The Brewster

Roughly three weeks into the season, the Valencia Stars made a change in the starting pitching rotation. Pitcher Xavier Vargas has been moved to the bullpen while Peter Dean was moved from the bullpen into the starting rotation.

While Xavier had an impressive spring training giving up 5 earned runs over 19 innings and allowing 18 base runners over 5 starts, his regular season numbers have not been as consistent.

After a strong first outing in the regular season where he gave up 1 run in 6 innings, Xavier then got shelled for 7 runs in an inning the following start. In his third Xavier seemed to settle back down holding Hawaii scoreless for 5 innings. However, in the two starts after that he gave up 6 runs to Bikini in 4 innings resulting in a 1-2 record with a 7.27 ERA.

Meanwhile, Peter Dean had accumulated a 0.67 ERA over 13 innings of work in the bullpen. In his first start, Peter went 6 scoreless I innings against San Fernando to improve his record to 2-0 and his ERA to 0.47.

While Dean has secured the 5th spot in the rotation for now, do not be surprised if he and Xavier share that role depending on who has the hot arm at the time.

I've become more of a situational guy when it comes to a fifth starter.

Vargas was solid the last couple seasons despite mediocre ratings. Always tough to figure out how much rope to give those types.

Dean is baffling.

From the title I thought this was going to be about a diaper.