AL EAST NOTES
Blue Jays
1B Adam Lind (broken right foot) was placed on the 15-day DL. Lind has been dealing with foot pain for weeks and aggravated the injury recently. The injury originally was diagnosed as a bone bruise. In 61 games this season, Lind has a .320 average with four homers and 27 RBIs. Dan Johnson was recalled from triple-A Buffalo Johnson had a .248 average with the Bisons and hit a league-leading 17 home runs this season. He has played in 416 major-league games over his career with Oakland, Tampa Bay, Baltimore and the Chicago White Sox.
Orioles
Dan Duquette, the team’s executive vice president for baseball operations, said Nelson Cruz wanted a “platform to perform” this season, liked hitting at Camden Yards and knew manager Buck Showalter, who had managed him in Texas. There was no question that Cruz wanted to play, Duquette said, and the Orioles got a steal - perhaps balancing their riskier four-year, $50 million deal for starter Ubaldo Jimenez, who leads the AL in walks. “He’s a good role model for our young hitters,” Duquette said of Cruz. “He looks for his pitch in the strike zone, hits down on the ball and he has excellent work habits. To perform at his level you have to do a lot of things right.”
Rays
LHP Erik Bedard said he had nothing to be mad about after being bumped to the bullpen with RHP Jeremy Hellickson’s return to the rotation after going 4-6, 4.95 in 15 starts. “I kind of knew coming in that I was here to help fill in a spot,” said Bedard, signed at the start of spring training. “So he came back and I go to the bullpen.” Bedard doesn’t have much experience in the ‘pen (10 career appearances), and he won’t have much of a role, limited to long relief or extra innings. “I’ll just do the best I can out of the bullpen and try to help this team win,” he told the Tampa Bay Times. The Rays could look to trade Bedard; he said he hadn’t thought that far ahead.
Red Sox
C A.J. Pierzynski was designated for assignment. The 37-year-old Pierzynski hit .254 with four home runs and 31 RBIs in 72 this season. He signed an $8.25 million, one-year contract with the Red Sox as a free agent in December.
Yankees
From Newsday on losing Masahiro Tanaka: “We don’t see the Yankees waving a white flag, even if this Tanaka news goes from bad to worse. Not after spending nearly $500 million to return playoff baseball to the Bronx. But trying to rebuild a rotation on the fly might just be too much, especially when one of those pitchers has been as dominant as Tanaka. ‘That’s our job - to survive and keep going,’ manager Joe Girardi said. Surviving is not the same as winning, of course. And only one can be done with any regularity if Tanaka is hurting in the second half.”
Compiled by Rick Crotts from wire reports.
