different pablo sandoval this year...seems ok with his role....pitching ,3rd base ,second base,... even beating out throws to get infield singles....of course Boston is paying huge dollars for this...
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Sandoval made a great play at second base yesterday.Comment -
Verlander pitches another gem. I want what he's taking.Comment -
Do you guys think Serena can win the French?Comment -
Diamondbacks right Shelby Miller is set to embark upon a rehab assignment beginning tomorrow night, as MLB.com’s Steve Gilbert writes. That’s encouraging news for both player and team, as it suggests he’s now not all that far from returning to a MLB mound.
Miller, who’s about 13 months removed from Tommy John surgery, will be looking to reestablish himself in advance of his final season of arbitration eligibility. It’s not yet known exactly how many starts he will make in the minors. Presumably, that’ll be determined in no small part by how his elbow responds. The rules allow up to thirty days for a pitcher’s rehab assignment.
Last we saw him in the majors, Miller was giving reason to believe he could put his miserable 2016 season in the rearview mirror. He turned in three strong starts to open the ensuing campaign — including a fastball velocity boost (to 95.5 mph) and swinging-strike rebound (9.6%) — only to see the elbow problem arise and cut his season short.
The Arizona organization will hope that Miller can regain that momentum on the other side of his TJ rehab. There’s clearly some interesting upside; in 2015, Miller threw 205 1/3 innings of 3.02 ERA ball. Whether he has that kind of effort left in his 27-year-old right arm remains to be seen. Miller says he has “felt really good physically” but believes “there’s some room to work on some command stuff” as he prepares for his return to competitive action.
It’s notable, too, that lefty Robbie Ray has a notable date tomorrow. He’s due to have his injured oblique examined for progress. It’s even possible that he will throw a pen session if the imaging looks good. While we’ll obviously need to wait to see how the medical evaluation goes, it seems generally promising that these steps are even under contemplation at this point. Ray hit the DL about a month ago with what seemed to be a rather significant muscle injury.
The D-Backs undoubtedly miss Miller and Ray, particularly with the team presently enduring an extended slide. Every piece of talent helps, after all, even though run-prevention has been a notable strength to this point of the season. But the lagging offense is the real problem, and that’s an ongoing concern that won’t be addressed by the eventual return of those hurlers.
The player the Snakes miss most, surely, is center fielder A.J. Pollock. He’ll also be looked at tomorrow to see how his fractured thumb is healing. When that injury was announced, there was a fair bit of uncertainty in Pollock’s timeline, so the results will be of no little interest for a club that badly misses its most productive hitter through the first six weeks of the season. Pollock, too, is surely anxious to get back in action after missing so much time in recent seasons. Once he’s back, he’ll be looking to shore up his free-agent stock, which had been on the rise before he hit the DL.Comment -
Justin Verlander has allowed more than one earned run once in his last 10 startsComment -
The Mariners remain just one game behind the Astros with yet another one-run victory, 2-1 over the Rangers. They're 16-8 in one-run games and nine of their past 11 wins have been by one run.Comment -
Kershaw off the DL, is scheduled to start Thursday's home gameComment -
Giants right-hander Jeff Samardzija exited Tuesday’s start after just one inning due to tightness in his right shoulder, writes Alex Pavlovic of NBC Sports Bay Area. Any shoulder trouble for a pitcher, of course, is concerning to an extent, but Samardzija’s early exit comes with extra cause for worry given that his fastball was sitting at 91 mph on Tuesday, per Pavlovic. Samardzija’s velocity has been down, in general, early this season, but he’d previously averaged 92.4 mph. The injury to Samardzija is the latest blow to a Giants rotation that has yet to receive a single inning from Madison Bumgarner this season and also lost Johnny Cueto for an extended period earlier this month. In 35 2/3 innings this season, Samardzija has lumped to a 6.56 ERA with 6.6 K/9, 5.8 BB/9, 1.51 HR/9 and a 33.9 percent ground-ball rate.
Some more injury updates from around baseball…
- Tigers manager Ron Gardenhire told reporters tonight that the team has placed left-handers Francisco Liriano and Daniel Stumpf on the disabled list due to a right hamstring strain and ulnar nerve irritation, respectively (Twitter links via Anthony Fenech of the Detroit Free Press). It’s not clear exactly how long either is expected to miss, though the move will send one of the team’s top trade chips shelf (Liriano) while leaving Gardenhire without a left-handed option in the bullpen. Ryan Carpenter is coming up to join the team’s rotation for the time being, per MLB.com’s Jason Beck (on Twitter), while right-hander Johnny Barbato will be added to the bullpen.
- A.J. Pollock’s fractured thumb has not yet fully healed, D-backs skipper Torey Lovullo told reporters (Twitter link via Nick Piecoro of the Arizona Republic). That didn’t come as a surprise to the organization, per Lovullo, who said that Pollock’s progress is “exactly where we thought it would be.” As Piecoro indicates, the latest update suggests that Pollock’s return won’t come on the short end of his originally projected timetable of four to eight weeks. The short end of that timeline would’ve lined up Pollock for a return in mid-June, but the eight-week timeline would extend his absence closer to the All-Star break.
