GDT 8/16/17 Philadelphia Phillies (N Pivetta) @ San Diego Padres (C Richard)

[bkeich]

Phils have to do better than 19-25 the rest of the way to avoid 100 losses. At the moment that is hard to imagine, with the combination of poor pitching, terrible defense and no offense this team is just awful at the moment. Pivetta has an OK game and is optioned down to the minors, any idea who is up next? Maybe the plan is just to pull a starting pitcher from the stands, would be a good promotion for the fans that show up and honestly wouldnt make much difference.

(PS. I realized afterwards that the Pivetta demotion is a paper move as Zambonir pointed out)

[zambonir]

Pivetta's the #3 starter at this point. That's not necessarily good! But, as has been made clear elsewhere, it's just a paper move. He and Eflin and now even Leiter (and Lively) will all have their shot at being in next year's rotation. If only Thompson and Velasquez seemed more in the mix.

I personally don't want them to avoid 100 losses if it costs them the #1 pick, but they are 14-16 in their last 30 games and that's with the recent cratering (they were 13-12 in July, now 4-10 in August). If Herrera doesn't go on the DL, Altherr returns, and the September call-ups (as well as Hoskins and Alfaro) help, it could be done.

[DurhamBull]

Credit where it's due -- the Padres' Myers did a nice job stealing home last night.

When his teammate was caught in a rundown between 1st & 2nd, he stayed put while Hernández had the ball and only broke for home once Joseph had the ball. Joseph's momentum was carrying him in the perpendicular to the plate and he had to throw across his body (and over Hernández). Still, he made a decent throw and Myers barely made it. Good baseball.

[Lawman]

Does Pivetta have to actually, physically, go down to AAA?

[zambonir]

The article made it sound like he was going to physically go back down. Maybe there is some kind of rule where you can't even travel with a non-rostered player? Not enough road per diems?

But really they probably just figure it's best to fly him back east and get him over his jetlag, before everybody else, and he'll need to be in Allentown to do his work since no one is in Philly.

There is a whiff of a suggestion that he won't be the guy who gets the call on Tuesday, but that's probably just them not wanting to flaunt procedure.

[Lawman]

I know. Just curious if he has to go back down? Can he go to Philly?

[LoneStarPhan]

I don't know the numbers but I guess Pivetta loses some money being on the AAA roster even for a few days.

[zambonir]

That is true.

But y'know, even including yesterday, his ERA in his last five starts is over 8.00. So if they did want to keep him down it would hardly be cruel or wildly uncalled for.