MILWAUKEE (AP) — Milwaukee Brewers pitcher Brandon Woodruff says his latest shoulder injury won't require surgery, a notable change of plans for a two-time All-Star who has dealt with multiple arm issues.
This development creates at least a slight chance Woodruff could pitch again this season, though the prospect remains unlikely.
“I think there’s a low possibility,” Milwaukee manager Pat Murphy said before the Brewers’ game against the Atlanta Braves on Saturday. “But I think there’s a possibility, and why not go with it?”
Woodruff said he will play catch on Wednesday to begin a throwing progression. That represents a major departure from his initial expectations.
He had indicated in mid-July that he would be undergoing anterior capsule surgery on his right shoulder. He had a similar procedure in October 2023 and didn’t pitch again until July 2025.
“I’m very thankful, because I knew what surgery was going to do to me,” Woodruff said.
At the time of this latest injury, Woodruff was fully intending to have surgery as soon as possible to increase the likelihood he could return at least by late in the 2027 season.
Woodruff said Saturday that scans taken four weeks after his injury showed improvement. After consulting with Dr. Keith Meister, who performed the 2023 procedure, Woodruff said he received a recommendation that surgery wasn’t needed this time.
Avoiding surgery should allow Woodruff to return much sooner than the previous time he dealt with this injury, though he still has a long road ahead.
“Now we also have to think of the reality of it,” Murphy said. “Now he hasn’t picked up a ball. Now it’s the progression back, how quickly, how much risk is there in that. But we’ll do anything we can to have Woody a possibility for any of this season.”
Woodruff has spent his entire career with the Brewers and his 3.10 ERA is the best in franchise history for anyone who has pitched at least 500 innings for the team.
The 33-year-old right-hander is 2-2 with a 2.98 ERA in nine starts this year.
He went on the injured list in early May after a reduction in his velocity caused him to leave a game in the second inning. Woodruff returned in late June, but he dealt with another reduction in velocity during a July 4 start at Arizona and hasn’t pitched since.
Woodruff returned to Milwaukee this year after accepting a $22.025 million qualifying offer rather than entering free agency.
In other injury news, Murphy said Saturday that outfielder Sal Frelick should return for the Brewers’ series with the New York Mets that begins Tuesday.
Frelick has been dealing with a right shoulder strain and last played for the Brewers on July 17. He is batting .236 with four homers, 34 RBIs and six steals in 90 games.
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FILE - Milwaukee Brewers pitcher Brandon Woodruff works against the Arizona Diamondbacks during the first inning of an baseball game, July 4, 2026, in Phoenix. (AP Photo/Darryl Webb, File)
WASHINGTON (AP) — The United States and Canada, historic allies along an undefended border, fell deeper into a trade war Saturday marked by angry recriminations and new tariffs that are expected to raise prices for products in both countries.
Each side blamed the other for the collapse of negotiations in Washington late Friday, leading the U.S. to impose 50% tariffs on $20 billion worth of Canadian goods and Canada setting Sept. 8 as the start of its retaliatory penalties.
President Donald Trump’s import taxes will hit about 5% of what Canada ships to the United States every year, ranging from hockey sticks to tongue depressors. Prime Minister Carney said Ottawa would respond with targeted tariff protection for industries exposed to the new U.S. duties, including some steel products. He also mentioned the dairy, appliance, agricultural equipment, pulp and paper and electronics sectors.
No further talks were planned. Whatever the eventual outcome, a loss of trust seems one of the earliest casualties.
Carney accused Washington of using “economic integration as a weapon” and said “its signature was written in pencil.” Resorting to the language of battle, he said his country had been “attacked” by the new American tariffs. “You’re at war when you get attacked,” he said, adding that Canada had the reserves, resilience and plan to respond.
But to Trump's chief trade negotiator, Jamieson Greer, the U.S. was compelled to act after a year of retaliation by its longtime partner.
“We’ve said enough, and so we’ve taken countermeasures. Our interest is in protecting American workers and protecting American supply chains,” the U.S. trade representative told ”Fox & Friends Weekend."
Carney said Canada had been willing to drop remaining retaliatory tariffs on steel, aluminum and autos if the U.S. substantially lowered its own, and to encourage provinces to restore U.S. alcohol sales. But he said Washington’s final demands went too far. “They asked too much and offered too little,” Carney said.
Greer said the Republican administration was offering to cut tariffs on steel, autos and lumber, “things that are sensitive for them. And they’ve always had the best deal, and they still would have an even better deal, but they didn’t want that."
As a result, he said, “We’re moving forward with measures that respond to Canadian retaliation.”
Carney said the U.S. added last-minute terms that would have reduced tariff relief for Canadian-made vehicles, restricted Canada’s ability to strike trade deals with other countries and weakened protections for language, culture and sovereignty.
He said such demands were “unacceptable.”
The breakdown in negotiations marked a sharp reversal from two days earlier, when officials from the two countries sounded as if they were headed toward a compromise.
Ontario Premier Doug Ford, who leads Canada’s most populous province, praised Carney for rejecting the deal, saying it would have hurt Ontario’s auto, steel and manufacturing sectors. Ford urged Canada to use “every tool in our toolbox” to fight the U.S. tariffs.
The moves also call into question the future of a North American trade agreement covering the United States, Canada and Mexico that is crucial to industry in all three countries.
Carney said the breakdown was “certainly not good news” for the review of that agreement and that the failed negotiations had given Canada “a new perspective” on what Washington wants from the broader economic relationship.
The political impact will likely be even bigger than the economic fallout. The countries sold each other $880 billion worth of goods and services last year.
