Orioles place Dean Kremer on injured list in another roster shakeup

Another day, another Orioles starting pitcher on the injured list. It’s not a great trend. On Friday afternoon, the team announced that Dean Kremer has been placed on the injured list with a right triceps strain. It’s not great that a few days ago the team was talking about a six-man rotation and now they’ve only got four guys.

In a separate move, the team optioned yesterday’s struggling reliever, Jonathan Heasley, back to Triple-A Norfolk. With two spots open on the active roster, the Orioles recalled both Dillon Tate and Nick Vespi from Norfolk. Vespi is allowed to return before the usual minimum ten days since someone has been placed on the injured list. If you want to get into the minutiae, I think he might have been able to come back regardless because the ten day rule may not apply to guys who were the 27th man for a doubleheader.

Kremer was scheduled to start on Saturday. That’s up in the air now. The team will have to figure out what to do about that when tomorrow arrives. Albert Suárez seems like a decent option, with Suárez only having thrown 11 pitches on Wednesday.

As of this writing, there’s no indication about the severity of Kremer’s injury or how long they expect him to be out. It’s the latest injury for an Orioles starting pitcher this year. A year ago, the team barely had any injuries to its starters once the season began. That good fortune has not carried over into 2024. If Suárez and Cole Irvin can keep plugging the gap, as they did in April, that will be a big plus. For now, the Orioles have a couple of fresh relievers, which they could probably use. Maybe they will pitch better than Heasley did, which, you know, doesn’t take much.

Tate has already appeared in 11 games for the Orioles this season. He had a 2.84 ERA over that time and a WHIP of just 1.026. Taken on their own, those are pretty good numbers for a reliever. However, Tate had only struck out six guys in 12.2 innings and had issued an equal number of walks. His velocity was down and batters were hitting the ball hard.

These were signs of likely struggle to come. That’s probably why Tate was optioned to begin with. At Norfolk, Tate had a 3.86 ERA in seven games. He hadn’t walked a batter there.

Vespi was just here on Wednesday, pitching a scoreless inning in the regularly-scheduled game of the sorta-doubleheader. The Orioles just love having him on the Norfolk-Baltimore shuttle. With the Tides this season, the lefty Vespi has thrown 22.1 innings across 11 games. That’s a decent sign that he could be able to do some multi-inning relief for the O’s – if he can pitch well enough to get through multiple innings, anyway. At Norfolk, he had walked 13 guys, a BB/9 of 5.2.