The Cleveland Guardians bullpen has been forced to deal with a good amount of adversity over the past year or so, but they always find a way to get it together and produce like one of the best units in baseball. No matter who is out there, this bullpen has quite a knack for consistently finding a way to be the most reliable aspect of this team.
Newcomer Shawn Armstrong has fit right in this season even though he has a disappointing 4.91 ERA, and unfortunately, he recently got carried off the field in Friday’s loss with a severe calf injury. He gave up three runs and recorded two outs before exiting and recently opened up and shared some insight into what he’s dealing with.
In Joey Johnston’s recent article for MLB.com, he quoted Armstrong discussing his calf injury. Armstrong thankfully avoided an Achilles injury, but he still sounded down in the dumps about his prognosis.
“It felt like somebody kicked me in the back of the calf. It’s a dagger for sure. This isn’t how I wanted this year to go, especially when we’re making a playoff push. Everything happens for a reason. What’s the reason for this? I really have no idea,” Armstrong said.
Armstrong has been quite the journeyman over the years and has alternated solid and bad years throughout much of it. He spent the first three years of his career with Cleveland and was off to a promising start, but he has been unable to sustain that success year to year.
He was great in 71 games for the Texas Rangers last season with a 2.31 ERA and 0.81 WHIP, but he hasn’t been able to live up to those numbers in 2026. It’s a shame he now might not have a chance to improve upon them because it sounds like he doesn’t see himself coming back from this calf injury anytime soon.
Having this happen right before the trade deadline could encourage the front office to go hunting for a big addition to the bullpen. Hopefully this isn’t how Armstrong’s season ends, but fans will unfortunately just have to wait and see.
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