The Pittsburgh Pirates have placed left-handed reliever Antonio Bastardo on the 10-day disabled list with a left quad strain and they have recalled recently acquired right-handed reliever Johnny Barbato from Indianapolis.
The 24-year-old Barbato was acquired for cash considerations from the New York Yankees last Monday and optioned to Indianapolis, where he made two appearances in the last week. He threw three innings of shutout ball in those games, last pitching on Sunday in a one inning appearance. He made 13 appearances for the Yankees last season, his first big league experience. Barbato had 7.62 ERA in 13 innings with the Yankees, picking up 15 strikeouts. He was hurt by allowing two homers, though the strikeout rate,WHIP and BAA were all respectable numbers. He’s a hard-thrower, who was hitting 94 consistently in his last Indianapolis outing and he tops out at 96 MPH.
Bastardo has struggled in each of his six appearances this season, giving up 12 runs on 15 hits and seven walks over 6.2 innings.
It wouldn’t be surprising if this was a phantom injury to give him time to work with Ray Searage to try to get back on track. I also wouldn’t be surprised to see Barbato back in Indianapolis after the Cubs series. With a day off on Thursday, that will give the bullpen some rest and the Pirates are currently short-handed on the bench due to the Adam Frazier – Dovydas Neverauskas roster switch yesterday.
More on Barbato from Brian Peloza shortly.
John started working at Pirates Prospects in 2009, but his connection to the Pittsburgh Pirates started exactly 100 years earlier when Dots Miller debuted for the 1909 World Series champions. John was born in Kearny, NJ, two blocks from the house where Dots Miller grew up. From that hometown hero connection came a love of Pirates history, as well as the sport of baseball.
When he didn't make it as a lefty pitcher with an 80+ MPH fastball and a slider that needed work, John turned to covering the game, eventually focusing in on the prospects side, where his interest was pushed by the big league team being below .500 for so long. John has covered the minors in some form since the 2002 season, and leads the draft and international coverage on Pirates Prospects. He writes daily on Pittsburgh Baseball History, when he's not covering the entire system daily throughout the entire year on Pirates Prospects.
Did anyone know that grooving HRs causes quad strains? Bullpen looking better already with Neverauskas and Barbato! They now need to find a 3rd outfielder and out Polanco back in right. They’d be better off with Gorkys in the outfield than what they’re running out there now. Thanks a lot Starling and Jung Ho, this team would have had a much better shot at competing without your off field stupidity. They look totally mediocre or worse without you! Shame because Cole and Taillon and Nova all look set for strong seasons and TG looks like he’s picking up with every start and they have talent in the BP. They may not recover from losing Marte for 80 games though! Shame because we may not be seeing Cutch that much longer!
10 day DL, I thought he was hurt bad enough for the 90 day DL
with the 3 young starters the 8 man bullpen might be the norm.clint really doesn’t play the 25 man anyway.
Barbato is a right handed Bastardo….why not Santana? Do the Pirates promote based on poor performance??
What poor performance, specifically, are they promoting him on? He doesn’t have enough innings this season to actually evaluate performance, and his Major League action is so limited you can’t really say anything about his ERA there, either.
He and Santana have not dissimilar skills, and neither is proven in the Majors. Barbato is a little older and probably has less long-term value, but I don’t know that we know enough about either as *Major League* players to say either is clearly better than the other.
They may figure Santana is a keeper and don’t want to start his clock.
Do they want to win games this year?
Interesting choice to get the call.
the old quad strain, excellent choice.
Wheel of misfortune. Pirates exchange a few vowels
Today was a good day
Heeeeeres Johnny