{"id":732533,"date":"2026-06-12T20:10:08","date_gmt":"2026-06-12T20:10:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/732533\/"},"modified":"2026-06-12T20:10:08","modified_gmt":"2026-06-12T20:10:08","slug":"rockies-to-promote-sean-sullivan-for-mlb-debut","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/732533\/","title":{"rendered":"Rockies To Promote Sean Sullivan For MLB Debut"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Rockies are set to promote pitching prospect Sean Sullivan<\/a>, according to Kevin Henry of the Denver Gazette<\/a>. Sullivan will start tonight against the Athletics and make his major league debut in the process. The lefty is not on Colorado\u2019s 40-man roster, which is currently full. Thus, a corresponding move will be needed in order to select Sullivan\u2019s contract.<\/p>\n

Sullivan, 23, was the Rockies\u2019 second-round draft pick in the 2023 draft. He currently ranks as the organization\u2019s No. 11 prospect<\/a>, according to MLB.com. Sullivan fared well in 20 starts between Single-A and Double-A last year, posting a 2.94 ERA in 104 innings with a 24.9% strikeout rate. He\u2019s been less fortunate in 2026, with a 5.60 ERA in 11 starts at Triple-A.<\/p>\n

The 6\u20194\u2033 Sullivan is a bit of an oddity in terms of his raw stuff. He throws a four-seamer 41.0% of the time, but the pitch only averages 89.0 MPH. Sullivan mixes in an upper-70s slider 29.9% of the time, plus a changeup and cutter at 14-15% each. The changeup is Sullivan\u2019s best pitch, while scouting reports rate his fastball and slider as slightly below-average. Despite the low velocity, Sullivan generally thrives by leveraging pinpoint control and a deceptive, low three-quarters arm slot (video<\/a> courtesy of MLB.com). He walked just 6.0% of hitters in the minors last year and has walked 7.7% of hitters at Triple-A in 2026.<\/p>\n

Sullivan will now have a chance to prove himself in the big leagues as a control and deception guy. Tonight\u2019s game is at Las Vegas Ballpark, the hitter-friendly home of the Athletics\u2019 Triple-A affiliate. If he sticks around for multiple starts, Sullivan could then try his luck at high altitude, with the Rockies hosting the Red Sox at Coors Field from June 22-24.<\/p>\n

Rockies starters have performed poorly in 2026, as is seemingly the case every year. The rotation\u2019s 5.94 ERA is dead last in the Majors and 26% worse than average even accounting for the games at Coors. No Rockies starter has thrown enough innings to qualify, with Tomoyuki Sugano<\/a> just barely missing the cut at 68 1\/3 innings. Sugano\u2019s 4.08 ERA is palatable but well shy of his 7.39 xERA, which shows he\u2019s been extremely lucky. Michael Lorenzen<\/a> and Kyle Freeland<\/a> are the only others to throw at least 50 innings. Both have ERAs over 7.50.<\/p>\n

Given those underwhelming performances and injuries to other starts, there\u2019s little harm in calling up Sullivan. Chase Dollander<\/a>, one of the team\u2019s more promising arms, has been out with a right elbow sprain for over a month and is not expected to return soon. Tanner Gordon<\/a> made two starts at the end of May before landing on the 15-day injured list with a right hip impingement retroactive to June 2nd. He\u2019s expected to throw a bullpen soon. FanGraphs\u2019 RosterResource<\/a> tool currently has the club at a four-man rotation of Lorenzen, Ryan Feltner<\/a>, Freeland, and Sugano, so Sullivan can serve as the fifth starter until Gordon returns.<\/p>\n

Photo courtesy of Rick Scuteri, Imagn Images<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Rockies are set to promote pitching prospect Sean Sullivan, according to Kevin Henry of the Denver Gazette.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":732534,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[558],"tags":[64,63,591,354392,85],"class_list":["post-732533","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mlb","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-mlb","tag-sean-sullivan","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/732533","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=732533"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/732533\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/732534"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=732533"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=732533"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=732533"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}