The Orioles optioned right-hander Travis Lakins to Triple-A on Sunday, recalling Brandon Waddell to take his roster spot, per Rich Dubroff of Baltimorebaseball.com.
Lakins seemed to have made himself an indispensable piece of Baltimore’s bullpen in 2020 with a 2.81 ERA over 25 2/3 innings. The former Boston reliever has been less stellar this season through 16 appearances covering 14 2/3 innings. The 26-year-old owns a 7.36 ERA/6.42 FIP and 41.9 percent groundball rate. He’s neither striking out many hitters (17.9 percent strikeout rate) nor limiting free passes enough (16.4 percent walk rate).
Waddell was only recently claimed from the Minnesota Twins. A former starter in the minors, Waddell saw a jump in his strikeout rate as he began transitioning into a relief role during the 2019 season. The 26-year-old southpaw has just 7 1/3 innings of Major League experience split between the Twins this season and the Pirates in 2020.
This does not seem like an improvement.
The Orioles are in a freefall at the moment. Their bullpen is to blame. Probably partly due to overwork because most of the starters have been a problem. So management is just throwing pasta at a wall at this point to see what sticks. Maybe they’ll get lucky with one L because lefties develop late
I think they are swapping out for a fresh arm since they can’t get more than a couple innings out of starters not named Means. Not even Memorial Day and the bullpen is getting tired, and there are over 110 games to go. Take away their 3-0 start (which becomes more of a mystery the worse they play and the better the Sox do) and they’re on pace for about 52 wins this season.so we’re not seeing the improvement at the major league level.
I know Flaa hasn’t done much yet but it doesn’t seem the Orioles gave him much of a chance then got nothing in return back for him.
For poops and giggles they should bring up Jannis, the knuckle ball thrower. Entertainment value if nothing else, and obviously available every day. And Severino may have a tough time handling the knuckler, but he’s terrible anyway; how much can it hurt?
Where’s Mickey Jannis?
I don’t know how anyone can make themselves an “indispensable” part of anything in a 60 game season, let alone in a bullpen where pitcher numbers are bound to fluctuate from year to year. He looked good in a small sample size last year, not so much this year.
The first 30 games really worried me. Who were these guys and where were the Elias Orioles? Well the aliens who kidnapped our guys have now returned them and things are back to normal. Outside of Means the starting pitching is a disaster and unbelievably the bullpen is worse. Outside of 2 or 3 guys nobody hits and the defense is sad. Looks like another 100 loss season. I’m sorry but by this point in the “rebuild” it seems like you’d see some improvement. Elias will say look to the future, but the future is always that. It’s time for some improvement now. But I’ve always suspected ( and still do) that Elias ‘ marching band orders are to keep payroll at a minimum for the sale of the O’s when Peter Angelos is gone. In the meantime Elias, great carnival barker that he is, will continue to say look what’s coming up from the minors. Well the O’s haven’t been able to develop minor league players for years and I see no reason to believe the current regime will do better. Just look at Norfolk’s record. The Angelos family is lucky O’s fans and media are so tolerant. In some other cities the tar and feathers would have been out a long time ago. Oh well it’s May and this is where the Orioles’ season has gone to die the last few years.
Brandon Waddell…would he name a daughter, Ruby?
I am guessing you are asking whether he might name a son “Rube.” Otherwise, your comment makes no sense.