Aaron Civale to Pitch Out of the Bullpen for the Wild Card Series

Indians starter Aaron Civale has gone 4-5 in 11 starts thus far in 2020, but Friday pitching coach Carl Willis declared that the young pitcher in his second season for the Indians will be shifted to the bullpen, and will be on a pitch count for Saturday’s final regular season start.

The Indians continue to tweak their roster and get things ready for next week’s wild card series against a team yet to be figured out.

As of now the Indians sit with the number seven seed, meaning they would play the number two seed, who right now are the Oakland A’s. 

The way that the wild card series works is that all the games of the series would be played in the high seeds ballpark, meaning they would play the games in Oakland.

The club has yet to announce how their starting rotation will go for the beat-of-three set. 

The overriding speculation is that Shane Bieber will go in game one, Zach Plesac in game two and if needed, Carlos Carrasco in game three.

Today prior to the opener against the Pittsburgh Pirates, Indians pitching coach Carl Willis said Via Mandy Bell on Twitter that Aaron Civale, who was the team’s number five starter most of the year, will pitch out of the bullpen. 

Civale started 11 games for the Indians in 2020, going 4-5 with a 3.99 ERA.

He’s allowed 31 runs in 70 innings, as well as an American League high 72 hits. 

Civale has walked 16 during his starts, striking out 65.

Bell tweeted that Willis said that Civale will be on a pitch count for his final start of the regular season on Saturday, ensuring that he’ll be ready to come out of the pen for the start of the wild card round which kicks off for the Indians on Tuesday.