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Roger Mooney

Roger Mooney covers the Tampa Bay Rays for The Tampa Tribune, TBO.com and News Channel 8. He has covered the Rays since their first season in 1998, including 11 years for the Bradenton Herald. Roger has also covered Florida, South Florida and Florida State football, the Bucs and the Lightning.

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Hellickson going to Class A Charlotte to work on being a reliever

Posted Aug 21, 2010 by Roger Mooney

Updated Aug 21, 2010 at 02:38 AM

ROGER MOONEY
OAKLAND Phase One of the Jeremy Hellickson Project is complete. Now it’s on to Phase Two, which is turning the Tampa Bay Rays top pitching prospect into a bullpen guy.

The Rays optioned Hellickson after Friday’s 5-4 loss to the Oakland A’s to not Triple A Durham as expected, but Class A Charlotte where they will monitor his workload and give him at least once chance to work out of the bullpen in a game before recalling him Sept. 1 when the rosters expand to 40.

“This is something we have talked about in advance,” Rays manager Joe Maddon said. “I know he’s been very much aware of it. From the outside looking in it might seem awkward or strange, but from the inside looking out it’s very commonsensical. For us, this is something we planned on doing it this way. There’s nothing he could have done to change that outside of somebody being hurt, possibly. But for now we’re getting the other two guys back soon. We just felt it was the right thing to do for now.”

Hellickson said the news caught him a little off guard.

“I had no idea,” he said. “I guess I had an idea. The first I heard was what they told me (after the game).”

And how did he take it?

“I’ll be back in 10 days,” he said. “Disappointed obviously. We got Wade (Davis) and (Jeff) Niemann’s coming back, and they’ve earned it to get back in the rotation.”

Hellickson made his major league debut Aug. 2 in an effort to create and extra day of rest for the rotation. He was send back to Durham after pitching seven innings of three-hit ball against Minnesota and collecting his first big league win. But Hellickson was back eight days later when Niemann was placed on the disabled list with a right shoulder strain. Davis had been placed on the DL with the same injury.

Davis is expected to rejoin the rotation Tuesday in Anaheim and Niemann scheduled to start Wednesday against the Angels.

Maddon maintained from the start that Hellickson was not going to join the rotation despite Hellickson’s outstanding year at Triple A. Unless there is another injury to a starter, there is no room for Hellickson in the rotation, because the Rays are committed to the five-man rotation they have used all season.

“It doesn’t preclude the fact that he still could start at some time,” Maddon said. “We want to make sure he gets a little side work, cut back on the innings, just try to monitor him the rest of the season and utilize him the best that we can.”

Hellickson has pitched out of the bullpen five times in his professional career, the last time being in 2006 with Short Class A Hudson Valley.

“I don’t know,” Hellickson said when asked if he thought the transition to the bullpen would be tough. “I mean it shouldn’t be. But, um, I don’t know. I’ve only thrown a couple of innings out of the bullpen. It wasn’t too much different. We’ll see.”

In all Hellickson made four starts. He was 3-0 with 2.05 ERA.

Against the A’s on Friday, Hellickson had the Rays in position to win and move into a tie for first place in the American League East with the New York Yankees.

The 23-year-old rookie allowed a career-high seven hits in 6 1/3 innings and allowed three runs – matching the total allowed during his first three starts combined.

He turned a 4-3 lead over to the bullpen, but with the help of an eighth inning error by second baseman Ben Zobrist, the bullpen let the game get away for the second straight night.