Ryon Healy to Disabled List; Chasen Bradford Recalled

This was all-but-announced by our top-flight beat writers yesterday, but now it’s official:

Healy joins Nelson Cruz in the “oh come on” category of the Mariner disabled list. Unlike Nelson, the club did not immediately issue a set of “we think this isn’t that bad” quotes, presumably while they wait a bit longer (since they’re on the road) for some MRI results. What does this mean for first base? Well, after almost two full years of toil in Tacoma, our Large Adult Son should finally get a longer look on the field. Dan Vogelbach has looked pretty decent in the early going, demonstrating his increased willingness to drive pitches. Other options include Taylor Motter, who should be no more than an emergency fill-in, or Matt Hague if they want to call him up from Tacoma—though he’s not on the 40-man, so don’t expect it. This does also create something of a difficulty with the DH spot, in the sense that the Mariners now have one hulking baseball smasher to fill two spots, whereas a short time ago they had three. Guillermo Heredia and Motter should pick up some slack here as well.

The other half of this transaction will likely generate a “who?” from more casual fans, which is fine for now, but Bradford may teach us all his name in something of a hurry. The 28-year-old Nevada native is never going to be confused with an fireballing back-end reliever, but an elite slider spin rate and an above-average ability to generate groundballs make Bradford an important tool to bring some much-needed stability to a Mariner bullpen that has lost a couple of key pieces already and currently lacks a go-to groundballer.