Indians manager Terry Francona says righty Danny Salazar will travel to Cleveland tomorrow for followup testing for tightness in his forearm, MLB.com’s Jordan Bastian tweets. Salazar is expected to miss at least one start. There’s no indication that the Indians plan to place him on the DL (and also no reason for them to hurry to such a determination, since rosters expanded last week).
Salazar left yesterday’s start against the Twins due to the condition. The team described Salazar’s departure as precautionary, but as MLBTR’s Steve Adams and Jeff Todd noted yesterday, this isn’t the first time this year Salazar has had arm trouble — he missed time in August due to elbow inflammation and also had minor elbow and shoulder issues earlier in the year.
There is currently no hint that Salazar is seriously hurt, but a bout of arm trouble for a pitcher of Salazar’s caliber is clearly worth monitoring, and losing Salazar for a significant period of time would be a significant blow to the Indians’ hopes of advancing in the playoffs. Salazar has used his mid-90s fastball and terrific changeup to strike out opposing batters at an outstanding rate of 10.6 batters per nine innings this season. Notably, though, he has struggled lately, with a 7.75 ERA over 38 1/3 innings since July 9.
there’s clearly something wrong with him. ever since he couldn’t pitch in the all star game you knew there was something going on. devastating blow to their postseason chances but he wasn’t helping while clearly being hurt. time for tomlin to go back in the rotation and give up 4 hrs in under 5 innings.
Hopefully they rest him until the playoffs. Let Clevinger, Anderson, House, Merritt, etc show what they have. Not to mention Tomlin, maybe some sort of late season voodoo will get him pitching like he was early on.
A three headed rotation of Kluber, Carrasco, and Salazar is scary in the playoffs; but when you replace Salazar with Bauer it’s still quite intimidating. I’m just glad this didn’t happen early in the season.
House/Clevinger/Anderson have been in relief so long now that it’s going to be hard to stretch em’. Also Merritt/Morimando will be shut down after the Clippers playoff push. Morimando gave up 10 earned last night vs. Gwinnett, Yikes! Merritt wasn’t any better in his start vs. Gwinnett lasting three and two thirds innings. Obviously both young lefties are fatigued & at their innings. Players off the 40-man that could be options are Plutko @ Columbus (Solid start in game 1 vs. Gwinnett) / Kaminsky @ Akron (4 earned in five innings in his playoff start last night vs. Altoona).. Both prospects like Morimando/Merritt are likely to be shut down after the playoffs. So, bottom line Tomlin/Bauer better figure things out if Salazar isn’t healthy.