Colorado Rockies: September 1 call ups announced

As expected, the Colorado Rockies announced that they are recalling a few players to bolster their depth with rosters expanding to a maximum of 40 players for the month of September.

Before Saturday’s game against the Padres in San Diego, the Colorado Rockies PR department announced that the Rockies are recalling a few players for September call-ups.

The Rockies recalled five players, including right-handed pitcher Yency Almonte, left-handed pitcher Harrison Musgrave, catcher Tom Murphy, infielder Pat Valaika, and outfielder Noel Cuevas. All five of them have played with the Rockies at some point this season.

Almonte has had two stints with the Rockies this year and in seven appearances, he pitched to an ERA of 1.00 in nine innings. This year in Triple A Albuquerque, he went 3-5 with a 5.56 ERA in 18 games, 10 of which were starts. His problem in the minors was that he was giving up a lot of home runs (1.6 per nine innings), which is nearly double his career average in the minors but that is to be expected in the very hitter friendly Pacific Coast League.

Musgrave made 24 appearances with the major league team this year and struggled a bit as he had an ERA of 5.08 in 33 2/3 innings pitched. In Albuquerque, he went 0-1 with a 5.40 ERA in eight appearances, three of which were starts.

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Murphy took part in 31 games with the Rockies this year and was sent back to Albuquerque after a stretch of struggling at the plate after starting out red hot with the Rockies. With the Rockies, he hit .220 with two homers and 11 RBI in 88 at bats.

Valaika has regressed significantly at the major league level this year as he only hit .150 with two homers and 4 RBI in 57 games and 113 at bats for the Rockies this year. Last season, he hit .258 with 13 homers and 40 RBI in 110 games (182 at bats).

Cuevas, like Almonte and Musgrave, saw his first major league action this season and he hit .243 with two homers and 8 RBI in 63 games for the Rockies this season.

It should also be noted that catcher Drew Butera will be activated for tonight’s game. He was acquired by the Rockies on Friday in a trade with the Royals.

The Rockies will definitely call up more players once the minor league season ends on Monday. That’s probably part of, if not the whole, reason why some players, like Raimel Tapia, Jeff Hoffman, Jordan Patterson, Mike Tauchman, Carlos Estevez, and a few others weren’t recalled.

It will be interesting to see how Bud Black will utilize his few extra players this weekend and beyond. The Rockies will take on the Padres at 6:40 PM MT tonight.