Nick Ahmed Has Left Forearm Tightness and Inflammation

Torey Lovullo already paying close attention to depth options, discussed Blaze Alexander's progress.

Article Update Note:

After this article was first  published Nick Ahmed  was able to address the media in the locker room during today's game.  The key take away was that he let the team know early about the injury and feels that by doing so he got out in front of it. See link at bottom of article for Sound Cloud Audio of interview with Ahmed. 

During today's pre game press conference Torey Lovullo revealed that Nick Ahmed has left forearm tightness and left forearm inflammation. The injury cause the team to pull him back from active play while they continue to reevaluate.  Lovullo said the injury was more than day to day, perhaps needing three to five days to get the inflammation down.

Lovullo indicated the team is being overly cautious as Ahmed has worked very hard to get back to "race ready" for the season, and they don't want him to  take a step backwards by rushing him. Ahmed was originally scheduled to DH in today's split squad game, but the team opted to pull him back from that. 

Ahmed told Lovullo that he wasn't sure how he injured the forearm. It bothers him more when swinging the bat however. 

Asked if this injury caused him to take a deeper look into his depth options at shortstop Lovullo's replied:  "Yes.  Because of what happened in 2021 I'm very hyper sensitive to depth inside of our organization......  My focus is on the understudies and quality backups all the time."  

After expressing confidence that Ahmed would be fine by opening day he went on to say he was very interested to see what is going on behind Ahmed and Geraldo Perdomo, (the primary backup at shortstop).  The topic then turned to shortstop prospect Blaze Alexander.

"He's tooled up, he's a really good player and what I said to him this morning is he's starting to lay down some concepts. He's turned out to be an excellent baseball player that is progressing quickly through the system. "

Lovullo said Alexander was racing through the process of becoming a quality infielder who also puts up quality at bats.  Last year Alexander his .301/.389/.540, with 20 home runs and 59 RBI in just 352 at bats.  

"I've always been impressed with Blaze, I remember watching him on field one probably two or three years ago. I noticed the arm strength, I noticed the bat speed. But now he's had a lot of success per at bat and a lot of success per ground ball." 

In other player news, Kyle Lewis is not going to be in the lineup in either split squad game today. While the team is trying to get him game ready, Lovullo said  "There are some limitations, there are some things that he's still getting to, but he's really close to being able to play in a game."  The team expects him to play in a game in the next couple of days.

Evan Longoria missed three days of camp with an illness, but was back in the clubhouse and out on the practice fields today, taking live batting practice.