MLB Player News

“If we get to Monday and he’s not well enough to take BP he probably won’t play,” Farrell said. Escobar hasn’t played since taking a pitch off his elbow on September 10. Fantasy owners shouldn’t be counting on his return.

Soto allowed an RBI double to Hunter Goodman before getting TJ Rumfield to ground out to end the game. It was his fourth save of the year. Soto is having an excellent season with a 1.69 ERA and 0.70 WHIP. Dennis Santana’s last save was on April 15, making Soto the preferred Pirates reliever to roster for now.

Skenes gave up two hits, walked none and struck out 10. He improved to 6-2 with the win and lowered his ERA to 1.98. Skenes dominated the Rockies for eight innings with Colorado’s lone run coming off closer Gregory Soto in the ninth inning. He’s lined up to face the Phillies at home on Sunday.

Alvarez appeared to be in some serious discomfort and limped off the field following a sixth-inning at-bat. It appeared to be some sort of right leg issue. He was 1-for-2 with a double and a run scored prior to exiting. He was replaced by Luis Torrens behind the plate. There should be an update on his status shortly.

Martínez homered off Angels starter Walbert Ureña in the third inning and nearly went deep for a second time in the contest his next time up, but was robbed at the right-field wall by a fantastic grab from Jo Adell. The 24-year-old power-hitting corner outfielder snapped a 15-game homerless drought in this one and is up to six round-trippers through 40 games this season. He’s also chipped in six steals as well. Martínez offers enough power/speed combo production that he’s a worthwhile middle infield option in extremely deep mixed leagues.

Smith got the call to protect a one-run lead in the eighth inning with the tying run already on-base and managed to strike out Sebastián Rivero to extinguish the threat. He came back out for the final frame and needed just four pitches total to retire Zach Neto and Mike Trout before winning an eight-pitch battle against Nolan Schanuel, getting him to chase a splitter in the dirt to end it. The 27-year-old elite fantasy stopper has converted 12 of 14 save opportunities and is tied with Mason Miller for the major-league lead this season.

Cecconi gave up five hits, walked one batter and needed 89 pitches to complete four frames, which prevented him from sticking around long enough to pick up a win. The seven punchouts were a season-high and just the fourth time in nine starts that he’s collected five or more this season. He’ll bring an underwhelming 5.60 ERA, 1.58 WHIP and 38/17 K/BB ratio across 45 innings into a road matchup against the Tigers on Monday to open a two-start week.

Ureña gave up three hits, including a third-inning solo homer to Angel Martínez, but got some help from right fielder Jo Adell when he took away a potential second round-tripper for Martínez in the fifth inning with a tremendous grab at the wall. The 22-year-old rookie struck out four and only issued one walk. He’s still walking too many batters, but he’s been a nice back-end rotation filler overall for the Angels with a 3.29 ERA, 1.43 WHIP and 26/17 K/BB ratio across 27 1/3 innings this season. He’ll face the Athletics at home in his next outing on Monday.

Valdez will get the ball for Wednesday’s showdown at Citi Field after completing a five-game suspension for throwing at Red Sox shortstop Trevor Story last week. The 32-year-old southpaw allowed a whopping seven earned runs in that start, causing his full-season ERA to balloon to 4.57 in the process.

Jones threw 36 of 52 pitches for strikes and scattered three baserunners over four highly impressive frames in his third rehab start. There isn’t publicly available Statcast data from this latest outing, but he’s been consistently sitting in the upper-90’s with his fastball since returning from last year’s elbow procedure. The hard-throwing 24-year-old figures to be ready to return to Pittsburgh’s rotation by the end of May or early June. He should be rostered in all fantasy formats based on his immense strikeout potential alone.