Pirates promote Deolis Guerra, place Rob Scahill on disabled list

The Pirates have announced that they've placed Rob Scahill on the 15-day disabled list with forearm tightness and selected the contract of righty Deolis Guerra. To clear space on the 40-man roster for Guerra, the Pirates have moved Andrew Lambo to the 60-day DL.

I didn't expect much from Guerra after the Pirates signed him to a minor-league deal last winter, but he's pitched very well for Indianapolis, with 37 strikeouts and eight walks and a 1.23 ERA in 36.2 innings there. He really isn't a ground ball pitcher, so he's not generally the Pirates' type. When you pitch as well as he has this season, though, that doesn't matter much, especially when there's a need.

Guerra spent several seasons before this one mostly struggling in the Twins system, first as a starter and then as a reliever. His claim to fame so far has been that the Twins acquired him when they traded Johan Santana to the Mets. The 26-year-old Guerra has never pitched in the big leagues.

We'll see when Scahill returns. It's a shame this move couldn't have happened yesterday, at which point it was already known that Scahill was having health issues -- he took the loss last night after giving up a homer in the 13th inning.