The Rangers have announced a series of moves today as the month of September begins. Texas designated righty Jhan Marinez and lefty Joely Rodriguez to open two 40-man roster spots. Texas has also designated lefty Dario Alvarez, MLB.com’s T.R. Sullivan tweets.
Those three hurlers are a few of the many that have cycled through the Texas pen this year, as the organization has scrambled to make up for injured and/or ineffective pitching. Marinez has produced mostly solid results in time with three organizations this year, though clearly teams view him as a fill-in asset. Rodriguez has allowed exactly 19 earned runs in 27 frames at both the MLB and Triple-A levels this year. And Alvarez actually managed to carry a 2.76 ERA over 16 1/3 MLB innings this year, but he was averaging 7.7 B/9 to go with 9.4 K/9.
Leading the team’s September call-up list is lefty Jake Diekman, whose absence to date was one of the drivers of the bullpen churn. Diekman had missed the entire season after undergoing surgery just before camp to address inflammatory bowel disease. (You can and should read more about his journey here.) The Rangers can control the southpaw for one more season via arbitration; in all likelihood, he won’t command much of a raise on his current $2.55MM salary since he doesn’t have much time to accrue innings.
Recently acquired righty Paolo Espino, infielder Will Middlebrooks, and catcher A.J. Jimenez have also been tabbed to join the MLB club.
Nice to see Jimenez get a call up
As someone who’s dealt with Chron’s, it’s nice to see Diekman back
Two former Pirates, Rodriguez and Marinez DFA’d. I wonder if…..nah. 😉