MLB Player News

Holliday hasn’t played since last Tuesday due to inflammation in his right middle finger. Cardinals manager Tony La Russa did not have an update from the training staff prior to Monday’s game, but Holliday has yet to resume swinging a bat, suggesting that the pain has not subsided. While his status remains in a state of limbo, the hot-hitting Allen Craig should continue to see regular playing time in left field.

Ross finds himself back in the fold with Arizona as organizational depth after spending a couple days on the open market. The 32-year-old reliever was tagged for eight runs over 3 2/3 innings across three appearances for the Diamondbacks prior to being designated for assignment last Friday.

Rodriguez hit the shelf at the conclusion of an encouraging spring training with shoulder inflammation and was limited to flat-ground throwing for the last few weeks. The 26-year-old former top prospect will require several weeks of build up before he’s ready for a minor league rehab assignment, which puts any potential return back into sometime in May.

Dodgers manager Dave Roberts told reporters Rojas was scratched to tend to a family matter. Hyeseong Kim takes over at shortstop and will bat eighth in his place.

Hader has been on the shelf since spring training recovering from biceps tendinitis and is still in the early stages of his throwing progression. He figures to be cleared to start a minor league rehab assignment after a couple live batting practice sessions. There haven’t been a ton of save chances in Houston so far with Bryan Abreu and Bryan King seemingly in the driver’s seat until Hader is ready to return at some point next month.

Harris takes a seat for the first time this season after hitting .209 (9-for-43) with one homer across 11 games to open the season. Eli White is patrolling center field and facing Angels lefty Yusei Kikuchi in this one.

After Taylor Ward doubled in Blaze Alexander to tie the game, Henderson homered off Chris Murphy to make it 4-2 in the top of the eighth. Since going 0-for-8 with five strikeouts in his first two games, Henderson is hitting .297 with four homers and nine RBI in his last nine games.

Rogers has given up multiple runs in back-to-back starts, and while that’s obviously just fine when we’re talking about two runs over six innings both times, it’s something that never happened last year, when Smith allowed one run or fewer in 13 of his 18 outings. Both runs today came in the third, as the White Sox put together three straight hits with two outs, none of them leaving the bat at over 90 mph. Rogers exited the game in line for a loss, but the Orioles let him off the hook in the eighth, leaving him 2-0 with a 1.89 ERA ahead of his next start Sunday against the Giants or Monday versus the Diamondbacks.

Helsley threw 24 pitches in earning a save Monday night, but the Orioles still brought him back on a cold afternoon in Chicago, and he got through the outing pretty easily even though his velocity was down by two mph. Helsley should get Wednesday off after this, perhaps creating a save chance for Tyler Wells or Rico Garcia.

According to Baseball-Reference’s Player Rater, this is the fourth outing of all-time to conclude with at least eight strikeouts and five walks in fewer than four innings. In the other three of those (Bob Veale in 1965, Ryan Dempster in 1999 and Rich Harden in 2010), the pitcher allowed three or four runs, but Smith managed to keep the Orioles scoreless. Just five of his 99 pitches were put into play today and only a 108-mph grounder from Samuel Basallo turned into a hit. Smith lowered his ERA from 19.29 to 10.80, but the White Sox surely wanted more than 11 outs from him. His rotation spot will be in some jeopardy if he doesn’t put together a quality showing against the Royals this weekend.

Unless Benintendi was hurt on an embarrassing HBP/strikeout in the third — the pitch hit him on the back shoulder area as he was in the process of swinging — it seems pretty notable that the White Sox preferred Tristan Peters to him against right-handed closer Ryan Helsley (it didn’t work out). Benintendi is batting .179/.207/.179 with one RBI and 12 strikeouts in 29 plate appearances. Even though he’s still due another $14.5 million in 2027, the White Sox might just go ahead and move on at some point.