Cleveland Indians: Is Carlos Carrasco injured?

In his worst start of the season, Cleveland Indians righty Carlos Carrasco left after only three innings and an injury may have played a role in that.

It was not a great day on the mound for Carrasco as he and the Cleveland Indians suffered a 12-4 defeat at the hands of the Seattle Mariners. He allowed five runs with four of them earned in his three short innings of work.

After the game, word trickled out that an injury have played a role in Carrasco’s lack of effectiveness.

This is not the news anyone wanted to hear. A back issue can be tricky for anyone, but especially pitchers. That velocity dip of four miles per hour is certainly concerning for manager Terry Francona. That back issue certainly could have been part of the reason Carrasco gave up two more runs in the third inning.

Is this serious?

The team isn’t sure yet. As Bastian stated above, the team is going to monitor this back issue and hopefully that close observation will be able to keep this injury at bay.

With Andrew Miller already on the disabled list, the last thing Cleveland Indians fans want to see is Carrasco join him on the shelf. Pitching is clearly the strength of this team and losing another top arm is undesirable to say the least.

In all likelihood, Carrasco will spend a lot of his time the next few days in the trainer’s room on the massage table as he tries to loosen up those muscles in his back. If that issue lingers and the team has to skip his next start, a DL stint is possible. However, I would characterize that scenario as unlikely at the moment.

With a 10 day disabled list instead of a 15 day one, teams are more inclined to put players on the DL now. Skipping a turn in the rotation would almost be akin to placing Carrasco on the DL. He might get delayed one day instead of being totally skipped, but this is an issue to watch for sure.

Next: 3 takeaways from Saturday's ugly loss

If a DL stint does happen, it likely wouldn’t be a long one. It’s better to have these minor injuries pop up early in the season than something happening later, if you want to look on the bright side.