Passan: Skubal could get $50M/year if no cap

Batting from the ninth spot in the order, Salas had a solo homer in the second and a two-run homer in the fifth. At 20 years and 107 days, he’s the youngest players to have a two-homer game since Vladimir Guerrero Jr. in 2019. He’s the youngest catcher to do so since at least 1900, overtaking Butch Wynegar in 1976 (20 years, 192 days). Salas’s only previous hit in eight major league games was a triple. With his three hits having counted for 11 total bases, he’s sporting an interesting .143/.143/.524 line to date.

Ray allowed three hits, walked two and struck out six to move to 3-2 with a 5.22 ERA in eight starts for the Padres and 13-8 with a 3.60 ERA overall. He’ll face the Dodgers next Tuesday and then maybe the D-backs in the regular season finale.

After going without one in his first four starts, Adams’ first career decision turned out to be a loss, as he gave up nearly as many runs tonight and is in his previous outings combined (seven runs in 18 2/3 innings). He’ll have another home start next week against the Diamondbacks.

Taylor had been without an RBI in 11 games since coming off the IL on Aug. 30. Still, he has been running. He’s 4-for-5 in his 12 games since returning and 10-for-12 overall in 38 games on the season.

Even Jung’s outs tonight were hit well, traveling a projected 367 and 350 feet. The latter was a homer in five ballparks and required a nice jumping catch from Wilyer Abreu to prevent it from going off the wall at Globe Life. Jung is 7-for-18 in four games since coming off the injured list on Saturday.

Gore gave up a two-run homer in the first and got a visit from the trainer in the second, but he stayed in and kept the Rangers in the game despite going without a strikeout. Manager Skip Schumaker said afterwards that the issue was muscle spasms in his back and shoulder. Gore is due to make his next start Tuesday against the Mets, though the Rangers could switch things around after an off day Monday. Gore has allowed 17 runs, walked 17 and struck out just 11 over 20 innings in his last five starts.

Eovaldi came into a 3-3 game to start the fifth and went the distance, allowing just one hit in the process. He threw 46 pitches in his second appearance since coming off the IL. The Rangers will probably give him another long relief appearance this weekend before maybe sliding him back into the rotation next week.

Bennett averaged a season-low 91.8 mph with his fastball tonight. He got seven strikeouts anyway, and he gave up just five hard-hit balls. However, every one of those hard-hit balls turned into hits, as did three non-hard-hit grounders. Bennett will face the Guardians on Tuesday.

This was Lynch IV’s best outing since returning to the Royals’ rotation full-time in early August. He leaned a bit more into his changeup against the right-handed heavy Astros’ lineup and mostly located it well fading away from them. Also consistently efficient, he only threw more than 14 pitches in one of his five innings as Houston practically did not threaten at any moment. He’s tentatively scheduled for a two-start week to close the season against the White Sox and Guardians with both starts at home.

On for the ninth inning in a four-run game, Cruz instantly served up a solo home run to Yainer Diaz to make this game a bit closer. Daulton Varsho then singled with two outs to put the tying run in the on-deck circle, but Cruz struck out Jorge Barrosa to end the game. Nate Pearson pitched the eighth inning in what was a five run lead at the time and let the Astros score one too. Pearson came in to face the top of their order, so he still appears to be slightly ahead of Cruz in the Royals’ bullpen pecking order.