, informed President Abraham Lincoln's decision to end slavery. In his first inaugural address, Lincoln said he intended to reunite the nation with slavery intact in the Southern states, while halting its westward expansion, said Timothy Orr, a military historian and professor at Old Dominion University. But Lincoln realized after the campaign that he needed a more radical approach, Orr said. And while the president faced political pressure for emancipation, freeing people who were enslaved served as 'another weapon to defeat the Confederacy.' 'He becomes convinced that slavery is feeding the Confederate war effort,' Orr said. 'It had to be taken away.' Bigger and bloodier battles followed Williamsburg, Orr said, but it was 'shockingly costly for both sides." Roughly 14,600 Union soldiers fought about 12,500 Confederates, Carol Kettenburg Dubbs wrote in her 2002 book, 'Defend This Old Town.' The number of Union killed, wounded, captured or missing was 2,283. The Confederate figure was 1,870. The fighting moved north, while a Union brigade occupied the southern city. Confederate soldiers too wounded for travel were placed in homes and a church, which was converted into a hospital. A surgeon from New York treated them, while local women visited the church, Dubbs wrote. One woman noted in her diary on May 26 that there were 'only 18 out of 61 left.' Their arms were crossed When the remains were discovered in 2023, they were aligned east-west in the Christian tradition, said Gary, the archaeologist. Their arms were crossed. The careful burial indicates they were not dumped into a mass grave, Gary said. Those who died in the battle were almost immediately placed in trenches and later reinterred at a cemetery. The men were not in uniform, said Eric Schweickart, a staff archaeologist. Some were in more comfortable clothes, based on artifacts that included buttons and a trouser buckle. One soldier had two $5 gold coins from 1852. Another had a toothbrush made of animal bone and a snuff bottle, used for sniffing tobacco. The bullet in the soldier's spine was a Minié ball, a common round of Civil War ammunition. The foot of one amputated leg also contained a Minié ball. Bones in a second severed leg were shattered. 'We want it be ironclad' As the team researched the battle, they learned of the lists of hospitalized soldiers, said Evan Bell, an archaeological lab technician. The lists were likely copied from Union records by the women who visited the wounded. The documents were with a local family's papers at William & Mary, a university nearby. The lists became the project's Rosetta stone, providing names and regiments of more than 60 soldiers. They included dates of death and notes indicating amputations. The archaeologists eliminated soldiers on the lists who survived or lost an extremity. The four skeletons had all of their limbs. Death dates were key because three men were buried together, allowing the team to pinpoint three soldiers who died around the same time. William & Mary's Institute for Historical Biology examined the remains and estimated their ages. The youngest was between 15 and 19, the oldest between 35 and 55. The estimates helped match names to enlistment records, census data and Union prisoner of war documents. The soldiers' remains and the amputated limbs were buried in their own stainless steel boxes in a concrete vault, Gary said. If descendants are confirmed, they can move their ancestor to another burial site. The identification effort will continue for another several months at least and will include extensive genealogy work, Gary said. Using only DNA tests on remains from the 1800s can risk false positives because 'you start becoming related to everyone.' 'We want it to be ironclad,' he said.
San Francisco Chronicle
25 minutes ago
- San Francisco Chronicle
Pennsylvania is suing the USDA over cutting funding to a $1 billion food aid program for states
HARRISBURG, Pa. (AP) — Pennsylvania sued the U.S. Department of Agriculture on Wednesday, saying the agency, under President Donald Trump, had illegally cut off funding to it through a program designed to distribute more than $1 billion in aid to states to purchase food from farms for schools, child care centers, and food banks. The lawsuit in federal court, announced by Gov. Josh Shapiro, a Democrat, comes three months after the USDA advised states that it was ending the pandemic-era assistance program because it no longer reflected agency priorities. 'I don't get what the hell their priorities are if not feeding people and taking care of our farmers," Shapiro said at a news conference at a food bank warehouse in Philadelphia. The USDA did not immediately respond to a request for comment Wednesday. The lawsuit, filed in federal court in Harrisburg, asks the court to reverse the USDA's decision to end the reimbursement program. Shapiro's administration, in the lawsuit, said the USDA's termination of the contract was illegal, saying the USDA didn't explain why it no longer reflected agency priorities and that the contract didn't expressly allow the USDA to terminate it for those reasons. Shapiro said he was confident that Pennsylvania would win the lawsuit. 'A deal is a deal,' Shapiro told the news conference. 'They made a deal with our farmers, they made a deal with Pennsylvania and they broke it.' The loss to Pennsylvania is $13 million under a three-year contract, money that the state planned to use to buy food from farms to stock food banks. States also use the money to buy food from farms for school nutrition programs and child care centers. Purchases include commodities such as cheese, eggs, meat, fruits and vegetables. The department, under then-President Joe Biden, announced a second round of funding through the program last year.
