Rockies’ Peter Lambert Suffers Forearm Strain
TODAY: The Rockies have termed Lambert’s injury as a forearm strain, as per The Athletic’s Nick Groke (Twitter link) and other reporters. While the club is waiting for the results of Lambert’s medical tests, the righty is expected to “miss significant time.”
MARCH 10: Rockies right-handed starter Peter Lambert departed tonight’s Cactus League game early, according to Nick Groke of The Athletic. Colorado manager Bud Black chalked the exit up to “forearm tightness,” before ominously adding, “fingers crossed.”
The precautionary measure of taking Lambert out of the game is certainly understandable, as forearm issues can often be harbingers of more serious elbow troubles down the line.
Lambert, who will turn 23 on April 18th, was a second-round draft pick of the Rockies back in 2015. He made his MLB debut last year, logging 89 1/3 innings over 19 starts. Though he produced a bloated 7.25 ERA during that stretch, the Rockies surely believe the young hurler is capable of improvement. After all, it was only two weeks ago that Black considered him a possibility to obtain the fifth spot in the Opening Day rotation, along with Jeff Hoffman and Chi Chi Gonzalez. The club’s optimism is at least somewhat borne out by the fact that FIP liked Lambert’s 2019 better, pegging him at 5.97 for the year.
If Lambert has to miss time, the Rockies will have to look elsewhere to fill out their rotation behind Jon Gray, German Marquez, Kyle Freeland and Antonio Senzatela. The team had one of the worst rotations in 2019 and did little to improve it during the offseason, the most notable signing being righty Jose Mujica, who missed all of 2019 while recovering from Tommy John surgery. That seemingly leaves the aforementioned Hoffman and Gonzalez as the frontrunners for the fifth slot, assuming Lambert is out of the race.
The team could theoretically turn to the free agent market to add another arm. But with Opening Day just over two weeks away, it would be difficult getting a starter stretched out in time. And attracting free agent pitchers to make their living in Coors Field is difficult in the best of times.
Rockies To Promote Peter Lambert
The Rockies will promote Peter Lambert from Triple-A in time for the 22-year-old right-hander to start tomorrow’s game against the Cubs, according to several reports. The Athletic’s Nick Groke tweets that Lambert is already at Wrigley Field today in preparation for his upcoming Major League debut.
A second-round pick for the Rockies (44th overall) in the 2015 draft, Lambert has a 3.92 ERA, 7.5 K/9, and 3.61 K/BB over 508 professional innings. Those numbers include a troubling 5.07 ERA in 60 1/3 Triple-A frames this season, though an inflated 1.5 HR/9 in the hitter-friendly Pacific Coast League could be an explanation.
Prior to the season, ESPN.com’s Keith Law (subscription required) ranked Lambert as the 92nd-best prospect in baseball, describing the righty as owning a repeatable delivery and a quality four-pitch mix, even if nothing in Lambert’s arsenal is considered a true plus pitch. Lambert’s fastball is in the 94-95mph range, while he has generated consistently good ground-ball rates of close to 50% throughout his minor league career.
Lambert will get his chance in a Rockies rotation that has struggled to match its strong results from last season, as German Marquez and Jon Gray have been Colorado’s only consistently good starters. As of sign how quickly things have changed from 2018 to 2019 for the Rockies’ staff, Lambert will take the place of Kyle Freeland, a fourth-place finisher in NL Cy Young voting last season who was sent down to Triple-A last week after scuffling badly in his first 12 outings this year.