Neto’s Injury Nightmare: Surgery Reveals Severity for…
While it was a down year for the Los Angeles Angels, shortstop Zach Neto developed into one of the more pivotal hitters in the team’s lineup. However, he may not have an opportunity to double down on his success to start the 2025 season.
Neto underwent shoulder surgery on Wednesday and is in danger of missing Opening Day, via Rhett Bollinger of MLB.com. He suffered his injury in the final week of the season, ultimately ending his campaign early. While he tried to rehab, Neto’s shoulder eventually was forced to undergo surgery.
“He had surgery a couple days ago and I’m not one for timeframes, but he could miss the start of the season,” General Manager Perry Minasian said. “We’ll see where that goes. But he did have surgery on the shoulder. I can’t get into details. But he will miss some time. And how much time, we’ll see.”
“You discuss it with the player and the rehab route was the route that was chosen” Minasian continued. “That’s something that we talked about. As that process went along, he still felt it. It was something we felt like, let’s jump ahead of it and let’s make sure. He’s obviously very important to us. So he’ll have the surgery and we’ll see when he comes back.”
Neto battled injuries throughout the season, but still managed to appear in 155 games. He set new career-highs with a .249 batting average, 23 home runs, 77 RBI and 30 stolen bases. Neto led the Angels in RBI and stolen bases, ranking second in home runs.
Los Angeles is still picking up the pieces after losing Shohei Ohtani to the Los Angeles Dodgers. However, Zach Neto has proven he can be a part of the team’s core moving forward. If he can be a 30/30 player regularly, the Angels will gladly start him atop their lineup everyday.
But first, he must get past his shoulder rehab. Neto and the team did what they could to avoid surgery. In the end, they both wanted to put the injury behind him. Now, Neto will begin to work back from his shoulder ailment and hope to miss not much time, if any.