The tariffs were initially supposed to kick in at 12:01 a.m. Wednesday. Trump extended the deadline for three days to allow talks to continue, but the countries could not reach an agreement in time.
The U.S. and Canada have wrangled for decades over trade, poking each other over sore spots such as Canadian softwood lumber imports and U.S. access to Canada’s protected dairy market.
Somehow, they still managed to remain friends, allies and trading partners. Canadian soldiers fought alongside Americans in Afghanistan after 9/11. The 5,525-mile U.S.-Canada border is undefended, and nearly 330,000 people and $2 billion worth of goods cross it every day; 800,000 Canadians live in the United States.
Trump’s approach to dealing with Canada marks an extraordinary departure from the traditionally cooperative relationship between the two countries. Trump has imposed tariffs on Canadian goods in a push to bring manufacturing back to the United States and made inflammatory comments about turning Canada into America’s 51st state.
Carney said Canada had recognized that “America has changed” and that the two countries would “not return to our old relationship.”
The Canadian public is fed up. A petition to expel U.S. Ambassador Pete Hoekstra, a Trump ally, has collected nearly 248,000 signatures since July 21. It accuses the former Republican congressman from Michigan of having “normalized’’ Trump’s talk of annexing Canada, among other things.
The two countries had good reasons to find a compromise.
Nearly 72% of Canada’s goods exports last year went to the United States. The Trump administration might be wary of imposing new tariffs — paid by U.S. importers who try to pass along the cost to consumers via higher prices — before the November midterm elections. American voters are already frustrated with the high cost of living.
“Both sides will be under immense pressure in the coming days to still find an off-ramp,” said Ryan Majerus, a partner at King & Spalding and a former U.S. trade official.
Candace Laing, president and CEO of the Canadian Chamber of Commerce, called the tariffs “a body blow to North American competitiveness” and warned they would raise costs for Americans while threatening Canadian customers, investment and small businesses.
Trump has made tariffs the centerpiece of his second-term economic agenda. Last year, he imposed double-digit import taxes on almost every country, justifying them by declaring the long-standing U.S. trade deficit a national emergency. The Supreme Court in February ruled that he had overstepped his authority. The justices struck down the trade penalties and set the stage for the federal government to pay refunds to importers.
So Trump has looked for other legal authority to justify tariffs.
To punish Canada, he reached back to the Great Depression, invoking Section 338 of the Tariff Act of 1930 to threaten 50% tariffs on products that account for about 5% of Canadian exports to the United States.
Nearly a century ago, with the U.S. and world economies in collapse, Congress passed the 1930 tariff law, imposing taxes on imports from around the world. Known as the Smoot-Hawley tariffs after their congressional sponsors, they are notorious among economists and historians for limiting world commerce and making the Great Depression worse.
Section 338, which has never been used before to impose tariffs, authorizes the president to slap import taxes of up to 50% on imports from countries that have discriminated against U.S. businesses. No investigation is required to justify the levies. Nor is there any limit on how long they can stay in place.
The rift comes as the United States, Mexico and Canada are trying to renew a trade agreement that Trump negotiated in his first term and once praised as a triumph. The United States has begun formal talks with Mexico over revamping the US-Mexico-Canada Agreement, known as USMCA. But talks with Canada have not begun and escalating trade conflict casts doubt on whether they will.
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Gillies reported from Toronto. Associated Press writer Michelle L. Price contributed to this report.
Prime Minister Mark Carney and Canada-U.S. Trade Minister Dominic LeBlanc arrive at a news conference about Canada's response to new U.S. tariffs on Parliament Hill in Ottawa on Saturday, Aug. 22, 2026. (Patrick Doyle/The Canadian Press via AP)
Canada-U.S. Trade Minister Dominic LeBlanc and chief trade negotiator Janice Charette listen as Prime Minister Mark Carney speaks about Canada's response to new U.S. tariffs during a news conference on Parliament Hill in Ottawa on Saturday, Aug. 22, 2026. (Patrick Doyle/The Canadian Press via AP)
Canada-U.S. Trade Minister Dominic LeBlanc and chief trade negotiator Janice Charette listen as Prime Minister Mark Carney speaks about Canada's response to new U.S. tariffs during a news conference on Parliament Hill in Ottawa on Saturday, Aug. 22, 2026. (Patrick Doyle/The Canadian Press via AP)
Prime Minister Mark Carney speaks about Canada's response to new U.S. tariffs during a news conference on Parliament Hill in Ottawa on Saturday, Aug. 22, 2026. (Patrick Doyle/The Canadian Press via AP)
President Donald Trump speaks with reporters before boarding Air Force One, Friday, Aug. 21, 2026, at Joint Base Andrews, Md., en route to South Carolina. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin)
Rolled coils of steel sit in the yard at the ArcelorMittal Dofasco steel plant in Hamilton, Ont. on Thursday, Aug. 20, 2026. (Nick Iwanyshyn /The Canadian Press via AP)
FILE - Canada Prime Minister Mark Carney and President Donald Trump hold a press conference at the White House in Washington, D.C., Oct. 7, 2025. (Adrian Wyld/The Canadian Press via AP, File)
Rolled coils of steel sit in the yard at the ArcelorMittal Dofasco steel plant in Hamilton, Ont. on Thursday, Aug. 20, 2026. (Nick Iwanyshyn /The Canadian Press via AP)
President Donald Trump walks on the Ellipse as he arrives on Marine One near the White House, Friday, Aug. 21, 2026, in Washington. (AP Photo/Manuel Balce Ceneta)
