SATURDAY: The Mariners have announced that Mariners Medical Director E. Edward Khalfayan has confirmed that Iwakuma has inflammation in his right shoulder. Iwakuma is expected to miss four to six weeks.
WEDNESDAY: The Mariners announced that they’ve placed right-hander Hisashi Iwakuma on the 10-day disabled list due to inflammation in his right shoulder. In a corresponding move, the Mariners selected the contract of right-hander Sam Gaviglio from Triple-A Tacoma, also transferring righty Evan Marshall to the 60-day DL to clear a spot on the 40-man roster for Gaviglio. Iwakuma, according to Ryan Divish of the Seattle Times (on Twitter), is headed back to Seattle for an MRI.
Iwakuma becomes the latest Mariners starter to land on the disabled list, joining Drew Smyly, James Paxton and Felix Hernandez on the shelf. With a stunning 80 percent of their Opening Day rotation on the disabled list, Seattle has turned to lefty Ariel Miranda and offseason acquisitions Chase De Jong and Dillon Overton in the rotation mix. Gaviglio may eventually join that mix, though for now right-hander Christian Bergman will step into the rotation and make a start in Toronto, Bob Dutton of the Tacoma News Tribune tweets.
The 26-year-old Gaviglio, then, could initially be ticketed for long relief or could start in place of Overton next time around. Gaviglio had been pitching well in Triple-A, recording a 3.31 ERA with 4.4 K/9, 0.8 BB/9 and a 57.4 percent ground-ball rate through five starts (32 2/3 innings) with Tacoma. Originally acquired from the Cardinals back in 2014 in exchange for Ty Kelly, Gaviglio has a 4.38 ERA with 6.6 K/9 against 2.4 BB/9 in parts of three Triple-A seasons (197 1/3 innings).
Iwakuma’s status is especially worth monitoring due to the fact that his health will determine whether his 2018 option vests. As noted yesterday when parsing through the vesting options around the league, Iwakuma is just 94 innings shy of locking in a $10MM salary for the 2018 season.
Well that’s 4/5 of the Mariners projected opening day rotation on the DL now…
That’s why the post stated it was 80% of the Opening Day rotation.
Hmm… Seems like 4/5 is close to 80 percent. Maybe them supermetrix things ain’t so hard after all.
Wow, nice job just repeating what was already clearly pointed out in the article
I was just seconds ago reading the comments on fister signing. A commenter said iwakuma was a health concern. Daaamn
Wow Steve, way to jinx him yesterday!
Anyway, hope it isn’t serious. Seattle being forced to rush so many younger or more questionable options will unfortunately put them in a spot where they might see a death-spiral affect of more and more injuries to the fill-ins who are being pushed and a bullpen that will get taxed
Gallardo survives the hunger games
It’s not over yet.
I hope that he recovers to get the 94 innings needed to trigger the $10 million contract. Former Seattle management loved passing the big contracts around and he deserves getting his due!
I love Iwak. When he’s right and healthy, he’s a classic slow mechanic; painting the strike zone with 3 or 4 productive pitches. Fun to watch at his healthiest, it’s just unfortunate that he’s never been able to stay on the mound without getting nicked up. I’d be shocked if he returned to the Ms next year. Hopefully he comes out firing for the rest of the year once he returns for a nice swan song with the Ms…
I posted this just now in the vesting post from yesterday, but Iwakuma would get 15 mil if his option vests, not 10. So id be happy to let Iwakuma chill until mid June just to make sure that we can be out from under him in 2018. The beauty of this current stretch is that hopefully someone random makes a case to get a 4-6 week audition in the rotation
Here are the terms of his vesting option. Kuma pitched 199 innings last year and has 31 so far this year: $10M Team Option, $1M Buyout option guaranteed at $15M with either 162 innings in 2017 or 324 innings in 2016-17