The Blue Jays announced they’ve reinstated reliever Julian Merryweather from the 60-day injured list. Right-hander Bryan Baker was optioned to Triple-A Buffalo to open active roster space, while lefty Anthony Kay was placed on the COVID-19 injured list to clear a 40-man roster spot.
Merryweather is back after missing nearly five months due to a severe oblique strain. Injuries have unfortunately been frequent occurrences for the right-hander, who missed most of the 2018-19 seasons recovering from Tommy John surgery and also dealt with elbow tendinitis towards the end of last season.
There’s little question about Merryweather’s ability, though. He’s long been regarded as a potential high-leverage reliever by scouts and he flashed that talent at the big league level over the season’s first few weeks. The 29-year-old struck out seven of the fourteen batters he faced, allowing just a pair of baserunners over 4 1/3 scoreless innings. His fastball averaged a stellar 98.2 MPH and he racked up swinging strikes at a 14.5% rate to earn the closer’s role early in the season. It seems unlikely manager Charlie Montoyo will immediately reinstall him into the ninth inning after such a long absence, but Merryweather has a chance to emerge as the lockdown relief ace the Jays have been seeking all year.
His return comes at a fortuitous time for the Jays, who have caught fire of late to vault themselves back into the American League Wild Card picture. Toronto is riding a six-game winning streak and has taken nine of their last ten, putting them two games back of the Red Sox and two and a half behind the Yankees. The Jays won’t face Boston again this season, but they have five more against New York — including tonight’s and tomorrow’s contests.
Excellent addition to the bullpen at just the right moment.
It will be nice to have another big arm late in the game, Montoyo hasn’t always used Romano effectively so having JM will help alleviate that. It would be nice for him to stay healthy for a while, but anything Jays get at this point is bonus.
Agreed. Between Romano and Merryweather I now trust two Jays relievers. 😉
But seriously go Jays go!
Offended by this Mayza slander
He’s just a Merry weather fan. Willing to support who ever is popular, based on whatever direction the wind blows
Nate Pearson will be an important piece if the bullpen going forward ! His last outing, Game #3 against Oakland, Pearson came-in to face some of their top hitters in the 9th, and using his fastball and a nasty slider , Pearson struckout the side !!
As long as one pans out that’ll be huge for this team.
he did fan the side, but didn’t he give up a couple runs? (possibly via the long ball)
That was in his first game. He struck out the side in his second game back.
Do you really trust Pearson though? I’m not there yet. I’d trust Manoah with that late inning relief role before Pearson at this point…
I don’t trust your judgment if you’re thinking about moving Manoah to the bullpen
If the Jays make the playoffs Manoah might be the odd guy out of the rotation. Depending on the handedness of opposing lineup.
Matz has been good lately and Manoah has come back to earth a bit. Plus Manoah is scarier coming out of the bullpen than Matz.
It was a dominant outing for Pearson, but i’d hardly call Khris Davis a top hitter of any lineup
They could start doing what the royals did in 2015 with Herrera,Davis and Holland with Pearson merryweather and Romero. You can really shorten games when you have 3 guys throwing absolute gas. Starter only has to go 6 innings
Pearson just gave up two bombs to two .200 hitters. Let’s calm down about Pearson for now.