Oft-injured Indians right-hander Danny Salazar took a major league mound for the first time since 2017 on Thursday, but it wasn’t a triumphant return. Salazar lasted just four innings, in which he allowed two earned runs on four hits and three walks (with two strikeouts), in a 7-1 loss to Houston. It turns out Salazar was attempting to pitch through a groin issue, Joe Noga of cleveland.com was among those to cover. Salazar, who had been out with shoulder troubles, threw mostly changeups during his 66-pitch comeback and never exceeded 88.3 mph on the radar gun. That’s an enormous drop for a hurler who often overpowered hitters with 95 mph average fastball velocity from 2013-17. Salazar expressed confidence after the game that he’ll be fine, but the Indians will re-evaluate him Friday. It’s a situation that bears watching with the wild card-leading Indians’ rotation now much shallower in the wake of this week’s Trevor Bauer trade.
More on a couple other franchises…
- The Dodgers’ Joc Pederson first base experiment is over for at least the time being, manager Dave Roberts told Jorge Castillo of the Los Angeles Times and other reporters Thursday. The outfielder has picked up 20 appearances at first this year, and during that 149-inning span, Pederson has made six errors and posted minus-3 Defensive Runs Saved. Right fielder Cody Bellinger will now shift to first against right-handed starters, while Pederson will take left, A.J. Pollock center and Alex Verdugo right in those situations. Max Muncy could handle first on occasion versus lefties, according to Roberts (Tyler White manned the position versus Padres southpaw Joey Lucchesi on Thursday).
- More from Castillo, who writes that just-acquired Dodgers infielder Jedd Gyorko will begin a rehab assignment at the Double-A level Saturday. Gyorko, whom the Dodgers picked up in a trade with the Cardinals on deadline day, has been out since June 8 because of back and wrist issues. He’s eligible to come off the 60-day injured list next week, though he’ll first need to amass around 40 to 50 minor league at-bats, per Roberts.
- Infielder Asdrubal Cabrera enjoyed a successful stint with the Mets from 2016 until they traded him to the Phillies last summer. Cabrera, who signed with the Rangers over the winter, is about to become a free agent after they designated him for assignment Wednesday, but the Mets don’t appear to have interest in a reunion, Mike Puma of the New York Post tweets. Based on his subpar 2019 production, Cabrera wouldn’t be an upgrade over Mets No. 1 third baseman Todd Frazier. The rest of the club’s starting infield is spoken for with Pete Alonso at first, Robinson Cano at second and Amed Rosario at short, and reserve Adeiny Hechavarria is regarded as a much steadier defensive option than Cabrera.
Will they probably non tender Salazar in the offseason? He’d be a nice buy low option for a few teams.
Theo, is that you?
I feel like you think you’re being witty or something and for that I truly feel sorry for you.
Wow true sorrow, not that fake stuff, big thanks for preemptively clearing that up
How can you log 6 errors at 1st base in 20 games?
@vince by making 5, then making a 6th.
Or by being charged with 4, then having a play where you are charged with errors 5 & 6.
By making 6 individual errors in grand total of 20 games.
By being bad as hell and a pet of the Manager with no regard to performance.
I could do that in my sleep.
I think Joc might be the only player in MLB that is capable of making 6 errors in 1 game, let alone 20. Good thing the trial is over
Salzar strikes me as a guy that doesn’t try to stay in shape
The guy who just recovered from cancer?
Carrasco? Different person.
He does look out of shape.
Not that this post proves anything about what I am going to say but this is the very begining of the slowest time for this site. I started following this site well over a decade ago because they vet all the info so when it is posted here you know it is truth. You also get the vetted guaranteed truth faster here than anywhere else. I can’t can remember a single time in the past decade that MLBTR has posted anything that isn’t true. But now… This site is entering the earliest slow period in their history. I know they are happy about the traffic they just recieved but they know that no significant trades will happen again until after the world series. It will be great to see what guys like Foltynewics do from here on out (as well as all the other teams that have guys like that outside of my Braves) but the playoff eligible trade season is over. It is probably going to be a bunch of “Quick Hits” and “Minor Transactions” as well as “Updates” from here on out. There may be some trades but those won’t effect the playoffs. I wonder how MLBTR is gonna handle it for the first time this early in the season. Better cone up with something fun.
Thanks for posting. Its will always hard to please
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Don’t push your 8-balls around here. Don’t you have some rapper named MJG to hang out with?
Somehow we will cope…..
No trades, just call ups from here on out. I wouldn’t mind seeing a focus on potential non-playoff teams and what their plans may be in the off season. Just cover the bottom 10 teams and what next year might look like.
For instance, will the White Sox try and sign a top starter to mentor the young arms coming up. Who are the arms that might come up. Does Robert make the opening day lineup? Does Collins come up? Who plays 1B?
It would be interesting to see what the “experts” think. Because we know from here on out, we are going to have a steady supply of Yankee topics.
Is that true though about the trades? I think I remember the Red Sox trading for David Wells some years back all the way in September. The idea was that he was going to help them get too the playoffs but since it was so late in the season they just couldn’t put him on the post season roster. Anyone remember that?
What a stupid comment
Much better to denigrate the players on the team. That’s what makes this site shine.
Big Dick Deemann don’t you ever have anything useful to say or is it all negativity and bullying. Cool you can do it on the internet but sure you can’t face to face.
