Erik Swanson has yet to pitch this season due to a median nerve entrapment in his right arm, but the reliever’s path back to the Blue Jays roster hit a snag in the form of some soreness in his right forearm. The issue prevented Swanson from a planned minor league rehab outing earlier this week, and the good news is that initial tests revealed no structural damage. However, Swanson told The Athletic’s Mitch Bannon and other reporters that more tests are set for Monday, as it hasn’t yet been determined what exactly is causing the forearm discomfort.
Swanson had some bouts with forearm soreness at a few different points in his career, such as in each of the last two Spring Trainings, and also a minor strain that sent him to the injured list for a little over three weeks during the 2020 season when he was pitching with the Mariners. Though the medicals have been clean so far on his current issue, obviously all parties will be cautious in dealing with any forearm-related injury. In the short term, the problem has delayed Swanson’s recovery, and adds more uncertainty over when exactly the reliever will make his 2025 debut.
More from around the AL East…
- Speaking of pitchers on the injured list, Walker Buehler was sidelined earlier this week due to bursitis in his right shoulder. The injury wasn’t thought to be overly serious, and Buehler told reporters (including The Athletic’s Jen McCaffrey) today that he would’ve pitched though the discomfort if it had arisen during a late-season scenario. Buehler has a 4.28 ERA over 33 2/3 innings for the Red Sox, as a rough first two starts of the year gave way to a much smoother 2.59 ERA over his last four outings.
- It has been almost a month since Zach Eflin was sidelined by a right lat strain, but the Orioles right-hander has now started a rehab assignment with the team’s high-A affiliate. Eflin looked sharp in tossing four scoreless innings on 58 pitches for Aberdeen today, and while we’ll know more once Eflin recovers, he told the Baltimore Sun’s Matt Weyrich on Saturday that he was hopeful that he’d just need the one rehab outing. While the O’s aren’t going to rush a player back from the IL, the team obviously needs all the help it can get, given how the rotation has been ravaged by injuries and poor performance.
- One of those injured Orioles pitchers came off the 15-day IL today, as Baltimore activated Chayce McDermott and optioned the righty to Triple-A Norfolk. McDermott suffered a right lat strain early in Spring Training and didn’t throw any Grapefruit League innings, and his 2025 workload to date has consisted of two appearances and 5 2/3 innings during a minor league rehab assignment. This assignment to Triple-A will give McDermott more time to fully build himself up, with an eye towards possibly returning to the Show later in 2025. McDermott is a well-regarded pitching prospect who made his MLB debut last July, tossing four innings in his lone big league appearance to date.
It’s early but 18-18 is not what I would have envisioned given the teams they’ve played so far..Losing leads late in games and not coming thru trailing late in games is not a recipe I hope they follow much longer.. Other than that the 2024 Red Sox are doing a fine job this year……..(of mimicking last year)
The losing games late is unfortunately a new problem. The stretch when the offense went ice cold was the other reason for the mediocre start.
One huge help would be if Tanner Houck could find his first half of last season self
Rsox – Houck better bring his A-game Wednesday because he’s facing Mahle and his 1.19 ERA.
At least the Sox defense has settled down a bit.
Olm – Have you seen the upcoming schedule?
Eovaldi tomorrow
Mahle Wednesday
At Royals
At Tigers
Vs Braves
Vs Mets
Quite the 15-game stretch!
BTW 21 Baeza came through with the $1 Tri but it didn’t pay squat. There were 21 signs everywhere last week. In The Accountant movie the first bingo ball called was 21 and Rocket Roger was at Fenway all weekend.
Sox will be well under.500 by the end of that stretch unfortunately
FPG … quite a race…brother cleaned up with sovereignty… had exacta so not a total washout… horrible trip for Burham square but that’s racing… woulda/coulda/ shoulda….
olm – Well of course Sovereignty won, sloppy conditions and he’s a mudda ….. in fact his fadda was a mudda …. and his mudda was a mudda …
Where I spent the day it was only about half as busy as usual, and the local radio station didn’t show up …. hate to say it but seems like the sport is dying …. if they keep shrinking the payouts that won’t help.
Hoping Preakness has at least a dozen running ….
Lay blame on their “manager”. Cora has been protected by the front office and media, but he’s not a quality manager at all. He should be canned. That team is better than .500. Cora has always stunk at managing a bullpen and he’s a cheater. They want to keep him, then fine. But the team will continue to suffer.
let – I can confirm Cora has directly contributed to at least 5 losses this season.
Yesterday it was giving Story a 5th day off over a 8-day period and replacing him with Hamilton, who failed to catch a ball right at him.
Well let’s see how they do over the next 15 games. It just boggles the mind that people don’t take into consideration the 18-18 record was despite the easiest scheduled in MLB.
