Rockies' Jose Quintana injury in blowout loss to Diamondbacks another setback for wobbling rotation

Patrick Saunders, The Denver Post on May 24, 2026

Published in Baseball

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The best thing that happened to the reeling Colorado Rockies on Sunday happened in Las Vegas.

Right-hander Ryan Feltner pitched five strong innings for Triple-A Albuquerque in a rehab start and should be returning to the big-league club soon. The Rockies desperately need him because their starting rotation is in a shambles.

Feltner, who was dealing with right ulnar nerve inflammation, allowed one run on six hits, struck out five and walked one. He threw 67 pitches, 44 for strikes.

In their 9-1 drubbing at the hands of the Arizona Diamondbacks on Sunday at Chase Field, veteran left-hander Jose Quintana departed with one out in the second inning with a tight and painful left elbow. Before leaving the game, he was bludgeoned by Arizona, giving up six runs on six hits, including a leadoff double to Ketel Marte in the first, immediately followed by a triple by Corbin Carroll.

“It’s just elbow tightness,” manager Warren Schaeffer told reporters in Phoenix. “His elbow tightened up on him; discomfort in there. So we had to get him out of the game.”

But Quintana, pitching on a one-year, $6 million contract, sounded a more ominous tone, telling MLB.com: “It feels pretty bad right now, quite painful. In the second inning, I felt (stress) in my elbow. That’s the first time I have felt that. It’s really frustrating to leave the game in the middle of the inning.”

Schaeffer said that there were no indications that Quintana’s elbow was bothering him heading into Sunday’s start.

“It’s just happened today,” Schaeffer said, but he did not provide more updates.

Quintana added that he felt some fatigue in his elbow while warming up before the game. He said he’s hoping for the best and expects to undergo an MRI on Monday.

“I didn’t feel any pop in (my elbow) and I don’t feel like there’s anything broken,” he said. “But I felt a lot of pain, especially with my offspeed (pitches). I felt a heaviness in the elbow.”

Quintanta, along with veteran right-hander Tomoyuki Sugano, has been the Rockies’ only reliable starter of late, especially with right-hander Chase Dollander on the injured list with elbow tightness. Entering Sunday’s game, Quintana was 1-0 with a 3.38 ERA in his four starts this month.

Dollander is expected to be shut down from throwing for at least another three weeks, so Feltner’s return is paramount. Schaeffer, however, did not say if Feltner will be rejoining the rotation later this week.

“We will be discussing that behind closed doors,” Schaeffer said, adding that he’d announce Feltner’s status on either Monday or Tuesday when the Rockies are in Los Angeles to play the Dodgers.

Overall, things have gone from mediocre to bad for Colorado. After inspiring hope with a 14-18 record in March and April, the Rockies own a 6-16 record in May. Bad starting pitching is at the root of the losses. Colorado starters are 2-13 with an 8.26 ERA. Michael Lorenzen, who, along with Quintana and Sugano, was signed as a free agent during the offseason, is 2-7 with a 7.21 ERA this season. Colorado mainstay Kyle Freeland is 1-5 with a 7.04 ERA.

Poor performance and short starts have taxed the bullpen. So much so that on Sunday, for the second time in less than a week, catcher Brett Sullivan was called to the mound to finish the game to save bullpen arms.

The Rockies lost three of four in Arizona, and all of them were close games, save for Sunday’s blowout. Arizona won 2-1 on Thursday, Colorado won 3-2 on Friday, and the D-backs prevailed, 5-4, on Saturday.

“Listen, this series, I thought we played well enough to win three out of the four games,” Schaeffer said. “Lack of execution loses one-run ballgames. They executed, and we didn’t, in general. We just need to get over that hump and start flipping those one-run games the other way.”

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