The Indians have placed starting pitcher Mike Clevinger on the 10-day injured list, retroactive to June 18, and recalled Josh Smith as an extra reliever for Friday night’s series opener against the Tigers.
Clevinger sprained his ankle early in Tuesday’s start against the Rangers while trying to run down a ground ball. Despite collapsing to the ground immediately after the injury, Clevinger hopped right back up and finished out the start, throwing 4.2 innings and allowing five earned runs off three hits. It was Clevinger’s first start since he missed more than two months with back issues, and he’ll be missing at least one more start with this new injury.
The timing works out that it could only be one start if Clevinger recovers quickly. As The Athletic’s Zack Meisel points out, an off day Thursday means that Clevinger’s spot in the rotation could be skipped next time around. If all goes well, he would return June 30 and start things slow against the Triple-A offense of the Baltimore Orioles.
Either way, he will miss is start tomorrow, which opens the door for the intriguing Aaron Civale to make his MLB debut.
Civale is the 19th overall prospect is the Indians farm system, according to MLB Pipeline. The 24-year-old features a four-pitch mix of a fastball, slider, change-up, and curve. In 10.2 Triple-A innings this season (two starts), Civale has a 3.38 ERA and he has struck out 16 of the 50 batters he faced. He was even better with the Double-A Akron RubberDucks, posting a 2.67 ERA with a 14.9% strikeout-to-walk ratio, having only walked six batters over 30.1 innings.
Prior to 2019, scouts ranked Civale’s control as the highest in the Indians organization, giving it a 60 on the typical 20-80 scale.
When Civale starts on Saturday, he’ll be the third pitcher the Indians selected in 2016 to pitch for them in 2019 — Shane Bieber and Zach Plesac being the other two.