Shohei Ohtani (knee) progresses to facing hitters

Herz walked two, allowed one hit, and struck out two in the outing. The left-hander sat 91.7 mph on his four-seamer and threw 54 percent of his pitches for strikes while recording just a seven percent swinging strike rate. Herz is making his way back from Tommy John surgery but was also shut down in June with forearm tightness. Right now, it would just be great to see him pitch a few healthy innings for the Nationals in any capacity this year before heading into the offseason.

Some of the swings and misses we saw from Story last night were on pitches that were nowhere near the strike zone. Story claims that he hopes to return at some point this weekend against the Yankees, but he’s 4-for-28 in eight rehab games and has a 10/1 K/BB ratio over that span. The Red Sox could use his defense at shortstop with Andruw Monasterio struggling, but Story’s bat doesn’t seem ready.

Both of Williams’ hits like would have been caught if the Twins had Byron Buxton patrolling center field tonight. Or if they had Walker Jenkins there. Instead, though, it was Luke Keaschall, and he came up short of a running grab on the two-run triple and badly misplayed the double by coming in on the ball initially. That was great for Williams, who is now batting .268/.304/.416 in 161 plate appearances. That .720 OPS is 200 points better than his .519 mark from his 208 career major league plate appearances coming into the season.

Ginn gave up homers to Brooks Lee, Trevor Larnach and Kaelen Culpepper, but thanks to the A’s coming up with four runs in the bottom of the sixth, he improved to 9-8 on the season. He’s the first A’s starter to surrender three homers and win since Cole Irvin on Sept. 17, 2022. He’ll face the Rangers next Tuesday.

Alvarado was mostly taking a backseat to Hogan Harris in recent weeks, but this makes three saves in five days for him. The A’s will probably continue to alternate both guys based on matchups, but Alvarado has upped his stock with eight straight scoreless appearances.

Prielipp came close against the depleted A’s, but he went without a quality start for a seventh straight outing. His ERA stands at 5.55 through 19 big-league starts, but his rotation spot is probably safe until Joe Ryan gets back. He’s due to face the Tigers next week.

Larnach was back in left field tonight after being held out of the lineup for three straight games, including once against a righty. He had been 5-for-46 with no extra-base hits and one RBI since Aug. 4.

Peters was a surprise AL All-Star, but he still had just seven homers in 123 games until this incredible surge. Tonight’s homer was a 362-foot off Robby Ahlstrom in the fifth. He’s raised his OPS from .751 to .821 since Saturday.

That month when Burke looked like an ace sure was fun. Still, walking eight and allowing only two runs is some kind of accomplishment; the last pitcher to do it was Mitch Keller in 2020. Though just lasting long enough to walk eight is hard enough to accomplish these days; Cole Ragans in May was the only other pitcher to walk eight this year or last. Burke has given up 10 runs over 13 1/3 innings in his last three starts, and with his velocity spike having gone away, he’s no longer an every-week option in mixed leagues. He’ll face the Astros next time out.

Cannon entered with a 10-2 lead in his second MLB appearance of the season tonight. He’ll likely continue to pitch multiple innings at a time as a reliever if he sticks around; he did throw 66 pitches tonight, so there’s a chance the White Sox could swap him out for a fresh arm.