A's reliever Richard Lovelady leaves game with elbow injury

Oakland Athletics reliever Richard Lovelady was injured in the seventh inning while getting Rays shortstop Wander Franco to fly out on Thursday's final meeting with the Tampa Bay Rays at the Oakland Coliseum, one the A's ended up losing by a 4-3 final score.

Lovelady, who entered the game in relief of Paul Blackburn in the top of the 6th inning with two batters out and after Blackburn hit Francisco Mejia with his last pitch of the day, was forced out of the matchup just one inning later.

Lovelady left the game allowing no hits nor runs on the day, though he didn't last that much and could only put out one batter himself before getting subbed off the field.

After A’s staff attended to him on the mound, Lovelady was pulled from the game. Kotsay said postgame that Lovelady had a “burning sensation” in his left elbow. At the time of this writing, Lovelady the results from his MRI are yet unknown.

That said, the A's pitcher and 27-year-old reliever already went under the knife to undergo Tommy John surgery back in September 2021 to repair a UCL in the same left elbow, which doesn't bode well for him considering he instantly grabbed the elbow zone of the same arm on Thursday.

In other, but related news, right-handed pitcher Freddy Tarnok (strained shoulder) was set to make his first rehab start with the Triple-A affiliate of the A's in Las Vegas before the Athletics kicked off their final head-to-head game against the Rays.

Tarnok completed a 2.2-inning outing pitching for the Las Vegas Stars/Aviators, throwing a grand total 42 pitches in his first game of the season returning from injury. According to Martin Gallegos, his fatball reached the 93-94 mph clip, and he allowed no runs to the Las Vegas' opponent Reno.