Blake Snell Headed for Elbow Surgery After Just One Start: Dodgers Lose Their Other Ace
Blake Snell’s 2026 season is going to look a lot different than the Dodgers expected. The two-time Cy Young Award winner is scheduled to undergo surgery on Tuesday to remove loose bodies from his left elbow. He has officially been placed on the 15-day injured list, and the Dodgers do not have a firm timetable for his return.
This is the kind of news that quietly reshapes a season.
Snell signed with the Dodgers as a major free agent move. He was supposed to slot in alongside Yoshinobu Yamamoto, Roki Sasaki, and the rest of a rotation that looked, on paper, like the best in baseball heading into the spring. Instead, Snell made just one start before being scratched on May 15 due to elbow discomfort. He has not pitched again, and now he is heading to surgery.
Manager Dave Roberts confirmed the procedure on Sunday. The Dodgers are still finalizing which type of surgery Snell will have, but multiple sources have indicated that he could undergo the same NanoNeedle Scope technique that Tigers ace Tarik Skubal recently had. That is the modern, lower-invasive option. If true, it would suggest Los Angeles is optimistic about a meaningful 2026 return rather than a multi-month shutdown.
Snell has been here before. Back in July 2019, while with the Tampa Bay Rays, he underwent surgery to remove loose bodies from his pitching elbow. He returned to the big leagues about two months later. The Dodgers will use that timeline as a baseline. If the medical staff thinks he can match that pace, Snell could be back on a major league mound by mid to late July.
That is the best case. The worst case is a more complicated procedure that pushes him deeper into the second half or even into late September.
The bigger picture for the Dodgers is the rotation depth they have been quietly burning through. Snell is now down. Yoshinobu Yamamoto is being handled carefully. Tony Gonsolin is rehabbing. Jack Dreyer just hit the IL. Sasaki finally had a breakout against the Angels on Sunday, but he is still a 24-year-old learning the league.
This is why the Dodgers traded for Eric Lauer over the weekend. They needed a steady arm to soak up innings. They will likely need another by the trade deadline.
The good news is that Los Angeles still leads the NL West. The bad news is that the rotation is now thin enough that a serious injury to one more starter could change the entire competitive picture. The Dodgers’ margin for error keeps shrinking.
Snell himself has handled this kind of setback before. He is a two-time Cy Young winner. He has the swing-and-miss stuff to be elite when healthy. He has also had stretches where his command came and went, especially when working back from injury. The Dodgers are betting on his ceiling and praying his recovery is clean.
For now, all anyone has is the surgery date. After Tuesday, the team will give a more formal timeline. The hope is that this is a six to eight week absence, that Snell rejoins the rotation in July, and that he is ready to be a real postseason weapon in October.
The Dodgers are still the team to beat in the National League. They are not, however, the team that walked into 2026 with the deepest rotation in baseball. That team got smaller this week. Blake Snell will be the difference between dominant and merely good.
Get well soon. The Dodgers are going to need him.
A longtime sports reporter, Carlos Garcia has written about some of the biggest and most notable athletic events of the last 5 years. He has been credentialed to cover MLS, NBA and MLB games all over the United States. His work has been published on Fox Sports, Bleacher Report, AOL and the Washington Post.