Woops …. meant 3rd day off, not 5th …. still excessive!
If Story doesn’t turn it around soon, we SHOULD (but won’t) see Mayer promoted.
Hamilton is fast and probably has a better bat than I give him credit for, but man he is a bad defender.
They were very overhyped given the fact that core has never accomplished anything of note at the major league level. The free agent adds were solid but equally exaggerated. This is going to be a good team but they were probably the most overhyped team in recent memory. They’re basically a poor man’s 2024 Orioles with no reasonable expectation they’ll win 90+ games.
dan – That’s a reasonable take. Their biggest fault was not snagging one of the many available quality free agent relievers, Hoffman or Scott or even Yates would have been a big improvement.
And they went cheap by gambling on a bunch of players with injury concerns. How would Pivetta and Fried look in a Sox uniform right now?
The schedule is gonna get much tougher, next 15 games will tell a lot about this team.
“Still, the Orioles are already in a pretty deep hole, and can’t afford to wait too long. This is not what I expected to be waiting about Baltimore on May 4, but being a deadline seller (rather than buyer) isn’t out of the question”
–
I wrote at the end of the offseason that the O’s would be sellers going into the deadline. It was obvious.
6th year of a rebuild and they’re sellers going into the deadline. Not sure I’ve ever seen that. Surely not a good sign.
The question is: How’s the new owner taking this? Last year he stated publicly that he doesn’t have a lot of time to win a championship. Not sure a never-ending rebuild is why he bought in. Would he demand the script be flipped in-season?
I’d bring in Joe Madden as a bench coach/advisor. He was a mentor to Coach Hyde in Chicago. Takes pressure off the FO and the on field staff to make changes that current staff has backed themselves into. And Madden’s decisions are gold. Swallow your pride guys. Just do it. First up. Gunnar off SS
Tough spot because you can’t blame the regime on Adley being mediocre and the pitching staff being destroyed with injuries. On the other side of that why are these top prospects regressing and everyone and their mom could see the rotation just was not good enough. I doubt they are sellers but wouldn’t be surprised
Just imho, but I am not sure the prospects were that good.
Holliday should be great, but he is only 21. Real power usually doesn’t come that early.
But Kjerstad, Westburg, Cowser, and Mayo all have a fairly high level of minor league strikeouts on the resume. That often doesn’t translate well.
“Tough spot because you can’t blame the regime on Adley being mediocre and the pitching staff being destroyed with injuries.”
gorav114;
I sure as heck do!
Adley was a better all-around catcher when he first came up. By now he should be better, not worse. And those pitchers didn’t have that many injuries.
THAT IS ON THE COACHING STAFF AND THE FO IN CHARGE!
Those issues are INTERRELATED.
They quite probably have the worst head pitching coach in MLB.
I follow 7-8 teams each year. The O’s and Phillies were my 2 favorites the past 2-3 years. The O’s rebuild is the most screwed up I’ve seen in years – worse than the Phillies (Dombrowski rescued them), White Sox, and now Pirates and O’s – that got all that pub from the national baseball media as players ran up stats when it was obvious they couldn’t play baseball on the field (but who in the national media actually watches the games? The look at spreadsheets.) The teams playing them adjusted.
Thankfully for the readers, I’m moving on. So many good organizations out there with their teams playing solid fundamental baseball. Sorry for O’s fans that have waited so long and thought they had something.
Now up to the new owner…..and don’t think he hasn’t been doing background research the past few weeks.
Painfully obvious a new message is needed. Like in 2010 when Buck Showalter nearly doubled the win % of Dave Trembley and Juan Samuel over the last third of the season (and had a dead bullpen).
I said it a couple winters in a row while people salivated over how smart a pickup Cole Irvin was, or that I just didn’t understand how the very smart people running the front office knew that Morton would provide veteran leadership and eat innings, they had their starters. Uh huh.
The hitting took steps back but is fixable with competent direction. Henderson is turning it around but not hitting with the authority he had in the 1st half of 2024 yet. Rutschman has his patience back but not the power. Jackson is coming along but for crying out loud, needs to play every day. They are being mishandled.
The dead weight needs to go: Hyde, followed by Morton, Mateo Perez, and Sanchez. That would be the start of saying ineffectiveness will not be accepted. In fact, heard in several places the team has a winning record in games Morton did not pitch in or Mateo did not start.
The starters need to pitch more innings, plain and simple. More outings like Good Kremer had Friday. The first bullpen is fried signs came yesterday – Akin, Bowman, Baker, and Cano are on pace for 70+ appearances and will have tons of outings like that in the 2nd half if they are forced into action every other day. They can’t do much about it right now except hope Good Kremer shows up more, Eflin returns, and Sugano can go into the 6th and 7th more often.
