Mike Yastrzemski is headed to Paternity Leave, while Luke Jackson is hitting the IL.
We know that the San Francisco Giants will churn. And we’ve known for a few days that the churn would start early this year. Before the season began, outfielder Mike Yastrzemski announced that his wife, Paige, would be induced on Friday and give birth to the couple’s second child. That meant there would be a roster move on just the second day of the season.
The assumption was that outfielder Luis Matos — quite arguably the team’s best position player in Spring Training — would take Yastrzemski’s place. And indeed, that’s exactly what happened on Friday, with Yastrzemski being placed on the Paternity List and Matos being recalled.
But we also got a second, more surprising set of moves. After removing himself from the season opener due to back spasms, right-handed reliever Luke Jackson was placed on the 15-Day Injured List with a lower back strain. And the person replacing him? Right-handed pitcher Kai-Wei Teng!
Teng was added to the roster in November as a Rule 5 protection. He seemed likely to enter Spring Training in position to try and earn a bulk-innings role, but was set back by an injury. The injury slowed him down enough that he didn’t appear in a single Cactus League game, though it’s worth noting that he pitched in a handful of Minor League Spring Training games.
The Giants had limited options to replace Jackson, as Randy Rodríguez is the only other healthy pitcher on the 40-man roster who isn’t on the active roster. So in order to add another pitcher — a necessity since they were already only carrying 12 pitchers when Jackson was injured — it needed to be Teng or Rodríguez, unless the Giants wanted to clear a 40-man spot.
The Giants still might do that. While Keaton Winn is expected to pitch on Sunday, the team doesn’t really have a starter for Monday. Maybe they’ll go with a bullpen game — perhaps with Teng pitching extensively — or maybe they’ll just wait until then to add Mason Black or Daulton Jefferies to the roster.
In the meantime, the Giants are in position to have a few more debuts. A year after they had a whopping 12 players make their MLB debut, San Francisco had a pair of them in the season opener — Jung Hoo Lee and Erik Miller. Two more players on the roster — Teng and fellow righty Landen Roupp — will be making their MLB debut if and when they get into a game.
Needless to say, there’s some excitement about that prospect for Teng.
I asked Kai-Wei Teng his excitement level and he said on a scale of 1-10, he would say 15.
— Susan Slusser (@susanslusser) March 29, 2024
Very exciting. Unfortunately for prospect fans, we’ll have to wait a while to see either Teng or Matos, as LaMonte Wade Jr. is getting the start in right field for Friday’s game.