Adrian Houser was ‘ready to take off’ before Tommy John surgery

Biloxi Shuckers pitching coach Chris Hook feels prized pitcher Adrian Houser was just starting to find his groove.

Then he was struck by what almost seems inevitable in today’s game and will likely be out until the 2018 season.

Against Montgomery on June 23, Houser didn’t feel quite right and was pulled after just four innings with what was initially diagnosed as forearm tightness. He later found out he had a “significant partial tear” to his ulnar collateral ligament.

After receiving several opinions, Houser opted for Tommy John surgery and will likely be out 12 to 18 months as a result of extensive rehab. The Milwaukee-Wisconsin Journal Sentinel’s Todd Rosiak reported Brewers team physician William Raasch performed the procedure in Milwaukee.

“To me when I watch guys, I can see there are times in the season where they really start clicking,” Hook said. “When they start clicking, they just take off. Of course, Jorge (Lopez) had that in mid- to late May last year and just took off for the rest of the season. I think Houser was in that type of mode. It was coming and unfortunately he had that little bump in the road.”

Statistically speaking

Although Houser was just 3-7 on the year with a 5.25 ERA, he had shown a lot of improvement in June, earning the Shuckers Pitcher of the Month honor.

Houser went 1-2 in four starts in June but boasted a 2.35 ERA, allowing six earned runs in 23 innings with three quality starts. He also struck out 20 against six walks while holding opponents to a .253 batting average.

Hook pointed to Houser’s fielding independent pitching — which tries to measure what a player’s ERA would look like with a league average defense behind him — of 3.67 as reason for optimism.

“Houser was ready to take off. He had some bad innings — he didn’t really have bad games — so his ERA and those things were kind of skewed. When you look at the advance metrics, he was right where he needed to be,” Hook said. “We were very encouraged on his stuff and location. His delivery was all getting better and he was the Pitcher of the Month in June, so we know he was coming on.”

Staying positive

Houser has remained upbeat. After the surgery, he tweeted: “This is just a bump in the road that I will work hard to overcome and come back stronger from. It’s a long rehab process, and I’m ready to get to work so I can get back to competing and helping the Brew Crew wherever I can in the future. Go Brew Crew!”

The Brewers also seem confident Houser, who Baseball America ranked as Milwaukee’s 20th best prospect, will bounce back from the injury.

“You realize injuries are part of it and you feel bad when it happens,” Brewers farm director Tom Flanagan told Rosiak. “But at the same time, we know it’s a surgery that has a very high success rate, and we’re confident in our people to rehab Adrian and in Adrian to give the effort he’s going to need.

“In time he’ll do that and get back out there for us.”

According to Baseball America, the 6-foot-4, 235-pound Houser has a 92-94 MPH fastball that tails away from left-handed batters and he mixes in a slider, curveball and changeup.

This story was originally published July 26, 2016 at 5:09 PM with the headline "Adrian Houser was ‘ready to take off’ before Tommy John surgery."