They need 8-4 in the next 12 games to crawl out of this hole a little.
I think the offense will be fine. They are likely pressing to make up for a terrible pitching staff
gorav114;
Did you know that they rank in the bottom 5 in fielding as well as hitting and pitching?
This is what happens when you have a FO that bases everything on statistics and statcast readings.
Elias and Zig came from the Astros. That young Astros team played solid, SMART, all-around fundamental baseball. Correa, Altuve, Bregman, etc. 20 year-old Carlos Corea was a better all-around SS than Gunner Henderson is at 23, and the excuse-makers say Gunner is still young. Right. And it’s not just Gunner. The only 2 all-around position players they have are Ramón Urías (3B) and Cedric Mullins (CF) – both of whom will be gone within a year. What’s comical is that Urias got injured, so they brought in Emmanuel Rivera to play 3B when they already have Gunner (who’s a 3B while Jorge Mateo can play far better SS and possibly Jackson Holliday as well), Jordan Westburg whose really an offensive 3B…and the punch line – they brought up Colby Mayo to save the day…..he can’t hit ML pitching at this point and is a questionable defensive 3B. LOL
This is the Gang That Couldn’t Shoot Straight.
Instead of holding firm with players to build a superior professional baseball team as they put the team winning first, they cater to their favorites.
Whew!
Of their 19 errors-
– 5 are from the most wonderful player ever Jorge Mateo in just 85 innings, proving again you don’t know what you’re talking about
– 4 are from Henderson, who I regularly see making plays on the right side of 2B and always making throws on the run. Worry less about range, set feet and throw.
– 2 are from Mullins, who I’ve pointed out has had declining defensive performance the past few years (but he’s athletic and flashy)’ He probably should be in a corner now but doesn’t have the arm so much.
Not sure how this is “bottom 5” when they are as a team at league average with a .984 fielding PCT, just 2 errors off avg (Boston has 30, A’s 27, White Sox 26, Cleveland 23…), They’re last right now with the R-totals/zone which vary WILDLY especially early in the year. Look where the Athletics are in zone above average versus runs saved above average for a good laugh.
Samuel
Mateo can’t hit.
I repeat.
Mateo can’t hit.
Do you need to hear it again?
Mateo can’t hit.
If you’ve looked at the stats lately you’ll also see that he can’t field this year either.
Perhaps the reason Mateo’s fielding was so good in 2022 was because Urias was beside him at 3B. Gunnar’s best fielding SS year was when Urias played the majority of his games alongside him at 3B (and won GG).
I already addressed Correa on another thread but he hasn’t produced what Henderson has already, much less what Henderson could be if the Orioles got rid of Hyde and got some competent management and coaching before they lose 2025 completely.
By the way, Mateo can’t hit.
Did you hear me? Mateo can’t hit.
TM.
Mateo. What a tease offensively. Just when I’ve seen enough, he shows up. IE. see his 2023 playoff stats.
Defensively, he is better than Gunnar at SS. IMO daily reps at SS, not sporadic play at multiple positions, will show that.
If the Birds are looking to win now, offensive strategy needs to change. The platooning and moving guys up and down the lie up has gotta stop. With that in mind:
DFA Mountcastle.
Trade O’Hearn while he’s hot.
Move 6’4 Gunnar to first
Westburg 3b
Mateo SS
Holliday 2b
Urias in line up everyday by giving breaks to the above fellas including SS.
Mullins CF
Cowser LF
RF ?
DH multiple options
The key offensively. Get the above players at bats daily regardless of opposing pitcher’s preferred throwing arm including Mateo.
Mateo being better defensively at SS means absolutely nothing when he provides 0 with the bat and has only looked like a great fielding SS one season. Samuel talks about the FO being biased. But he has a man crush on Mateo that is his own bias at this point. There’s no way to defend him at this point
I like Mateo to solely pinch run but we can call up Bradfield to do that if this team is playing in games that matter in Sept/Oct. I understood why you’d keep him around as the last bench guy but he hasn’t worked out at all this year.
Jbigz12 – Mateo to pinch run – not at 3.4M a year. The team does not spend big money but has no problem wasting a lot of money in smaller increments that adds up to what they would have spent on the competent players. 3.4M to Mateo. 15M to Morton. 5M to Gibson. 8M to Sanchez.
They could use Rivera, Machin, or Vavra in the backup UIF type of role and at least get some offense. The solely pinch running circumstance in which the speed would make the total difference for the Orioles right now would be 0.001%.
