Rays righty Eddie Gamboa made his big-league debut Friday at the age of 31, as Marc Topkin of the Tampa Bay Times notes. Gamboa spent his entire career in the Orioles organization before signing a minor league deal with the Rays last offseason. He had a strong season for Triple-A Durham (2.68 ERA, 8.5 K/9 and 3.7 BB/9 in 94 innings), finally earning his shot in the Majors as the oldest Rays player to debut in the bigs since “The Rookie” Jim Morris in 1999. Gamboa throws about 80% knuckleballs, so he joins R.A. Dickey and Steven Wright as one of the very few knuckleballers currently in the big leagues. Here’s more from the East divisions.
- Yoan Moncada’s debut is exciting news, but the Red Sox need relief pitching, not more offense, writes Michael Silverman of the Boston Herald. The Sox have already added Brad Ziegler and Fernando Abad this season, although Abad has struggled. Koji Uehara is close to returning from a right pectoral injury, and could potentially provide the bullpen with a boost. Red Sox relievers have posted a 4.68 ERA with 9.7 K/9 but also with 4.3 BB/9 over the past 30 days.
- Phillies first baseman Ryan Howard met with manager Pete Mackanin earlier this week to discuss Howard’s playing time, MLB.com’s Todd Zolecki writes. Mackanin has said he wants to get Tommy Joseph more looks at first base as the season comes to a close. “I’ve got one more month here and I just want to play and finish out playing,” Howard told Bob Ford of the Philadelphia Inquirer earlier this week. “So, it’s like I’m just trying to do my time, finish out this last month, and try to keep playing somewhere else.” The Phillies will pay Howard a $10MM buyout rather than exercising his 2017 option. He’s batted .199 this season, although he’s hit 20 home runs in just 305 plate appearances.
Well they brought up Robbie Scott and Joe Kelly. Let’s face it, any help they can get now has to come from within the organization. If it’s not there you can’t will it to be. They can always bring up a guy like Brian Johnson and see if he can work out of the pen. They just have to try everything and see if anything works. That said if you score 16 runs, and get a quality start from you starter, you can afford a porous pen.
Well, I am not, nor have never been a fan of Johnson, but am in favor of him taking the place of Wright while he’s unable to make any starts before the season continues and especially this next one coming up. Am fed up with watching Bucholz on the mound and there really isn’t anyone else they have at Pawtucket, short of Justin Haley that think can get outs at the MLB level as a starter.
Maybe they should place Bucholz in the pen in case one of their starters pitches poorly and needs to be taken out early.
I’d go the other way and put Rodriguez in the pen right now. Buchholz has been useless as a reliever and seems completely out of place. He had a decent run for awhile starting, and ERod has been inconsistent.
Bro come on have u seen Bucholz he is a piece of crap his ERA is SKY HIGH
^
All I’m really thinking is that we should save our bullpens stamina on a game that the sox have a chance of winning, and since Bucholz is trash we can just use him in games we will loose anyway.
I would rather have E rod in the rotation and Bucholz in the pen
Your looking at the total stats for the entire season, his last three starts have been good. And he may have turned the corner as far as helping this team.
So, in paying the option, that means the Phillies are paying Ryan Howard $35M to slash .199/.252/.445 so far.
Why didn’t Howard schedule a farewell tour at the start of the year is beyond me. Guy is beyond done, just a AAAA guy at this point. Wasn’t really that great to begin with (had a lot of BABIP luck in his first 3 years; taking an MVP from Pujols, who beat him in every stat except HR and RBI). He was a very good player in his 20’s though, just like so many before him, had his body betray him almost as soon as he got into his 30’s. It’s so important to stay on top of that, to increase the work once an athlete hits 30. Not many do, they’re already paid and don’t understand how important it is to increase maintenance every year, shame to see so many fall off like this. From 2012-present Howard slashed .227/.293/.425. That’s bad.
^This x1000
I remain a Ryan Howard fan. Here’s hoping he finishes well in Philly.
A perfect example of one of the biggest problems in MLB……..a $10 Million buyout for a washed-up player.
I used to get upset with my Tribe being such tight wads, but I’ve come to appreciate they way they do business.
But I still think ballplayers are paid way too much money, and it’s the fault of all those invilved—the players, the agents, and the owners. And who suffers in the end? The fans, who are forced to shell out huge amounts of money for a single game day.
This forces fans like me to resort to attending minor league games, because they are so much more affordable.
Howard signed the contract Philly offered him. Baseball is like any other entertainment industry–it pays for talent, at whatever the market can bear. If Howard were to suddenly say, “Phillies, I’m not going to accept the buyout” do you think the owners would suddenly drop ticket prices? Stop asking for taxpayer handouts? Stop lobbying to make sure minor league players aren’t subject to minimum wage laws?
This is a big business, and placing all the onus on the players for high ticket prices and the costs of concessions is unfair. Just look at how much those franchises are worth. It’s not because they aren’t profitable.
You can’t tell me we don’t have a few young arms in the minors that could come up and pitch a few innings in the majors in relief
I agree!!