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July 4, 2009

Transaction Analysis

AL Roundup

by Christina Kahrl

BALTIMORE ORIOLES Team Audit | DT Cards | PECOTA Cards | Depth Chart

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Placed RHP Koji Uehara on the 15-day DL (elbow tendonitis), retroactive to 6/24; recalled RHP David Hernandez from Norfolk (Triple-A). [6/28]

It turns out that it wasn't simply tendonitis that was afflicting Mr. Uehara, as he has a partially torn flexor tendon, which will shelve him for more than a month before he can rehab, effectively putting him out until roster expansion. That's interesting in itself, since that was a point in time when his job may well have already been at risk anyway, given the bevy of baby Birdlings coming up through the system and liable to push the imported cuckoo out of the rotation, if not the nest; such is the advantage of that two-year, $10 million deal he inked, making him a cuckoo with a contract. In his absence, Hernandez gets first crack at stakin a claim on a slot for himself, but like Brad Bergesen and (less successfully) Jason Berken, it's all a question of how well they do in comparison to one another, because Chris Tillman and Jake Arrieta are both treating the International League as little more than finishing school, while Brian Matusz has averaged less than a baserunner and more than a strikeout per inning in his first three turns in the Double-A rotation down at Bowie since his promotion from a dominating turn in the High-A Carolina League. So the lot of the early arrivals—and Rich Hill, and Uehara—remains much as it did when the season began: take your best shot while the getting's good, because all the non-Guthries have no job security, and deserve none.