The Cincinnati Reds announced earlier this afternoon that they have called up catcher Kyle Skipworth.
#reds call up catcher Kyle Skipworth to take Cueto’s spot, designated Chris Dominguez
— John Fay (@johnfayman) July 27, 2015
There are actually two bits of information in there. The first is that the team called up Kyle Skipworth. Without the need for a starting pitcher for a few days, this move seems more like the Reds just adding a power bat on the bench than the speculation I’ve seen on twitter that it means Brayan Pena is about to be traded.
Skipworth homered in five straight games and six out of seven games from July 10th through the 19th. He’s gone 1-18 since with 13 strikeouts, so the team isn’t exactly calling up a hot bat at this point. He does bring the threat of going over the fence if you bring him off of the bench, but he’s also struck out 47% of the time he’s stepped to the plate in Double-A.
The second part of the tweet from John Fay, I believe happened yesterday but he (nor I) reported it, was that Chris Dominguez has been designated for assignment.
Dominguez has spent most of his 2015 with the Louisville Bats, but has spent very limited time with the big league club. With the Bats he hit .216/.264/.368. He showed solid pop in his bat, but that was about all as he struggled to hit for average and he walked just 10 times in 221 trips to the plate. In the big leagues he hit .261/.261/.522 with 12 strikeouts in 23 plate appearances.