CLEVELAND _ Indians ace Corey Kluber received an injection in his right knee Friday morning that will require him to rest for seven days, making him ineligible to pitch in Tuesday's All-Star Game.
Kluber for the last several weeks hasn't been at the same Cy Young level he was near the beginning of the season. Before June 1, Kluber sported a 2.02 ERA in 842/3 innings and was off to the best start of any season in his career. Since June 1, his ERA has doubled to 4.04 in 49 innings. It's unclear when the knee issue actually started, as Kluber only said "maybe a few weeks" when asked about the timeline.
As the knee began bothering him, it negated his ability to repeat his delivery and lowered his arm slot.
"I think if we looked at the data, there are some things that have changed," Kluber said. "I don't want to try to use it as an excuse or anything but, no, I think, if anything, it made it a little bit harder to constantly repeat the delivery the way that I would want to. ... My arm action has been the same, it's just the release point is lower ... Not quite staying strong on the backside and kind of collapsing on it, which makes it harder to drive the ball downhill."
Kluber, who was selected to his third consecutive All-Star team, didn't pitch in last year's Mid-Summer Classic, either, as he started the Sunday before. This year, Kluber wanted to take advantage of the time off to prepare for the second half.
"Obviously, I would have liked to have pitched in the All-Star Game, but I think obviously the big picture, being healthy for the second half, is more important," Kluber said. "With the timing of it and having a break, kind of being able to do this and get some down time to let it work and then not necessarily miss time, miss starts, things like that, it seemed to make sense."
Kluber is now slated to start July 23 against the Pittsburgh Pirates.
"We'll bring him back fourth (in the rotation) coming out of the break so he can have a little bit of a break, because he's going to shoulder a huge load," Indians manager Terry Francona said of Kluber. "And the gel shot, for some people, it's like they saw God. For other people, it's OK. But there's nothing bad. Just from talking to him semi-extensively, he doesn't want anything to get in the way of his routines, because it's so meaningful to him. Doing this will help that."
