Derek Holland placed on 10-day IL with bone bruise; Ty Blach called up

Derek Holland, the Giants’ #2 starter and the star of this Top Gun commercial parody, will miss his next next scheduled start (this Friday in Cincinnati) after being placed on the 10-day injured list with a bone bruise. He has a bone bruise of his left index finger, meaning he won’t be able to grip a baseball effectively or type T, G, H, V, F, R very easily on his computer keyboard, if at all.

Holland was last seen on Saturday afternoon, striking out the Yankees’ Brett Gardner in the top of the fifth inning three batters after giving up a grand slam to Gary Sanchez. His last three starts have been rough (7.31 ERA in 16 IP, 19 K, 8 BB). He’s still missing bats, but when he’s not, ouch.

His 47.4% hard hit rate isn’t one o the worst in the league, but it’s close and it’s not great anyway. The expected weighted on base average on just the contact (.455) made on his pitches is in the bottom 10% of all pitchers. The barreled ball rate of 18.2% is in the bottom 2% of all major league pitchers. No good. Not good at all.

He’s been on an every other year sort of performance in the Statcast era, too. Just going by opponent wOBA (weighted on base average) since 2015, he’s been really up and down: .353, .331, .388, .309, .349. Maybe this bit of rest in the early going can give him a chance to regroup and reevaluate.

In the meantime, Ty Blach returns just in time for the Dodgers series. We can never forget that he has a 1.88 ERA in 57.1 IP (7 games started) against them. His Triple-A line has been solid. The 4.34 ERA in 4 starts (18.2 IP) isn’t great until you remember that the PCL is a hitters’ league. He didn’t allow a home run in those four starts despite a surge in Triple-A home run rates (thanks to the use of Major League Baseball’s new juiced balls) and he struck out 14 while walking just two.

He’ll make a good piggyback reliever in case Samardzija, Bumgarner, or Pomeranz falter against the mighty Dodgers. Not sure if he will get the start on Friday in Holland’s absence, but for now, welcome back, Ty Blach. Go get some outs against the Dodgers, maybe.

UPDATE: