Edwin Díaz injury just gave former Royals reliever a second chance in MLB with Dodgers

On September 3, 2022, Wyatt Mills walked out of the Kansas City Royals bullpen and threw a handful of pitches in a game that did not matter much to anyone. It was his 38th career major league appearance. He did not know at the time that it would be his last. Tommy John surgery came the following July. Then, 2024 passed without him pitching anywhere that counted.

In 2025, spent entirely at Triple-A Worcester in the Red Sox system, a 3.12 ERA was solid enough to keep going, and a 13.3% walk rate was concerning enough to wonder if the elbow had really come all the way back. He signed a minor league deal with the Los Angeles Dodgers in February. He was not a roster lock. He was a hope. Today though, Edwin Díaz's elbow made Mills a major leaguer again.

Díaz, who signed a three-year, $69 million deal with the Dodgers this past offseason, underwent arthroscopic surgery to remove loose bodies from his right elbow in April and will not return until after the All-Star break at the earliest. Los Angeles transferred him to the 60-day injured list to clear a 40-man roster spot, optioned Paul Gervase to Triple-A, and selected Mills' contract from Oklahoma City ahead of today's series finale against Atlanta. Mills will now give Los Angeles another bit Kansas City flare, joining the likes of 2025 World Series hero Will Klein.

And after 1,336 days, Mills made his first appearance in the majors on Sunday after coming on in ninth inning to record the final out in ninth inning of their 7-2 loss to the Atlanta Braves.

The circumstances that create opportunities in baseball are rarely elegant. A $69 million closer goes down with elbow trouble, and a 31-year-old sidearm reliever from Spokane, Washington gets the call. That is how this works. What matters for Mills is what he does with it.

He is walking into the best possible situation. The Dodgers' bullpen is not in crisis. Tanner Scott is sporting a 1.65 ERA with four saves and seven holds, and Alex Vesia and Blake Treinen have combined for 11 shutdowns. Nobody is asking Mills to close games or carry weight the current roster cannot bear. He is being asked to get right-handed hitters out, work multiple innings when needed, and not embarrass himself on the biggest stage his career has ever seen. Four years and one surgery ago, that ask felt uncertain. The 2026 version of Wyatt Mills looks like a pitcher who can answer it.

Royals know how Wyatt Mills can help a big-league bullpen in a limited role.

Kansas City fans know what Mills is because they watched him do it for two months in 2022, 13 of 18 appearances scoreless, a sidearm arm angle quietly effective tucked in the middle innings of a bad Royals team.

He did not make a lot of noise. He rarely does. He just got hitters out when he threw strikes and got into trouble when he did not, which is the exact same story every baseball player tells, just more visible in his case because the arm angle makes every walk look like a choice.

Now he is in Los Angeles. Díaz is in a sling. And Mills, 31 years old and 1,336 days removed from his last Royals pitch, gets to find out whether the version of himself he has built in Triple-A this spring is real enough to hold up when it counts. The door that Tommy John surgery closed in July 2023 just opened again. He spent a long time waiting for it.

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