The Diamondbacks seemingly daily need for fresh arms to man the bullpen continued Tuesday with the callup of Silvino Bracho from Triple-A Reno.
Bracho takes the roster place of Archie Bradley, who started and pitched 4 1/3 innings on Monday and has been optioned back to Reno.
Silvino Bracho
Bracho, 23, made the Diamondbacks' opening day roster but was demoted after pitching 1 1/3 innings against the Rockies, giving up one earned run. He appeared in four games for Reno, giving up one earned run in four innings and notching two saves. He struck out six and did not walk a batter.
Bracho made 13 relief appearances for the Diamondbacks last season, registering a 1.46 ERA in 12 1/3 innings.
The inability of the Diamondbacks' starting pitchers to pitch deep into games has resulted in an overworked bullpen and a series of roster moves to bring in fresh arms.
Through the first 16 days of the season, they've already called up Bracho, Bradley, Evan Marshall, Tyler Wagner, Kyle Drabek and Matt Buschmann, and sent down Bracho, Bradley, Drabek, Buschmann and Jake Barrett.
Outfielder Socrates Brito, a part-time starter, was sent down on Monday to allow for an extra bullpen arm -- giving manager Chip Hale eight relief pitchers but only four bench bats. If the bullpen can become stabilized, Hale would prefer to have another position player on the bench, but Brito is ineligible to be recalled until April 28.
Jake Lamb's two-out, game-tying home run in the ninth inning off Santiago Casilla in Monday night's victory was the seventh such home run in franchise history, and the first since Paul Goldschmidt took Houston's Mark Melancon deep on Aug. 11, 2011. It was the fourth time the game-tying blast came with two strikes, matching Goldschmidt, Mark Reynolds (off the Mets' Billy Wagner in 2008) and Jay Bell (off Montreal's Ugueth Urbina in 1999).
While Bradley struggled with his command in Monday's start, manager Chip Hale was impressed with his stuff. He was throwing his fastball at 94.94 mph according to brooksbaseball.net (almost 2 mph faster than last year) and his curveball was showing considerably more downward break than a year ago.
"The ball was coming out good," Hale said. "We're seeing the life on his fastball to where we thought it was when I first came here. We didn't see it that much last year. At some point he will be able to corral the command much better."
