{"id":735,"date":"2013-06-20T18:45:00","date_gmt":"2013-06-20T18:45:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/staging.stub.com\/hq\/news\/rockies-call-up-oswalt-demote-francis\/"},"modified":"2013-06-20T18:45:00","modified_gmt":"2013-06-20T18:45:00","slug":"rockies-call-up-oswalt-demote-francis","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.stub.com\/hq\/news\/rockies-call-up-oswalt-demote-francis\/","title":{"rendered":"Rockies call up Oswalt, demote Francis"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Washington, DC (Sports Network) &#8211; Roy Oswalt will return to a major league mound for the first time in more than eight months when the Rockies face the Washington Nationals on Thursday, with Colorado officially selecting the veteran hurler&#8217;s contract from Double-A Tulsa.<\/p>\n<p>Oswalt, a three-time All-Star with 163 career victories in the majors, was signed to a minor league contract by the Rockies in May. The 35-year-old went 3-2 with a 2.16 earned run average in five appearances with Tulsa to prepare for the starting assignment in Tuesday&#8217;s matchup.<\/p>\n<p>The right-hander spent last season with the Texas Rangers, but was not re- signed after posting a career-worst 5.80 ERA in 17 games (nine starts) and allowing 79 hits and 11 home runs over 59 innings.<\/p>\n<p>Oswalt recorded back-to-back 20-win campaigns with the Astros in 2004 and 2005, but has gone just 13-13 with a 4.32 ERA while pitching for Philadelphia and the Rangers over the past two seasons.<\/p>\n<p>The Rockies also optioned Jeff Francis, the second-winningest pitcher in franchise history, to Triple-A Colorado Springs in a corresponding move. To make room for Oswalt on the 40-man roster, pitcher Chris Volstad was designated for assignment.<\/p>\n<p>Francis, a 17-game winner during Colorado&#8217;s run to its only World Series appearance in 2007, has struggled mightily this season. The 32-year-old lefty went 2-5 with a 6.58 ERA in 11 starts and was rocked for eight runs and 10 hits over six innings in his most recent outing, an 8-3 loss at Toronto on Tuesday.<\/p>\n<p>Volstad, who won a career-high 12 games for the Marlins in 2010, allowed 10 runs and 19 hits over 8 1\/3 innings in six relief appearances with Colorado earlier this season.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Washington, DC (Sports Network) &#8211; Roy Oswalt will return to a major league mound for the first time in more than eight months when the Rockies face the Washington Nationals on Thursday, with Colorado officially selecting the veteran hurler&#8217;s contract from Double-A Tulsa. Oswalt, a three-time All-Star with 163 career victories in the majors, was [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[210,209,211],"class_list":["post-735","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-mlb","tag-colorado","tag-colorado-rockies","tag-rockies"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.stub.com\/hq\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/735","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.stub.com\/hq\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.stub.com\/hq\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.stub.com\/hq\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.stub.com\/hq\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=735"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.stub.com\/hq\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/735\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.stub.com\/hq\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=735"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.stub.com\/hq\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=735"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.stub.com\/hq\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=735"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}