Time to bring up Severino

 

So this is now official.  Given what happened last night I was holding out a little hope that this report was BS but I think I owe Francesa a little more respect than that.  The injury to Pineda is a lot like Andrew Miller's earlier this year.  Best case scenario, he's probably a little over a month away from his next start.  But if we've learned one thing since acquiring Michael Pineda it's that the best case scenario is never the actual scenario.  The shoulder surgery he had early in 2012 ended up costing him TWO full seasons.  The discomfort he had in his back last year turned into a shoulder problem and he missed way more time than originally anticipated.  Now this.  It would not surprise me in the least if he doesn't pitch for the rest of the year and it certainly wouldn't shock me if the words Tommy John start to get thrown around.

The good news is that Ivan Nova's situation isn't as bleak as it originally seemed.  He's still slated to make his next start so that's a plus.  But this day still sucks.  Going deep in the postseason this year is contingent on how well the top starters are throwing.  The hope was to have Pineda and Tanaka in top form come October and right now I really, really, really don't know if that's going to happen.

And the biggest kick in the dick is the David Price trade coming like two seconds before the Pineda news broke.  It would not surprise me in the least if in a knee-jerk reaction type move Cashman made a deal for Price right away.  Now that's off the table, so is Hamels, and there are no front-end starting pitchers left on the market.  What's the move?  Samardzija is probably off the table because the White Sox are back in the wild card hunt.  Bring in James Shields with his ridiculous contract?  Make a meh move for Mike Leake or Tyson Ross?  

There's only one sexy move to make and that's to bring up Luis Severino.   Between Trenton and Scranton/Wilks-Barre this year he's 9-2 with a 2.45 ERA with 98 Ks in 99.1 IP.  He struck out 10 in six innings last night and allowed one hit.  I know he's only 21 and there's this stupid mentality about ruining a kid's confidence but this is Major League Baseball in the year 2015.  Kids come up at ridiculously young ages and make splashes.  This team has an opportunity to do something special this year.  Get him to the bigs and let's fill this void from within.