Sources: A's Calling Up Hard Thrower For Start Against New York Mets
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The week began with the A's sending down right-hander Luis Morales after a pair of rough starts to begin the season. The green and gold ended up using that roster spot to call up veteran right-hander Joel Kuhnel to provide some extra relief depth for a tough series against the New York Yankees, but didn't answer the question of who would start against the Mets in Morales' spot.
On Wednesday, Athletics on SI was told that it was Jack Perkins that is being called up, and that he's already in New York. Mark Kotsay has said that the starter spot is still up in the air, depending on how the Yankee series shakes out, but it certainly looks like Perkins is part of the plan.
How the A's choose to utilize him will be interesting. Thus far, Perkins has made three appearances in relief, totaling 7 2/3 innings with a 4.70 ERA. Most of that damage came in his first outing where he went two innings, didn't allow a hit, but gave up three earned on five walks and two strikeouts.
In his two outings since, he has combined for 5 2/3 innings against the Oklahoma City Comets (Dodgers), giving up three hits, one earned run, walked a pair and struck out seven. In his most recent outing on April 5 (Sunday), he notched 47 pitches (31 strikes), so he was in the zone plenty, which is something that the A's are after at the moment.
How will he be used?
Given that he's sitting at around 50 pitches going into his planned day of work, he'd likely only be able to provide 65-70 pitches against the Mets, so it wouldn't be a full-fledged start, but he should be able to provide about four to five innings if he's effective with his mix.
Going back to Kotsay's quote about seeing how the Yankees series plays out, that could mean that the A's roll with J.T. Ginn, the current long-man, as a spot starter for this weekend's game, while having Perkins come on in relief. The two of them combined would likely be able to eat up about six or seven frames if all goes well. Of course, those roles could also be reversed.
Ginn also last pitched on Sunday, and has topped out at 45 pitches this season (March 29), but has been more in the 27-32 range the past two outings.
While the rotation schedule would place Ginn/Perkins in Friday's game, with the off-day on Monday, the A's could choose to roll with Jacob Lopez on regular rest on Friday if they want. That bit boils down to personal prefernce. The one downside being that perhaps Ginn would be needed in relief on Friday, and then would be unavailable on Saturday, throwing all of the plans up in the air.
Corresponding move?
The corresponding roster move here is still unknown, and will likely depend upon the next couple of days in New York. One way to generally get a sense of who is going down to the minor leagues is to see who eats more of a workload than usual in the final game of their time in the big leagues. That would either be on Thursday or Friday.
The tricky part of this scenario is picking the reliever going down. Mark Leiter Jr., Scott Barlow, Joel Kuhnel and Luis Medina are out of options. Hogan Harris and Justin Sterner have been the A's top two relief pitchers this season.
That leaves either Elvis Alvarado, who has the potential to be the A's closer this season, or Michael Kelly, a solid veteran and clubhouse presence. We'll see which way the A's lean shortly.
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Jason has been covering the A’s at various sites for over a decade, and was the original host of the Locked on A’s podcast. He also covers the Stanford Cardinal as they attempt to rebuild numerous programs to prominence.
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