Tony La Russa talks about mysterious ‘issue’ with Shelby Miller

Most people felt the Arizona Diamondbacks gave up too much to acquire Shelby Miller from the Atlanta Braves over the winter, and the deal looks even worse now that Miller has been optioned to Triple-A.

To say that Miller has struggled would be an understatement. He posted a 2-9 record and a whopping 7.14 ERA through the first half of the season, making him one of the worst starting pitchers in the majors. In an interview with Dan Bickley and Vince Marotta on Arizona Sports 98.7 Friday, D-Backs chief baseball officer Tony La Russa spoke about a mysterious “issue” Miller has been dealing with.

“There was something that, and I know this is really going to sound kind of yucky and kind of mysterious, but there was an issue that came up,” La Russa said, via Paola Boivin of The Arizona Republic. “Believe me, it was not illegal, it wasn’t anything dramatically character-wise that was a problem. But there was something that came into the way that Shelby prepared that worked against him and not for him.”

That narrows it down, huh? La Russa continued to describe the “issue” without really saying anything at all.

“We really didn’t get on to it and solve it until well into the struggles into the season, and now,” he said. “It’s a health thing that we thought, he thought would be a healthier thing to do, and we realized it wasn’t working for him. So what we saw in his time out on the disabled list and in the first couple of games, we saw the improvement, but at this point to maintain that improvement he’s got to get out of the glare where there’s been so much failure that it’s not a fair thing.”

You can’t get any more vague than that. A couple of months ago, we were given a different reason for why Miller is struggling. Hopefully his health is OK.