Luis Severino not expected to pitch again in 2026 after shoulder injury

What happened

Luis Severino's 2026 season is, for all practical purposes, over. Athletics manager Mark Kotsay told reporters — including Martín Gallegos of MLB.com — that he does not expect Severino to pitch again this year, citing a throwing program that does not leave enough time to fully build up before the season ends.

Severino had been placed on the injured list at the end of May with a shoulder capsule and subscapularis muscle strain. The nature of that injury pointed toward a lengthy absence from the start. He was subsequently moved to the 60-day IL in June — a designation that removes a player from the active 40-man roster count — and has yet to appear in a minor league rehab game. Per Gallegos' reporting, even if Severino were to begin a rehab assignment now, the Athletics — sitting well outside of contention — have no interest in rushing him back for games that carry no playoff stakes.

Why it matters

The shoulder capsule and subscapularis are not the kind of structures that reward impatience. A strain there tends to demand a deliberate, unhurried throwing progression, and Kotsay's comments reflect exactly that reality: the calendar simply does not cooperate. With the Athletics at 57-87 and 16 games back in the AL West, there is no competitive argument for compressing Severino's recovery timeline. The club's stated position, per Gallegos' reporting, is that protecting the pitcher matters more than squeezing a handful of late-season starts out of him.

That framing is worth noting. Severino was not a depth piece filling innings in the back of a rotation — he was a legitimate contributor before the injury. Losing him for the final weeks of a lost season is one thing; what this means for how he enters the offseason is a more consequential question, and one that remains entirely unaddressed in the available reporting.

The numbers

Before the shoulder ended his year, Severino made 12 starts and posted a 4.16 ERA. He struck out 24.0% of opposing hitters, a figure that reflects genuine swing-and-miss capability. The complicating entries in the ledger were an 11.4% walk rate — elevated by any standard — paired with a slight uptick in home runs allowed. The strikeout number suggests the stuff was present; the walk rate and home run trend suggest the command picture was still being sorted out when the injury arrived.

The Athletics carry a .396 winning percentage on the season, sitting 4th in the AL West. In the Wild Card picture, they rank 11th, 15.5 games relative to the cut line. The September roster expansion — when the active roster grows from 26 to 28 players beginning September 1 — will offer the club some flexibility to carry additional arms, but Severino, per Kotsay's comments, is not expected to be among them.

Where the club stands

At 57-87, the Athletics are in a familiar position for this stage of the season: playing out the string with an eye toward what comes next. They are 4th in the AL West, 16 games back, and currently on a one-game losing streak. The Wild Card door is not merely closed — it is 15.5 games away from even being in the conversation.

The upcoming schedule offers no particular relief. On Sunday, August 16, the Athletics host the Texas Rangers at Sutter Health Park, with Jacob Lopez drawing the start against Cody Bradford. The club then travels to Kauffman Stadium for back-to-back games against the Kansas City Royals: Mason Barnett is the probable starter Monday against Michael Wacha, and Brady Basso is lined up for Tuesday against Daniel Lynch IV. None of those matchups carry playoff implications for the Athletics, which means the remaining weeks function primarily as development time and organizational evaluation — exactly the context in which pushing a recovering pitcher makes the least sense.

What we don't know yet

Kotsay's comments establish that Severino is not expected to pitch in 2026. What they do not establish is anything about his status beyond this season. There is no reported timetable for full recovery, no characterization of how the shoulder has responded to treatment, and no indication from the club about what his health picture might look like heading into the offseason. The 60-day IL placement is a procedural reality of the injury designation, but what happens after the season concludes has not been addressed in the material available.

Whether the elevated walk rate and home run trend from his 12 starts were injury-related, mechanical, or simply a rough patch is also an open question. Those numbers existed before the shoulder became the story, and they will presumably be part of whatever evaluation the organization conducts this winter.

What to watch

### Is there any path to Severino pitching before the season ends?

Per Kotsay's comments to reporters, the answer is almost certainly no. The throwing program timeline does not support it, and the Athletics have explicitly indicated they have no interest in rushing him back for games without playoff meaning. Barring a significant and unreported change in his recovery trajectory, Severino's next competitive appearance remains an open question with no reported timetable attached to it.

Beyond Severino specifically, the Athletics' rotation situation over the final weeks of the season is worth monitoring in its own right. With Severino unavailable and the club deep in the AL West standings, the remaining starts will fall to the arms already in the mix — Lopez, Barnett, and Basso among them, based on the upcoming schedule. How those pitchers perform, and what the organization learns from them, may end up being the more operationally significant story as August turns to September.

The 60-day IL designation means Severino has been off the active 40-man count since June. How the club manages that roster space through the end of the season, and what decisions follow in the offseason, will be the next chapter of a 2026 campaign that ended far earlier than anyone in the Athletics' organization would have preferred.