SEATTLE -- Trent Thornton's fears for the worse were realized after undergoing an MRI on Friday afternoon that revealed that he did indeed tear his left Achilles late in the Mariners’ 6-0 win the night prior.
“I tried to get up and just couldn’t even put pressure on it at all,” Thornton said postgame, before undergoing imaging away from the ballpark. “It didn’t hurt. It’s just achy and numb. But I guess I don’t know. I’m still trying to process this a little bit.”
On the play in which he suffered the injury, Thornton tumbled off the mound when attempting to cover the bag on a grounder that led first baseman Josh Naylor more toward second base, leaving first wide open, with two outs in the ninth inning.
“I threw the pitch, and as soon as I turned, I thought I broke the guy’s bat and it hit me in the back of the leg, and I fell,” Thornton said.
Thornton, who’s expected to miss the rest of the season -- and playoffs if Seattle gets there -- was placed on the 15-day IL on Friday. Right-hander Jackson Kowar was recalled from Triple-A Tacoma in a corresponding move ahead of the Mariners' game against the Rangers.
The Mariners had been prioritizing bullpen reinforcements ahead of the Trade Deadline -- which passed just a few hours before Thornton’s injury -- and now must operate with what they have the rest of the way.
The club on Wednesday acquired veteran lefty Caleb Ferguson from the Pirates, who provided an immediate boost with a scoreless seventh inning in his Mariners debut on Thursday. However, he’ll mostly be deployed as a supplement to the pockets that fellow lefty Gabe Speier had been leaned on to fill.
Seattle had been in deep negotiations for much higher-leverage options leading up to the Deadline, most notably on Jhoan Duran, sources said, who went from the Twins to Phillies. They were also in the mix on the many other arms that moved on Deadline Day, but ultimately did not reach the finish line to get anyone beyond Ferguson.
“We were in a lot of those conversations for weeks now, on the back end bullpen guys,” Mariners president of baseball operations Jerry Dipoto said, “and felt like we were in the end zone in one case, and near the goal line on some others.”
They still netted one of the sport’s most successful hauls at this year’s Deadline, thanks to getting arguably the two best bats that moved in Naylor and third baseman Eugenio Suárez. Yet price tags for prospect capital on leverage relievers, which were actualized in most cases, were higher than the Mariners were comfortable with.
“The returns for bullpen [pieces], I think this was about as aggressive as teams have been with their farm systems in quite some time,” Dipoto said.
While Thornton had experienced mixed results in the season’s first half -- missing time in May due to appendicitis -- he seemed to have turned a corner in the six weeks leading up to the injury, coincidentally after suffering from heat exhaustion during a relief appearance on June 21 at Wrigley Field.
He has a 4.68 ERA in 33 outings on the season but a 2.75 ERA in 19 2/3 innings since the incident in Chicago.