WASHINGTON – The Orioles won’t have infielder Jordan Westburg for the 2026 season. They’re hoping that the timing of his ligament-reconstructive surgery on his right elbow will make him available at least early in 2027.

Westburg had the procedure Wednesday in Los Angeles.

President of baseball operations Mike Elias said it’s too soon to put “a specific timeline on something like this,” but he added that having Westburg back on a full-time basis early next season is “very much in play.”

“I think it’ll be a long time before we have more exact clarity on that plan, but obviously that’s a huge blow for the team and an unexpected one,” Elias said while sitting in the visiting dugout at Nationals Park. “It wasn’t something we were braced for coming into the year.”

Westburg received a platelet-rich plasma injection in the elbow in spring training but had to be shut down again because of discomfort that returned as he increased his throwing progression.

“To Jordan’s credit, he wanted to try everything he could to come back and help the team this year and help the team as an infielder, but it just wasn’t working out with the conservative route,” Elias said. “So we went ahead and got the surgery, and I don’t think much of anything was lost in terms of his 2027 timeline. So that’s kind of why we went with that approach.”

The injuries are piling up with Westburg, the 30th-overall draft pick in 2020 out of Mississippi State. He was limited to 85 games last season and never got onto the field this year.

Can he become a durable major league player? He’s trying to stay confident. The club isn’t giving up on him.

“Whenever a guy like him has had a bunch of little different injuries, it turns into a thing, but there’s nothing chronically in his body that should prevent him from having a full, healthy major league season again,” Elias said.

“I just think he keeps getting struck by lightning when it comes to injuries. And you know, this is something, it’s a major injury but it’s usually fixed by the surgery and he should be fine. Hopefully, he gets a good amount of time to rest and strengthen the rest of his body. And I think one thing we’ve seen over the last few years with this team is, he’s a huge part of making the team click, so we’ll do our best to grind on without him, but we’ll be very eager to have him back.

“I know what a hard worker he is and what a big heart he has, so I’m extremely confident his rehab will go great.”

The Orioles want to keep Westburg at third base and will count on easier recoveries for position players to prevent him from having to move to a different position.

“You’re never out of the woods until the rehab’s over, but the return rates for Tommy John, particularly for infielders, are really high,” Elias said. “So the statistics are really on our side here, and I don’t have any reason to be concerned beyond the statistics. I know he’s gonna put everything he’s got into it, and (Neal) ElAttrache is a great surgeon, so we should be good. It’s just gonna be a matter of time and hard work.”

Coby Mayo is starting at third base tonight and the Orioles also have Blaze Alexander and Weston Wilson. Jackson Holliday is getting starts at third on his injury rehab assignment and Elias is hoping to have him back with the club “soon.”

“We didn’t plan for this outage and there wasn’t any indication that this was gonna be the case until the very first week of spring training when he was reporting this elbow soreness for the first time,” Elias said. “So in that regard, we’ve been having to scrap it together at third base. This has been exacerbated by Jackson Holliday being out simultaneously and it’s kind of pushed around our infield options to try to fill two spots at once. I think the guys that are out there are doing a great job.

“Weston Wilson’s got a .700 OPS, Coby Mayo was kind of thrust back into third base unexpected this spring and we’re seeing some good flashes there, and he’s a talented player and he’s getting a lot of at-bats because of it. Jeremiah Jackson’s done a really good job at second. And we’ll continue to work through all of this as best we can.

“We’re hopeful to get Jackson Holliday back soon. He’s still getting his groove and getting his feet under him, but I think he’s healthy this time. I think that’ll help stabilize the situation. But it’s really hard to fill everyday third baseman shoes like Jordan Westburg’s without that ability to plan for it, and we’re having to work through it on the fly.”

Holliday had to learn how to play second base after the Orioles drafted him at shortstop and now he’s making the transition at least part-time to third base.

“I hate to do that to him,” Elias said. “It’s so quick and sudden, but he did come up as a shortstop, so he’s got experience on the left side of the infield. We talked about it with him thoroughly. He understands the situation and we’re just trying to keep our options open so that there’s as much versatility as possible between him, Jeremiah, Coby, Weston Wilson, the guys in the minors, just so we can deal with whatever’s coming and with whatever combinations that we need.

“So it’s not necessarily something we’re gonna force on Jackson, but we figured as long as he’s on the rehab assignment and he’s comfortable with it, we want to get him a little bit of experience at third, just in case. … We’re not putting any pressure on him. It’s just something he’s doing right now while he’s in the minors and we’ll see where it takes us.”

The Orioles didn’t make a roster move before first pitch, electing to keep three catchers with outfielder Dylan Beavers on the 10-day injured list with a right oblique strain.

“We’re talking about it,” Elias said. “We’re looking at things internally and externally on that front, and it’s possible we switch up the roster composition as we go along here with Dylan’s outage. But certainly that’s something that we’re gonna feel and another bit of injury adversity we’re gonna have to work through here for the next couple few weeks. Hopefully, it’s on the sooner side with him, but we’ll see.”

Trade talks more easily come to fruition much closer to the deadline, but Elias is talking to other clubs.

“It’s a little early to really have the type of trade market that you want to work with there, especially when it comes to maybe major deadline-type moves,” Elias said. “And then I think, especially the American League, thankfully for us, the American League standings are really kind of knotted up right now. So it’s just not a real robust trade market, but we are, as we always are, we’re very active with some of these holes that we have with injuries right now. Just poking around, seeing what’s out there.”  

First baseman Ryan Mountcastle is on the 60-day injured list with a fractured bone in his left foot, and Elias said there isn’t much to report.

“We’re about four weeks into the injury and I think this is something that’s gonna be more of a June pushing into July kind of thing, where we’d start to see some type of return on the horizon,” Elias said.

“Right now, he’s just healing from the broken foot and the baseball activities should ramp up in the next few weeks.”