Diamondbacks Add Austin Adams to the Bullpen

An injury necessitates a roster move for the bullpen.

Before today's game, the Diamondbacks announced a series of moves. The main one is the team selecting right-hander Austin Adams from Triple-A Reno. The corresponding roster moves were to place left-hander Anthony Misiewicz on the 15-day injured with a right calf strain and transferred catcher Carson Kelly (fractured forearm) to the 60-day IL. 

Misiewicz, 28, suffered the injury covering first base in the sixth inning of last night's game. After giving up an infield hit to Ji-Hwan Bae on a close play at first, the D-backs lefty was limping back to the mound. Misiewicz finished the inning, but allowed a three-run home run in the inning. 

Adams, 32, enters the 2020 season with a career 3.90 ERA and a 148/67 strikeout to walk ratio in 108 appearances. He's shown an ability to generate swings and misses with a 34% strikeout rate, but has problems limiting free passes with a 15% walk rate. He has also hit 26 batters in his brief career, but 24 came in the 2021 season. After the 2022 season, he was nontendered by San Diego and later signed a minor league deal with the D-backs.

Despite not making the club out of Spring Training, he was able to put up solid numbers with Reno. With the Aces, he appeared in 12 games and pitched to a 2.84 ERA and a 20/6 strikeout to walk ratio over 12.2 innings. Nine of those 12 outings were scoreless. He became the defacto closer in Reno, pitching in the ninth inning in seven of his last eight appearances. The 37% strikeout and 11% walk rates are a slight improvement over his MLB career numbers.

Adams' bread and butter pitch is a mid-80s slider that gets a lot more horizontal movement than average. That's the pitch he uses when he needs to get a swing and miss, as evidenced by a 35% whiff rate in 2021 and 48% in 2019. He occasionally has command lapses with his fastball, which leads to walks and hit batters. The D-backs are hoping he can provide a bit more stability to the bullpen, which has dealt has dealt with a lot of adversity to begin the season.