I still would love to know the answer to my first question. If last year a team could trade for a player in September (and after the AUGUST 31st waiver trade deadline, as the Red Sox did in prior years with the Davis Wells acquisition) and not use that player in the playoffs, why couldn’t that happen again? I know for a fact the Red Sox acquired David Wells in a trade likely during his final MLB season during the month of September (well after both trade deadlines at the time) and used him to get them to the playoffs but by MLB regulations could not put him on any playoff roster. Is that still allowed? I know they changed the trade deadline but this was still after the harshest trade deadline that season. I assumed that August of this year was going to be just like September of last year. Are trades just not allowed? I thought teams had the right to trade their contracts whenever they want but they just couldn’t take those late season acquisitions into the playoffs with them. What if the Tigers and Orioles wanted to make a trade right now that they both thought would help their teams in the future? It wouldn’t effect the playoffs anyway which is how Boston got Wells. Please someone help me with this. You used to be able to make trades after the final trade deadline as long as those players weren’t on any post season roster. I don’t know why that would change and I haven’t heard anything to imply that it has changed.
Highlighting Salazar’s bottom line results as proof he didn’t have a “triumphant” return is a bit misleading… his bottom line results weren’t actually that bad. 2 runs in 4 innings… when we already knew he was on a 75 pitch limit — the issue is his fastball was just completely MIA… a guy who used to pump them in at 95+ could barely touch 88 – that’s the issue. Not that he let up 2 runs in 4 innings… in fact had he done that while also pumping in 95MPH heat you could say he had a great return to the majors. Unfortunately that’s not the case. It’ll be interesting to see if he can find success without the 95MPH heater or if he’s already reinjured himself and the Indians were expecting to see the 95MPH fastball and instead got this… Based on his minor league numbers 26Ks in 14 innings… my guess is the fastball was there prior to last night’s start… so if that’s the case this could be a very bad sign for a team that assumingly was counting on a strong return given that they just dealt Bauer for offense.
He also walked 3 guys though. That’s not good
His FB was 87-88, the two HRs were changeups grooved down the middle at 8 and 84.5. That’s a horrible split, basically a bp floater. He was all over the zone with his other stuff too. He’s lucky he only gave up 2. And for a guy that used to hit 98 regularly he was supposedly at 93 on his rehab assignments so when he’s only hitting 87 they scrapped his FB, only threw 12, and went with all junk.
It’s been reported numerous times over the past two years that Salazar’s issue is 100% mental, not physical. He simply will not throw full speed because he’s afraid he’s going to hurt himself.
Even the shoulder surgery that he had done, was not to fix any problem, it was an exploratory surgery, which found absolutely no physical issues. When he was rehabbing in Goodyear and in the Minors, he kept refusing to let his fastball go, saying he was afraid it was going to do some damage. So all he threw were changeups, and offspeed stuff, just like last night. Then, when he got sore after a simulated outing, he’d shut everything all down again and set back his rehab for a month.
That guy has Rick Ankiel syndrome – somehow he’s developed this mental block that he can’t pitch anymore. Not sure how he gets past it.
Really interesting info, thank you. I always defended then bringing him back in the past, but it’s time to just let him go. If he succeeds elsewhere then so be it, it proves he’s either a nut job or just tanking it.
2 runs in 4 innings against the astros. Not too shabby especially when your main pitch is MIA.
He was really lucky it wasn’t 6 runs or so based on how he was throwing.
Yeah, that umpire gave him a wide strike zone.
I liked Asdrubal as a Met, but he’s just not a fit now. Even if they had traded Frazier, McNeil would be the first choice to move there, followed by JD. The Mets have infield depth in Syracuse in Tejada and Herrera that would come up before they’d be inclined to sign him. Gimenez is the long term choice. The greater need is OF for defense with infielders playing out of position there.
The Mets also have JD Davis to play 3B. Perhaps Asdrubal Cabrera could workout at 1B with the Dodgers. He could also be a fit ith the As.
He could replace pretty much any tiger but you know they wont do anything to jeopardize their number 1 pick.
The Dodgers have one of the best defensive first basemen in the league. The only problem is that he is also one of the best defensive right fielders in the league and is more valuable overall playing that position for them.
Pederson should spend time in the minors or just waive him he’s terrible hitting and his first base play reminded me of my 60 year old softball team. The errors were silly missed throws right at the glove from turner and not running balls out to first….The guy isn’t very athletic. or have the proper attitude.
But, as I recall, hasn’t he done well in the playoffs? I’m not making excuses for his deficiencies but it’s not all bad, right?
Pederson is a good player. He just isn’t a good first baseman. I said that shortly after he started at first…and several people here disagreed with me, saying he was solid at first base. I have no idea what those people were watching (or smoking). He definitely belongs on the Dodgers roster, though.
Yup this is the kind of experiment we don’t see often during the regular season. Trying it midseason a function of the big divisional lead and a desire to find a way keep Pederson in the lineup with a crowded outfield. It’s going to get crowded again when Taylor and Hernandez come back. Having flunked the FB midterms Pederson will see his playing time reduced quite a bit. A candidate to be traded this offseason.
His OPS is .823. Try and have a clue before yoy say he is “Terrible hitting”.
if anything, he does have a terrible, inconsistent swing. Dodger brass are obviously content with either a HR or a BB out of him. It is what it is
Pederson is not quite the wild swinger he used to be. He is a good batter and I don’t mind seeing him lead off. I think his plate discipline has improved overall and he is a solid threat any time he comes up. I don’t view him as a guaranteed starter regardless of the opposing pitcher but to suggest that he should be in the minors is ridiculous. Pederson is a very good player and and very solid bench piece at the very least. To suggest that he should be in the minors is simply ridiculous.
His swing is more under control now than it was. Still not somebody you want facing a lefty.
Cabrera would be a HUGE upgrade instead of bringing up Guiormme (I’m sure I spelled it wrong) LOL. He’s pretty much a guaranteed out. Even if Cabrera was a bench player. He’s a good left handed bat off the bench