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UPDATED: The Blue Jays have named Sean Nolin as their starter against the Orioles this Friday. Nolin will have to be added to the 40-man roster, so a corresponding roster move will be made (Ramon Ortiz will likely be designated for assignment) either later tonight or tomorrow. Congratulations to Nolin!
Big congratulations also go out to commenter AApologist, who, back on February 14, correctly guessed that Sean Nolin would be the first prospect to make his major league debut for the Blue Jays in 2013, and he was only off by two days! Wow!
Nolin's debut tomorrow on May 24 means that the 2013 Blue Jays will tie the 1980 Blue Jays for having the latest first debut in a single season. In 1980, Lloyd Moseby made his debut on May 24.
ORIGINAL ARTICLE:
Who will be the Toronto Blue Jays' starting pitcher this Friday against the Orioles? Nobody outside of the organization does. As John Gibbons said, the candidate is "top secret." Brendan Kennedy of the Toronto Star went to do some snooping and found a piece of note on Gibbons' desk that may provide a clue:
A piece of paper on Gibby's desk lists the starting pitchers for the next few games. For Friday it reads, "Jenkins?"
— Brendan Kennedy (@BKennedyStar) May 21, 2013
Certainly, there is this mystery because the club has not announced anyone as the starter as of yet, even though Chad Jenkins, who started and pitched well on May 12, is well-rested and could start tomorrow. Even as of yesterday, the Jays were prepared to use him out of the bullpen had Mark Buehrle needed to leave early.
A possible candidate to start is Sean Nolin, who is currently on the roster for the AA New Hampshire Fisher Cats. Marc Hulet wrote about him three days ago on FanGraphs. He has made three starts with the Cats since he returned from the disabled list and pitched very well, throwing two outings where he went six innings giving up no runs on four hits, even reaching 98 pitches in his start back on Saturday. Counting days, his scheduled start should have been today, but last night he revealed on Twitter that he had been pushed back to Friday:
@bigfourinsider friday
— Sean Nolin (@Sean_Nolin) May 23, 2013
It's very interesting that the official word is that he was pushed back to Friday because he needed "extra rest" even though he is "physically fine". It's too bad that he won't be coming up tonight to face the Orioles' AA callup Kevin Gausman.
Should Nolin be the one to be called up, he will need to be added to the 40-man roster, which means that someone must be removed. I would think the leading candidate would be Ramon Ortiz.
So, who do you think will start for the blue birds on Friday night? And how do you think this would affect Nolin's development?
UPDATE
A sort of confirmation but not really from Shi Davidi:
Sean Nolin, scratched from start at double-A New Hampshire today, expected to start for #BlueJays on Friday vs #Orioles.
— Shi Davidi (@ShiDavidi) May 23, 2013