The A’s designated O’Flaherty for assignment on Sunday and he cleared waivers, making him eligible to be traded to New York. Then the suspension of reliever Jenrry Mejia came and caused another scramble for another arm in the bullpen. O’Flaherty, who is expected to be in uniform tonight, will be the lefty specialist, and struggling lefty Alex Torres was designated for assignment.
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“Eric’s coming off Tommy John from last year, and I feel like it took him a little while to get settled in throughout the season”.
While O’Flaherty had a 5.91 ERA with Oakland in 21 1/3 innings he held lefties to a. 186 batting average and a. 495 OPS (on-base percentage plus slugging percentage). As a member of the Atlanta Braves, O’Flaherty became one of the best setup men in baseball. For his career, O’Flaherty has been dominant against lefties, with a 2.77 FIP, 7.78 strikeouts per nine, and 2.35 walks per nine.
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New York sits atop the National League East standings as of Tuesday night (thanks largely to a recent sweep of the Washington Nationals), and this move was clearly made with an eye toward a pennant chase. In exchange, they’ll send the Athletics a player to be named later. His velocity was one or two ticks higher than it was previously in the year. With the addition of Clippard and O’ Flaherty, the Mets have a very good seventh-eighth-ninth inning trio. Besides those acquisitions, the team also acquired outfielder Yoenis Cespedes at the deadline. Closer Jeurys Familia has been a lockdown closer this year with a 2.10 ERA and 28 saves.
