This is not the sort of news any White Sox fan wants to hear right now but in a way, things could have been a lot worse for Dane Dunning. As you may have heard, the White Sox No. 6 prospect exited early during his outing on Saturday due to an undisclosed injury. It was later revealed that the issue Dunning was dealing with was a sore elbow. After being evaluated today in Chicago by Team Physician, Dr. Nik Verma, and undergoing an MRI, it was revealed that Dunning suffered a moderate elbow sprain. Here’s the full update from the team:
Dane Dunning was examined today in Chicago by Team Physician Dr. Nik Verma. An MRI revealed that Dunning suffered a moderate elbow sprain that presently will not require surgery. Dunning will be placed on the DL at Birmingham and begin a 6-8 week program of rest and rehab.
— Chicago White Sox (@whitesox) June 27, 2018
The good news, the sprain will not currently require surgery which could have put the righty out for a much longer period of time. The bad, he will miss 6-8 weeks of action. We’ll see how things go during his rest and rehab, but the plan for Dane is to begin a throwing program when the aforementioned period time is up.
Dunning started off the season in High-A Winston-Salem where he pitched 24.1 innings with a 2.59 ERA, 31 K, 3 BB, 0.95 WHIP, and held batters to a .215 batting average. He was then called up to Double-A Birmingham where he has pitched since. There, Dunning showed more of the same dominance, going 5-2 with a 2.76 ERA, 69 strikeouts, and 1.29 WHIP in 62 innings pitched.
Despite losing a high-end starting pitcher, the Birmingham Barons still have the White Sox No. 5 prospect Alec Hansen and the newly promoted No. 4 prospect Dylan Cease in their starting rotation. The team also reported that pitcher Jimmy Lambert had been promoted from High-A Winston-Salem with Kannapolis Intimidators pitcher John Parke taking his spot with the Dash.