Dayton Dragons starter Mark Armstrong had been cruising along in the 6th inning, having recorded two outs in the inning and having allowed just two earned runs. With the knowledge that he left the game with elbow soreness, I went back to watch the sixth inning.
Against the final batter he faced, in which he didn’t finish the plate appearance, Armstrong could be seen shaking his arm twice after getting the ball back from catcher Garrett Boulware. He was wearing a 3/4 sleeve shirt, so perhaps he was simply trying to slide the sleeve down some with a little bit of a wiggle of the arm, but once I saw that I went back a few innings and didn’t see him doing that prior. The second to last pitch he threw there was a very obvious arm wiggle followed by a lesser one. After his final pitch he looked to the dugout and then the manager, pitching coach, catcher and both team trainers came out to the mound. After a short discussion with everyone, Armstrong left the game.
The team is heading out for a road trip beginning on Wednesday, so we may not hear an update on Armstrong for a few days.
The right hander had been out to a great start to his first full season. In 11 games he had posted a 2.86 ERA in 56.2 innings. He had allowed just one home run thanks to a 52% groundball rate. Armstrong had also been rather stingy with the free passes, walking just 14 batters on the season while striking out 42.