TODAY: The Rockies announced that they’ve activated Freeland from the 60-day IL. To make room for Freeland on the 40-man roster, lefty Austin Kitchen was designated for assignment. Kitchen was selected to the roster just yesterday and did not make an appearance in the majors during his brief stint with the big league club. The Rockies will now have one week to either trade Kitchen or attempt to pass him through waivers.
June 20: The Rockies will welcome Kyle Freeland back to the rotation for Sunday’s game against the Nationals. Colorado’s Opening Day starter has been out since April 19 because of an elbow strain.
Freeland avoided surgery despite that alarming diagnosis. He has made a trio of rehab appearances — one at the complex before a pair of games for Triple-A Albuquerque. Freeland made his most recent outing on Tuesday, tossing four innings while running his pitch count to 67. The veteran southpaw allowed only three runs over eight Triple-A frames.
The Rox will hope that kickstarts a turnaround for Freeland, who was battered over his first four starts of the season. He averaged fewer than four innings per appearance and was tagged for 25 runs across 15 2/3 frames. Freeland issued eight walks with nine strikeouts and allowed a trio of home runs.
Freeland is on the 60-day injured list, so the Rox will need to reinstate him onto the 40-man roster. They opened a 40-man spot earlier in the week by placing reliever Gavin Hollowell on waivers. Unless they make another 40-man transaction in the intervening three days, they’ll only need to option out a pitcher to clear space for Freeland on the active roster.
In other Colorado injury news, manager Bud Black told reporters that rookie infielder Adael Amador suffered a mild oblique strain in today’s loss to the Dodgers (relayed on X by Patrick Saunders of the Denver Post). While it doesn’t seem to be a long-term concern, Amador will probably land on the 10-day injured list. Colorado promoted Amador directly from Double-A Hartford earlier this month when Brendan Rodgers went on the IL.
It was a surprisingly aggressive promotion for one of the organization’s top prospects. The 21-year-old was hitting only .194/.337/.329 in Double-A. That made it quite unlikely that he’d produce in his first look at big league arms. Amador has struggled as expected, hitting .171 with one walk in his first 36 plate appearances.
Black suggested earlier in the week that the Rox planned to option Amador back to Double-A once Rodgers was ready to return (X link via Luke Zahlmann of the Denver Gazette). An injured list stint would delay that, but he’ll probably head back to Hartford once he’s healthy. Rodgers started a rehab assignment in Albuquerque tonight and could be back in the next few days.
I hope the Rockies do his career a service and ship him out so that he doesn’t need to play in Coors even though he probably would want to stay because he’s a homegrown kid
Sadly his contract would probably cost too much for any team to want him
He’s from Colorado. Someone’s gotta lose can’t all be winners.
I don’t think many other teams would want him period. There aren’t many things he does well. Just eats innings, kind of.
Career ERA of 4.5 pitching half his games in Colorado. He’s a solid pitcher he’s not amazing but get him out of that ballpark and he’s instantly putting up better numbers.
I know he should have just had TJ. Told ya so!!!!
Even I wouldn’t have bet that contract would turn out well.
Guy’s cooked. 5+ FRA since last year isn’t good. Maybe he needs to switch to being a lefty specialist out of the pen.
So what was the point of selecting Kitchen’s contract in the first place? Seems it would have been smarter to call up someone already on the 40 man like Evan Justice or Riley Pint just in case and leave the 40 man spot empty for Freeland. then you could option them and keep everyone on the roster. Or at the very least they could have put Kitchen in the game just in case he never gets back.
Kitchen sinks from MLB to DFA in a day.