MVN - Most Valuable Network

Andrew Miller scratched, DL bound

Four days after his worst career outing, a 1.2 inning, 7 run drubbing at the hands of the Dodgers and on the verge of a demotion, Andrew Miller received a blessing in disguise. It was announced on Thursday that the 24-year-old has been scratched from his next start and will be placed on the DL. Now, instead of going back to playing for meal money when Anibal Sanchez returns on August 1, Miller will continue to earn major league pay.

Good news for him but bad news for the Marlins. Miller’s spot in the rotation will come up at least two more times before Sanchez returns. The only options on the 25-man roster are Mark Hendrickson, who had an 8.34 ERA in his last 8 starts before being demoted to the pen, Ryan Tucker, who had a 6.16 ERA before his demotion and Doug Waechter, who hasn’t started since 2003. With six guys already on the 60-day DL, it’s unlikely that the club will move Burke Badenhop to it so the only other options on the 40-man are Rick VandenHurk, who has gotten mashed at every level he’s played at this year, Daniel Barone, who is 0-3 with an 8.53 ERA as a starter and Eulogio De La Cruz, who is nowhere near ready for the bigs.

Get well sooner, Anibal.

UPDATE: The Marlins have called up reliever Jesus Delgado, signaling that either Hendrickson or Tucker will start in place of Miller on Tuesday. If I was forced to choose between these two rejects, I’d go with Tucker simply because Hendrickson has been more effective out of the pen throughout the course of his career.

This entry was posted on Friday, July 18th, 2008 at 2:21 am and is filed under Injuries. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.