Despite being fully recovered, Van den Hurk stuck in minors for now

Rick van den Hurk injured himself a few weeks ago, shortly before the start of the NPB season.

After a rehab stint with the Ni-Gun team of the Softbank Hawks, he was ready to pitch at the NPB. But the timing of this injury could not have been worse. The Hawks used pitcher Edison Barrios instead. Barrios was a Ni-Gun (minor league) pitcher last year but performed so well so far at the NPB level that the Hawks do not want to remove him from the roster.

So in fact Rick van den Hurk is stuck at the minor leagues for now. Van den Hurk’s numbers at the Hawks Ni-Gun team are excellent: a  0.80 ERA, three wins in five starts, five walks and thirty-seven (!) strikeouts.

I am not an expert on Japanese baseball, but if Rick keeps putting up those numbers, it can’t take long before he will get a call up.