Guardians place Aaron Civale on 15-day injured list

The Cleveland Guardians have made a flurry of roster today, most notably placing starting pitcher Aaron Civale on the 15-day injured list with a sore wrist.

Civale left his scheduled start against the White Sox yesterday after just one inning and received an MRI on his right wrist following the game. While he did not appear to show any visible pain on the mound, he was noticeably avoiding high fives with his pitching hand in the dugout, and his wrist was snapping wildly on his follow-through — something it doesn’t normally do while he’s on the mound.

It could be nothing or completely unrelated, but it doesn’t take a wild imagination to think about how much your wrist snapping like that could make it sore after a dozen throws.

Civale wouldn’t have made another start before the All-Star break anyway, but the Guardians play 18 games in 17 days coming out of the break, so his absence will surely be felt. Hoping for the best — that this is just a sore wrist that requires some rest — he still might get away with only missing one or two starts if he comes back on the 29th in the middle of that long stretch of games.

Along with Civale slated to miss time, the Guardians also called up Tanner Tully, assigned Oscar Mercado to Triple-A after he cleared waivers, designated Alex Young for assignment, and lost reclaimed Kirk McCarty off waivers from the Orioles and immediately sent him to Triple-A.

McCarty was designated for assignment by the Guardians on July 3 and claimed by the Orioles on July 6. He pitched exactly one Triple-A game for the Orioles and was designated for assignment by Baltimore on Tuesday — and now he’s back where it all began. In his first stint with Cleveland this year he made two spot starts (and one three-inning relief appearance) with 12 earned runs in 12.0 innings of work.