The Pittsburgh Pirates added 25-year-old right-handed pitcher James Marvel to the active roster ahead of Sunday’s game. To make room on the 40-man roster, the Pirates placed Jason Martin on the 60-day injured list. The Pirates also announced that right-handed pitcher Yefry Ramirez has been activated from the injured list and will be in the bullpen today.
Marvel will be starting today’s game, which will be his Major League debut. He split the 2019 season between Altoona and Indianapolis, posting a 2.94 ERA in 162.1 innings, with a 1.09 WHIP, a .223 BAA and a 136:46 SO/BB ratio. Marvel had a 2.67 ERA in 11 starts with Indianapolis. That’s not only significant in that he pitched better in Triple-A to finish the season (he had a 3.10 ERA in Altoona), this was also a huge year for offense in the International League. While he fell well short of qualifying for league leaders, his ERA was 0.75 lower than the IL league leader, Bryse Wilson at 3.42. We will have more on Marvel shortly.
Martin dislocated his shoulder on Tuesday and the Pirates announced the following day that he would be out for the season. The good news was that he didn’t require surgery and was expected to have a completely healthy off-season. The recovery time was said to be four weeks and at that point, there was 3 1/2 weeks left in the season.
Ramirez missed the minimum amount of time after throwing four innings in relief against the Philadelphia Phillies on August 28th. He threw 90 pitches that night, so he wouldn’t have been available for half of the time he spent on the injured list. The only healthy 40-man roster players not on the active roster right now are Dovydas Neverauskas, Luis Escobar and Montana DuRapau, who isn’t eligible to return until tomorrow (it’s unknown if he will return).
