MLB Player News

The two base knocks were Guerrero’s first in the status after he went 0-for-2 Wednesday. After starting at second base Wednesday, Guerrero was in the DH spot Thursday, with Dee Gordon handling second. The Cuban defector is the favorite to open the year at the keystone for the Dodgers but will have to play well this spring.

Woo, who threw first-pitch strikes to 18 of 23 batters, matched his season high for strikeouts and went without giving up a run for the fourth time in 12 starts this season. He’s 5-3 with a 3.34 ERA, and he’s due to face the struggling Tigers in Detroit next week.

The earned runs all came on solo homers, with Luke Raley and Dominic Canzone taking him deep in the second and Colt Emerson and Julio Rodríguez following with blasts an inning later. Nelson has now given up 15 homers in 65 1/3 innings this season after allowing 17 in 150 2/3 innings in 2024 and 17 in 154 innings last year. He came into the night on a streak of four straight quality starts, so he doesn’t have to worry about his rotation spot right now. However, he needs to improve on either his 19 percent strikeout rate or his 31 percent groundball rate in order to be useful going forward.

Rodríguez has homered in three straight games and has 10 homers in May, which is a new high for him in a month. As slow of a starter as he’s been previously, it would seem to bode well for him that he’s already up to .269/.326/.475 for the year. He has finishes of fourth, sixth and seventh place in the AL MVP balloting in his five years in the league. Maybe this will be the year that he challenges for first place.

Kurtz had a pair of soft singles in his first three at-bats and then launched a 410-foot homer his last time up. He has 10 homers this season, and he’s tied for ninth in MLB with 40 RBI. He’s first with a .432 OBP ahead of Yordan Alvarez at .419 and Mike Trout at .412.

Ginn struck out four and walked three. He gave up 10 hard-hit balls, but the Yankees wound up with only four singles and no extra-base hits off him. Ginn improved to 3-3 with a 2.87 ERA. In spite of that, he remains of little interest in mixed leagues in a tough situation for pitchers. He’ll start in Houston next week.

The A’s wanted Perkins to finish off a five-run game, but he allowed a single and two walks before leaving with two outs. Scott Barlow replaced him and walked three in a row, with all three runs being charged with Perkins. That took his ERA from 5.04 to 5.96. We thought Perkins might be a candidate to replace Luis Severino in the rotation next time through after striking out seven and throwing 63 pitches last time out, but his usage tonight suggests that he’ll remain in the pen. That’s good news for Mason Barnett’s chances of getting a callup.

Jack Perkins could do nothing but watch after Barlow entered with a 6-1 lead and the bases loaded in the ninth and walked three in a row to force in three runs. Barlow then got Jazz Chisholm Jr. to ground out for one of the ugliest saves in major league history. Barlow allowed no runs of his own, so his ERA dropped to 3.08. He didn’t exactly help his case for more save chances, however.

Weathers fanned 10, but he walked three and gave up three homers in one of the league’s top parks for offense. This leaves him 2-3, even though he has a nice 3.52 ERA and the Yankees are 6-5 in his starts. He’ll take on the Red Sox next time out.

The walk came in the fourth after Soderstrom challenged a called strike that was clearly a ball, was shown to be a ball on the ABS replay and yet deemed a strike anyway.. Statcast thinks Soderstrom has been pretty unlucky this year, but that wasn’t the case tonight, as he got a homer on a 403-foot fly that would have stayed in play in 13 ballparks and a double on an 84-mph liner to right. He’s 10-for-21 with two homers and just one strikeout in his last six games, raising his OPS from .655 to .739.

It’s the fifth career four-RBI game for McCarthy, who knocked in five in a game earlier this month. He scored three runs for the fourth time. McCarthy should be worth playing in mixed leagues at least until the Rockies outfield gets healthier and maybe beyond. It is, however, likely that the Rockies will trade him in July if anyone offers a decent prospect for his services.