The Kansas City Royals are living out game to game exactly what so many predicted: that their bullpen would be heavily taxed in 2012. The reason is that the starting pitching simply wasn’t improved enough with the guys needed to go six or more innings per outing. Now that the bullpen is taxed, the shuttle between Omaha and Kansas City is getting quite a bit of work early in the season.
The latest move announced by the team is that they have recalled pitcher Vin Mazzaro and sent Tommy Hottovy back to AAA.
“We needed some more length in the bullpen,” manager Ned Yost said. “We have expended our two long guys the last two days, and if something happened today unforeseen — I think Danny Duffy’s going to out and throw a good game — you’ve always got to protect yourself in case of a line drive off a shin or something like that in the second inning. And we couldn’t absorb that with no long guys.”
Mazzaro was one of the players brought over from Oakland in the David DeJesus trade.
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