Brewers Injury Update: Rowdy Tellez's Absence from the Team Just Got Extended

Injuries are just a part of MLB life. Suffering a new injury while already on the IL for a previous injury, well that's something that's a little more rare.

Unfortunately, that's exactly what happened to Brewers first baseman Rowdy Tellez. The big lefty had been placed on the injured list just prior to the All-Star break with some lingering arm inflammation. The original expectation was that it would require a relatively minimum stay on the IL.

That was so far proving to be true as the plan was for Tellez to be activated next Tuesday on the road in Philadelphia. Now, it might not be until next month that fans get to see the power-hitting infielder back on the field.

Brewers first baseman Rowdy Tellez will now miss at least another 3-4 weeks with a finger injury that he suffered on Friday.

The new injury for Tellez was one of the fluke variety. Per Adam McCalvy of MLB.com, Tellez was shagging fly balls in the outfield before yesterday's game to try and broke the ring finger on his throwing hand against the outfield wall.

In addition to that, per Todd Rosiak of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, he also ended up tearing the nail bed off of his finger, an injury that required 17 stitches. So technically, Tellez gets to recover from two new injuries before he will return to the Brewers.

Of course, all Tellez was trying to do was make sure he was in shape for his impending return from the injured list. Per McCalvy, the shagging of fly balls in the outfield by a first baseman was all for matters of conditioning, nothing out of the ordinary.

Ever since starting the season off as one of the team's better hitters, Tellez had been in a pretty bad slump, with his slash line dropping all the way to .213/.285/.388 with just seven doubles and 12 homers on the season. The hope, though, was that the arm inflammation was maybe contributing to the struggles and that he would bounce back upon his return from the IL.

Though Tellez's loss leaves the team without a "true" first baseman, the Brewers have been utilizing a pretty capable backup in Owen Miller in Rowdy's brief absence so far. Miller has provided two defensive runs saved and one out above average in his 136.2 innings at first in 2023 and has been much more consistent on offense this season (.283 average, .734 OPS).

With miller on the bag at first, the Brewers should be able to navigate through this newest injury blow to the team just fine. It'll still be fun, though, to get a big power boost back once the trade deadline has passed and the Brewers make their push toward the playoffs.