A’s call up Austin Pruitt, DFA Justin Grimm

Swap in the bullpen

The Oakland A’s made a change in their bullpen Saturday morning.

The team announced that they called up reliever Austin Pruitt from Triple-A. To make room for him on both the 40-man roster and the active 26-man roster, fellow reliever Justin Grimm was designated for assignment.

The A’s signed both pitchers over the offseason as minor league free agents. Grimm was named to the Opening Day roster and pitched in 15 games, posting decent overall stats but struggling in pressure situations. His strikeout and walk numbers were lackluster but he was among the best in the league at inducing weak contact from opponents.

• Grimm: 4.11 ERA, 15⅓ ip, 11 Ks, 7 BB, 1 HR, 4.31 FIP

The right-hander recorded three holds without blowing any leads himself, but in each of those three games he allowed runs and two of them eventually resulted in team losses. During May he was used exclusively when Oakland was trailing, except for his most recent outing Friday night when he got knocked around and contributed to a bullpen meltdown.

We’ll find out Grimm’s fate over the next few days. He might be claimed by another team off waivers, or if nobody else picks him up then he could end up staying in the A’s organization, as several other players have done this year after being DFA’d.

Meanwhile, the next man up in Oakland’s bullpen is Pruitt, and you can click here for his full scouting report. The righty was making a promising ascent with the Rays until an elbow fracture stalled him in 2020, and he threw only 7⅓ innings in the majors last summer for the Astros and Marlins. Now age 32, he was posting impressive numbers in Triple-A Las Vegas this year.

• Pruitt, AAA: 3.27 ERA, 22 ip, 20 Ks, 2 BB, 0 HR, 2.72 FIP

His arsenal features a four-seam fastball, slider, curveball, and changeup, with the heater averaging just under 92 mph and topping out slightly over 94 with good spin rate. The array of secondaries gives him weapons against hitters on both sides, with the slider against righties, the change against lefties, and the curve against both.

Here’s the updated roster: