Those “stopper” duties who once belonged to Norio Hayashi, who now finds himself stuck in the rotation as the #3 starter behind Timo Dooley & Aki Kondo but before Jorge Hernandez. Hayashi has been a bullpen pitcher his entire career, but thanks to discovering a cutter this past off-season the team appears ready and willing to give him a chance to start.“We looked at Lima’s numbers and as expected noticed a large increase in opposing batters triple slash lines the second and third time they faced Jose. In innings 1-3, hitters had a combined OPS of .821 where in 4-6 it jumped to .906 before skyrocketing to 1.160 in the last 3 innings. We then took a look at Lima’s numbers based on the situation at hand. He performed better in high leverage situations than low leverage situations ironically enough, with a .769 OPS in high leverage spots this season, still a bit higher than we would like, but worth a shot at seeing what he can do because of our flexibility.
Those aren’t the only changes though.“Norio has been very good this year and his ERA has only improved each month that has gone by. With his current production in the bullpen, and commitment this past off-season to crafting his stuff, we feel it is only right we give him an opportunity to showcase his ability."
Omaha also announced that Stephen Clulow would depart from the starting rotation despite a 3.76 ERA. Clulow is now expected to serve in long relief for the club, getting an occasional start as needed. Clulow moved out of the rotation in 2042 at one point as well, pitching 7 games in relief. Other than those 7 games, Clulow has been used as a starter in his other 352 career games pitched. As a pending free agent, it is possible that Clulow’s last game starting for the Cyclones may be his 6 inning, 4 ER performance against Chicago on the 25th of June. Clulow was nearly unhittable in April and May, but is finishing June with an 8.25 ERA in 5 games started.
In Clulow’s spot in the rotation, Omaha has finally made the move some have been waiting for calling up Juan Ruiz. Since being acquired last August at the deadline from Nashville, Juan Ruiz has been on many Cyclone fan’s radars. At 24 years old Ruiz couldn’t be far off from pitching in Omaha. Now he has the opportunity. So far in 2044 he has accumulated a 4.07 ERA over 110 innings in AAA. Ruiz will likely accumulate enough days on the BBA roster to surpass 1 year of service time thanks to his current total of 139 days from last season in Nashville where he had a disappointing 6.54 ERA in 15 games started.
It’s expected that if Ruiz struggles, Carlos Silva or even the fan favorite Leonardo Ramos could be given a chance to replace him at the BBA level, however neither Ruiz nor Hayashi are likely to have an ERA higher than that of Clulow in June(8.25), or Lima this season(6.15)
