Angels call up Omar Martinez, place Travis d'Arnaud on injured list

Travis d’Arnaud’s right foot plantar fasciitis did more than put an established big league catcher on the injured list. It immediately pushed Omar Martinez out of Salt Lake, into an Angels uniform, and then back again, while Ryan Johnson’s rehab assignment added another moving part to a Triple-A roster already absorbing the ripple effects.

The Angels placed d’Arnaud on the 10-day injured list retroactive to May 7, and the club selected Martinez’s contract from Triple-A Salt Lake to cover the catching vacancy. Martinez, 24, was born in San Felix, Venezuela, bats left-handed and throws right-handed, and made his major league debut on May 8. The move came as the Angels’ catching depth took another hit, forcing the organization to lean on the Bees for immediate help.

For Salt Lake, the practical effect was straightforward: Martinez lost innings the moment he was called up, and the club had to redistribute catching work on the fly. That kind of shuffling matters in Triple-A, where every start is part evaluation and part emergency response. Martinez had been in the system as a catcher and first baseman, and his brief stay in the majors underscored how quickly a player can be pulled from the Bees when the parent club needs a stopgap.

The churn did not stop there. The Angels transferred Johnson’s rehab assignment to Triple-A Salt Lake on May 8 after he began the process at Single-A Rancho Cucamonga on May 2. Johnson had opened the year on the injured list retroactive to April 3 with a viral infection and hamstring discomfort, then worked his way upward through the system. He later threw five innings in a Salt Lake rehab start on May 8, a sign that the assignment was no token appearance but a meaningful step toward rejoining the Angels’ pitching staff.

That matters for the Bees because rehab work can crowd out normal roster usage. Johnson was activated from the 15-day injured list on May 13, and Martinez was optioned back to Salt Lake on May 14, but the sequence showed how quickly the Angels can use Triple-A as both a proving ground and a holding pattern. Martinez’s return restored one catcher to the Bees, yet the larger picture remained unsettled: d’Arnaud’s foot injury had created the opening, Martinez filled it briefly, and Johnson’s rehab added one more layer of roster pressure in Salt Lake.