NL **tes: Medlen, Cubs, Padres, Rockies

rss · #1 03-11-2014, 07:28 PM

NL **tes: Medlen, Cubs, Padres, Rockies
The Braves suffered a scare this after**on when Kris Medlen, likely the team's Opening Day starter, left his start against the Mets (video link) with what is being diag**sed as a forearm strain. He will be evaluated further tomorrow morning. Manager Fredi Gonzalez*told reporters, including David O'Brien of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution (video link), he's hopeful. "Keep our fingers crossed. But I feel a lot better after talking to our medical people. We might be OK."*Medlen, who underwent Tommy John surgery in 2010, has been dominant for the Braves. O'Brien***tes the right-hander's ERA*since the 2012 All-Star break is second only to Clayton Kershaw among pitchers with at least 250 innings pitched in that period and he's won three of the past eight NL Pitcher of the Month awards while ** other pitcher in baseball has won more than one over the same span. O'Brien opines losing Medlen for any significant amount of time could be a blow to the Braves' chances of defending their division title, unless they make a move to acquire a**ther proven top-of-the-rotation type of starter mentioning Ervin Santana. If Medlen is sidelined, the Braves could stay in-house and insert both veteran Freddy Garcia and left-hander Alex Wood into the rotation with Gavin Floyd, who has received good reports on his rehab from his own Tommy John surgery, expected to be ready in May.

Elsewhere in the National League on the first day of Daylight Savings Time (except in Arizona):

New Cubs manager Rick Renteria does **t see competing in the NL Central "as a daunting task" despite being the only division to send three teams to the playoffs and his own club coming off four consecutive losing seasons, writes the Chicago Sun-Times' Gordon Wittenmyer. Renteria also sees similarities between the NL Central and the much-praised AL East. "So my thing is, quite frankly, we have a body of players that we’re trying to help form into a team, and that if we can do certain things and take certain actions that we have just as good a chance of competing in our division as some of those teams in the [AL] East have done in the past."
Dennis Lin of the San Diego Union-Times examines the players on the bubble of making the Padres' 25-man roster, including recent waiver claim*Alex Castella**s.
The Rockies have renewed the contracts of all their pre-arbitration eligible players, according to the Denver Post's Troy E. Renck (via Sulia). Last month, MLBTR's Tim Dierkes reported agents were unhappy with the Rockies' salary formula for these pre-arb players, which spawned a feature article by Zach Links detailing how teams determine salaries for such players.

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NL **tes: Medlen< Cubs< Padres< Rockies