A flurry of roster moves: Myers, Maton back from DL, Hughes to DL, Franmil optioned...

It’s been a busy day in Padres transaction land. Let’s get started with the first nugget of news, which was actually broken yesterday by a member of the unaffiliated press:

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That’s James Clark from the East Village Times who got the scoop ahead of beat writers Kevin Acee, Dennis Lin, and AJ Cassavell through his relationship with Franmil Reyes himself. The great news here is that Wil Myers is healthy enough to finally return from his month-long absence due to an oblique injury. The sad news is that the charismatic Reyes is heading back to El Paso. While we were wowed by his impressive displays of brute strength and charmed by his gleeful joy for the game, it’s been clear for a while that he’s overmatched against MLB pitching. The 22 year old will go back to AAA to work on the holes in his swing while he tries to put some holes in outfield fences with laser-beam line drives. Taking his place is franchise fixture Wil Myers, whose slow start didn’t get too far into the season before a sore elbow landed him on the DL, and then his return from that injury was brief as he suffered a tweaked oblique not long after returning. Myers looked good in El Paso launching big flies deep into the Texas sky during his rehab stint, but expect to see him slowly work his way back into form at the MLB level. Manager Andy Green hinted that he won’t see full-time service at first while he’s still gaining strength. Still, he’s hitting leadoff tonight, so he’ll get his reps in early in his first game back.

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The next set of corresponding roster moves affects the bullpen, a swap of guys named Phil. Phil Maton has been on the disabled list since May 13th with a strained lat muscle. He’s back with the team tonight, and Phil Hughes is headed to the 10-day DL with an “elbow impingement”. Maton entered the season primed to be a key cog in Brad Hand’s setup machine, and a pitching mix featuring less fastballs had him off to a stellar start. He’s taking the roster spot of a new addition to the team in Hughes who has struggled mightily since well before he joined the Friars bullpen. Hughes’ injury is listed as a strained trapezius muscle, but a bruised ego might be his most painful injury after giving up three runs in two innings in last night’s whoopin’ at the hands of the Philadelphia Kansas City Oakland Athletics. Expect Hughes to take the entire ten days, plus the maximum allowed twenty days of rehab, before the team considers adding him back to the MLB team. The injury may be real, but this could also be a prime opportunity to get the guy some reps to work in some Darren Balsley magic away from the bright lights of MLB action.

Staying on the topic of pitching, Colin Rea left the 60-day disabled list (yay!) but he was optioned to AAA El Paso (boo!). While the Padres’ rotation needs help in a big way, sending Rea to the Chihuahuas is the prudent move has he has plenty of work to do before he can effectively face MLB pitching. It’s a step in the right direction though, giving us hope that we might see the tall Iowan in a Padres uniform later this year.

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The final roster move of the day is also the saddest. Franchy Cordero has been working back from an elbow injury that never really was publicly described all that well, but he suffered a setback in a Chihuahuas game as he visibly winced after a swing. He has been diagnosed with a bone spur in the back of his right elbow. He was given the option of trying to work through it and possibly come back this year or just pull the plug on the season and have the surgery to remove the spur. The surgery was an eventuality either way, it was a matter of sooner or later. Well today he was added to the 60-day DL (a corresponding roster move with Rea) which is a pretty clear indication that his season is done and he’s going ahead with the surgery. The recovery period is estimated at 10-12 weeks, so he’ll be ready to play in a Winter League or have an otherwise regular offseason. The bright side of this coin is that he should come into spring training next season fully healthy and ready to rock.