The Los Angeles Dodgers are turning to another one of their top young pitching prospects as the club continues to navigate rotation trouble. Right-hander Emmet Sheehan will be promoted from Double-A Tulsa to make his major-league debut and start Friday's series opener with the San Francisco Giants at Dodger Stadium, reports MLB.com. The team has not yet confirmed the news.
Sheehan, 23, is one of the top breakout pitchers in the minors. The 2021 sixth-round pick owns 1.86 ERA in 53 1/3 innings and has struck out 41.7% of the batter's he's faced, the second highest rate in the minors. Baseball America ranked Sheehan the No. 7 prospect in the team's system in their midseason update, saying "dominates with a fastball that is a plus pitch he throws liberally."
The Dodgers are calling up Sheehan because Julio Urías (hamstring) and Noah Syndergaard (blister) are on the injured list, and also because Tony Gonsolin recently had a start pushed back because he wasn't recovering as well as expected between outings. He missed the start of the season with an ankle injury.
The club's rotation depth chart currently looks something like this:
LHP Julio Urías (hamstring injury)RHP Walker Buehler (Tommy John surgery)LHP Clayton KershawRHP Tony GonsolinRHP Dustin May (flexor strain)RHP Noah Syndergaard (blister)RHP Michael GroveRHP Ryan Pepiot (oblique)RHP Bobby MillerRHP Emmet SheehanThe Dodgers are hopeful Urias will return in a week or two, so Sheehan's big-league stint could be short. The fact he's skipping over Triple-A entirely to make his MLB debut speaks to how great he's been this season, and also how desperate Los Angeles is for rotation help that moment. The alternative to Sheehan was a straight bullpen game on Friday.
"I don't know," Dodgers manager Dave Roberts said about Friday's pitching plan following Thursday's walk-off win against the Chicago White Sox (via Dodger Blue). "... (We're) tring to figure this whole 'pen out. A lot of guys are going to be down, so it's certainly not ideal for a bullpen game."
Top tier rotations have been a staple during this last decade of Dodgers baseball, though this season the team's starting staff ranks 22nd in innings (348 1/3), 14th in ERA (4.24), and 14th in WAR (4.7). Kershaw has been magnificent and so has Miller in his four starts since being called up. Everyone else has been inconsistent, ineffective, injured, or some combination of the three.
Despite the rotation woes, the Dodgers enter play Friday with the National League's third best record at 39-30. They are two games behind the Arizona Diamondbacks in the NL West, and they are four games up on a wild-card spot.
