A's Place Domingo Acevedo on IL, Recall Chad Smith

The 29-year-old reliever has been a constant in Mark Kotsay's bullpen

The A's have announced that they have placed righty reliever Domingo Acevedo on the injured list with a lower back strain, and recalled Chad Smith from Triple-A Las Vegas. 

Acevedo has had a rough start to the 2023 season, allowing eight runs in 5.1 innings, good for a 13.50 ERA. He'd also allowed ten hits in those five plus innings.

Chad Smith was acquired in a trade with the Colorado Rockies during the off-season and had a stellar spring. In 8.2 innings he held a 3.12 ERA, giving up just four hits and walking five with nine strikeouts. A lot of that damage was done in his first outing at the end of February against the Arizona Diamondbacks. 

In the month of March, Smith went 7.2 innings, gave up just one hit, zero runs, walked four and struck out eight. 

Despite the stellar spring, Smith was optioned down to Las Vegas to begin the season. Mark Kotsay said last week that if he went down and kept pitching like he had been, then it would be a short trip to Triple-A. 

The right-hander made it into three games with the Aviators this season and holds a 2.25 ERA across four innings. Walks have continued to be a bit of an issue, with Smith giving up one per inning on top of five hits, but he has also struck out six so far. 

Back in January I wrote about Smith's slider and how that could be the key to him earning some late-inning action down the road this season. 

Now we get to see that slider in action.