- The Dodgers pulled Kenta Maeda from tonight’s start in the second inning due to a right hip strain, tweets Alanna Rizzo of SportsNetLA. The Dodgers trainers checked on Maeda on two separate occasions in the second frame, and he was pulled on the trainer’s second trip to the mound. Los Angeles is already without Clayton Kershaw, Rich Hill and Hyun-Jin Ryu, each of whom is on the disabled list, though Kershaw is likely to return this week. Maeda, who owns a 3.61 ERA and a 68-to-18 K/BB ratio in 52 1/3 frames this season, would represent another costly loss at a time when L.A. was hoping to see its rotation begin inching toward better health with the return of Kershaw.
- Steven Matz exited tonight’s start with discomfort in his left middle finger, though the Mets said that x-rays have already ruled out a broken bone, per Kristie Ackert of the New York Daily News. The injury occurred when swinging in his latest at-bat, and Matz is headed for an MRI for further evaluation, tweets Tim Britton of The Athletic. The Mets already lost Noah Syndergaard to the DL earlier today, so even a brief absence for Matz would be all the more problematic. On the plus side for the Mets, right-hander Anthony Swarzak made a rehab appearance in Triple-A Las Vegas tonight and threw a scoreless inning with two strikeouts and one hit allowed.
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I will not be surprised to see the Giants right in the mix at the end of the divisional raceComment -
Juan Soto makes his leadoff debut tonight for the Nationals. Soto, who's hitting .393 since being called up from A-ball, has started games in the second, fifth, and sixth slots already.. The 19-year old rookie has a .485 on-base percentage.Comment -
I'm stoked my Reds came back to over take Corbin & Arz. !!!!
Finally not rolling over when down....
Wish I saw this below. live
Reds were +850 on in-game money line when trailing 4-0 in 4th inning.....and just won 7-4 (Diamondbacks were -1500)Comment -
Dbacks had their chances down the stretch. Suarez is a hitting machine for the red legs.Comment -
wow Giants actually hung on and won a game.......Comment -
The Twins delivered some unfortunate injury news to reporters today, revealing that center fielder Byron Buxton is headed back to the disabled list due to his fractured big toe and that Ervin Santana’s rehab assignment has been halted due to ongoing discomfort in his surgically repaired finger (Twitter links via Rhett Bollinger of MLB.com and Dan Hayes of The Athletic). Buxton will have his toe re-examined, while Santana will be examined by a specialist.
It’s been a dismal season for Buxton, who landed on the DL in mid-April for what the club hoped would be a minimal stay due to ongoing migraine issues. Instead, Buxton fouled a ball into his foot on his rehab assignment and sustained a fractured toe which has plagued him since.
Though a six-week timetable for the foot to heal completely was provided, the Twins made the surprising decision to activate Buxton from that DL trip without sending him on a minor league rehab assignment. 1500 ESPN’s Darren Wolfson tweets that today’s decision to place Buxton back on the DL stems from the fact that he’s simply been in too much pain to use his lower half at the plate.
Overall, Buxton has turned in a brutal .159/.187/.205 slash this season, and he’s gone just 6-for-47 since coming off the disabled list and trying to play through the fractured toe. That, obviously, is a far cry from what looked to be a breakout year for Buxton in 2017, when he batted .253/.314/.413 with 16 homers and 29 steals while winning Gold Glove and Platinum Glove honors for his work in the outfield.
[Related: Updated Minnesota Twins depth chart]
With Buxton on the shelf, the Twins will have a number of options to handle center field duties. Ryan LaMarre is currently on the big league roster and can see some time at the position, though both of the Twins’ primary corner outfielders, Eddie Rosario and Max Kepler, are also capable of playing center field.
The news on Santana is equally if not more disheartening for a Twins club that had hoped to get its primary rotation anchor back in the near future. The 35-year-old Santana underwent surgery on his middle finger in February and had been hopeful of returning at some point in May or in early June, but it seems he’ll now need a new wave of testing and could see his season debut delayed quite a bit further.
Since signing with the Twins on a four-year, $55MM deal, Santana has turned in 500 2/3 innings of 3.47 ERA ball. He was especially effective in 2016-17, logging a 3.32 ERA with 7.2 K/9 against 2.6 BB/9 (though fielding-independent metrics indicated that he had a fair bit of good fortune on his side over that span). With Santana now sidelined indefinitely, the Twins will continue to lean on Jose Berrios, Jake Odorizzi, Kyle Gibson, Lance Lynn and impressive rookie Fernando Romero in the rotation for the time being.Comment -
Ready for the Jays to be sellers and then start the Vlad Jr. era asap.Comment -
Buxton is a poor man's Billy Hamilton this season. So much speed and can't hit for shit.Comment -
Feels like halep might win the French open.Comment -
Jose Ramirez is on pace for 51 home runs and 51 doubles. The only player to do the 50/50 combo: Albert Belle. Remarkably, he did it with the Indians in the strike-shortened season of 1995.Comment
