Blue Jays pitching prospect undergoes Tommy John surgery

TORONTO, CANADA - APRIL 4: The Toronto Blue Jays logo painted on the field during batting practice before the Toronto Blue Jays home opener prior to the start of their MLB game against the New York Yankees on April 4, 2014 at Rogers Centre in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. (Photo by Tom Szczerbowski/Getty Images)
TORONTO, CANADA - APRIL 4: The Toronto Blue Jays logo painted on the field during batting practice before the Toronto Blue Jays home opener prior to the start of their MLB game against the New York Yankees on April 4, 2014 at Rogers Centre in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. (Photo by Tom Szczerbowski/Getty Images)

According to Ben Badler of Baseball America, Toronto Blue Jays pitching prospect Eric Pardinho underwent Tommy John surgery yesterday and will miss the entire 2020 campaign.

The latest Blue Jays news is quite discouraging seeing Eric Pardinho missed the majority of the 2019 season due to an elbow strain that kept him out of action until the end of June. The teenager made only eight appearances totaling just 37.2 innings. Pardinho was impressive posting a 2.15 earned run average while fanning 35, however, it was a small sample size.

The native of Brazil will now be shelved until the 2021 season and has yet to pitch above Single-A in his first two seasons of pro ball. Pardinho is 6-4 with a 2.57 earned run average along with a 1.129 WHIP while striking out 10.2 per nine innings in 19 career games.

Heading into last season, Pardinho was ranked the 84th best prospect by Baseball America, the 19-year old has since fallen out of the Top 100 following his injury-plagued 2019 season.

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The young right-hander is ranked 5th organizationally by MLB.com but he will surely drop when their rankings update near midseason. Pitchers Nate Pearson, Alek Manoah, and Anthony Kay are all ranked higher than Pardinho in the internal pecking order,

Pardinho is still an important piece of the Blue Jays future rotation but he is absolutely going to need to get some innings under his belt once he is healthy again. The youngster has only 87.2 innings on his professional resume thus far.

In hindsight, it is unfortunate Pardinho could not have had the surgery last spring when his elbow troubles began, however, at that time, the medical staff did not diagnose any damage to the elbow ligament other than a strain.

The Blue Jays inked the Brazilian back in 2017 as a 16-year old for $1.4 million with big expectations for the young hurler. Hopefully, Pardinho can put this latest bump in the road behind him sooner than later and get back to dominating on the bump in 2021.

All of us at Jays Journal are wishing you a speedy recovery.

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