A roster move will happen today to replace Trea Turner who broke the wrist on his right-hand yesterday, and he will most likely end up on the 60-day DL to make room for Adrian Sanchez unless Mike Rizzo does a DFA of someone like Matt Skole to keep Trea on the 10-day DL.
Don’t expect any dramatic moves from general manager Mike Rizzo, but the good news is there are spare parts who can later strengthen the bench. The one name that makes too much sense is Eduardo Nunez with the abysmal San Francisco Giants. Nunez was acquired by the Giants on July 28th of last year for low-level reliever prospect Adalberto Mejia who has not been good so far for the Twins. Nunez is on the DL himself for a hamstring injury since June 20th. Nuñez is batting .299 and has been a super utility player for the Giants playing leftfield, third base and shortstop. When he was moved to the #2 spot in their line-up, he batted .349. Nuñez who is right-handed hits righties slightly better than lefties, and his RISP batting average is .407. Nuñez is due $2.1 million remaining on his 2017 contract.
When Jayson Werth returns from the disabled list in 2 weeks, Ryan Raburn most likely will be DFA’d to make room for Werth.
The bench at that point in time will look like this:
- Adam Lind
- Stephen Drew
- Brian Goodwin
- Adrian Sanchez or new acquisition
- Jose Lobaton
Zack Cozart is another name mentioned as a top shortstop, but the Reds will be looking for a large return for him in trade. His All-Star level slash is tremendous at .320 /.404 /.562/ .966 and his power is actually better away from his home ballpark that we affectionately call “The Great American Smallpark”. Cozart is due $2.7 million for the remainder of the season. Like Nuñez, Cozart is also on the disabled list with a leg injury, and Cozart’s is a quadriceps strain.
If Mike Rizzo went for overkill to get Cozart which is doubtful, it would then move Trea Turner back to centerfield when he returns.
Speaking of when Trea Turner will return, that will depend on whether he broke the scaphoid or the radius bone in his wrist according to orthopedic surgeon Dr. Brion Gardner of the Center For Advanced Orthopaedics that specializes in sports injuries. A scaphoid break could require surgery to insert a screw while the radius bone generally heals on it’s own with just a cast for 4-weeks and rehab would begin immediately afterwards with a return to the field a few weeks after that.
If we compare Trea to Freddie Freeman who broke his wrist on May 18th, he's already back practicing. They originally said 2 months for him.
— Talk Nats (@TalkNats) June 30, 2017
No day is complete without discussing the status of the bullpen, and as we learned and had speculated the —silence— surrounding Koda Glover’s absence for a reported back strain seemed odd and our speculation led to it possibly is more than just a back strain and we were correct. Koda Glover is out indefinitely with reported inflammation of his rotator cuff in his throwing shoulder of his right-arm.
The use of the bullpen is mind-boggling for lack of a better descriptor. Jacob Turner had not been used since his use for one-inning on June 24th where he went 1-2-3 in the 9th inning 5 days prior to yesterday. Where has Jacob Turner been since he is listed on the active roster? Blake Treinen had a hefty workload against the Cubs where he threw a combined 40 pitches prior to the 18 pitches yesterday.
The use of the bullpen blows some minds, and the news is indeed sad for Trevor Gott who worked back-to-back games on June 13th and 14th and threw 59 pitches. Gott who has dealt with some injuries in the past had forearm tightness in Spring Training as Dusty Baker revealed at the time and he was optioned to Triple-A Syracuse where he only pitched in back to back games one time this year. But in Gott’s entire career he had never pitched more than 29 pitches in an outing. Dusty Baker allowed him to throw 52 pitches in a blow-out loss to Atlanta. The end result we were told by a source was Gott was in pain afterwards, and he was shipped back to Syracuse and sat for 3-days before pitching only once, and he has not pitched since going to day number 11 where they had not even utilized the Minor League’s 7-day DL. Why not? Would that be an admission that he is injured?
Why can’t this coaching staff work this pitchers properly? Yesterday, Blake Treinen hit the wall quickly and Jacob Turner was nowhere to be found. Using up Enny Romero and Matt Albers in the previous 2 games when the leads were larger might have been the time to use Joe Blanton to keep Romero and Albers fresh so you were not in the Thursday predicament.
The bullpen still needs to be fixed, and it is an on-going and daily discussion. Any time a game is blown, the finger gets pointed at the reliever but let’s be real, Blake Treinen got his tailor-made doubleplay ball on Victor Carantini who pinch-hit and hit a grounder right to Stephen Drew at shortstop for what looked like a tailor-made game-ending doubleplay but Daniel Murphy could not turn on 2nd base and held onto the baseball. With 2 outs, Javier Baez then singled between 2nd base and 1st base through the hole which was the 2nd groundball of that inning that Treinen induced with his power-sinker which put runners at 3rd base and 1st base. Tommy LaStella lined a ball that tipped off of the top of Stephen Drew’s glove to score Carantini to make the score 4-3. Where was the fresh arm of Jacob Turner?
It seemed like another game that was set-up to lose and send a message, but the closing duo of Enny Romero and Matt Albers were not available so what good would it have been if the Nats had Mariano to close it out if he wasn’t available?
The answer is better planning and better usage, and that is the continued message over and over again.
