AL East Notes: Pomeranz, Davis, Valencia, Arroyo

The results of Red Sox lefty Drew Pomeranz’ recent MRI showed a flexor strain, Jason Mastrodonato of the Boston Herald reports on Twitter. Jen McCaffrey of MassLive.com says that Pomeranz describes the strain as “mild” and isn’t too worried about it. Mastrodonato later tweeted that every player who had a flexor strain last season missed at least six weeks, with one exception – Pomeranz. Last year’s injury caused him to spend 10 days on the DL. It should be strongly noted that all of this is simply one year’s worth of statistics, and we’ve yet to hear any announcement on Boston’s plans for their starter. Pomeranz pitched to a 3.32 ERA across 30 starts last season for the Red Sox, striking out just over a batter per inning while posting a 43.2% ground ball rate. He’s slated to become a free agent following the 2018 season.

Elsewhere in the American League’s Eastern Division…

• Speaking of injuries, Orioles first baseman Chris Davis had an MRI on his right forearm, but it turns out that there’s no structural damage. Jon Meoli of the Baltimore Sun was first with the news on Twitter. Manager Buck Showalter had previously described the concern with Davis as a “flexor mass” issue (via Dan Connolly of baltimorebaseball.com). The Orioles will be hoping that Davis can stay healthy and bounce back this year after a rough 2017 season during which he homered 26 times but struck out in a whopping 37.2% of his plate appearances en route to a more pedestrian performance overall. He’ll enter the 2018 season at the age of 32; it’s the third year of a seven-year contract with Baltimore that guarantees him a total of $161MM.
• In other Orioles news, the recently-signed Danny Valencia has no plans to go to the minors if the team opts not to add him to the major league roster, according to a piece by Rich Dubroff of pressboxonline.com. “I have nothing to prove down there,” Valencia said. “I’ve been a productive big leaguer… Obviously, you want to be in the big leagues and I think it’ll all work out.” Valencia had been reasonably productive for the Blue Jays and A’s across the 2015-2016 seasons, posting 3.2 fWAR while hammering 35 homers during that span. It’s tough to peg the value of his performance as a Mariner last year, however, as formulas like bWAR, fWAR and WARP varied greatly in their outputs.
• Marc Topkin of the Tampa Bay Times details the story of how new Rays infielder Christian Arroyo was raised by a single mother. Kim Arroyo worked ten-hour shifts on the casino floor at Hard Rock in order to support her son. But as he grew up, she still managed to find the time to play catch with him and throw batting practice. Kim says she had lots of help from family and friends, but Christian made clear the wealth of credit his mother deserves for what she did for him, and the values she instilled in him while she was raising him. “She did everything she could to make sure we never were struggling, and I never knew we were,” he said.