Dodgers call up strikeout rate leader Kyle Hurt
The Los Angeles Dodgers have called up right-hander Kyle Hurt, the minor league leader in strikeout rate, to bolster their bullpen as the postseason nears, it was announced Tuesday.
Hurt, 25, has 145 strikeouts in 88 1/3 innings between Double-A and Triple-A this season and mixes a high-90s fastball with three other swing-and-miss pitches. He joins a Dodgers relief corps that has weathered injuries to put up the second-best ERA in the National League behind Atlanta.
In related roster moves, the Dodgers optioned left-hander Victor Gonzalez to Triple-A Oklahoma City and placed right-hander Gus Varland on the 60-day injured list.
The Dodgers acquired Hurt and left-hander Alex Vesia in an early 2021 trade with Miami for right-hander Dylan Floro. Miami had selected him in the fifth round of the shortened 2020 draft out of USC, where his size (6-foot-3, 240 pounds) and stuff were ahead of his production.
Hurt emerged as a prospect last year and accelerated significantly this season, striking out 110 in 65 innings before his promotion to Triple-A Oklahoma City. In six outings there, he has struck out 35 in 23 1/3 innings with a 3.09 ERA — with five of those appearances coming out of the bullpen.
Despite injuries that have Daniel Hudson, Blake Treinen, Joe Kelly, Yency Almonte, J.P. Feyereisen, Alex Reyes and others on the IL, the first-place Dodgers have cobbled together a top-performing group of relievers that has maintained its excellence into September, where it has a 2.89 ERA.
Former Red Sox right-hander Ryan Brasier, who signed a minor league deal with Los Angeles in June, has allowed one run in 24 second-half innings, and Brusdar Graterol, the hard-throwing righty, has yielded one in 21 2/3.
Their performances, along with closer Evan Phillips, stabilized a bullpen whose importance is that much more acute with left-handed starter Julio Urias on administrative leave after a domestic violence arrest, right-handed starter Walker Buehler cutting short his attempt to return from Tommy John surgery this season and a rotation that consists of veterans Clayton Kershaw and Lance Lynn, plus a group of young right-handers that includes Bobby Miller and Ryan Pepiot.