Tribe Roster Moves – Laffey/Reyes to DL, Sowers/Rundles up from AAA

Start buying your tickets for next week’s homestand against the Rays and Yankees because there will not be many left after today’s thrilling roster moves.  Sarcasm aside, the promotion of Jeremy Sowers and Rich Rundles is yet another illustration of a team with depleted pitching depth and no suitable major league options to fill the void.  It is a tired tale but we are just over a quarter through the season and the Tribe is completely desperate and relegated to hoping for a miracle in order to establish a reliable pitching staff.  This is not a comfortable place to be in given that the only miracles which tend to happen in this town occur across the street with #23. 

In Cincinnati last night the Tribe scored their only run off of Bronson Arroyo in the first inning on a Grady Sizemore homer before Anthony Reyes took the mound in the bottom of the first.  It did not start smoothly.  It was only a matter of time before the announcement of “Reyes to DL” came down.  Reyes’ three innings pitched last night looked like a perfect scenario for Harry Doyle to be on the mic with his patented “juuuuuuust a bit outside.”  To call him wild would be an understatement.  He gave up six walks, a HBP, and at one point had missed on 12 of his first 13 pitches.  Rick Manning insisted it was mental and that he had completely lost his release point.  This certainly created the wildness but the trip to the DL is due to an alarming decrease in velocity with each start.  Paul Hoynes reported that his velocity was in the range of 81-88 mph all night.  He typically throws the ball in the low nineties.  Tribe fans know that this right elbow is a recurring problem for Reyes and one of the main reasons why the St. Louis Cardinals were able to part so easily with him last summer.  Despite his wildness, he somehow escaped giving up only one run due to some poor hitting approaches by the Cincinnati Reds. 

Anyone who has followed the Tribe this season knows full well how horrible the 8th inning has gone.  This scene played out again last night as a 1-1 tie was broken in the 8th with the Reds scoring two making it 3-1.  Jensen Lewis pitched three scoreless innings after seeing minimal action recently.  Aaron Laffey, who has been one of our most reliable relievers in this patchwork pen, took the mound in the 7th and surrendered two runs in the 8th (one crossing after Greg Aquino had taken the mound).  Laffey left the game with pain in his side after getting Ramon Hernandez to line out in the 8th.  He described it as cramp all down his side.  This prompted Laffey’s trip to the DL this afternoon with what is being called a strained oblique muscle.  Tribe fans might wonder if his move to the pen and the increased action led to the injury but Laffey was quick to dismiss this suggestion and it does not appear to be the sort of injury which would come from the change to the pen. 

This leaves us with the second promotion of the year for both Jeremy Sowers and Rich Rundles.  Rundles came up at the end of April when the designated hitter formerly known as Pronk was put on the DL.  He never made an appearance before he was sent back down to Cbus two days later.  He should be used primarily for lefty vs lefty situations out of the pen.  Jeremy Sowers continues to be a ping pong ball being struck back and forth between the bigs and AAA since 2005.  He is 0-2 this year in starts against Boston and Chicago.  He has given up 7 and 5 earned runs in each of those starts.  Since his breakthrough in 2005, he has simply been unable to maintain reliability at the big league level.  He appears to be destined to always be a good minor league pitcher who cannot make it in the majors.  But at this point, he seems to be the only option we have as the Tribe has been reduced to hoping for miracles when it comes to their pitching staff.