On August 22, 2026, Erik Tolman stood on a major-league mound for the first time.

He was 27 years old. His parents, Linda and Bill, were in the stands at loanDepot park in Miami. Three days earlier, Washington had selected the left-hander’s contract from Triple-A Rochester. Tolman entered in the seventh inning against the Marlins and threw 16 pitches, 10 for strikes.

He threw a scoreless inning. His first major-league strikeout came when Esteury Ruiz took an 83.9-mile-per-hour changeup for a called third strike.

“I am so happy that they made it,” Tolman told MLB.com of his parents. “I wouldn’t want anyone else that would be in those stands with me.”

Before he could worry about a fastball, a changeup, or the shape of a slider, Tolman had to relearn how to walk, run, and drive. Before he could return to the Washington Nationals’ farm system, he had to regain enough trust in a right leg that no longer moved or felt the way it once had.

The major leagues were the destination. The work was everything that came before them.

Before the Detours

Tolman grew up in Lake Forest, California, and attended El Toro High School. During his senior season, he went 8 and 2 with a 1.89 earned run average, striking out 100 hitters in 74 innings while walking 21. He also hit .364 with six home runs and 21 runs batted in, and he was named South Coast League Most Valuable Player. He earned Orange County Register recognition as one of the county’s leading players.

Arizona State’s official biography describes that recognition as Orange County Baseball Player of the Year. Cal-Hi Sports identified Tolman as the Orange County Register’s Pitcher of the Year and later placed him on its all-state first team. The sources differ on the precise award title, but agree on the season that made him a sought-after college player: a two-way contributor capable of changing a game from the mound or at the plate.

His El Toro years also placed him alongside a younger player who would become one of baseball’s most recognizable pitchers. Paul Skenes was a backup catcher at the school a couple of years behind Tolman, and Tolman said he threw to him a few times.

Tolman’s early impression of Skenes was not limited to physical ability. “He’s also not soft,” Tolman told FanGraphs. “If he gets knocked down, he’s going to get right back up.”

At Arizona State, Tolman was a genuine two-way player. He pitched and hit as a freshman in 2019, posting a 3.38 earned run average in 24 mound appearances while hitting three home runs. He spent that summer with the Yarmouth-Dennis Red Sox in the Cape Cod Baseball League.

By 2020, his pitching upside had become more visible. In the shortened season, Tolman struck out 30 hitters in 18 innings while opponents batted .143 against him. Before the 2021 season, he and the Arizona State staff agreed he would stop hitting and focus exclusively on pitching.

“I think it was the best decision for me to take some time off and just focus on pitching,” Tolman told The State Press. “I think it’s helped me dramatically on the mound, just focusing more on what I can do to help the team.”

Arizona State pitching coach Jason Kelly said the added focus coincided with a velocity increase, a sharper slider, and improved strike throwing. That development did not settle every part of Tolman’s game. At the time of his 2026 call-up, his Triple-A walk rate still reflected an area of work.

The First Returns

Tolman underwent Tommy John surgery during his final Arizona State season in 2021. Washington drafted him that July in the 14th round, 413th overall, but his professional entry began with rehabilitation rather than a routine first assignment.

After more than a year of recovery, Tolman said he re-tore his UCL during his final live batting-practice session. A second Tommy John surgery followed.

For a pitcher, development accumulates through repetitions: bullpens, starts, relief appearances, difficult counts, mechanical adjustments, and the growing confidence that comes from facing better hitters. Tolman lost long stretches of that ordinary accumulation. Each return required him to re-enter a system that had continued moving while he was away.

He got back on a mound in 2023, moving from the Florida Complex League to Single-A Fredericksburg.

The Third Inning

On August 2, 2023, Tolman had thrown two scoreless innings for Fredericksburg against Salem. As he ran out to begin the third, he jumped the foul line. Tolman later said his spike caught in the turf, his momentum kept moving, and his right leg dislocated.

He subsequently described a severe injury involving multiple knee ligaments, a hamstring torn from the bone, and a ruptured peroneal nerve that produced foot drop. His foot was paralyzed for more than a year.

In an emergency room, Tolman told MLB.com, he heard doctors and nurses discuss the possibility of amputating his lower leg for roughly five minutes. He recalled being told by medical professionals that a return was not impossible, but that it would be extremely difficult.

The next question was not whether he could get hitters out. It was whether he could recover ordinary function.

