6:38pm: The belief after an MRI is that the injury is “muscular and minor,” manager Bob Melvin told reporters including MLB.com’s Jane Lee (Twitter link). The hope is that Manaea will be back after the minimum (or close to it).
6:15pm: The Athletics have placed young southpaw Sean Manaea on the 15-day DL, per Susan Slusser of the San Francisco Chronicle (via Twitter). He has been diagnosed with a pronator strain in his left forearm.
Things could be worse, as it was scary to see the 24-year-old walk off with an apparent injury in his most recent start. Forearm troubles often precede more serious elbow issues, and it’s promising that there’s no current evidence of a problem further up the arm. On the other hand, as Carson Smith showed earlier this year, a preliminary assessment of a forearm injury doesn’t mean that the ulnar collateral ligament is safe.
Manaea represents an important part of Oakland’s present and future plans. He has struggled a bit early in his debut season, surrendering 33 earned runs and eight long balls in 49 1/3 innings. But Manaea has also shown promise, putting up 7.3 K/9 (with a 10.7% swinging strike rate) against 2.9 BB/9.
[Related: Updated Oakland Athletics depth chart]
It’s unclear at present how long the youngster will be out, but odds are that the club will take things slow. And it’s still possible that further assessment will reveal further cause for concern — or, at least, caution. For the time being, Erik Surkamp has been recalled to take Manaea’s spot on the active roster.
Sean Manaea, by A’s catcher:
Matt McBride: 4.05 ERA, .506 OPS against.
Josh Phegley: 2.61 ERA, .680 OPS against.
Stephen Vogt: 8.42 ERA, 1.001 OPS against.
Vogt is seriously awful at catching. I have never seen such horrendous gamecalling in all my life. He’s a good hitter though, so he needs to go back to LF, where he was before the A’s grabbed him. He calls so many challenge pitches to good hitters when the bases are empty, that’s why the A’s have given up so many solo home runs ever since he took over at C. It’s such a ridiculous call, you don’t give MVP-types anything to hit, ever. Yet the A’s often do when Vogt’s behind the plate.
He’s looked horribly sluggish this year behind the plate, I’d rather see him at 1B and have them bring up either McBride or Maxwell
I have never seen a catcher not catch a baseball as often as he does. It’s like he wants to get hit with the ball and sometimes even the bat. He’s not a smart guy, we’ve seen him on tv enough to know this. But he can hit, if he plays LF or 1B he’s a quality ballplayer. I wish the A’s would just get players who are playing the position they’re supposed to be, like Vogt should not be a C and Semien should not be a SS, but if they’re in LF and 1B the lineup is actually even better than it is currently.
How the game has changed: on this date in 1974, Nolan Ryan threw 235 pitches, struck out 19, and pitched 13 innings. For the year, he had 26 complete games, and threw 333 innings…