Athletics place World Series-winning pitcher on IL amid flurry of roster moves

The Athletics announced a series of roster moves Wednesday, including the previously reported promotion of prospect Nick Kurtz, which is now official. They also recalled pitchers Grant Holman and Hogan Harris. In corresponding moves, they optioned infielder Max Muncy and left-hander Jacob Lopez, as well as placing righty José Leclerc on the 15-day injured list with a right lat strain.

Leclerc was put into Tuesday night’s contest but departed after just seven pitches due to shoulder soreness. Manager Mark Kotsay told reporters that it was more of a strain than soreness, via Jessica Kleinschmidt of Baseball America.

That makes Wednesday’s IL stint fairly unsurprising but it’s still unwelcome for the A’s. Leclerc was the club’s big offseason bullpen investment, as they gave him $10M on a one-year deal this winter. Throughout his career, he has generally been able to rack up punchouts, even if he gives out a high number of free passes. At this point, he has 369 1/3 major league innings with a 3.34 earned run average, 30.8% strikeout rate and 13.1% walk rate.

He’s off to a rough start so far this year but it’s only nine innings and it’s possible that the shoulder has been bothering him even before this IL placement. His fastball is averaging 94.2 miles per hour this year, a drop from last year’s 95.3 mph. All his other pitches are down by similar amounts.

The A’s surely hoped that he would be a key setup guy for closer Mason Miller but the early results have been shaky and he’s now going to be out of action for at least a couple of weeks. Guys like Tyler Ferguson and Justin Sterner have been given some leverage work early on and will try to hold onto those roles while Leclerc is out.