Morales Recalled; Flores Optioned
Left-hander Franklin Morales was recalled from Triple-A Colorado Springs and left-handed reliever Randy Flores was optioned there Monday as the Rockies moved to improve their bullpen following a 1-0 win over the Nationals.
Morales, who has been a starter his entire career, will replace Flores as the second left-hander in the bullpen along with Alan Embree. Morales, 23, who has significantly better stuff than Flores, has gone 2-1 with a 1.90 ERA in his past four starts for the Sky Sox.
While Flores was used as a left-handed specialist, with 10 of his past 11 appearances lasting no more than one-third of an inning, Morales is capable of working multiple innings.
Flores, who joined the Rockies on May 15 and made his 2009 debut with them the following day, went 0-0 with a 5.63 ERA in 18 appearances, allowing five earned runs and 11 hits in eight innings.
In his past three outings, Flores worked a total of one inning and allowed three hits and one run. His final appearance was Saturday when he relieved struggling Joel Peralta in what became a six-run eighth and hung a 1-1 breaking pitch to Arizona’s Stephen Drew, a left-handed hitter who belted a two-run homer. That was the third hit in five at-bats by a left-handed hitter against Flores, against whom left-handed hitters averaged .286 (6-for-21).
Reminder: Jason Grilli was DFA’d to make room for Randy Flores. Can we take a mulligan on that one?
Good to see Morales up. I’ve always thought that a stint in the bullpen would be a good fit for him.
Agbayani,
Flores was already on the team when Grilli was designated for assignment.
It was Rusch we designated for assignment to make room for Flores.
In hindsight the Grilli decision doesn’t look so good, but at the time I think they needed a fresh arm in the ‘pen and Grilli was struggling badly. That’s the way it goes with relief pitching.
I’m glad to see Morales back up here. He deserves it and the team needed it.
Seems like a sensible, low-risk move, esp. since Flores is in an option year. Hopefully they break Morales relatively slowly. I hope is control problems don’t surface in the relief role. It’s a good chance to get him on the ML roster and break him in against favorable (lefty-lefty matchups), and it would certainly help if he pitches well. He didn’t have big splits in his minor league career (which is good for a starter), though he does in his very brief (small sample size warning) ML career thus far. So, he’s no lefty killer, but the regular lefty-lefty thing should help him.
O’Dowd will need to continue to look for help, though.
Grilli was traded outright for cash. It was that move that made from for Joel Peralta.
I would have much prefered to see Rincon be the player moved
Jack,
Any chance we can make a play for the local kid, Halladay?
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