MLB Player News

Eppley was claimed off waivers from the Rangers earlier this month and has been unscored upon while striking out nine over 6 1/3 innings at Scranton/Wilkes-Barre. He’ll be used in middle relief.

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.

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.

It’s been a bit of an odyssey since Woodruff hit the injured list with shoulder inflammation last week, but he’s received a go-ahead from Dr. Keith Meister to resume throwing. The 33-year-old could potentially skip a minor league rehab assignment and jump back into Milwaukee’s rotation, but that’ll likely depend how he’s feeling physically after ramping up his throwing program in the coming days.

Carlson heads to Philadelphia as emergency organizational outfield depth. The 27-year-old former top prospect went 0-for-4 in three games for the Cubs last month. He got into 83 games for the Orioles last year, hitting .203/.278/.336 with six homers and three steals in 241 plate appearances.

Nootbaar is going to need a couple weeks of game action before he’s ready to make his season debut. The 28-year-old corner outfielder underwent surgery on both heels last October and has been brought along slowly with his ramp-up process this spring.

Contreras was able to take batting practice prior to Tuesday’s series opener at Fenway Park after being held out of the lineup with a right hand contusion following a hit-by-pitch over the weekend.

Boone added that Caballero isn’t dealing with any tendon or ligament damage and could be back as early as next week after hitting the shelf earlier on Tuesday with a fractured middle finger on his right hand. It sounds like there’s optimism it’ll be a minimum stay on the injured list for the 29-year-old speedster with Anthony Volpe heading back to the minors after a brief stay with the Yankees.