The Cincinnati Reds made two roster moves at noon today, optioning Tejay Antone and Josh VanMeter to Prasco Park in order to trim their roster from 30 down to 28 as the deadline arrived for all teams in Major League Baseball. But that wasn’t the last time they would make moves on the day. Right-handed pitcher, and owner of what is now the best mustache game in all of the big leagues, José De León has been called up to join the team. He will take the place of left-handed pitcher Brooks Raley on the roster, who was designated for assignment.
The #Reds have recalled RHP José De León and designated for assignment LHP Brooks Raley. pic.twitter.com/uS0yRMZ1Yu
— Cincinnati Reds (@Reds) August 6, 2020
The bullpen will be adding José De León at least for the short term. The righty has tons of experience as a starting pitcher in the minors where he’s started 87 games with just nine relief appearances. In his limited action in the Major Leagues for the Dodgers and Rays he’s made four starts and four relief appearances between 2016 and 2019. De León missed all of the 2018 season after undergoing Tommy John surgery. He returned to the mound in the minors in May of 2019, pitching twice in Advanced-A for Charlotte before moving up to Triple-A where the rest of his time in the minors was spent last season (he had the stints with Tampa Bay between August and September). You can see his entire professional stat line here.
For Brooks Raley, his return from Korea’s KBO to the Major Leagues was short lived – at least for now. Raley pitched for the Lotte Giants from 2015-2019 with varying degrees of success as a starter, making at least 30 starts in each of the five seasons he spent in the league. The Reds picked him up as a free agent in the offseason, but he’s struggled since the start of the season. It’s a small sample size, of course – he’s thrown in just four games and thrown just four innings – but he’s walked two batters, given up five hits, and hit three other batters. Ten of the 22 batters he’s faced this season reached safely and he’s given up four runs in his four innings. The left-hander will now be on waivers and available to the other teams around the league.
DeLeon gets clobbered for 8 runs.. Geez….
Hitting is asleep all around almost.
Things are not looking good at all.
Rotation looks good and Castellanos and Votto look normal that’s about it.