Tolman told FanGraphs that he had to “rewire” his brain to walk, run, and drive. He later said he retained up-and-down motion in the foot but not side-to-side movement, and that he still could not feel the top of it.

The Landing Leg

The injury was to Tolman’s right leg. As a left-handed pitcher, that is his landing leg.

Tolman told FanGraphs that the same injury to his left, or back leg would have been career-ending because, in his description of his delivery, that leg needed internal rotation.

“It would have been career-ending, for sure,” Tolman told FanGraphs. “On your back leg, you have to be able to rotate internally. Fortunately enough, I was born a lefty. Being my landing leg, I just have to stabilize it.”

Tolman’s public account describes the challenge in practical terms: build enough stability in a leg with limited lateral mobility to land, control his body, and continue pitching. He pitches in a brace and said in 2025 that he continued working to stabilize the leg every time he landed.

His account shows that returning to competition did not mean he felt unchanged.

The Arizona Year

Tolman did not pitch in 2024. He spent the year rehabilitating in Arizona near friends and family and sent the Nationals regular video updates on his progress.

On New Year’s Day 2024, he made a specific commitment to the possibility of returning. Tolman told MLB.com that he began making his bed every morning, eating better, training harder, and putting more attention into his mindset.

The details matter because they are ordinary. The daily routine did not replace surgery, rehabilitation, medical care, or time. It gave Tolman a way to direct energy toward the controllable pieces of a process whose outcome he could not guarantee.

Tolman arrived at spring training in 2025 not fully cleared, by his account. He said the Nationals did not know exactly what to expect. His early work earned him a return to affiliate baseball.

At High-A Wilmington in June 2025, the Blue Rocks used Tolman as an opener. He threw four innings, allowed one hit, and struck out four. In an interview with Beyond the Monster, Tolman called himself a “utility type of pitcher,” preparing for starts or relief work depending on what the organization needed.

He pitched across Single-A, High-A, and Double-A in 2025, totaling 95 and two-thirds innings with a 3.67 earned run average and 96 strikeouts. His September five-inning, no-hit start for Double-A Harrisburg offered a glimpse of what the return could look like, even as his broader Double-A stretch remained uneven.

A Pitcher Still Developing

Tolman continued trying to improve his arsenal. In the June 2025 Beyond the Monster interview, he said he was working on a harder gyro-style slider after using a more sweeper-shaped version earlier in his career. The work showed that rehabilitation had not paused development.

In 2026, Rochester transferred Tolman to the Development List on May 30 and activated him in July. The public transaction record does not specify why he was placed there. He returned to the roster before Washington selected his contract in August.

At the time of his August 19, 2026 call-up, Tolman was 3 and 2 with a 5.23 earned run average in 31 innings over 32 appearances for Triple-A Rochester. He had struck out 42 hitters. His 29.8 percent strikeout rate and 53.3 percent ground-ball rate pointed to swing-and-miss and ground-ball ability, while a 16.3 percent walk rate showed that command remained a challenge.

Tolman was still developing when Washington called him to the major leagues. Across his first two major-league appearances, his four-seam fastball averaged 96.8 miles per hour. Statcast tracked a four-seam fastball, a changeup, and one slider across those early appearances. His changeup produced his first major-league strikeout.

The Work Continues

Tolman’s story is not proof that every injury can be overcome, or that effort by itself determines an outcome. Recovery depends on injury severity, medical care, access to rehabilitation, time, opportunity, support, and performance.

His story does show that a disrupted path can remain a developmental path.

He began as a two-way player and chose to focus on pitching. He endured two elbow reconstructions, then a right-leg injury that changed the immediate goal from pitching performance to basic movement. He returned to baseball with a brace, a landing leg that still required stability work, a willingness to accept a flexible role, and the curiosity to keep shaping a slider.

Friends and family were part of the year in Arizona. His parents were there when he debuted. Within the Nationals organization, he had a setting in which he could send updates, rebuild innings, and eventually earn another opportunity.

For young athletes, coaches, and families, Tolman’s public account illustrates that a return can involve continued adaptation: physical limits, role changes, renewed skill work, and a gradual rebuilding of confidence through competition.

The major-league debut did not close Tolman’s story. It marked the latest return.

On a mound in Miami, with his parents watching, the long path delivered him back to the place he had kept preparing to reach.