Over the weekend, the Orioles placed reliever Pedro Strop on the disabled list (15 days) due to a lower back strain.
In turn, the Orioles have recalled Steve Johnson.
However, the timing of this injury is all kinds of weird. I’m mostly sure that Strop is indeed injured, but he’s also been all kinds of bad since last September.
Strop has always lived on edge as an Oriole. Sadly, this year he’s been walking batters right and left, has been very ineffective and seemingly shows little command of his pitches.
He has a 6.11 ERA this season and has resembled nothing like the guy we saw last year.
Not that I am a conspiracy theorist, but I think he Orioles didn’t want to expose Strop to waivers (he has no options left). Most experts think that the right-handed would be claimed, so I guess it would make sense for Strop to chill out and work out kinks in ‘rehab starts’ at the lower level.
In other news, the Orioles did beat R.A. Dickey and the Toronto Blue Jays, 6-5.
The offense came through again as both Adam Jones and Danny Valencia both hit home runs. Nate McLouth and J.J. Hardy – who also drove in two runs – had two hits.
Freddy Garcia pitched a typical Freddy Garcia start, but he did enough to help Baltimore win their 27th game of the season. He went five innings and gave up three runs – two earned. He now has his first victory as a member of the Baltimore Orioles.
Jim Johnson earned his 15th save of the season with an uneventful ninth inning. That’s good to see.
Have a nice long weekend if you are lucky enough to have gotten a reprieve from work until Tuesday.
