Gabriel Moreno to Injured List With Left Shoulder Inflammation

It's a big blow to Arizona in the short term. The long term is not known.

The Diamondbacks second year catcher Gabriel Moreno has suffered a setback in his battle with shoulder inflammation and has been placed on the 10-day IL due to the injury. Jose Herrera has been called up from Triple-A Reno to take his place. 

The issue first arose about 10 days before the All Star break, according to manager Torey Lovullo.  Moreno's playing time had been cut back and Lovullo had been getting asked a lot of questions about it.  At one point this reporter asked directly if there were an injury to Moreno and was told there was not. However that clearly was not the case. Perhaps for competitive advantage reasons the team chose not to disclose the injury at that time.  Lovullo had also recently said that he expected the playing time between Kelly and Moreno to be more of a 50/50 split than it had been but clearly Moreno suffered a setback.

Moreno came over to Arizona along with outfielder/DH Lourdes Gurriel Jr in an off season trade with the  Blue Jays.  The D-backs sent outfielder Daulton Varsho to Toronto. That trade has been a success for the D-backs in the first half of the season, as Gurriel has provided some right handed pop to the lineup and Moreno has played well. 

With Carson Kelly beginning the season on the injured list due to a fractured wrist suffered in spring training, the team leaned heavily on Moreno through the first two plus months of the season. Moreno started 45 of the team's first 65 games, the other 20 starts going to backup Jose Herrera. Prior to 2023 the most games in a season Moreno had  started at catcher was 67  in 2020, minor and majors combined. 

Fortunately it's not his throwing shoulder that is hurting. Moreno has proved to have one of the best arms at the position in all of MLB. He's caught 17 of 36 would be base stealers for an eye popping 47%. No player with more than 20 steal attempts against him has a higher rate. This is all the more remarkable because with the new engagement rules instituted in MLB the success rate is up from 75% to 79%.

At the plate it's been more of a work in progress. The free swinging Moreno is batting .270/.316/.360 with three homers and 28 RBI.  While his ability to put the bat on the ball is one of his strongest tools, as evidenced by the .270 batting average, he's drawn only 16 walks and not hit with much power. That's resulted in an 87 OPS+, which is fine for a catcher, but about 13% below league average overall. 

Moreno peaked offensively on May 16th when he was batting .321 with a .746 OPS but then slumped through the end of June, batting just .184 with a .502 OPS over a 45 day period. He had picked it up of late however going 10 for 27, .370,  despite getting just sporadic play. He started just 8 games since June 29th while nursing the sore shoulder. 

It's not known at this time just how long the injury will sideline Moreno. The team will likely get imaging if they have not already and continue to evaluate him once they return back to Arizona tomorrow. 

Herrera had improved quite a bit at the plate this year in his backup catcher's role.  Last year he was a rookie and  hit .189 in 124 plate appearances and had a 33 OPS+. This year in 68 PA he was hitting .255/.344/.327, good for an 88 OPS+.  Herrera is a switch hitter and is still looking for his first major league home run. 

His caught stealing numbers are not quite as good this year however, with a 25% success rate, (three caught in 12 attempts). Last year he caught 12 of 28, 43%.

Kelly will get the bulk of the playing time presumably and is in the lineup today starting a day game after a night.  Kelly has struggled since returning, batting just .175 with one homer in 60 PA. He's also just 3-for-19 in caught stealing, 16%.  He'll need to start playing much better in Moreno's absence if the D-backs are to continue to contend for a playoff spot.