SATURDAY: Bleier will indeed have season-ending surgery on Tuesday to repair a Grade 3 lat strain, as Eduardo A. Encina of the Baltimore Sun was among those to tweet.
FRIDAY, 3:33pm: Bleier may need surgery and is likely to miss the remainder of the season, MLB.com’s Britt Ghiroli is among those to report on Twitter.
2:19pm: The Orioles have announced a host of roster moves today. Southpaw Richard Bleier is heading to the DL with what has been diagnosed as a lat strain. He’ll be replaced in the pen by southpaw Tanner Scott.
Infielder Corban Joseph has been selected and added to the active roster as well. To create the needed roster space, righty Yefry Ramirez was optioned and lefty D.J. Snelten was designated for assignment.
The news on Bleier was fully expected at this point, as Roch Kubatko of MASNsports.com wrote earlier today. Bleier is said to be seeking a second opinion after already undergoing an MRI. It’s still unclear just how bleak the outlook is, but Kubatko suggests the internal belief is it’s a serious injury.
While Bleier, 31, is hardly a household name, perhaps he should be. The former Yankees southpaw is in his third big league season and currently is sporting the third sub-2.00 ERA of his career. Bleier has a 1.97 ERA in 119 innings, which is the sixth-lowest mark (min. 100 innings) in MLB history. He’s tied with Craig Kimbrel for the best ERA- (46) in MLB history (again, min. 100 innings; and a tip of the cap to ESPN’s Sam Miller for shining a light on Bleier’s curious dominance earlier this season).
Bleier has averaged just 4.1 K/9 in his career, but his 21.2 percent hard-contact rate in 2018 is outstanding. He’s allowed only two barreled balls this season (as defined by Statcast), and he leads the Majors in barrels per batted ball (1.8 percent of balls in play against him). Bleier may be an anomaly, but he’s been an important piece to the Baltimore bullpen who now looks headed for an absence of potential significance.
I wonder how Caleb feels about his brother right now…
Caleb is all class. I’m sure he’s happy for him.
Yeah Caleb had a really nice tweet to his brother
I read it and I agree it was really nice. Hopefully Corban can make the most of this opportunity.
Well I tell ya he’s exactly what we need, our lineup is full of strikeout hitters, a contact/on base guy in the lineup for once is nice
Not that it’s gonna change anything this season, but seeing someone actually trying to do something other than slam the crap out of the ball is good to see
Will the Bundy brother ever come up? What about the Schoop brother? What is it with the Orioles and brothers?
Bobby bundy i think it is.
Started with the Ripken brothers. Or was it the Robinson “brothers”?
I wonder when C. Davis ‘accidentally’ steps into that elusive pothole at The Yard.
For all the talk of the Marlins it is the Orioles tanking this season to get the number 1 pick. The sad thing is it is an incredibly smart move for a team in their position. They will get a haul in prospects for Machado, Jones and Britton if they trade them. If they don’t they would likely get 3 compensation round picks when they leave via free agency. That is essentially 4 first round picks. The prospects and/or picks this team will have next year can provide a foundation for long term success.
It is clear there will be changes in management and the GM job- a job that has historically been hard to fill will look alot more appealing if it comes with the potential to draft that much young talent.
@allknowing Jones and Britton won’t get qualifying offers in my humble opinion.
Jones will certainly not and Britton likely will not either if he’s even on the team. If he comes back very strong and we actually manage to keep him I could see a scenario where he gets a QO and accepts it.
What’s a Lat?
It’s a big long muscle that goes from the lower back and all the way up the back and wraps itself around the shoulder, connecting in front of the shoulder. A grade three strain means the muscle has actually torn in half..
Thank you for the information. Do you have any idea how, such an injury is and how easy it is to fully recover from it?
A grade 1 or two is not too bad, 3 weeks to 6 weeks, a grade 3 means Bleier’s season is over. The first two are strains of varying degree, the grade 3 means it has ruptured.
Thanks!
Thanks davidcoonce74!