Blue Jays top prospect Ricky Tiedemann pulls himself from start with injury

A potentially ominous development on the farm today for the Toronto Blue Jays, as No. 1 prospect Ricky Tiedemann pulls himself from his start with the Double-A New Hampshire Fisher Cats. Watch as he motions to the dugout, indicating something is up with his throwing arm.

With two outs in the top of the 4th inning, the 20-year-old waived a trainer onto the field after throwing a breaking ball—his 60th pitch—and would exit the game. He'd given up three hits and two earned runs.

Back in March, during Spring Training, Tiedemann was shut down for a few days due to shoulder soreness in his throwing arm; fortunately the shoulder seems to have avoided further injury and instead Tiedemann is dealing with biceps tightness.

We all remember that perfect inning he threw in spring in his first outing, striking out two, showing some of his scintillating stuff.

Tiedemann, a third-round pick of the Jays in 2021, came into this season as the No. 28 prospect in baseball overall, according to MLB Pipeline. He tore through the lower minors last season with a combined 2.17 ERA and 0.86 WHIP, while striking out 13.4 batters per nine in 78.2 innings pitched across three levels, from A-Ball, to High-A, to Double-A. He was off to a bit of a slower start this season, posting a 4.97 ERA thus far with the Fisher Cats in four starts, but with a whopping 23 strikeouts in 12.2 innings.

Another month or so of good results, and it was expected that Tiedemann would have been promoted to Triple-A Buffalo. That could be on hold for now.

Seeing a 20-year-old hard-thrower point to his pitching arm and ask for medical attention is certainly never a good sign, and the Blue Jays can only hope that this is nothing serious.