Cincinnati Reds reliever Tejay Antone will have elbow surgery on Friday, manager David Bell told reporters on Tuesday. Bell said Antone suffered a partially torn ligament and the ligament was torn off the bone, according to the Cincinnati Enquirer's Gordon Wittenmyer.
Antone left Sunday's game against the Mets after throwing just one pitch in relief of starter Andrew Abbott.
"I was actually there when he snapped it the second time in Milwaukee and that was heart-wrenching even from the other side and now he's my teammate and close friend on the team and for him to go down like that, it's just gut-wrenching," Brent Suter, who took over for Antone, told reporters after the game.
Antone, 30, has twice before undergone Tommy John surgery, first in 2017 and then again in 2021. He returned to the mound in early September last season before being shut down again later that month with elbow soreness.
This season for the Reds, Antone made four relief appearances, and over that two-inning span he struck out a pair of batters, walked four, and allowed two runs. For his big-league career, he owns an ERA+ of 196 across parts of four seasons with 96 strikeouts and 35 walks in 76 2/3 innings.
The Reds originally drafted Antone in 2014 as a fifth-rounder out of Weatherford College in Texas.
To take Antone's roster spot, the Reds have called up Carson Spiers, a 26-year-old righty who made four appearances in the majors last year.
