The Milwaukee Brewers activated outfielder Sal Frelick from the 10-day injured list. Frelick missed more than a month with a strained right shoulder. The outfielder revealed the extent of his injury to the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel‘s Curt Hogg.
An interesting (near) six minutes with Sal Frelick about his shoulder injury — technically a labrum tear that he explains why doctors say he can keep playing through it — and if it will require reassessing it in the off-season. pic.twitter.com/mok62Rh0YJ
— Curt Hogg (@CyrtHogg) August 25, 2026
“Ultimately, it was a torn labrum, which is never what you want to hear,” said Frelick. “There wasn’t any acuteness to it, and how they explained it to me is if they had an MRI on my shoulder from five years ago, it would have relatively looked the same.
“They said there was some new stretching of it going on. But for the most part, they said if they MRI’d everybody’s shoulder, everybody has a torn labrum. It’s just how your body can handle it.
“A lot of the doctors were saying because it’s been torn and I haven’t had issues, they were hopeful that there was just new rotation or maybe the muscle got shut off because it was being overused.”
With the Brewers in a strong position to qualify for the postseason and possibly make a deep run, his mind was focused on completing the rehab as quickly and safely as possible.
“The trainers and everybody said we have to take it slow, so there was kind of that battle going back and forth,” Frelick told Hogg. “But also kind of push it as fast as I could while trying to be smart. My body responded pretty well, better than we all thought, and just your standard rehab.”
Sal Frelick Makes Injury Admission Following IL ActivationGettySal Frelick will attempt to play through a labrum injury in his right shoulder. (Photo by Andy Lyons/Getty Images)
Sal Frelick spoke up about it once the pain started affecting his ability to throw max effort in the outfield and his swing. He was hitting just .118 in July before going on the injured list.
“So I was doing my usual stuff, staying on top of it, as I couldn’t get rid of the soreness and pain, it was getting worse and worse,” said Frelick. “I was struggling to pull down from the outfield, and then it crept into my swing. I was just like, this isn’t something I can be tough through if I’m going to be a liability to the team.”
This will likely be an injury that the Brewers’ medical staff has to reassess at the end of the year. Frelick said that the goal was “get through this year and definitely reassess,” but he believes with the way his shoulder has responded that he could avoid surgery.
What’s Next for Sal Frelick?Assuming all goes well, Frelick should finish the year with the Brewers. While managing such an injury, it could come down to pain tolerance and how effective he is on the field. If he’s unable to play through it or the shoulder doesn’t quite heal right when they reassess it, then surgery becomes the next step.
Should Frelick ultimately require surgery, it will impact his availability to start the 2027 season. The National Library of Medicine lists the average recovery time from labrum surgery at roughly 285 days, or nine months, for MLB position players.
However, there are documented cases of a player bouncing back quicker than that. The Arizona Diamondbacks‘ Jordan Lawlar was participating in minor league camp just six months after his September 2021 labrum surgery.
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