According to the Free Press, RHP Francis Beltran has joined the big league club and Ryan Raburn was sent down to Toledo to make room. This is due to a negative outcome from Fernando Rodney’s latest bullpen session:

Leyland said that when Rodney had his latest bullpen session Friday at the team’s spring-training base in Florida, he had stop to throwing because of pain in his shoulder. Leyland said the news on Rodney “isn’t good at all.”

This, obviously, puts a timely return by Rodney even more in doubt and raises questions of whether he will return at all. Fernando faced shoulder issues through the entire 2007 season which caused major struggles for the first few months. These lingering problems don’t seem to be subsiding so we shouldn’t be surprised if surgery is in his future.

Beltran saw limited action during Spring Training making appearances in 10 games in which he allowed 13 hits and 7 walks with only 5 strikeouts. His ERA was 1.42 but those peripheral stats are not impressive. Beltran has had a long career in the minor leagues after being signed by the Cubs in 1996 but has only seen 61.3 innings in the major leagues. We should keep our expectations low here with the purpose being to allow more rest for the other bullpen pitchers.