4:45pm: Right-hander Jason Hursh has been recalled from Triple-A to join the bullpen for the time being.
3:41pm: The Braves announced on Tuesday that they’ve placed right-hander Bartolo Colon on the 10-day disabled list due to a strained left oblique. They’ll announce a corresponding move prior to tonight’s game.
Colon, 44, has had a disastrous start to his first season in Atlanta, pitching to a 7.78 ERA with 6.1 K/9, 2.6 BB/9 and a 44.3 percent ground-ball rate through his first 12 starts/59 innings as a Brave. The veteran righty’s struggles have been particularly acute lately, as he’s yielded at least seven runs in each of his past three outings. He’s also been uncharacteristically home-run prone, and not just at Atlanta’s hitter-friendly new home park; Colon has served up 11 homers those 59 frames — eight of which have come on the road.
Per David O’Brien of the Atlanta-Journal Constitution (Twitter links), manager Brian Snitker said today that Colon has been receiving treatment on his ailing oblique “for awhile,” and the team is hopeful that said issue is at least somewhat to blame for his dreadful slump. For now, the Braves plan to return Colon to the rotation when he’s healthy enough to be activated off the disabled list, O’Brien adds, though that decision doesn’t appear to be set in stone.
As for the corresponding move, that remains to be seen, though MLB.com’s Mark Bowman suggests that both Lucas Sims and Matt Wisler are candidates to start the two games of Atlanta’s Saturday doubleheader. The arrival of Sims, of course, would mark the big league debut for one of the organization’s most anticipated young arms. Bowman adds that Snitker said it’s too soon for Kris Medlen to considered for a start.
In the meantime, however, it seems likely that Atlanta will add either an extra bench piece or an extra reliever, as Jaime Garcia, Mike Foltynewicz, R.A. Dickey and Julio Teheran are lined up to start on Tuesday through Friday. Colon’s slot in the rotation wouldn’t come up until Game 1 of Saturday’s twin bill.
“Strain”
Convenient, I like that 10 day.
Yeah, there’s something wrong with him alright…
Mets while take him back in a heart beat
“Today, the Atlanta Braves traded Bartolo Colon to the Mets for… (pause, announcer is heard asking, “is this right?”)… well, for an EKG.”
Agree with the Mets taking him but only if he gets released so they don’t have to pay his $12.5m salary. Then send him to LV and see if they can fix his problem or whether father time just caught up with him.
Mets wouldn’t give the Braves a Sidd Finch baseball card for Big Bart right now.
Uh huh, sure. And this is totally not just a way to skip his next start because he’s awful.
Wish they would just skip all of his starts
How can they tell?
Terrible news for Braves fans. This is seriously just an excuse to give him another chance in 10 days. Anyone can see right through this. They’re gonna pretend he’s got a clean slate and start over like the 8.00 ERA never happened because it was all an “injury” and now he’s “healthy”. Seriously a slap in the face to the fans trying to sell it like this.
Don’t agree, I think they are just buying time to figure out what to do with him. Coppy is probably working his voodoo and trying to find a trade with a swap of bad contracts like the Olivera for Kemp deal. If none are found I bet they release him.
I think this is like the Jered Weaver thing. We may have seen the last of Colon. He had a pretty terrific career.
Nah, Mets will get him back for sure – he was pretty adamant about how important playing close to home was for him, really dumb move by Atlanta in retrospect. I fully expect him to be decent for the Mets again before he’s done.
Or maybe this “no grounders” revolution thing is going to hurt all the “zone pounding” types like Bart. We’ll see…
So twenty years in the big leagues and still hasn’t learned the English language !!!!
So it’s not Hypertension it’s HyperERA?
He’s been awful, so say he’s hurt and the fans will lay off of him?
Yes! If he retires, he does so officially holding the MLB record, one that had stood for the previous 87 years, of having the highest ERA of all time for a P with a min of 50 IP. With his stellar performance last night, he surpassed the legendary Les Sweetland for this honor
Pretty sure Roy Halladay still holds that record(10.64 ERA in 67.2 IP in 2000).
Don’t beat yourself up man.
He hasn’t seen his oblique since he was 3yrs old
I dearly wish my job offered a 10-day DL – yes, please.
Obli-que? He injured himself obli-terating a couple dozen donuts.
strained waistline?
He will stay with team until after his bobble head night and then be released.
Bobble belly night giveaway.
This is what I thought. He will get pass his bobble head night with is the 9th. I bet they give him one more start… if he blows, they release him. but I definitely thought this was a way to get him pass his bobble head night. They have done quite a bit of advertising for it.
Kudo’s to the medical team that was able to find his left oblique in a timely manner; itself a minor medical breakthrough.
I’m pretty sure the phrase “ten day disabled list” comes from the Latin for,”We have no idea what to do with this guy.”
Bright side alert: His last name could be Oblique, and he could have a strained colon.
Just Cut the boy , let him begin a New Life as a Pie eating champion !