10:06am: It turns out the injury is much worse than had initially been expected. Clevinger is going to be sidelined for six to eight weeks before he’s able to resume a throwing progression, manager Terry Francona tells reporters including Ryan Lewis of the Akron Beacon Journal (Twitter link). Since he’ll still need to build back to full pitching strength from that point, it seems all but inevitable that Clevinger will miss more than two months.
9:32am: The Indians have placed starter Mike Clevinger on the 10-day injured list. He’s said to be dealing with a “right upper back/Teres major muscle strain.”
Reliever Nick Wittgren is coming up to the active roster to fill the opening and provide some innings, but obviously won’t fill Clevinger’s role. The Cleveland org will ultimately need another hurler to step into the rotation, at least for a couple of starts.
Glancing down the Indians’ 40-man roster, there are several pitchers with MLB experience that could ultimately be called upon. Cody Anderson has spent the most time in the big leagues but is still building back after missing virtually all of the prior two seasons. Adam Plutko might get the nod but is not at 100 percent. Jefry Rodriguez and Chih-Wei Hu have also pitched at the game’s highest level, as have non-roster hurlers A.J. Cole and Asher Wojciechowski.
Filling in shouldn’t be too much of a problem. The real question is: for how long? It did not seem that Clevinger had suffered a significant injury when he left his most recent start, and there’s still no indication that he’s expected to be sidelined for a lengthy stretch. The Indians will take a cautious approach while hoping that Clevinger is able to get back to action quickly. The 28-year-old righty has been nothing short of outstanding of late, with a ridiculous dozen innings (two hits, 22:4 K/BB) to begin the new campaign.
This guy is a animal. I have him on one of my fantasy teams. I hope he gets well soon.
He can strike out people really well. Just a bummer he’s on the Injured list.
U might want to drop him… out 6-8 weeks.
I’m sure he’s an animal—but not with a strained teres major strain.
He can strike out people really well. Just a bummer he’s on the Injured list.
Dammit. Hope this doesn’t cloud his Cy Young chances down the road.
Theres no way a Cy Young is coming. I can see it being Cluber.
Or Kluber
Or Bauer
Na, he is a good pitcher but not for Cy Young
The Sox chased Kluber early last week!
Small sample size. It seems like every year, Kluber has a couple starts like that.
Or Carrasco.
Yup, shut him down he had a bad night!
Being out 2+ months wouldn’t cloud it. It’d end any chance (not that one really existed).
I agree that missing two months eliminates the chance of it, but to say that there wasn’t a chance in the first place is dead wrong.
He won’t throw for at least 2 months, he’ll be out 3-4 months so no Cy Young for him. Damn shame too, he took that big step this year that Bauer did last year.
Or Clevenger
They have some good pitchers but I think only Cluber can get Cy Young
Clubber Lang?
“Hey Balboa! HEY BALBOA!!!”
Fresh reference
Really? Without getting hurt last year Bauer was right in the mix for it.
TIME FOR BIG SEXY!!!!!!! C’mon, Bartollo needs a job.
No thanks on Big Sloppi…
Big Fatty!
He said he only wanted to play one more year and I wouldn’t be against bringing him on late in the year if he hasn’t found a team so he could finish where he started. As a long term replacement as much as I love him I’d have to pass.
Time to edit the posting. Francona is telling reporters it will be 6 to 8 WEEKS before Sunshine (Clevinger) even picks up a baseball again…
this is gutting for the indians. the only thing keeping them afloat is the pitching. central is even more wide open now.
this is gutting for the indians. the only thing keeping them afloat with that horrible lineup is their pitching.
Maybe when it’s time to bring up a starter they’ll give Shao-Ching Chiang a shot?
Chiang is an interesting sleeper, and given the number of mediocre players on the roster, they should be able to give him a shot.
I thought of him as a sleeper too, but didn’t they demote him to Akron the other day? They’d have to add him to the 40-man roster too, and I don’t know if they’d want to do that yet.
I think the starting pitching is amazing Youve got Cluber,Clevenger,Bauer and Carrasaco
its Kluber
and Shane Bieber.
