Shortly after landing on the disabled list due to a subluxation in his shoulder that occurred upon throwing his glove out of frustration in the dugout, Red Sox reliever Carson Smith suggested that arm fatigue may have contributed to his injury (link via Jason Mastrodonato of the Boston Herald). “I’ve thrown a lot lately and I think my arm was just tired,” said Smith, though his comments didn’t sit well with manager Alex Cora. Cora flatly told reporters that he “[doesn’t] agree” with Smith’s assessment, adding that Boston’s coaching staff checks in with its pitchers each day when determining who is or isn’t available in relief. Smith gave the team no indication that he was feeling overworked. “It caught me by surprise,” Cora said of Smith’s comment. “If he felt that way he should’ve told it to us or he should’ve mentioned it.” Smith, of course, has placed much of the blame for his injury on himself as well and expressed regret over the manner in which the injury occurred.
More from the division…
- The Rays put Carlos Gomez on the 10-day DL with a groin strain and recalled infielder Christian Arroyo from Triple-A Durham, per Marc Topkin of the Tampa Bay Times. Gomez’s injury doesn’t appear to be too severe, as Topkin notes that the organization is “playing it safe” and being careful in placing the struggling Gomez on the disabled list. The 32-year-old Gomez is hitting just .200/.252/.354 on the season, though his .264 BABIP is considerably south of his career .315 mark. Arroyo, the centerpiece in the offseason Evan Longoria swap, has had a similarly rough go of it in Durham, opening the year in a .200/.235/.308 slump. He’ll get some opportunities in the coming days against left-handed pitching, manager Kevin Cash said, though it appears that part of the thinking in bringing him to the big leagues was to give Cash an alternative to Matt Duffy, who is dealing with a sore hamstring but as of now won’t be placed on the DL.
- Ben Badler of Baseball America profiles the Orioles’ baffling philosophy on the international prospect market. As Badler notes, Baltimore spent just $535K on prospects in the 2018-19 period and just $260K in the prior period, instead utilizing their pool to acquire fringe minor leaguers (one of whom was even lost in the minor league phase of the Rule 5 Draft just months after being acquired). As Badler explains, the behavior can’t be pinned on the front office, as the neglect of the international market is an ownership-level decision from Peter Angelos that spans multiple iterations of baseball operations personnel. But, by not giving international scouts the resources they need, the O’s annually put themselves at a massive disadvantage in terms of building a farm system. That, as Dan Connolly of BaltimoreBaseball.com examines, forces GM Dan Duquette to rely more heavily on tactics like the Rule 5 Draft, which can have its own detrimental effects on a roster when utilized too heavily — especially for a club with aspirations of contending. Connolly contends that Baltimore’s lack of international signings makes even role players hard to come by within the organization, pushing Duquette to seek options in the Rule 5 and thus creating roster flexibility issues each year.
- Shi Davidi of Sportsnet provides some updates on a few injured Blue Jays, reporting that Troy Tulowitzki has begun fielding grounders and is doing some running on an antigravity treadmill. Tulowitzki is on the 60-day DL, though his absence seems likely to extend beyond that 60-day minimum window. The injury plagued former All-Star had surgery to remove bone spurs from both of his heels last month and has yet to play in 2018. Davidi also adds that Steve Pearce isn’t yet cleared for baseball activities as his oblique strain mends, while Aledmys Diaz is doing some light running after suffering an ankle injury earlier this month. With both Tulowitzki and Diaz on the shelf, the Jays have been using a combo of Lourdes Gurriel, Richard Urena and Gio Urshela at shortstop recently.
Everyone in Baltimore knows that the only way the Orioles will improve is after a new majority owner is in charge. Angelos is a train wreck of an owner who has destroyed a great franchise.
Agreed 100%. In the late 60’ and 70’s the O’s were a model franchise but when lawyers got involved as ownership things have gone downhill!
Agreed, then when lawyers became a dime a dozen as they are now it seems and seek to litigate the most trivial of items? Well.. They have ruined more than some baseball franchises. look at the justice system as but a tiny example.
Old news. All we as O’s fans can do is wait silently until Angelos is out.
I agree, he doesn’t know crap about baseball. I’d hate to think of how many wins he has individually cost Baltimore.
The above is patently false.
