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Will Klein is potentially facing season-ending surgery after imaging revealed bone chips in his right elbow, per Dodger Blue. Klein had recently been placed on the 15-day injured list with right elbow discomfort, and the additional testing the Dodgers sent him for did not bring back good news. If surgery is required, his 2026 season is almost certainly over.

This is a brutal blow for Klein, who had carved out a legitimate role in the Dodgers’ bullpen this year. The right-hander came into 2026 as a relatively unheralded arm — a hard-throwing reliever who had been working his way through the system without a ton of fanfare. But he earned his spot and became a pitcher the coaching staff trusted in meaningful innings. His fastball velocity and ability to miss bats made him a weapon out of the pen, and for stretches of the season he was one of the more reliable options Andrew Friedman’s group had in the middle and late innings. The fact that he had been struggling recently now makes more sense in hindsight — pitching through elbow discomfort will do that to anybody, and bone chips are the kind of thing that can subtly erode a pitcher’s command and confidence before the full extent of the problem becomes clear.

Bone chip surgery, while not as catastrophic as something like Tommy John, still typically requires a recovery window that would put Klein well past the end of the regular season and likely the postseason as well. The procedure involves removing loose bone fragments from the elbow joint, and while the long-term prognosis is generally favorable, the short-term reality is that Klein would not be available when this team needs every reliable arm it can get.

For the Dodgers, this is the kind of loss that compounds at the worst possible time. We’re already tracking Blake Snell and Tyler Glasnow working their way back through rehab starts, and the bullpen has been asked to absorb a heavy workload during the team’s six-game losing streak — the worst stretch of the 2026 season. Losing Klein from that mix means the front office and coaching staff need to find another arm they can trust, and the margin for error gets thinner. The recent report that Kris Bubic is expected to fill a bullpen role feels even more relevant now — that move goes from a depth play to something closer to a necessity.

I’ll be honest: this one stings more than people outside the day-to-day might realize. Klein wasn’t a household name, but he was doing real work for this team. The bullpen was already a concern before this news, and now it’s a genuine problem area that needs addressing. The Dodgers have organizational depth to pull from, but replacing what Klein was giving them — when he was healthy and right — isn’t as simple as plugging in the next guy on the depth chart. We’ll see what the final determination is on surgery, but the early signals here are not encouraging at all.

Source(s): Staff (Dodger Blue) | First reported: August 7, 2026 1:55 PM UTC

God Bless and Go Dodgers