
There were positive updates on both first baseman Bryce Harper and reliever Jose Alvarado before Friday night’s game against the Twins.
Harper is being listed as day-to-day after being forced out of Sunday’s game against the Nationals in the fourth inning with lower back tightness.
“I feel better,” Harper said. “I felt it in the first inning, but I didn’t feel like it was fair for me to come out of the game in the first. I didn’t want (Rodolfo) Castro to have to get ready immediately. I thought I could loosen it up, but I just couldn’t get it loose to where I wanted it to be. So I just came out.”
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Said manager Rob Thomson: “That’s good news. We’ll see how they work it out.”
Harper said he was “probably” not going to be available to pinch-hit Friday night.
Alvarado threw 16 pitches of live batting practice about four hours before the game, facing lefthanded hitter Jake Cave and the lefty-swinging Castro. He got eight swing-and-misses. Only two balls were put in play, both by Castro: a lazy fly ball to shallow center and a soft fly to right that landed just inside the line.
“My arm feels good. I should be ready soon,” Alvarado said.
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Observed Thomson: “He was unbelievable, really looked fantastic. He was throwing strikes and his cutter had a lot of depth. When he has his really good cutter, that’s what it looks like.”
Alvarado has a 1.38 earned run average in 26 appearances this season. He’s struck out 39 hitters in 26 innings and has held opponents to a .216 batting average. “He gives us more depth and really another high leverage guy. If we get him back to where he was throwing earlier in the year, that’s a really, really good bullpen,” Thomson said.
Alvarado had been expected to begin his rehab assignment Thursday, but the plan changed when he experienced cramps in his hand Tuesday after throwing BP the previous day. Assuming no further setbacks, he’ll throw another bullpen Sunday and then begin his rehab assignment Tuesday with Triple-A Lehigh Valley.
Thomson said he’ll likely need to pitch at least twice for the IronPigs before being activated. “We want to make sure he can recover from an outing,” the manager explained. “If we put him on the roster and he can’t recover for three or four days, then we have to IL him again and won’t have him for 15 more days. So we want to make sure he can go out, pitch, recover, pitch again, recover.”