Tampa Bay Rays Promote Chih-Wei Hu, Place Tommy Hunter on Disabled List

During last night’s game, Tommy Hunter injured his calf as he ran to cover first base on a groundball. There were crutches by his locker following the game, but he instead chose to limp out on his own accord. The Rays have now placed him on the 10-day disabled list with a right-calf strain.

In his place, the Rays have promoted one of their top pitching prospects, Chih Wei Hu. He’ll become the first Taiwan born player for the Rays and only the 12th in all of baseball history.

The Rays acquired Hu at the 2015 trade deadline in the trade of Kevin Jepsen to the Twins, and since that time Hu has become one of the top prospects for the Rays, as Baseball America has ranked him their 5th top prospect entering the 2016 season.

The 23 year old pitcher has actually spent parts of three seasons at the Triple-A level, but only has a grand total of five games at that level, four have come with the Durham Bulls (three this season) while the other came while he was in the Twins organization.

In 24 starts at Double-A last season, Hu had a 2.59 ERA with an 18.4% strikeout and 6.2% walk rate. Hu was previously featured as a Rays representative in the Futures Game during the All-Star Break.