How? Refusing to sign international players costs them games, there’s no question about that. That was his decision. Look at their division: NYY: Gary Sanchez, Andujar, Severino, Etc. BOS: Devers, Bogaerts TOR: Vlad Jr. TB: Alex Colome just to name a few., yet Baltimore does almost nothing on that front Maybe you could argue he knows something about baseball, but… he is putting his team at a huge competitive disadvantage.
just think where last year’s WS champs would be without Altuve, Marwin Gonzalez and Gurriel. I doubt they would have won in that case.
Yup, Angelos is a menace to the franchise
No, he actually isn’t. This is a myth that has been propagated from a 20 year old SI article. There is simply no sound evidence for the claim that Angelos is ruining the franchise. Simply none. People may not like his befuddling decision to not take risks on international players but that hardly supports said claim. On the other ha d, a case can be made that he’s actually done plenty to support a competitive organization. It is an organization that —despite its current record has done numerous things very well now for a sustained period of time.
Angelos has funded those numerous things and put good people in positions of authority to run the organization. Additionally there’s a LOT of stability within the organization and players themselves have shown an appreciation for playing for the organization and embedding themselves constructively within the community (a real value of Angelos).
Pete! Thanks for joining us!
Lol that’s so true. Only way that post makes sense is if it is Angelos
Only way the clichéd criticisms make sense is if they’re substantiated—and they’re simply not. So until that’s there it’s really hard to take criticisms of Angelos seriously at all.
There’s no sound argument against international spending. It’s like punting a couple draft picks because you don’t want to pay the signing bonus.
Chewbacca – I was thinking it might have been John or Louie.
that would make even more sense.
Carson still not tired digging himself that hole. There’s blood in the water for the Boston media.
It’s ridiculously stupid that the Boston media plays as big a part as they do in team structuring.
I always thought Carson Smith more than likely smelled bad from just looking at him. Now I know he smells bad. Not making a joke, I’ve always said he looked like he’d be the smelly kid in school. Smith has thrown 14.1 innings this year..3rd lowest on the team. Only Wright and Poyner have thrown less. 1 in minors the other suspended/hurt. Even Walden has 14.2. Quit crying, literally, and go stank up someone else’s roster. You weren’t the solution for our bullpen issues anyways. The only time he looked decent for us was low leverage situations. The stress on his arm was in his brain.
Which kid were you in school?
I was a Rat Kid in school. Now I’m a Rat Man.
” antigravity treadmill”
——————
Rhiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiight….he’s hanging out on the Spaceship Enterprise with Captain Kirk. The hell are you guys on about? Is he running in a pool or something?
The guys at MIT proved that the theoretical graviton exists and learned how to repulse them or the more likely story is a body weight supported treadmill aka anti-gravity treadmill. Google has pictures and everything.
Tyler thornburg can’t get back soon enough
I know all parties are frustrated but why point faults and react to via reporters.
In the clubhouse, there shoukd be what to discuss and not to discuss to reporters.
Smith may not be happy amd overworked but welcome bogs especially after am injury.
Everyone says Machado being traded is a sure thing. I think it’s likely to happen, but you never know since Peter Angelos is the owner.
It’s not beneath Angelos to keep Machado for the entire season just to spite the rest of the league. Doing so would ultimately be to the detriment of his own organization, and I can hear Duquette making the obligatory speech in August that the offers for Machado were unacceptable while playing up the comp pick they’ll get when he declines the QO. I said in December that keeping Machado all year was the most probable scenario for BAL, and I’d be shocked if they traded him. I haven’t seen anything to this point that would change my mind.
I might be in the minority here but you can’t base being overworked on innings pitched alone. Get up and down multiple times and not even getting into a game can also be detrimental to a pitchers health. In fact, it’s probably the source of a large majority of pitching injuries. It’s a lot less natural on the body than prime think.
*getting
*some might think
Agreed. Danny Barnes for the Blue Jays has been that guy. Then he was sent down. He didn’t deserve the demotion.
Name a worse-run team than Baltimore. You cannot. Top to bottom they need to scorch the earth and start all the way over.
Marlins?
Although their player development is really good, especially on the position player side. At least Angelos doesn’t force the team to rebuild every 4 years.
Yeah, but they have 2 World Series rings in the last couple decades. That counts for a lot.
The Mariners? They have never been to a world series and haven’t been to the playoffs for 16 years..
Case can be made for the Mariners. I’ll throw in the Blue Jays, 22 year drought , 1 division title in 25 years.
