The Pirates announced that they have placed ace Gerrit Cole on the 15-day disabled list due to a right triceps muscle sprain, as MLB.com’s Adam Berry tweets. Right-hander Jameson Taillon has been recalled from Triple-A Indianapolis to make tonight’s start — the second big league outing of his career. Cole’s DL stint is retroactive to June 11.
Cole, 25, has worked to a 2.77 ERA this season that closely matches last season’s 2.60 mark, although his strikeout (7.2 K/9), walk (2.6 BB/9) and ground-ball (42.9 percent) rates have all trended in the wrong direction this year. He exited his most recent start after two innings due to tightness in his triceps, and the Pirates had been hopeful that he’d only miss one start, but it appears he’ll be sidelined a bit longer than that at this stage. Whether his DL stint extends beyond the minimum 15 days remains to be seen.
[Related: Updated Pittsburgh Pirates Depth Chart]
The 24-year-old Taillon has made a dominant return to the mound in 2016 after missing the 2014-15 seasons due to injury. In 61 2/3 innings at the Triple-A level this season, Taillon has a 2.04 ERA with a brilliant 61-to-6 K/BB ratio, and he turned in a quality start in his first big league effort last week when he held the Mets to three runs on six hits and two walks with three strikeouts across six innings. He’ll tangle with the Mets once again tonight — this time on the road in New York. Taillon doesn’t appear to quite be in the Bucs’ long-term rotation plans for this season just yet, as he was optioned following his recent appearance. Cole’s health could play a role in those plans, of course, though one would also imagine that Pittsburgh will be mindful of Taillon’s innings count following a two-year layoff from taking the mound in a game setting.
We shall see how Jameson looks tonight facing the Mets again. Watched him pitch last week and was doing well except for the 1 HR ball. That was a weird game to say the least. Hope he has a better outcome this time around.
Well we did see that Jameson calmed down a little and mowed down the Mets this time. Looks like the Bucs may have another ace. Hope he stays healthy and Cole comes back 100% sooner than later.
When will Tyler Glasnow come up, I wonder
As soon as he can throw a change up consistently to offset his fastball and hard curve. He still walks guys a lot. That is what I have heard from those who cover the Pirates minors. Chad Kuhl may be up before Glasnow. That is of course unless another injury or two occur.
Agreed. Glasnow is walking way too many batters. Combine that with the organizational mandate to have a usually changeup and Glasnow likely won’t be up until September, barring injuries. Kuhl will get the next call.
“Taillon doesn’t appear to quite be in the Bucs’ long-term rotation plans for this season just yet, as he was optioned following his recent appearance.”
Seriously? With the total disarray that the Pirate’s pitching is in, why would he not be? The reason he was sent back down was because of Huntington’s arrogance that his “off season plan” for the pitching staff is blowing up in his face, and he need to once again, bring up another reclamation relief pitcher that no one else wanted in the off season to try and stop the bleeding.
It failed.
So then he was faced with the fact that he couldn’t recall Taillon because he had sent him down (guess who he brought up) until 10 days passed or someone went on the DL.
Glasnow is NOT ready. Not only is he now dealing with “slight back discomfort” as reported elsewhere, his control issues make Randy Johnson look like a dialed in pitching machine.
I think Taillon will stick as I am betting Cole will be out for a few starts at least. Unless Liriano suddenly goes on a tear and Niese and Locke can each give 6 or 7 quality innings a start to give them a chance to win.. Taillon was sent back down to bring up 2 badly needed relief pitchers. When that happened I was actually waiting for Liriano to go on the DL as I was guessing his issues were health related.
While pooping on Huntington is all the rage right now, I’d say it’s more likely that Taillon’s demotion had more to do with managing his innings than it did with some weird arrogant insistence that the tire fire wasn’t happening.
I am not sure how you think it was going to limit his innings when he was placed right back into Indy’s rotation.
It was a spot start for Liriano, so technically at the time there wasn’t a spot in the rotation. The plan (at least for now) is that Taillon, Glasnow, and Kuhl will be used as starters at the major league level, so I understand why they would send him back down. Now in terms of saving innings, they have skipped a couple of his starts at AAA already so they would likely continue that plan at either level.
Taillon has a very bright future. His mechanics are sharp. Like Glasnow as well. Pittsburgh has it right. Hire quality pitching coaches in the minors. I wish the Padres would figure that out.