Rays’ Steven Wilson starts the season on the injured list

Steven WilsonThe right-hander’s ongoing back problems will prevent him from making the Rays’ Opening Day roster, manager Kevin Cash told reporters (including Marc Topkin of the Tampa Bay Times). According to the Rays official injury update pageWilson received an injection in his back, and it will be at least a week before he takes the mound.

While there is no indication yet that the injury is too serious, Wilson has yet to pitch in Spring Training, so he will have to make up for lost time in rehab work once he recovers. An absence from the injured list of longer than the minimum of 15 days certainly seems possible, although such timeline projections obviously won’t be known until later in March.

This isn’t the first time Wilson has dealt with a bad back, as a pair of back injuries cost him nearly two and a half months of the 2024 season when Wilson pitched for the White Sox. The second of those back injuries prematurely ended Wilson’s season in mid-August, though it could be that he was shut down in part because there was no reason to rush back before the end of Chicago’s record 121-loss season.

It’s a rocky start to Wilson’s Rays tenure, as Tampa Bay just acquired the reliever as part of a four-player trade with the White Sox in November. Wilson has posted generally solid results over his four MLB seasons (save for a 5.71 ERA over 34 2/3 innings during his injury-riddled season in 2024), including a 3.42 ERA over 55 1/3 innings out of the Sox bullpen last year. The sweeper is Wilson’s plus pitch and he provides a lot of soft contact, even though both his walk and strikeout rates were below average last season.