The Yankees’ roster carousel continues. Following last night’s game, they optioned outfielder Spencer Jones to Triple-A Scranton/Wilkes-Barre. He had been up with the team for his second stint this year, but while he played better than his initial 4-for-24 showing, he was still running a 40-percent strikeout rate. Fellow lefty hitter Trent Grisham’s activation from the IL immediately prior to the Friday contest also meant that regular time in center field was no longer going to be available, so it was best to keep the outfielder reps in Triple-A instead.
To take Jones’ spot on the roster today, the Yankees promoted righty pitcher Brendan Beck, who will take the spot start for this afternoon’s Fourth of July matinee against the Twins. With Carlos Rodón suddenly on the IL with elbow inflammation and Elmer Rodríguez unavailable after pitching on Thursday, Beck gets the call for his second career appearance.
The 2021 second-round pick out of Stanford has gone through his injuries to make it to The Show, and this will be his first big-league start — no small feat! He last pitched in the majors on May 7th against the Rangers when Ryan Weathers was ill, entering as the “bulk guy” after an opener, allowing two runs on two hits and three walks in three innings, striking out one. Beck has a 3.07 ERA and 3.78 FIP in 88 innings (16 starts) at Triple-A this year; I expect long reliever Ryan Yarbrough will also pitch today and that the Yankees will be delighted if Beck can even give them four solid innings.
The Yankees have had a quite a few roster moves over the past few days. The best way to consider it is to consider the replcements on the 26-man roster from Wednesday night’s game, their seventh loss in a row. Here’s the roster just one full game later:
OF Spencer Jones OF Trent GrishamUT Oswaldo Cabrera 3B Ryan McMahonSP Carlos Rodón SP Brendan BeckRP Yovanny Cruz RP David Bednar
Hopefully Beck and company can help the Yankees win their second straight and put the memory of that seven-game skid behind ’em.
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