Red Sox righty Joe Kelly had the luxury of having Yadier Molina call his games with the Cardinals, yet Kelly is now having to manage his own games, WEEI.com’s Rob Bradford. Kelly has gotten off to a rough start in Boston, and he admits “my stats don’t show, but I feel like I’m better at” reading situations and recognizing what pitches to throw at the right times. Here’s some more from around the AL East…
- Twenty scouts were in Cincinnati to watch Johnny Cueto’s start tonight, Hal McCoy of the Dayton Daily News reports. The group included high-ranking evaluators from the Blue Jays and Padres. Cueto delivered another impressive start (7 IP, 2 ER, 5 H, 3 BB, 9 K) for his audience in a no-decision in the Reds’ 4-3 victory over the Giants.
- Yankees right-hander Chase Whitley left tonight’s game after just 1 2/3 innings due to an elbow injury. Whitley will undergo an MRI tomorrow and he told reporters (including Chad Jennings of the LoHud Yankees blog) that he has been coping with the injury for a while but hadn’t told the club about it until tonight.
- Orioles prospect Hunter Harvey will visit Dr. James Andrews next week in regards to his injured right elbow, Dan Connolly of the Baltimore Sun reports. Harvey underwent an MRI yesterday and O’s executive VP Dan Duquette said the club believes the injury is a flexor mass strain in Harvey’s right forearm. Duquette is hopeful the injury won’t require surgery and Harvey can return to action this season after a rest period, though these plans will likely change if Andrews disagrees with the initial diagnosis. Harvey, the 22nd overall pick of the 2013 draft, drew high placements in preseason prospect rankings from ESPN’s Keith Law (16th), MLB.com (41st) and Baseball America (68th).
- The Orioles have ten players scheduled for free agency this winter, and if MASNsports.com’s Roch Kubatko were to set an over/under of three players re-signed by the team, he would “take the under if pressed to wager today.” The free agent trio represented by Scott Boras (Wei-Yin Chen, Chris Davis and Matt Wieters) may potentially be the likeliest to depart, and Kubatko says “you’ll find plenty of people in the industry, and at least a few in the Orioles organization, who are making that assumption.” Kubatko does stress that it’s still far too early to guess with any certainty about who could be leaving or staying, however — in Wieters’ case, for instance, he has yet to even hit the field this season.
With regards to Whitley, when are players going to stop hiding injuries? I know sports is a macho enterprise, but this kind of thing never ends well for the player. I remember when Jon Broxton just collapsed down the stretch several years ago with the Dodgers, then admitted he was pitching with an injury he wasn’t telling the team about. He hasn’t been the same since; and yet he said he would do the same thing again if he had to. It’s silly. If you’re hurt your hurt. It’s not a moral failing. It doesn’t make you less of a man or less of a baseball player.
Whitley was only in the rotation becuase Tanaka got injured, he doesn’t want to go on the DL and lose his roster spot. I’m not really happy that he did it but i understand why he did.
It’s pretty frustrating as a Yankee fan for that to happen too, I know the guy finally worked his way into the rotation and he didn’t want to lose the spot, I can’t blame him for that much. But by hiding the injury and having to come out in game, he hurt the bullpen and the team itself tonight, and could have further hurt himself, which isn’t cool all around.
I’m going to guess that hiding the injury A) doesn’t endear him to his bosses and B) makes the injury worse. It’s shortsighted.
There’s a lot more psychologically that goes into it than just being macho. These guys are professional athletes that want to compete. They don’t want to be injured. I’m not a sports psychologist but I can bet they go through some phase of denial and psychologically talk themselves into thinking they aren’t hurt; that they can play through it.
That’s probably true; this is an issue that teams should probably begin addressing early in the minors – “If you’re hurt please let us know. Getting injured isn’t a fault. But getting more hurt because you didn’t tell us is a fault.”
It’s the same reason a lot of players use(d) PEDs, when you finally make it you have this overwhelming pressure to keep it at all costs. It’s not exactly fun to have your dream slip away.
I think by the deadline, if the red sox are alive and in it, I see them going after cueto
Kelly isn’ the terrible pitcher he has been so far in 2015. He is a 4 to 4.5 ERA guy with a good fastball that can mix dominating starts with awful duds. However, he is a very inefficient pitcher who has only 5 starts of 7 IP and 0 of 8 in 55 career starts.
I think he is a decent number 5 starter with potential for more if he could get his walk rate down while maitaining his current K rate. I think the team should give him until end of June to prove himself.
However, if by end of June he is struggiling and the team is looking to contend I think he will need to be replaced.
Davis and Wieters seem like they are definitly gone from Balitmore. Chen and Norris can be replaced by 2 of Gausman, Bundy, and Harvey though to keep depth I think Chen gets resigned or they pick up a veteran SP on the cheap.
De Aza and Young can be let go or replaced easily as can Tommy Hunter and Wesley Wright.
I think Pearce, O’Day, and Everth Cabrera could all be resigned for cheap short term deals and will. That should leave the O’s in a good spot to make a splash in FA or through trade.