Bus Leagues Express: June 27

Top stories

Affiliated baseball will return to El Paso: Tuesday night, the El Paso, Texas city council approved plans for a $50 million stadium downtown where city hall currently sits. As far as I can tell, there’s no private contribution to the stadium costs, and hotel taxes will be bumped up to pay for the new stadium. Once the stadium is complete, the independent El Paso Diablos will have to move because of a no-compete clause in the stadium agreement. Investors indicate that they have a deal in place to buy a PCL team, most likely the Tucson Padres. Tucson was expected to move to the San Diego suburbs, but budget problems in California nixed that stadium proposal. El Paso hasn’t hosted an affiliated team since 2004 when that iteration of the El Paso Diablos moved to Springfield.

d’Arnaud out for two months: An innocent slide into second base is apparently costing top prospect Travis d’Arnaud nearly the last two months of the minor league season. It was announced that he tore a knee ligament in Monday night’s game. He won’t need surgery, but it’s still unfortunate that he’s going to lose so much developmental time. There was a great chance that he would make his ML debut in September, and while that still may happen, the team may decide it’s better for him to take it easy in instructional ball.

Perez promoted, but in what role? After Monday’s rough loss to Detroit, the Rangers informed top arm Martin Perez that he would be coming up to the majors. After the bullpen got worn out providing long relief for Justin Grimm, it was speculated that he could just be up to take some of the load off the relievers. However, starter Colby Lewis was placed on the DL with a forearm injury today. If he was being called up to start, they probably would have waited until Saturday to do it, but he’s apparently active now.

Cabrera to make ML debut today: The Rockies have only been using their… unique four man rotation for a week now, but they’re already making changes. Alex White, acquired in last year’s Ubaldo Jimenez trade, was optioned to Colorado Springs after allowing 17 runs over his last four starts. To take his place, the Rockies will summon AA All-Star Edwar Cabrera from Tulsa. Despite his strikeout rate being down compared to last year when he led the minors in strikeouts, he’s having a very good season in the Texas League with his top notch changeup. He’ll probably allow too many home runs, but he has a chance to stick in the majors as a back-end starter.

Cole exits start after one inning: After impressing in his AA debut last week, Gerrit Cole ran into trouble Tuesday, allowing three runs in an inning of work before exiting with an apparent injury. With two outs and two runs already in, Destin Hood hit a line drive that deflected off Cole’s neck. After being checked out on the mound, he remained in the game and hit the following batter. Another line drive was deflected by Cole that led to a run, and he struck out the batter to end the rough inning. With 33 pitches, he was lifted from the game. Altoona fell to Harrisburg 8-3.

Tripleheader scheduled: Tropical Storm Debby has wreaked havoc on Florida the past three days, and it’s led to a pretty large backlog of games in both the FSL and GCL. Brevard County tried playing a doubleheader against Charlotte Tuesday, but the first game had to be suspended after 4.5 innings. The solution? Play three games today! The suspended game will be wrapped up starting at 11 AM in Viera, and two seven inning games will follow. Seriously. If the weather isn’t miserable again, fans can get away in the afternoon and enjoy a lot of baseball.

On tap today

MiLB.TV schedule

Derek Holland makes rehab appearance

Andre Rienzo hopes to continue AA success

Adam Conley makes high-A debut

If you know of a player performance or article that should be shared, please let me know on Twitter at @5runrally!