Bad News on Chen

[Roll Tide]

He just needs some rest. Jurrjens should certainly get the call now.

[Ruzious]

I agree with all of your scenarios, with the exception of Matusz. I think Buck really values him as his top lefty in the pen, and wouldn't want him to start unless we have several injuries and we're really desperate. As Buck would say about it, "You don't want to rob Peter to pay Paul." I've heard him say that exact thing about Matusz, and I really believe he feels strongly about keeping Matusz in the pen.

Exactly. And when a player has proven he stinks as a starter - as Matusz has - why would anyone even consider moving him from a role that he's done well at - much less actually suggest that it's a good idea?

[crawjo]

Porcello is still worth quite a bit.

His last 3 starts were pretty promising: 19 1/3 IP, 3.72 ERA, 203/257/333 - 590 OPS.

If you can get him cheaply, by all means. I like the kid. The problem with him is that he allows way too many hits (10.8 H/9 over last 3 years, 1.443 WHIP). He'd be an *okay* #5 starter.

We've been over this before, but it would be a godsend for Porcello to come to Baltimore. He has a high groundball rate and there is a massive difference in quality between the Orioles infield defense and the Tigers infield defense.

[Brendan25]

This is really bad news. We have pitching depth for guys to come up and make spot starts, but when your #1/2 pitcher goes down for more then a month it's never good news. You would think that DD is looking at Gausman really closely right now.

[JayThomas]

I think Gaussman would be the best guy on our staff - right now - if they choose to bring him up. But between an innings limit and the service time clock, I don't think they will bring him up until rosters expand in Sept. Besides, we want the best for the playoffs, no?

[xian4]

From Wednesday's post-game presser, hopefully, the oblique isn't too bad.

" "Pitching is always a challenge, but I look at it a little more positive," Showalter said after Wednesday's game. "We got a pretty good day out of [Gonzalez, who looked good in rehab] today. I look at it like, hopefully, we're going to get one of them back. Wei-Yin felt decent today. He was fine... I'm also realistic. What you're saying is right, it is a challenge for us. Like it was last year when we had guys go down."

[LookitsPuck]

A.J. Pierzynski is out with an right oblique strain (just like Wei-Yin). He went on the DL on May 10, retroactive to May 6th and they're shooting to have him back in a few days.

Now, position players bounce back faster (typically) than pitchers, but this shows that depending on the severity of the injury (and the person, that is) we can be more optimistic than saying 6 weeks as a set date.

[SteveO]

The Chen injury would be a whole lot less troublesome if we had a consistent and remotely reliable 5th starter. My only concern with the idea of finding a 5th starter out of the group of Arrieta, Britton, Garcia, Jurrjens, Johnson, Stinson, Matusz, Gaussman etc was the odds of finding two guys to fill rotation spots out of that group is far less plausible than getting filling one spot. I felt it was a wee bit risky and unfortunately we have not been lucky.

All that said I do believe we should take a deep breath and see what Jair can offer. I will admit I am not hopefully long term that he is viable but he deserves the opportunity and if he can give you 4-5 so so starts maybe we can ride out the storm.

Think the idea of getting someone via trade has merit but I also think its a little early in the season to get a quality arm. Would rather muddle through with what we have now and make a move when there are more arms on the market from teams that have not determined to buy or sell this early in the season.