MLB Player News

Johnson has been scratched from his start Friday with Triple-A Indianapolis, which is an indication that the Pirates want him ready for Sunday. The 28-year-old left-hander made one appearances with the big club earlier this month and has a 2.39 ERA and 94/43 K/BB ratio over 135 2/3 innings this season in Triple-A. He would be a risky fantasy play against the Cardinals.

All this guy does is hit. Two more singles – both with runners in scoring position – raised his league best batting average to .342 in one of the best stories of this season. A big reason for Lopez’s massive step forward is that he’s hitting the ball harder than he ever has. In this game, he had four hard-hit balls, including one at 111.9 mph. That is harder than he’d ever hit a ball before this season began. Enjoy the ride.

This was both Gusto’s longest major league outing this season and his most effective. He mixed six different pitches and worked the edges of the plate well with each of them. There wasn’t much hard contact either despite him only forcing five swings-and-misses. Also, he worked up to 66 pitches after throwing 40 and then 33 in his two prior outings. He’s lined up to face the Phillies on the road next.

The Diamondbacks’ were blanked in what was mostly a bullpen game by the Marlins here, but Moreno still got his. Coming in on a two-game homer streak, he couldn’t push that forward while putting up his eighth mutli-hit game since the beginning of May. On the season, he has a .266 batting average, .779 OPS, and five home runs in 43 games as a very solid catcher.

The avalanche against Nelson occurred in the fourth inning when the Marlins put up six runs – all scoring with two outs – on two home runs, three other singles, and a hit batsmen. Truthfully, he was fortunate to have gotten through the first three innings barely missing any bats and having allowed eight hard-hit balls on just 10 total balls in play. Nelson will take a 5.19 ERA and 57 to 22 strikeout to walk ratio over 76 1/3 innings into a two-start week against the Angels and Twins.

Jose Siri won the game by singling in automatic runner Nick Madrigal in the 10th. O’Hoppe’s homer off Peter Lambert was just his third in 45 games this season. The fractured wrist he suffered in April seems to have sapped his power, but it might be coming around now; since Monday, four of his five balls in play have been hit hard (not counting tonight’s sac bunt). Tonight’s homer left the bat at 107.7 mph and was projected at 423 feet.

Detmers might have been this pitcher two or three years ago if drafted into a healthier organization, but better late than never. He has a 97/24 K/BB in 81 innings, and while his ERA still sits at 4.00, the estimators have him right around 3.00, which is how he’ll be valued if the Angels finally trade him this summer. He’ll face Arizona next Tuesday.

Zeferjahn struck out two, intentionally walked Joey Loperfido and then got Shay Whitcomb to ground out to strand the automatic runner. That he’s unintentionally walked 21 batters in 31 2/3 innings this season has held him back, but he has an argument for being the Angels’ best reliever. It’d just a better one if he could be trusted at all to throw strikes.

Lambert left in the seventh after taking a comebacker off his pitching wrist, but he said afterwards that he was fine. The only runs he allowed tonight came on homers off the bat of Mike Trout and Logan O’Hoppe. It went as his first no decision after he opened the year 5-4 with a 3.55 ERA in nine starts. That he’s been so tough to homer against has been the biggest key to his nice run, but two tonight brings his total to five homers allowed in 57 innings, and he should be pretty average there going forward. He’ll face the Tigers next week.

Altuve is 2-for-18 with 10 strikeouts since coming off the injured list. His strikeout rate sits at 22 percent for the year, compared to 17 percent the last three years and 13 percent for his career. It just doesn’t look like he’s going to be a top five second baseman and maybe not even a top 10 second baseman over the rest of the season.

Milwaukee scored single runs in the first, second and third innings and then never mustered another. The A’s came back with an Alika Williams homer in the sixth and homers from Carlos Cortes and Butler in the seventh to prevail. Butler’s homer was his fourth of the season. He was starting for just the fifth time in 22 games, as the A’s are mostly using Henry Bolte and Carlos Cortes over him in the outfield against righties. However, they had room for all three tonight with Brent Rooker hurting. Butler is batting .165/.251/.256 in 183 plate appearances. There’s still reason to think he’ll go back to being useful as a platoon guy against righties, but first he needs to show the A’s that he’s better than the alternatives. It’s not clear that he is.