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The Brewers are taking another tough blow in what’s been a rough first half of the 2020 season, as catcher Manny Pina is landing on the Injured List with a torn meniscus, the team announced Friday.
Jacob Nottingham will take his place on the roster.
RHP Justin Grimm designated for assignment.
— Milwaukee Brewers (@Brewers) August 28, 2020
INF/OF Brock Holt released.
C Manny Piña placed on the 10-day injured list with a torn meniscus in his right knee.
C Jacob Nottingham recalled from the Alternate Training Site. pic.twitter.com/FDdeJxxtXR
As Adam McCalvy notes, torn menisci tend to take about 4 to 6 weeks in recovery time, meaning it’s entirely possible that this is a season-ending injury for Pina.
That’s an especially tough blow for the Brewers, considering Pina has largely been their best catcher this year, both defensively and offensively, considering Omar Narvaez’s struggles. While Narvaez has seemingly started to come around in the last week, Pina will still be missed. Pina was hitting .231/.333/.410 with 2 home runs and a 100 OPS+ in 15 games and was leading the NL with a 56% caught stealing percentage.
Nottingham will now figure to get an extended look over the second half of the season, which could be useful as they try to get a better picture of the now-25-year-old’s future with the organization. Nottingham has improved greatly as a defensive catcher since his days as a bat-first prospect, but hasn’t hit as well as expected in the minors since coming to the organization in the Khris Davis trade with Oakland.
He’s appeared in 9 big league games in each of the last two seasons, going 6-for-26 with a .739 OPS in his first 18 games. At the very least, we would expect him to get the start against left-handed starters, of which the Brewers will see a couple this weekend against Pittsburgh.
In other roster moves noted by the team, Brock Holt was officially released (as we’ve already covered) and Justin Grimmed was designated for assignment a day after being the Brewers’ 29th man in their doubleheader against Cincinnati. He had another rough outing last night in the final inning of the second game of that doubleheader, allowing 2 runs on a homer by Eugenio Suarez in the 7th. The former Cub’s stint with the Brewers will likely come to an end after allowing 9 runs over 4.2 innings with 4 home runs allowed.
Statistics courtesy of Baseball-Reference