St. Louis Cardinals sign LH reliever Dennys Reyes; righthanders shine
JUPITER, Fla. _ It was a good day for the St. Louis Cardinals’ bullpen today, both on and off the field.
After four righthanded relievers blanked the Dominican Republic team for the last four innings of a 4-1 exhibition victory, the club announced the signing of 31-year-old free-agent lefthander Dennys Reyes to fortify a weak southpaw side of the bullpen.
Reyes agreed to a two-year deal worth a total of approximately $3 million. But Reyes, who had a 2.33 earned run average and held opposing lefthanded hitters to a .202 average last year while pitching for Minnesota, won’t be available for a while. He will pitch for the Mexico team in the World Baseball Classic and could be away from Cardinals camp for two weeks or longer.
“He definitely solidifies our bullpen,” said Cardinals general manager John Mozeliak. “One of the things we tried to do in the off-season was upgrade from the left side. This gives us the ability to do that.”
Reyes has been in the majors 10-plus seasons with the Los Angeles Dodgers, Cincinnati, Colorado, Texas, Pittsburgh, Arizona, Kansas City, San Diego and Minnesota. He spent three seasons with Minnesota, and during that span had the lowest ERA (2.14) among lefthanded relievers in the majors.
Righthanded relievers Ryan Frankln, Chris Perez, Josh Kinney and Jason Motte blanked the Dominicans on one hit over the last five innings after righthander Todd Wellemeyer worked four innings of one-run ball. No Cardinals pitcher issued a walk.
(17 votes, average: 4.82 out of 5)
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Sweet. Between signing a solid lefty and the 68 degree day, I am really getting Spring fever.
Today’s pitching line helped that much more. I gotta admit, two months ago I would have thought that Franklin might be odd man out.
Wellemyer is going to be nasty this year. The whole staff will be. Stay tuned doubters!