PHOENIX — As gamers started filtering into the D-backs’ clubhouse Monday afternoon, there was a locker sitting empty that lower than 24 hours earlier than belonged to right-hander Drey Jameson.
Following a begin Sunday through which he lasted only one inning, the D-backs determined to choice the extremely rated prospect to Triple-A Reno. And within the course of, they despatched a message to everybody else.
“You got to perform,” D-backs supervisor Torey Lovullo mentioned of what the transfer communicated. “And if you don’t, then there’s competitive understudies waiting to take your job. That’s how it should be, and I think everybody in that room knows that we’ve got really good young players, talented players throughout the system, and there’s more coming.”
There was a time as not too long ago as final season when a pitcher would have gotten an extended leash. But this version of the D-backs, who sit at 13-11 after a 5-4 win over the Royals on Monday night time at Chase Field, shouldn’t be afforded that as a result of the group believes it’s able to win.
“I think we have reached a certain standard right now that you’ve got to go out and perform — because our expectations are to win and not to develop,” Lovullo mentioned. “We’ll continue to develop here and we want to win baseball games. And if you’re not doing your job, we’re going to look elsewhere.”
The incontrovertible fact that Tommy Henry acquired the beginning Monday is proof of that.
Bumgarner was merely not performing, compiling a ten.26 ERA in 4 begins. With each sport presumably mattering towards a possible postseason berth, the crew let him go.
So Henry took Bumgarner’s spot, and the crew will promote somebody to take Jameson’s flip the following time it comes up. Brandon Pfaadt, ranked by MLB Pipeline because the group’s No. 3 prospect, is a powerful candidate to get the decision.
Henry, who made 9 begins for the D-backs in his first MLB season final 12 months, struggled together with his management in opposition to Ok.C., strolling 4 whereas permitting three runs over 4 1/3 innings.
“Probably more than I’d like to admit to myself,” Henry mentioned when requested if he had some further nerves for the beginning. “Which is I think why it took me a couple pitches to settle in. But once you realize it’s the same game — stakes are a little bit higher, but same game, same process, same job for me — it makes it a little easier to settle in.”
Henry allowed a one-out homer to Edward Olivares within the first inning and walked the following two batters on eight pitches.
That prompted a mound go to from pitching coach Brent Strom, who identified to Henry that he was making an attempt to put the ball as a substitute of throwing it.
“Sometimes, you just got to let it rip and it’ll spot up better than if you’re trying to spot up,” Henry mentioned. “Just kind of had to free up, let loose a little bit. And that was the adjustment Strommy actually cued me in on when he came out to the mound in the first inning, and that helped a lot.”
The plan is for Henry to take this spot within the rotation and run with it, however because the D-backs have demonstrated, he’ll need to preserve producing.
“Some of our starters are young, and they’ll step up and they’re going to grow and they’re going learn,” Lovullo mentioned. “They need to. When children come up right here from participant improvement, they’re entering into an surroundings the place we count on them to contribute immediately.
“Some organizations, some groups and never too way back whenever you acquired known as up you had been capable of form of discover your method and simply determine it out slowly. We cannot try this right here, nor do I need us to try this right here. We’ve acquired actually proficient gamers, so these gamers are coming from Triple-A, they have to be able to go — and so they know that.
“That’s been our messaging — and not just ready to go but performing at the level that we expect them to.”
Content Source: www.mlb.com