This is why they didn’t trade Kluber/Bauer
I doubt they saw anything like this happening, but in hindsight it’s definitely better that they held on to them.
Given their current situation they shouldn’t have been willing to risk it in the first place.
I was actually in favor of it at the time if they could have gotten a good return. They basically would have traded from a strength to patch holes elsewhere and deepen the farm system. But that’s a moot point now.
Again, given their current situation, deepening the farm system should be the least of their concerns. That deeper farm system won’t mean much in two years when Bauer is gone in FA, Kluber and Lindor have been traded and the White Sox and maybe Tigers have risen from the ashes.
Tigers, eh?
They always factor in the possibility of pitcher injuries. Francona has stated that many times.
Observing Clevinger’s mechanics it’s not shocking that he’s hurt. So, come the trade deadline might the Indians be more inclined to be sellers?
Doubtful. That division is awful.
As bad as the Tribe have been, once they get Lindor back, they’ll start locking up the div
Yes, if your only goal is to win the division. However, their current line up doesn’t stand much of a chance to make it to the World Series.
Who will pitch instead of him?
Cluber is not doing well now
It is Kluber, man. Come on now. Go post somewhere else about Mark Shurzer
Clevinger looked like he was going to take a huge leap forward this season. I really like that guy. Sucks for the Indians. With the way their offense is constructed they need to play low scoring games. Going to hurt replacing Clevinger with Plutko. The twins are right there.
What happened to all those great pitchers who CLE supposedly could have replaced Kluber/Bauer with?
Injuries. McKenzie and Plutko were injured during spring training while Salazar and Anderson are trying to come back from long layoffs due to injuries in previous years.
But people were saying the Indians had so much rotation depth that they could trade Kluber or Bauer without even blinking!
Salazar and Andersons’s injuries were already known. Salazar is going to be a reliever for sure and Anderson might follow. Mckenzie’s Never pitched a game past AA and is 20 years old. It was foolish to think the Indians could’ve dealt one of their aces and not added a starter to replace him. That really wasn’t reality.
And Padres fans were suggesting all sorts of comical trade scenarios. You’re work is done here, go back to drafting up some more ridiculous trade scenarios…
1. Yeesh, what is with all the Padres hate on this site? They haven’t done anything to anybody since 2006.
2. I wasn’t one of the people suggesting ridiculous trade proposals for Bauer or Kluber. It seemed odd to me that the Indians were even listening on either one given their current situation. But other people were saying they had so much rotation depth that they could trade one and still have one of the best rotations in the game.
3. Your*
@jbigz then please join me in bashing the people who disagreed when I said trading Kluber or Bauer wouldn’t save the Indians money because if they did that their production would just have to be replaced and doing that would cost more than whatever they were paying Kluber/Bauer.
Yersh, thanks for the spellcheck, move along now, nothing to see here…
Only Padres fans said that
They still have 4 better starters than probably anyone in baseball but they don’t have a fifth. Granted if you traded Kluber you could’ve added a fifth guy. Though I don’t see how you trade Kluber and make your major league team better. They shouldn’t be looking for prospects.
Kluber is an ace, Carassco and Bauer would be anywhere else, find me a #4 starter like Clevinger.
Or a #5 as good as Bieber.
I don’t think I ever argued that point. All I said was if that you were to have traded Kluber or Bauer it wouldn’t have made your major league team any better. Your rotation is phenomenal. No arguments from me there. I’m a big fan. Your offense is rough. That’s the part that needs work
I hear you, my response was actually to the Padres fan trolling…
Twins for the win now
And the Yankees will pay over $208,000,000.00 for the hopes of a one game Wild Card for the opportunity to play them in the playoffs…
PS: the Yankees on the IL alone are over a combined $86,000,000.00 in salary…LOL
At least we know pulling him wasn’t just some dumb reaction by Francona…
Too bad for Clevinger. You might not be high on his ability. I am. He has the stuff to be a Cy Young winner, if healthy, down the road. Not saying he will, saying he has the ability. Great stuff.