Well, the injury bug continues to hit the White Sox hard at this point in Spring Training. The White Sox have broken the news that Jesse Scholtens will be placed on the 60 day injured list with a torn ulnar collateral ligament in his right elbow. Daryl Van Schouwen adds that he will have Tommy John Surgery on Friday.
This is tough news for Scholtens and the White Sox. After spending what felt like an eternity in the minors, Scholtens made his major league debut at 29 years old and pitched pretty well, both in the bullpen and in the rotation.
Now, the White Sox will have to turn to their next option for a long reliever/spot starter role, as Scholtens was likely one of the top finalists for that spot. He will miss all of the 2024 season and likely part of the 2025 season, as the White Sox typically bring guys back slowly from Tommy John.
Scholtens showed signs of being a very solid major league pitcher, as despite his age, he was just a rookie in 2024, so he could easily have room to improve. His underlying stats of a 5.29 ERA are very inflated by a bad month of September, as he was quite good in the months before that.
Scholtens made his debut in April versus the Pittsburgh Pirates, throwing three innings of one run ball. He stayed in the majors mainly for the rest of the year and continued to pitch well.
Throughout the rest of the season, Scholtens would bounce back and forth between the rotation and the bullpen, with a large chunk of his starts coming towards the end of the year. His best stretch came in the middle of the summer, as he kept a low 3 ERA while pitching maily out of the bullpen.
He would mainly start in August, which would be one of his best months. There he would make six starts, three of them being considered quality starts, just missing his fourth quality start due to being taken out in the 6th inning. He would end the month of August with a very respectable 3.97 ERA after a few months of strong baseball.
He would have a very tough September which would inflate the ERA to over five, but other than September he was fantastic. He was primed to make the roster out of Spring Training barring any meltdown. Unfortunately, now that is not the case.
Now, a young guy will have to step up in his place and hopefully perform just as well as Scholtens would have. Hopefully Scholtens’ surgery goes well and he makes a full recovery for 2025.
