Phillies place Fien on DL, recall Leiter to start Friday

A flurry of moves affecting both the Phillies bullpen and starting rotation have been completed

Phillies reliever Casey Fien has been placed on the 10-day disabled list with a rotator cuff strain. Fien’s injury comes after allowing five earned runs to the Cardinals Tuesday evening in two-thirds of an inning.

Replacing Fien on the Phillies 25-man roster will be Mark Leiter Jr. from the Lehigh Valley IronPigs. While featured as a bullpen arm in Philadelphia this season, Leiter will get a spot start against the Diamondbacks out west.

Leiter made his major league debut this season with Philadelphia, appearing out of the bullpen in 12 games. He’ll make the spot start in place of Jerad Eickhoff, who went on the disabled list with an upper back strain.

The 26-year-old Leiter made three starts in Lehigh Valley this year and holds a 4.74 ERA in Triple-A.

Having Leiter pitch is far from ideal, but the Phillies starting rotation has been decimated by injuries once again this year. They’ve lost Clay Buchholz for the year, while Eickhoff and Vincent Velasquez work their way back.

Both Eickhoff and Velasquez expect to return in the near future, which constituted Leiter making the start over a prospect such as Mark Appel or Jake Thompson.

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Leiter has never pitched more than three innings as a Phillie, which came on May 2 against the Cubs in Wrigley. Chicago scored two runs off three walks and a hit in Leiter’s three frames of work.