On Sunday, rosters will be expanded from 26 to 28, requiring every baseball team to call up one additional pitcher and batter. There’s little ambiguity about who those guys will be for the Orioles, as manager Brandon Hyde told reporters (including Brandon Weyrich of the Baltimore Sun) that right-handed pitcher Zach Eflin will be activated off the 15-day disabled list to start Sunday’s game against the Rockies. Earlier in the day, Weyrich claimed that top infield prospect Coby Mayo was expected to join the club as an additional bat when rosters expanded on Sunday.
Mayo, 22, will be making his second appearance in the major leagues. The teenager received his first taste of the majors earlier this month with a brief seven-game, 20-at-bat stay in which he hit just.059 with no extra-base hits before being optioned down to the minors. His impressive.293/.369/.574 slash line at the Triple-This season, however, has left him with nothing more to prove in the minor levels, therefore Mayo, like fellow rookie Jackson Holliday, will now get a more extended opportunity to show himself in the major leagues. Holliday struggled in his first ten games in the majors back in April but has looked better since returning to the majors the day after the trade deadline with a .218/.275/.426 slash line that’s good for a roughly league average 98 wRC+.
Eflin, a seasoned right-hander, came to Baltimore in a deal with the Rays before the deadline. After finishing sixth in the AL Cy Young competition last year, the right-hander slowed down with Tampa, posting a 4.09 ERA in 19 starts despite a 3.68 FIP. Things changed when Eflin arrived in Baltimore, and in four starts following the trade, the righty was nothing short of brilliant, with a 2.13 ERA and a 24.5% strikeout rate in 25 2/3 innings of work. Eflin has been out for several weeks due to shoulder irritation, but it appears that he is now fit enough to return to action. The Orioles are surely counting on the righty to help keep afloat a beleaguered rotation that also lost Grayson Rodriguez to the injured list in the month of August.
While Mayo and Eflin were supposed to be the club’s extra players after roster expansion, injuries to right-hander Dean Kremer and infielder Ramon Urias may have opened up two more spots on the roster for Sunday. Kremer was struck by a comebacker in the fourth inning yesterday and left with a right forearm contusion, according to Manny Randhawa of MLB.com, who also reported that Kremer’s initial x-rays were negative. According to Danielle Allentuck of the Baltimore Banner, he and Urias, who suffered a damaged ankle after narrowly averting harm when struck in the face by a pitch early in the game, are expected to be checked further today to see if either player will require a stint on the injured list.
In the short term, the planned returns of Eflin and Mayo to the roster appear to cover for the losses of Kremer in the rotation and Urias at third base, but if either player requires a stint on the injured list, the team will most likely need to rely on its depth to fill out the roster. Trevor Rogers, a deadline signing, is on the 40-man roster and may return to the rotation if Kremer loses time, despite being optioned after posting a dismal 7.11 ERA in his first four starts with the Orioles. On the positional side, non-roster veterans such as J.D. Davis or Jean Segura might give the club with infield depth if Urias is out.
