Around the League
Brandon League is throwing again. After week after week of no news, no progress, no real freaking clue what was even wrong (how do you have surgery on an overdeveloped muscle??), he is slinging away to real warm bodies and not the soulless hunks of decaying flesh found in the extended spring games. He pitched two innings today and they were what you’d expect against A ballers.
“He’s coming along really well,” said Ricciardi, who added that League recently hit 94 mph with his fastball. “He’s coming along probably faster than we thought, in the sense of getting his velocity back. That’s been a help. But it’s not all about the velocity; he’s also getting the movement.”
And don’t forget 94 is only a few mph below what he was throwing last year; he stopped trying to crank it up to 100 and backed off a little to have more movement and control, becoming a terrific ground ball pitcher. If he could make it back to where he was last season, maybe our bullpen could actually continue to be as good as it is right now.
UPDATE: LATE JUNE!!! WE GET OUR BULLPEN INJECTION IN LATE JUNE!!! Which is good because they’re starting to shake and we have used Scott Downs for 12 consecutive games…
The Mockingbird 
A good start, but two things to note:
1. 5/29/07 Brandon League Transferred to the 60-day disabled list.
This happened yesterday, to make room on the 40-man. So we’re not going to see him for a while, this is going to be a long rehab stint.
2. http://web.minorleaguebaseball.com/milb/stats/stats.jsp?n=Brandon%2520League&pos=P&sid=milb&t=p_pbp&pid=434181
2 scoreless innings is a good start. 3k’s, 2GB, 1 FO.
Mid-August, here we come….
Dan
May 30, 2007 at 3:27 pm
1) Nope- since he’s been out all year, he’s still eligible to come off the DL next week. The 60-day means nothing and is just a technicality so we can call up Wolfe (even though we already have two pitchers who haven’t gone in weeks and who both are apparently somewhat injured wtf??). Ricciardi says he expects League to be back with the Blue Jays by late June (kind of a long rehab, but better than my wildest dreams a couple of weeks ago…)
2) Hence the boxscore…
halejon
May 30, 2007 at 4:28 pm
Nice. That’s better then I was thinking.
Someone needs to tell me why we have 13 pitchers, and nobody to run for Frank Thomas when he walks with the game on the line.
Dan
May 30, 2007 at 4:47 pm