Per the Star-Telegram and Jeff Wilson, Rangers’ prospect Michael Kirkman will be coming up to fill in for the bullpen.
↵This is good, the pen could use a lefty with the potential to be better than Matt Harrison, and Kirkman could be that guy. He’s averaged nearly a strikeout per inning over 130+ minor league innings, mostly as a starter. There’s also more than half a walk per inning, but, again, that’s the kind of thing we expect to go down in relief, and there’s some good evidence he can be a tremendous Lefty One-Out Guy at least, and maybe even a solid long man. And a little bit more rest for the rest of the pen is a good thing.
↵What’s less awesome is Derek Holland possibly going down to make room for Rich Harden. This is something that probably won’t be a big issue, but it would be frustrating right now when the team needs someone to step up to keep going to the Harden well in hope for some return on investment. Hopefully the team knows something and Harden will be able to produce something close to what we hoped when he was signed, but I’m seriously beginning to doubt that’s even possible, and I’m ready to give Holland more of a chance to embrace his ceiling as this team gets ready to see who belongs in the playoff rotation.
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