Jon Garland Injury: Dodgers Starter To Have Season-Ending Shoulder Surgery

Between 2002-2010, Jon Garland started 308 games and relieved in 21 more, throwing a total of nearly 2,000 innings. He developed the reputation of being a reliable, durable innings-eater, which he was, until this season. This season he has been none of those things. Garland started the year on the disabled list with an oblique injury. He returned in April but went on the disabled list again in early June with a shoulder injury. And now, according to Dylan Hernandez, that shoulder injury will end Garland's 2011 campaign:

Garland will have season-ending shoulder surgery on Monday.

Garland had trouble making progress in his rehab, and it was reported on Monday that his season could be over. Now it's confirmed. With the Dodgers, Garland started nine games, posting a 4.33 ERA with a 1.4 K/BB. Not exactly what the team imagined it would get when it signed one of the more proven innings-eaters this side of Livan Hernandez.

Rubby de la Rosa assumed Garland's vacated spot in the rotation, and he's pitched like how you'd expect a live-armed 22-year-old to pitch.

Jon Garland Injury: Report Has Sore Shoulder Sending Dodger Starter Back To DL

What would we do without real reporters? Via ESPNLosAngeles.com's Tony Jackson, news that Dodger starter Jon Garland is hitting the Disabled List ... again:

Los Angeles Dodgers right-hander Jon Garland, who hadn't been on the disabled list in 11 years until this spring, is expected to be placed there for the second time this season with a right-shoulder injury, the severity of which isn't immediately known, according to two sources who spoke on the condition of anonymity.

Prior to this season, Garland had been incredibly durable, making 32 or 33 starts in nine straight seasons (2002-2010). Over those same nine seasons, only Barry Zito, Derek Lowe, Mark Buehrle and Livan Hernandez started more games. Considering that Garland's qualitative performance has been just slightly better than average, he's sort of been your prototypical innings-eater.

Until 2011. Garland didn't join the Dodger rotation until the 15th of April. And now he's gone again, after nine starts, one win, and a 4.33 ERA that doesn't really reflect how poorly he's pitched.

According to Jackson, there's no word yet on Garland's replacement. But the consensus seems to have settled on 22-year-old rookie Rubby De La Rosa -- see John Sickels' scouting report -- who has looked good in three relief outings and before that pitched brilliantly in Class AA.