Chris Narveson struggled in his last start Sunday, allowing five runs in four innings against the Braves, and today the Brewers placed the left-hander on the disabled list with a torn rotator cuff.
There are different levels of severity and it’s possible he could pitch again this season, but if surgery is required he’s likely done for the rest of 2012 and perhaps part of 2013 as well. Generally speaking rotator cuff surgeries are even more difficult to recover from than Tommy John elbow surgeries.
Narveson made 56 starts and threw 329 total innings with a 4.75 ERA for the Brewers during the past two seasons, but the strength of the Zack Greinke, Yovani Gallardo, Randy Wolf, Shaun Marcum front four would take some of the sting out of losing Narveson as the fifth starter.
Marco Estrada is seemingly the most obvious fill-in, at least in the short term.