The Dodgers have placed right-hander Brandon McCarthy on the 10-day disabled list due to a blister problem, the team announced. In a corresponding move, Hyun-Jin Ryu will be activated from the DL in time to start Monday night’s game. Kenta Maeda will take McCarthy’s place in the rotation on Tuesday night against the Twins.
McCarthy has long battled injury problems throughout his career and this season has been on different. This is the right-hander’s third DL stint this season, all with different issues — McCarthy’s previous DL placements were due to shoulder soreness and right knee tendonitis. This finger blister took McCarthy out of a start last month and has apparently been bothering him since Spring Training, the righty told MLB.com’s Ken Gurnick and other media, though he threw a 40-pitch bullpen session today and wanted to pitch on Tuesday.
When McCarthy has been able to pitch this season, the 34-year-old has posted some strong results, notching a 3.84 ERA and 2.64 K/9 rate over 86 2/3 innings. While McCarthy’s 6.9 K/9 indicates that he isn’t missing many bats, he also isn’t allowing batters to do much damage when they do put wood on the ball, with just a 28% hard-hit ball rate and a 5.7% home run rate.
The Dodgers rotation has been a revolving door of injury situations this season, with Ryu, Maeda, Rich Hill, Alex Wood and (as of today) ace Clayton Kershaw all missing time to the disabled list. Ryu, for instance, is returning from a left foot contusion and also had a DL stint earlier this year due to left hip contusion. (Not to mention the fact that Ryu missed almost all of 2015-16 recovering from shoulder injuries.) Despite all the health problems, however, Los Angeles leads all of baseball in starting pitcher ERA (3.33) and fWAR (12.1) thanks to superlative work from Kershaw and Wood, plus good-to-solid contributions from everyone else. Given all of the injuries and with Kershaw now possibly out of action, however, the Dodgers have been looking at adding starting pitching at the trade deadline.
At least Ryu is back.
Completely ridiculous. This is what Manfred meant when he said that some teams are abusing the new 10-day DL. Every time an LA pitcher has gone to the DL, it has been perfectly timed with another starter coming back off the DL. The dodgers are just abusing the system to keep their starters fresh.
The dodgers are smart if they can find advantages in a new system then they should use them
dodgers send 2 to the dl not only 1 that open a roster spot and probably a dfa the day kershaw and mccarty return
Ok you can have three rob refsnyders
So Clayton Kershaw faked that injury in the second inning because The Dodgers wanted him to go on the disabled list so another starter could come off?
It’s called pitching depth. Dodgers are blessed to have it.
Blessing?! You mean the TV contract so they could afford to buy a few extra pitchers?
You can’t really be suggesting that other teams can’t afford the price of a McCarthy, Maeda, Ryu. Every team has plenty of cash to spend on the type of guys we’re talking about here. If the Dodgers were stockpiling 1s and 2s you might have a point. They aren’t.
Please tell me what big contract free agents the Dodgers have signed in the past few years? I’ll wait…
Especially with Friedman running the Dodgers front office. When he was with Tampa Bay, he learned how to be frugal. I guess he brought his tendencies with him to L.A.
The one interesting thing they don’t mention is this: Kershaw and McCarthy to the DL, Ryu coming back. Okay, that leaves a starter missing.
If they don’t make a trade, who’s most likely to be promoted?
You are a fool. Kershaw and McCarthy are both hurt. Ryu was hurt on a comebacker. These are real injuries. Some people are so paranoid.
Soon to be called the LA Wissy’s
This isn’t isolated to the dodgers as I know you’re not suggesting. Even with longer DL stints teams still manipulated it. It just doesn’t seem right. This is a way teams manage rosters to get depth so maybe rosters just need to be larger?
I think it’s a shame MLB has not gone to a 26 or even a 27 man rosters. In my opinion, they should expand the rosters, play a few more day night double headers, extend the playoff series to 7.
Agree. Another problem with the system is that veteran players are not as valuable when you can’t move them up and down so teams use the DL to effectively manage veteran depth but also veterans tend to be discarded quicker.
I’d like to see a system where teams don’t need to use the DL to move veterans but I don’t really have any ideas as to HOW to do that??
Totally agree. Teams are beating the system, but there has to be a better way to go about it.
I’d like to see something like the NHL and have MLB carry 27 players but only dress 25 each game. But the owners will balk at that because it means two more major league salaries on the payroll. The only way something like this happens is if the MLBPA gives up something like adding a year of team control or delaying arbitration by a year or two.
The price for Darvish just tripled.
You’re an idiot.
Only if MLB had a 5 day blister DL stint.
The BL?
McCarthy is definitely hurt, he’s known for being injured all of the time.
Pro athlete making millions of dollars can’t go to work because of a three month blister? #Real World Problems
A million dollar pitcher with blisters can’t command his pitches. It isn’t a matter of not showing up for work. It is a matter of not giving up 10 runs per game. An ace with blisters might as well be me out there.
Try spinning a ball accurately with a blister on your hand. Don’t be ignorant.
All I’m sayin is that the ball players from the golden age who made a small fraction of what players today make would be laughing from the grave.
Booooooo hooooooooo
For the past several years the Dodgers have literally had to assemble a 10-man rotation to avoid having to overpay in season for a SP. If I was LA front office I’d attempt to land another front line SP just to keep the momentum going into the post season. They have the pieces to land Darvish.