The Pittsburgh Pirates have placed Andrew McCutchen on the disabled list, retro 8/4. They have recalled Casey Sadler.
Earlier today I wrote about the whole situation involving McCutchen and Neil Walker being kept off the disabled list. On the surface, the issue is that the Pirates are playing with a 23-man roster, in hopes that they can get McCutchen and/or Walker back a few games early. Digging deeper, the big issue here is that the Pirates were taking an aggressive approach to bringing Walker and McCutchen back, which could have easily resulted in them missing more time. It looks like that might end up being the case with Walker.
If the worst case scenario is that you miss out on a few games from McCutchen by placing him on the disabled list, then I’d say that’s not a bad thing. The worst case scenario with the non-DL approach would have been rushing McCutchen back, and seeing his injury relapse to the point where he’d miss a lot more time than just 15 days.
It’s good that the Pirates made this move, although it’s a move that should have been made a lot sooner. You’d hope that McCutchen is ready to come back when he’s eligible, which would be August 19th.
As for the addition of Sadler, that takes the Pirates to the point where they have a normal bullpen, rather than playing a man short, which is a situation they were in after designating Ernesto Frieri for assignment over the weekend. They’re still a man short on the bench, due to Walker being injured and on the active roster.
