PHOENIX -- It was the news they expected, but it didn’t make it any easier to hear -- Diamondbacks closer Justin Martinez will undergo Tommy John surgery in the coming weeks and be lost for the rest of the 2025 season and a large portion of 2026 as well.
Martinez, 23, exited Monday night’s game with two outs in the ninth inning with elbow tightness. It will be his second Tommy John surgery; his first was in 2021.
“It's awful news,” Diamondbacks manager Torey Lovullo said. “It's awful for him. It's awful for this organization.”
The Martinez update continued a string of recent injury news that has been tough for the Diamondbacks to process.
Ace Corbin Burnes, who was signed to a six-year, $210 million contract in the offseason and had been the team’s best pitcher, also injured his elbow and had Tommy John surgery Wednesday.
“I spoke to Corbin Burnes today and he sounded so fresh and alive when he answered the phone that it startled me,” Lovullo said. “I'm like, 'Wow, you just made me smile, Corbin,' because somebody has arm surgery as recently as he did you're thinking that he's going to be groggy and kind of out of it. But that wasn't the case at all. So he had an unbelievable outlook. Kind of lifted me up and got me through the conversation a little bit.”
Lovullo has a deep bond with his players, and watching them suffer major injuries has taken an emotional toll on him.
In addition to the Martinez news, Lovullo also had a less-than-encouraging update on injured lefty A.J. Puk, who opened the year as co-closer with Martinez.
Puk was placed on the injured list in April and diagnosed with a flexor strain. He had begun a throwing program in recent weeks and was out to over 100 feet with it before he once again experienced discomfort in his elbow.
Puk had his throwing program stopped and will visit Dr. Neal ElAttrache to be further evaluated.
“This game is extremely tough and unforgiving, and it can just rip you apart,” Lovullo said. “The way I look at it is, I've got 26 kids out there that are playing every single day, and when you see one, or in this case, four or five or six, maybe even more go down and get pulled off the field, it’s painful on a personal level.”
Martinez was outstanding for the Diamondbacks in 2024 with an electric fastball that reached above 100 mph on a regular basis. He posted a 2.48 ERA and 29.5% strikeout rate over 72 2/3 innings in his first full season in the big leagues.
So excited were the Diamondbacks by Martinez’s potential that they signed him to a five-year contract extension this spring that runs through 2029. The deal is worth $18 million.
Concerns about Martinez’s health first cropped up in late April, when his velocity dipped noticeably. After having an MRI taken of his right shoulder, Martinez was diagnosed with shoulder fatigue and placed on the 15-day IL.
When Martinez returned from the IL on May 23, his velocity was back and the Diamondbacks thought he was past any health issues.
But Monday, after retiring the first two hitters of the ninth inning, Martinez waved the trainer out to the mound and said he was experiencing tightness in his elbow.
“We just got to go out with that next-man-up attitude,” Lovullo said. “And as hard as these past two weeks have been, I think this team is responding as well as I could have ever hoped, and I'm proud of him. I thanked them for their effort today, because they go out there and play hard every single day.”