Dodgers lose one of the best young pitchers in baseball for the rest of the season

The Los Angeles Dodgers have been destroyed with injuries this season. If you've been on the Dodgers active roster this season, chances are you have also landed on the injured list. This is especially true for the pitchers.

Shohei Ohtani and Yoshinobu Yamamoto both won't pitch for the rest of the season for the Dodgers. Clayton Kershaw and Tyler Glasnow have both missed significant time. Walker Buehler currently sits on a rehab assignment down in Triple-A after injuring his hip a while back.

And just recently, rookie starter River Ryan appeared to get injured in his most recent start.

An instant grimace and shaking out the hand are typically indicative of a forearm or elbow injury. Of all pitching injuries, none are scarier than an elbow injury.

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River Ryan to miss the rest of 2024 with UCL strain

Directly after the game, Ryan downplayed his injury a bit.

"Not very. I feel pretty solid right now. We took some tests it's strong. I'm going to go to a doctor tomorrow morning. See how it is. I didn't want to come out of the game. I begged Doc to let me keep going," Ryan said in regards to his forearm tightness.

Now the official diagnosis has come out and it seems a bit more serious than just forearm tightness.

Ryan is set to miss the remainder of the 2024 MLB season with a right UCL strain in his elbow. The UCL is the ligament associated with the infamous Tommy John surgery.

At this time, it's unknown whether Ryan will get one of the two UCL surgeries: either the UCL repair with the internal bracing or a full-on Tommy John reconstruction surgery. Ryan is likely going to pursue non-surgical options first with the idea being rest and rehab to avoid the injury poking into Spring Training and the beginning of next season.

Before the injury, Ryan was one of the best young pitchers in the game. He relied on his mid to high 90s fastball and a few different breaking balls that he commanded well. He had recently begun adding another wrinkle into his game by changing up his timing in the windup to mess with hitters.

The Dodgers called prospect Landon Knack up to replace Ryan in the rotation. In terms of a longer-term option, Los Angeles has Bobby Miller, Justin Wrobleski and Walker Buehler who could fill in nicely.