THURSDAY, 4:43pm: Ortiz elected free agency, tweets Dylan Hernandez of the L.A. Times.
SUNDAY, 2:00pm: The Dodgers have designated veteran Russ Ortiz for assignment, according to a tweet from Andrew Baggarly of the San Jose Mercury News.
MLB.com's Ken Gurnick adds that rookie Jon Link, acquired from the White Sox in the Juan Pierre trade, will be recalled for the time being. His stay could be short, as Hong-Chih Kuo and Ronald Belisario will likely be activated from the disabled list this week. Asked if he would accept a minor league assignment, Ortiz said that he would if it was with the purpose of being recalled later in the season.
Ortiz, 35, appeared in six games for the Dodgers, and posted unimpressive numbers to say the least. The right-hander totaled seven innings, while walking six batters and allowing ten hits and eight earned runs.
The former Giants ace has struggled with elbow injuries since putting together a solid four-year stretch in the early part of the decade. From 2001 to 2004, Ortiz compiled a 3.71 ERA over 850 innings for San Francisco and Atlanta, including a fourth place finish in the 2003 Cy Young voting for the Braves.
One Ortiz down, one more to go.
Welcome back Kuo and Belisario.
russ should elect retirement and isn’t belisario still having visa issues?
That’s weird, Ortiz was great for my Astros last year…all you had to do was ask him.
YAY!
That’ll save the Dodgers from alot walks
Now our bullpen numbers can go back to normal…
Yet another player on the list of those cursed for leaving the Braves for more money.
Russ Ortiz has been washed up for almost 5 years. How could the magnificent Dodger’s have this douchebag in their bullpen? This is clearly one of the signs of the apocalypse that has now been made right.
One Ortiz down, one Ortiz and two McCourts left to go….
Ding Dong! The Witch is dead. Which old Witch? The Wicked Witch!
Ding Dong! The Wicked Witch is dead.
Wake up – sleepy head, rub your eyes, get out of bed.
Wake up, the Wicked Witch is dead. She’s gone where the goblins go,
Below – below – below. Yo-ho, let’s open up and sing and ring the bells out.
Ding Dong’ the merry-oh, sing it high, sing it low.
Let them know
The Wicked Witch is dead!
not crying here. once Kuo and Bellisario are back (Ramon Ortiz is out of here, too, I’m thinking), the dodger bullpen will be back to its nasty self of 2009.
Now send Sherill down to the minors to work on his stuff and bring up the next bargain basement sore armed plug.
I heard Coletti just signed another former overweight Giant to take Russ’ roster spot, Rick Reuschel.
I miss 2001 Russ Ortiz
So does he.
Go Russ and take Ramon with you.