Baltimore Orioles said to be targeting reliever Matt Lindstrom - MLB News
The Baltimore Orioles are said to be interested in Joe Saunders who was acquired by the Arizona Diamondbacks in 2012 in a mid season trade for reliever Matt Lindstrom. The rumour now is that the O’s are also interested in signing a new deal with Matt as
well.
The Baltimore ball club had acquired Matt along with Jason Hammel from the Colorado Rockies in a trade in 2012 for starting pitcher Jeremy Guthrie. The 32-year-old pitcher had a 1-0 win-loss record in 2012 with the birds in 34 games. He pitched in a total
of 36 innings with a 2.72 ERA and struck out 30 batters.
He showed some good work for the Diamondbacks as well as he was posted a 2.53 ERA in 12 games as a reliever in which he pitched a little over 10 innings, making three holds for the Arizona ball club.
The Orioles are one of a number of teams interested in Lindstrom as reported by Dan Connelly in the Baltimore Sun. The Orioles have had little by the way of signings during the 2012 off-season and have mostly maintained players or have made free agent signings
which can be considered as routine.
The O’s primary concern has been to add a good hitter to their ranks who can help the ball club up their runs production. The team is considered to be having a surplus in the pitching department particularly the bullpen.
A signing of a free agent relieving pitcher would be interesting in this case. There have been speculations that some of the pitchers, particularly relatively young ones may be shipped out to other teams for want of strong batters. A signing of Matt could
mean that the birds may actually be trading more than one of the younger guys and looking to keep the experience with them.
The right-handed Lindstrom has been playing in the Majors for five years now. He has a 13-15 record in the Majors where he has been a relieving pitcher from day one. He does have 45 saves and 65 holds to his name with a career ERA of 3.64.
Matt has so far represented five different ball clubs. He had a three seasons long stint with the then Florida Marlins. In 2010, Matt made his career high 23 saves in a single season in 58 games for the Houston Astros. He had a 4.39 ERA that year with a
2-5 win-loss record.
With his experience, Matt Lindstrom can prove to be an asset for any team in the Major League. If he can produce similar numbers 2013 to those that he produced in 2012, he will certainly be more than useful for any ball club that signs him. As they say,
nothing can replace experience and that is something Matt has plenty of.
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