Anthony Bender to IL with shin stress reaction

Ashcraft will have a chance to make his first outings since May after spraining his right UCL. The 28-year-old was a key cog in the Reds’ bullpen before the injury, and he should pitch in the mid-to-late innings once activated.

Johnson gave up four hits, walked two and struck out six. He fell to 3-8 in 18 appearances (15 starts). Johnson had a 1.71 ERA in five starts in August and continued his excellent run of pitching in his first start of September. It’s still difficult to really buy into Johnson as he still has a 5.17 ERA and 5.36 xFIP on the season. He’s lined up to face the Red Sox on the road next week.

It was Busch’s 18th of the season, but it’s hard to ignore how cold he’s looked of late: He’s hitting .172 in his last 15 games and has just a .391 slugging percentage on the season. The underlying numbers aren’t quite awful, but his barrel rate of 9.0 percent is the lowest it’s been as a full-time starter. Sure would be nice for the Cubs if this game got him on a heater as they look to head to the postseason.

Conine, hitting .254/.354/.479 on the season, has been in a mini-funk, hitting .188/.304/.250 over his last 15 games even after this effort. Perhaps this’ll get him turned around. Kyle Stowers’ uncertain status going forward with his hamstring means Conine could get regular playing time against righties as the season winds down.

Don’t think this’ll happen again — though if you had a nickel for every time it happened this year you’d have two nickels — but Civale will stump future generations on the “starters who won 50 games but also had a save” list. Or at least he will if he manages to win three more games as a starter before his career is over.

Pulled after five innings, Junk could only watch reliever Jack Ralston came in and immediately load the bases to create a blowout situation. In Junk’s last seven games he’s got a 2.45 ERA in 29 1/3 innings and he has exactly one win to show for it. To be fair, he has only struck out 13 and has only gone more than five innings once in that timespan. It still feels like the Marlins are wasting good starts as they try to hang in the NL Wild Card race. Junk has a matchup with the Mets on deck for next week; at least the Marlins always seem to find a way to beat them in September.

He allowed just three hits and didn’t walk anybody, the Cubs pulled him after a leadoff single in the seventh. The splitter was working for him tonight, as he got a career-high 17 whiffs with it. It’s largely just a game of if Imanaga’s stuff will get hit over the fence, and the Marlins didn’t manage to do so. Over his five August starts, Imanaga allowed 10 homers and had a 5.96 ERA. This is more like it. Too bad he can’t pitch in cavernous loanDepot park every day. Instead, he’ll pitch against the Brewers next week in a dicey matchup.

Jones gave up three hits, walked one and struck out nine. He improved to 3-6 in 17 starts this year. Jones went 0-4 and had a 7.40 ERA in five starts in August, but was able to turn the page and get off to an excellent start in September. He has a 4.46 ERA. Jones is lined up to face the White Sox on the road next week.

Whether or not getting dropped to sixth in the lineup had anything to do with it, Turang turned in his best game in weeks tonight. He wasn’t running at 100 percent while dealing with right knee soreness, but he picked up three hits for the first time since Aug. 8.