Serven homers in ninth as A’s lose again

Marte served as a DH in his first two games back and then didn’t play Wednesday. With Marte at second, Ildemaro Vargas is on the bench Friday for the first time since Aug. 16, which was the last time Marte played second base prior to his stints on the restricted and injured lists.

Max Kepler is starting tonight for the first time since Saturday, but still no Gurriel. Gurriel might have started against a left-hander on Tuesday, but Ketel Marte was limited to DH duties then. The D-backs clearly don’t believe he’s one of their better choices against right-handers, so it seems he’ll finish out his time with the team in a bit role.

Basallo was playing against lefties more often than not before his IL stint last month, but he’s started against just one of six since returning. It also might factor in these last two days that the Orioles want to take advantage of Carlos Narváez’s familiarity with his former Red Sox teammates. Plus, Basallo did suffer a minor hand injury last weekend.

Guzman started 15 of the Angels’ 17 games from Aug. 12-30, but he’s taking a backseat to Oswald Peraza now, even though Peraza is batting .155 in 67 plate appearances int he second half and last drove in a run on July 19. The Angels might be trying to figure out whether Peraza should be in their plans for 2027. Guzman, who is still just 22 and has a couple of option years left after this one, isn’t under that kind of pressure.

De La Cruz has been limited by quad tightness that forced him out of Sunday’s game. Now that he’s back in the field, Juan Brito is taking a seat tonight.

It’s the first time this season Turang, who missed four games with right knee pain last month, has hit lower than third, but it makes sense with him batting .135/.229/.203 in his last 18 games. With Turang hitting sixth, Sal Frelick is in the leadoff spot tonight, even though he has just a .305 OBP this season. Frelick, however, is 4-for-8 lifetime against Reds starter Rhett Lowder.

Helsley has been on the IL since the end of June with a second round of elbow soreness. He might return for the final 7-10 days of the regular season.

He’ll be part of the low-leverage mix for the Astros going forward as they try to figure out the middle-to-late innings without LHP Steven Okert.

This is a tough one for the Astros; Okert has a 2.13 ERA and has allowed just 45 hits in 67 2/3 innings as one of Josh Hader’s main setup men. There’s no timeline for a return just yet and hamstrings are tricky things; they’ll try to manage the AL West race without him for at least the next two weeks.

No surprise here. Rafaela seemed optimistic he’d skip a trip to the injured list while manager Chad Tracy was a little more evasive on the topic last night. Consider Rafaela day-to-day for now; we wouldn’t be surprised if he missed more games this weekend.