Tyler Chatwood exits with right elbow tightness

Isaiah J. Downing-USA TODAY Sports

On a night that was otherwise so joyful, the news about Tyler Chatwood threw some serious ice water on things.

Working his way through a solid though unspectacular outing against the Arizona Diamondbacks on Tuesday night, Chatwood was forced to leave the game in the 6th inning because of some discomfort in his right elbow.

After the game Walt Weiss said the team is going to give it a day or so before they start to evaluate the injury and make a decision (from Barry Bloom of MLB.com):

"‘Chatty had some tightness in his elbow, so we wanted to get him out at that point,’ Rockies manager Walt Weiss said after his club won 5-4 at Chase Field on a ninth-inning homer off the bat of Drew Stubbs. ‘We’ll re-evaluate him tomorrow.’“Asked if he expected Chatwood to undergo an MRI, Weiss reiterated, ‘Not at this point. We’ll re-evaluate tomorrow.'”"

Pending the results of that evaluation, of course, here’s betting that Chatwood at least misses a start or two and probably ends up on the DL. With this being a repeat injury and with the unbelievable rash of elbow injuries across baseball this season, caution seems to be the obvious course. It should also be noted that Chatwood has been leaving an awful lot of pitches up in the zone in his last couple starts, a stark contrast from the guy who was a ground ball machine in 2013 (58.5%).

Those struggles may or may not be explained by the fact that his elbow was bothering him. Here is hoping that Chatwood just needs some rest, with no extended stint on the DL required, to get back in the rotation.