MLB Player News

The bottom of the Yankee lineup did much of the damage in the 15-run outburst against. Miguel Cairo, Melky Cabrera and Stinnett combined for nine of the 15 hits and 10 of the 14 RBI.

Leahy made it through the first two innings without much of an issue, but the righty surrendered two solo homers in the third inning to Christian Vázquez and Yordan Alvarez to give the Astros their first two runs on the night. Leahy would get touched up for another solo homer in the fifth inning courtesy of Jose Altuve, but was solid when he was able to keep the ball in the park. Leahy has pitched five innings in three of his four starts this season, but is carrying a 5.21 ERA into his next start, which is scheduled for Wednesday against the Marlins.

Mitchell singled home Gary Sanchez in the fourth inning to give the Brewers a 1-0 lead, kickstarting a three-run fourth for the Brewers. In extras, Mitchell all but put the game out of reach for the Brewers when he doubled to drive in Joey Ortiz and Jake Bauers to put the Brewers up 7-4 in the 10th. Mitchell has four hits in his last 13 at-bats and has also drawn four walks in his last four games.

Lopez hit a one-out triple in the fourth inning and came in to score on a sac fly by Owen Caissie. Then, in the sixth inning and with a runner on second, Lopez smoked a 425-foot blast to deep center field for a two-run homer, cutting Milwaukee’s lead to 4-3. He remains sizzling hot at the dish, hitting safely in his last six games while going 10-for-24 with three extra base hits and six RBI.

Junk pitched 3 1/3 innings of scoreless ball, but loaded the bases with one out in the fourth. After putting Luis Rengifo on first via an HBP, Junk then allowed a single to Garrett Mitchell, which scored Gary Sanchez from third. An RBI by Greg Jones on a fielder’s choice, followed by Rengifo coming around to score on a throwing error, suddenly gave the Brewers a 3-0 lead. Junk would return to pitch a scoreless fifth and was pulled with one out in the sixth inning after walking Jake Bauers and allowing an RBI double to Rengifo to bring home Bauers on the next at-bat. Junk has allowed three earned runs or fewer in three of his four starts. His next start is scheduled for Wednesday against the Cardinals.

Crow was solid in his MLB debut, allowing just five total baserunners on the evening and two runs. Crow retired eight of the first nine batters he faced, and didn’t allow his first run until the fourth inning, when Owen Caissie drove in Otto Lopez on a sacrifice fly. Crow would be charged with one more run in the sixth inning, after he left with one out and a runner on second. That runner would come in to score via a two-run homer by Lopez, which cut the Brewers’ lead to 4-3. Two of the four hits Crow allowed went for extra bases, but he was in command of the strike zone all night, throwing 71.4 percent of his pitches for strikes while walking only one batter. If he sticks around to make another start, Crow would be on tap to face the Tigers on Thursday in Detroit.

After a few rough outings last week, Bednar has now picked up saves in back-to-back outings while striking out four of the seven batters he faced. The lefty allowed a leadoff walk to Carter Jensen to start the ninth inning, but followed that with a lineout by Lane Thomas and back-to-back strikeouts to end things. Bednar’s six saves on the season puts him in a four-way tie for the most of any pitcher to start the year.

This was a classic Webb start. Despite constant traffic on the bases and the need to work out of trouble, he still found a way to finish that sixth inning. Sadly, a quality start was in sight before a two-out single by José Tena pushed the Nationals’ fourth run across in the sixth. One cause for relative concern, Webb allowed a whopping 14 hard-hit balls in this one and only forced 5 swings-and-misses. We’d like to see him flip-flop those numbers moving forward. He has a tall task next time out which is scheduled to come against the mighty Dodgers.

Who is this contact-oriented version of Chapman? His two-out, two-run single in the second cemented what turned into a big inning for the Giants to put the Nationals to bed early. Through three weeks of play, he now has an uncharacteristically high .291 batting average, low strikeout rate, and just one home run. He’s made an adjustment to shorten up his swing a bit, but that hasn’t detracted from his high bat speed. This might be a fun, new version of Chapman.

Wood is on fire. He launched this home run 441 feet at 110.5 mph off the bat and it soared through the night sky. Simultaneously shocking yet completely unsurprising, he hit this moonshot to the opposite field. It just doesn’t make sense how he can hit it so far oppo that consistently. Regardless, Wood has five home runs over his last 12 games and could be taking a leap forward in the process.

Rice put the Yankees on the scoreboard in the bottom of the fourth inning when he sent a middle-low changeup from Michael Wacha 385 feet into the right field seats to put the Yanks up 2-0. Rice has now homered in back-to-back games, with his 16 RBI leading the Yankees despite his having 16 fewer at-bats than Aaron Judge on the young season. With the Royals scheduled to start lefty Noah Cameron on Saturday, there’s a good chance Rice will find himself on the bench for the second game of the series.