Jeff – not sure what got into Henderson defensively. In 2023 and first half of last year he was well above average. He’s got to set and throw. His range is outstanding and he makes some great plays. Then he hits cameramen and drops soft liners? Its almost like with Jeter who was an athletic guy – Jeter needed to set and throw. Tony Fernandez could pull off the jump throw, Jeter should have set and thrown like RIpken did.
The Orioles have waited too long on some things. Kjerstad now has no value. Mountcastle now has no value. They now have to play them and hope value is regained, but they don’t play Kjerstad enough, and Mountcastle is what he is, they missed the window (after the 2023 season was the time to do it).
I’m in agreement with some things, but here’s what I do with the team.
Fire Hyde now. They need a new messenger, one with a firm voice who can put structure into play and work with young players and develop them yet let them be them. Like Buck did in 2010. Each day that passes with Hyde leading the team digs the hole further. Regression of the young core demonstrates a deficit of coaching and leadership.
DFA Mateo, Perez, and Morton TODAY. Addition by subtraction. Each day that passes shows the rest of the team incompetence is acceptable.
The lineup and plans:
Mullins CF
Gunnar SS .
Rutschman C or DH. His patience is fine.
O’Hearn DH/RF
Holliday 2B
Urias 3B
Kjerstad LF
Mountcastle 1B/DH
Westburg will come back and bat 4th/5th. Unfortunately Urias does best when given regular at bats, give him some DH AB and let O’Hearn play RF to keep his bat in the lineup.
Give Gunnar until ASB and drill fundamentals at SS. Set and throw. If he doesn’t improve upon the Baby Huey that’s showed up since last July then work him in at 3B, play Holliday at SS and move Westburg to 2B.
I don’t think Mullins is in the long term plans. Then he has to be traded for value in July, can’t run the fence and hold onto him all year if there’s no extension coming. Put Cowser in CF after the trade and he’s back to corner when Bradfield is ready. O’Hearn also traded in July. This is also when the decision is made whether you are keeping Mayo, Mountcastle, and Kjerstad. If keeping, you play them regularly. If not, trade them in July. That allows Urias regular ABs.
The team needs a 180 now to be contending this year. That means 8-4 or better in this stretch coming up, and to be pushing .500 by mid June. Then they have to be the biggest players for the top starters on the market at the deadline if in the mix and in the offseason either way, no ifs, ands, or buts.
Joe – Hamilton is just like Billy Hamilton, he can’t hit and he can’t steal first base. I’m very glad Cora is finally letting him bunt, should have been done a long time ago. Between the bunting and pinch-running and multiple positions he could be a valuable bench player.
As for Story, he’s too expensive to bench or release and he WILL get on another hot streak eventually. But yeah the curse of Bloom will still impact the team for years to come. Still makes me laugh thinking about certain people here who defended everything he did for 4 years.
Arguably the easiest schedule in MLB thus far. 18-18 rest squarely on the shoulders of the manager. Could easily be 26-12. Cora’s gotta go.
Sean – It’s not even arguable, there’s a Strength of Schedule stat ….. Red Sox are dead last in MLB with their opponents having a combined .453 winning percentage.. Cubs have had the hardest schedule at .565
espn.com/mlb/stats/rpi/_/sort/sos
And BTW if you sort that by RPI you’ll see the Red Sox are the 4th-weakest team in MLB.
This has been an incredibly bad start for the Red Sox, and the stats prove it.
I hadn’t actually looked it up, but did not expect to be dead last. The way they are losing is most frustrating. Not sure what the options are at this point. He seems to have no concern with job security. Very comfortable in his post game interviews after losses.
Sean – That’s because Cora just signed a 3-year extension!
Absolutely no pressure to perform when you’re guaranteed big bucks for 3 years.
And even if Cora does get fired from his manager job, he will likely be promoted to the front office. That’s where he wants to be, and John Henry wants him there.
If they bring Cora into the front office they need to leave Breslow and his current team alone.
Breslow is building a pitching factory in the minors with a ton of talent rising up through the ranks. Payton Tolle looked awesome yesterday. I hope they just let him cook and don’t screw it up with Cora.
Bruin – I’m thinking they have intentionally left the GM position vacant for Cora.
I would definitely NOT want to be one of the 5 Assistant GM’s reporting to him.
Was very impressive. I was at the game and he looked in complete control. Absolutely could have pitched another inning or two but I’m guessing Carrol saw all he needed. Also, this is a guy that was throwing 90-92 in college and was throwing 96-98 with ease yesterday.
With ease is the operative word his pitches get on the hitters in a hurry. He looks a little like Crochet.
They had Tolle on 70 pitch limit he ended up throwing one extra pitch for 71.
Swanson shows real ambition, a hunger to improve that’s so crucial to success in the show. One might say Swanson is a Hungry Man