CINCINNATI — Twins right-hander Jose Berrios won’t just be making his second straight trip to the All-Star Futures Game in Cincinnati on July 12. He will be coming to Great American Ball Park as as Triple-A pitcher.
Berrios, 21, announced his long-expected promotion to the Rochester Red Wings on his Twitter account Tuesday morning. He will make his 2015 Red Wings debut on Friday at Lehigh Valley, replacing Ervin Santana in the rotation.
In 15 starts this season for the Double-A Chattanooga Lookouts, Berrios is 8-3 with a 3.08 earned-run average.
In 90 2/3 innings, he has struck out 92 batters while posting nine quality starts.
The 32nd overall pick in the 2012 draft out of a Bayamon, Puerto Rico, high school, Berrios has worked his way into a clear status as the Twins’ top pitching prospect. He was knocked out of his start on June 14 after taking a comebacker off his right shin/calf area, but he bounced back to make two solid starts for the Lookouts.
Berrios posted a 3.62 ERA in June, a 1.85 ERA on the road and a 4.50 ERA in his hitter-friendly home park. Right-handers are hitting .245 with a .290 on-base percentage against him this year; lefties are hitting just .216 with a .293 OBP.
He finished his 2014 season with one start for the Red Wings, but he lasted just three innings and gave up six earned runs.
Berrios, who made 23 starts at Double-A over the past two seasons, impressed Twins manager Paul Molitor at big-league spring training this year.
“Confident little man,” Molitor said in March. “Lofty goals, and why not? It’s good to be able to have vision about yourself and have imagination about where you think you can go with your abilities and your desire to get there. … I haven’t been following his Twitter account, but I think he’s pretty confident and not in a bad way. If I could pitch like that at (21), I’d be confident too.”
In 365 career professional innings, Berrios is 30-18 with a 3.06 ERA and a nine-inning strikeout rate of 9.39.
Follow Mike Berardino at Twitter.com/MikeBerardino.
