- P Alexi Ogando placed on 15 day DL, retro to Jun 11
- P Michael Kirkman recalled from AAA [ Link ]
NOTES: I already ranted about this on Sunday’s report. Ogando goes to the DL due to trying to beat out a bunt (video here)- when the pitcher shouldn’t have been batting in the first place. It’s a groin strain, and was worse than they initially expected. The press release/story say that they don’t expect him back until after the All-Star break, but I read somewhere, it could be further than that (almost two months). Ugh.
That means we have Feliz, Ogando, & Holland on the DL. Two starters, and one who was a starter last year. Ugh 2.
Those who follow me, know I’m also a Phillies fan. I grew up in Philadelphia, and never saw an American League game until 1993 when I saw a Rangers game in the final season of Arlington Stadium. So I grew up with the NL and NL rules, and more to this discussion, pitchers batting. It’s been a bugaboo of mine for ages, pitchers batting. Even back when I was young, I hated it. You had a good inning going, and whoops – here comes the pitcher. Out. Yeah, there’s a handful of pitchers who could really hit, but let’s face it. 90% or higher of pitchers are horrible at the plate. They don’t have to do it regularly, so they have no incentive to work on that. Then there’s the issue of AL teams sending their guys to bat and doing something that is so against their normal routine that they get hurt. It happened back in June 2008 with the Yankees in Houston when Chien-Ming Wang 