Yankees To Designate Rico Garcia For Assignment

10:17pm: Winans will indeed be recalled in the corresponding move, Sherman reports.

10:03pm: The Yankees are designating reliever Rico Garcia for assignment, reports Joel Sherman of The New York Post. They’ll promote a fresh arm to take his spot in the bullpen tomorrow. The 40-man roster count drops to 39.

Garcia’s stint on the roster lasted a few days and one game. The Yanks had claimed him off waivers from the Mets during the All-Star Break. The 31-year-old righty tossed 2 2/3 innings during tonight’s bullpen game in Atlanta. He allowed three runs on as many hits and a pair of walks. Garcia surrendered a three-run homer to Ozzie Albies that quickly broke the game open in what would eventually be a 7-3 loss.

After throwing 53 pitches, Garcia would have been unavailable for the next few days. He’s out of options, so the Yankees couldn’t send him to the minors. As the eighth man in the bullpen, he gets bumped off so they can make a move tomorrow. Bringing up Allan Winans as a long reliever makes the most sense.

Winans and Michael Arias, who is pitching in High-A, are the only healthy pitchers on the 40-man roster who can be recalled unless someone else is going on the injured list. Clayton Beeter and Jayvien Sandridge have each been optioned within the past 15 days; Brent Headrick is on the Triple-A injured list.

Garcia had worked 4 2/3 scoreless innings over two appearances with the Mets earlier this month. He’d missed plenty of bats in Triple-A before being called up. Garcia struck out 27.4% of batters faced across 30 1/3 minor league frames, but he also walked nearly 15% of opponents. He’ll likely be placed back on waivers in the next few days.