Baseball

The Boston Red Sox have released journeyman outfielder Jeremy Hermida, according to Sean McAdam of CSNNE.com. As much as Hermida expressed surprise when he was designated for assignment at the end of July, surely his outright release yesterday could be considered a shock.

Hermida's release was confirmed late last night via an online announcement on RedSox.com.

If you haven’t noticed, the young lefty phenom out of Cuba, Aroldis Chapman, finally made his debut for the Cincinnati Reds last night.

According to Jon Heyman of Sports Illustrated, when the Dodgers put Ted Lilly on waivers leading up to the trade deadline, the Yankees made and won the claim for the pitcher. Then the Dodgers pulled him off of waivers, and no deal was made.

In a year of stunning rookie performances, Cuban defector and Reds uber-prospect Aroldis Chapman made his major-league debut on Tuesday, facing three batters in one inning of work. The 22-year-old was electric, hitting 103 mph on the radar gun.

The Boston Red Sox have dealt struggling reliever and hometown flame-thrower Manny Delcarmen to the Colorado Rockies for minor league pitcher Chris Balcom-Miller, according to Alex Speier of WEEI.com.

After first breaking in with the Sox's in 2005 and posting a respectable 3.00 ERA, the 28-year-old Delcarmen has experienced distinct peaks and valleys in his six seasons in Beantown.

The Seattle Mariners have shut down top pitching prospect Michael Pineda for the season after throwing 139.1 innings for the year (last season he was limited to just 12 appearances and 47.1 innings).  Let’s take a look back and review his year.

Aroldis Chapman is coming to The Queen City. As if the Reds' biggest division lead in 15 years isn't enough to have fans in a tizzy, this is the quintuple cherry.

"Look for the city of Cincinnati to explode when Aroldis does get the call." Back on March 6, those words were written in a Bleacher Report article.

For the past few weeks or so, the Giants starting pitching has been the subject of much criticism. The blame for the Giants' dismal 12-15 August record has been placed upon this quintet.

The hitting was doing fine: Sanchez, Sandoval, and Torres were heating up, and Guillen, Burrell, Huff, and Uribe were providing jolts of offense here and there. But on Monday, the hitting fell silent. The Giants managed to get just four hits, and nine different Giants struck out at least once.

For eight innings it looked like the same old story was writing itself. "Rockies fall flat on the road," "Rockies leave bats at Coors Field...again."

This has undoubtedly been the year of the pitcher. So far this season, baseball has seen three no-hitters, two perfect games, and five other no-hit bids have been lost in the ninth inning. Baseball has been introduced to fiery young aces such as Stephen Strasburg, Trevor Cahill, and Mat Latos, and now you can add one more to the list.

Today, the Cincinnati Reds are expected to call up left-handed Cuban sensation Aroldis Chapman.