Padres!
I dont get Troy Tulo taking up a roster spot. Hes got 125M bank. Why not coach or something. How can he sleep at night, stealing money and all.
Well he did sign a contract. And he’s only “stealing” money from a telecom giant.
Besides, he’s only 32 and I’m sure he’d like to get healthy and play more if he can.
If we’re being honest the contract was probably insured like most big money contracts nowadays so the big insurance companies would be the losers here.
Believe it or not Tulo would be an improvement at SS for the Jays.
JAys need to scorch the earth and get rid of Tulo and Diaz and give some others a shot. There not winning anything this year anyways. Might as well make this year a year of tryouts. lol.
Jimmer that’s obvious (to you and I). Some Jays fans are holding out hope. Today’s game may have marked the end for the overworked bullpen. They’ve pitched incredible up until now and it’s a shame when their numbers begin to rise. I will remember them for their outstanding effort wasted by bad pitching and poor hitting.
Sadly yes. They are now the team I love to hate. I am thinking that a leadership change is necessary in the organization.
Buck and Pat were talking on the telecast today about how many #1 picks have failed to emerge as good picks. There is definitely a professional scouting issue. They do okay in amateur scouting of the lower rounds draft picks.
Granted you can hit on every trade or every pick, but the results of this current regimes scouting, depth signings is horrible. And many of those horrible moves have been called that in these blogs before the evidence materialized.
If they don’t blow it up totally at the deadline, this is going to be a longer road than the three more years I have been calling that it will take back to being competative and playoff bound. At least AA learned how to take a shot at it.
I am begging for no more players like Diaz, Grichuk. Laurence, Campos, Storen, Sparkman, Bolsinger, House, Girado, Feldman, Doubront, Venditte, Aoki, Barney Beliveau, cole, Coghlan, Harrell, Howell,.Olhman, Parmley, Pearce, Tepesch, Valdez, Salty, Refsnyder, Rowley, Montero, Lopez, Latos etc etc. Most of these I, as well as others, called as not belonging on a club that is sincerely hoping to compete and win yet the Jays mgmt wants us to believe that they want to compete? Not with these poor pieces.
Pat Gillick where have you gone?
After today’s debacle they should be thinking about it.
For all the bad deals Gord Ash made, he at least drafted some good players during his tenure. They still had a very good scouting and development department. But when it was time to push the team to the next level they couldn’t do it. Once Ricciardi came in and fired a bunch of scouts and coaches, game over. Anthopoulos is the most overrated GM in Toronto sports history. AA also waited a year too long to “go for it”. Should have been 2014.
Those players you listed is a carbon copy of the garbage we’ve seen over the last 15-20 years.
Tinnish should have been let go a long time ago. He should have never been given the role he had in the first place.
Development has been a big problem. The last stud prospect that was Vlad-like was Carlos Delgado 25 years ago. Neither were draft picks.
Toronto is a Leafs town. Anything having to do with baseball goes over the head of Jays fans. Organization needs a reset. Soon.
The international “market”, particularly in Latin America and the Caribbean, is rife with corruption and from an economic standpoint involves a lot of financial risk. It’s not difficult to see how a lawyer would stay away from such dealings. I know it’s popular to bash Angelos, especially given how the team he owns is in the same division with two financial powerhouses and the Orioles’ fiscally conservative ways wither in comparison. It is frustrating to be ab O’s fan, for sure, but all of you who just continue to pile on and say he’s the worst owner in sports because it’s the popular thing to do are just kissing up to Ken Rosenthal.
The worst run team in major US sports is the Cleveland Browns and it isn’t really debatable.
Tulo still plays organized sports, good to know.
Have to wonder why they didn’t make a move to get someone out there to make them competitive and probably keep Machado in the fold.
You know when fans say “you can’t trade x prospect” like… Dylan Bundy. And then said prospect gets to the majors and is so-so or out the league in a few years. Good read: http://baltimoresportsandlife.com/what-is-dylan-bundys-trade-value/
What difference does it make if the Orioles have an international prospect market or not? Plenty of people to scout in America.
Even more to scout in America and the Caribbean combined.
Also, Carson Smith simply said he’s been pitching a lot and that may have contributed to his injury. How is that a direct attack at Alex Cora? Smith is just tiring to make sense of his injury. No need to dramatize the scenario. Gosh!