Los Angeles Dodgers Promote Julio Urias–to Triple-A
By Jason Burke
The Los Angeles Dodgers top pitching prospect–heck the best left-handed prospect in the game–Julio Urias has been promoted to Triple-A Oklahoma City and will make his debut, well, tonight.
Julio Urias has been promoted to OKC and will start against Iowa tonight. Welcome to OKC, Julio!
— Oklahoma City Dodgers (@okc_dodgers) August 31, 2015
Some have speculated that the Dodgers should promote Urias to the bigs tomorrow when rosters expand to help out with a rotation that has been unsteady past Zack Greinke and Clayton Kershaw, but at just 19-years-old (as of August 12), and for the time being having never thrown a pitch in Triple-A (yes, this is time sensitive) the Dodgers will likely hold off on another promotion for the southpaw this season unless everything really goes sideways in Tinseltown.
This season Urias has spent the majority of his time in Double-A, starting the season there before having cosmetic eye surgery which sidelined him for nearly two months. He returned with brief stints in Rookie ball and Class A Advanced before re-joining to the Tulsa Drillers where he totaled a 2.52 ERA over 32 1/3 innings since July 26.
Overall this season, Urias has totaled a 2.77 ERA with Tulsa, striking out 74 in 68 1/3 innings while walking just 15.
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Last year in his first year of full-season ball, Urias was electric in the hitter-friendly California League, totaling a 2.36 ERA with an 11.2 strikeout per nine mark–at the age of 17. To say that Urias is a talented pitching prospect worth protecting would be an understatement. The Los Angeles Dodgers also have the #2 prospect in baseball (Urias is #4) in shortstop/third baseman Corey Seager, who should be joining the big-league team out of spring training next season. While Urias still may not be deemed ready out of camp, barring a setback he should be in the Dodgers’ rotation by mid-season at the latest, giving the team a new look and quite possibly solidifying any gaps that need to be filled.
For tonight however, Urias has a tough task in the Iowa Cubs who are currently chasing Oklahoma City for the division crown, sitting four games back with the two teams scheduled to play five games in four days with a doubleheader on Tuesday as part of a make-up game from mid-May. All five will be at home for the Dodgers, who are 37-25 at Chickasaw Bricktown Ballpark this season. With the OKC Dodgers holding a magic number of just six, this is the perfect opportunity to eliminate the Cubs once and for all. All they’ll have to do is take three of five to do so, and it all starts with Julio Urias taking the mound in a matter of minutes.