The Cubs on Friday recalled right-hander Porter Hodge from Triple-A Iowa and positioned fellow righty Colten Brewer on the 15-day injured checklist resulting from tightness in his decrease again, tweets Meaghan Montemurro of the Chicago Tribune. Hodge will give the Cubs a contemporary arm within the bullpen, and if he will get right into a recreation, it’ll be his huge league debut.
Hodge, 23, was the crew’s Thirteenth-round decide again in 2019. He entered the season ranked nineteenth amongst Cubs prospects at Baseball America and twenty fourth at each FanGraphs and MLB.com. His season to this point has been a combined bag. Hodge fired 4 shutout innings in Double-A, yielding just one hit and one stroll with eight punchouts earlier than being promoted to Triple-A Iowa. Since transferring as much as Des Moines, he’s struggled to a 6.55 ERA (eight earned runs in 11 innings) whereas surrendering a dozen hits and issuing a whopping 11 walks. He’s nonetheless fanned almost one in three opponents, however he’s additionally walked multiple in 5 of them.
Command has lengthy been a problem for Hodge. He’s walked 12.9% of his opponents relationship again to the 2022 season. Scouting reviews on the large 6’4″, 230-pound righty tout each his heater and his slider as potential plus choices, however the effectiveness of each may very well be undercut by shaky command of every. There’s potential for the right-hander to play a long-term function within the Chicago bullpen, however he’ll probably have to trim a couple of factors of his stroll price to achieve his ceiling as a high-leverage reliever.
Brewer, 31, was a minor league signee whom the Cubs known as to the large leagues final month. He’s pitched 11 2/3 innings for supervisor Craig Counsell and turned in a 3.09 ERA with a 12-to-4 Okay/BB ratio and a powerful 48.4% ground-ball price. The crew has not but supplied a timetable for Brewer’s potential return to the roster.