Phillies lose reliever Dalier Hinojosa to the disabled list

The Phillies saw their pitching depth further disrupted on Saturday afternoon, when they announced that reliever Dalier Hinojosa has been placed on the 15-day disabled list.   Hinojosa took a sharp liner to his pitching hand on Thursday evening against the Washington Nationals and was relieved by Elvis Araujo.   While postgame x-rays showed that Hinojosa did not break a bone, a contusion (a deep bruise) will keep Hinojosa from pitching.

Hinojosa will be replaced on the 25-man roster by Colton Murray.  The move is somewhat of a surprise, since right-handed reliever Luis Garcia was with the team until Friday.  While rules would have kept Garcia in the minors 10 days, placing a player on the disabled list would given the Phillies the ability to recall Garcia sooner.  Murray has struggled at Lehigh Valley in the early going, pitching to an 0-1 record and 6.10 earned run average.  Garcia pitched one and two-thirds innings yesterday, whereas Murray has not pitched since Wednesday, so the Phillies may have wanted a fresher arm after pitching extra innings Friday night.

Hinojosa was 0-1 with a 3.27 earned run average for the Phillies in 2016.  Of the seven players in the Phillies bullpen on Opening Day at the beginning of April, the Phillies have just four remaining of the initial bullpen on the last day of the first month: Jeanmar Gomez, David Hernandez, Hector Neris and Brett Oberholtzer.