MLB Player News

Sulbaran was acquired from the Dodgers last August in the Drew Butera deal and owns a 3.15 ERA over 45 starts and 10 relief appearances in the minors. He turned 20 last month and has never pitched above A-ball.

Stewart knocked Elly De La Cruz after he walked and stole second with two outs in the first. As it turned out, it was the Reds’ only hit in the contest. That’s pretty fun, but it’s also notable that Stewart is now 4-for-4 stealing bases this spring. We’re expecting him to be one of the year’s biggest bargains even if he doesn’t do much running, but 15 steals would be a very nice bonus.

Singer came in with a 9.00 ERA in five innings, but he fared well against the Giants’ road lineup, which featured Nate Furman leading off and Christian Koss batting third. With two strikeouts and two walks, he’s now boasting a 6/6 K/BB in nine innings.

Whisenhunt’s velocity bump might not last; he was down to 94.2 mph with his average fastball tonight after coming in at 95.2 mph and 94.8 mph in his previous two years. Still, he was able to fan six Reds anyway. He remains likely to open up in the Triple-A rotation.

Brubaker averaged 92.6 mph with his sinker in his first three outings this spring, which was down 0.9 mph from last year in his return from Tommy John surgery. Tonight, though, he was up to 94.2 mph, even after he faded some in his third inning of work. The Giants apparently intend to look at Brubaker as a middle man, so he wouldn’t seem to offer much fantasy potential. However, if he can impress in shorter stints, the possibility of saves can’t be ruled out. He never had much success as a starter in Pittsburgh, but he’s always been able to miss bats at a solid clip, and he might yet get a little better there in short outings.

Just no luck at all for Manning lately. Ironically, even though Manning is long gone from Detroit, his injury had ramifications for the Tigers; the Lions were looking at Enmanuel De Jesus as a replacement for Manning, which forced the Tigers to add the left-hander to their 40-man roster earlier this week.

Sewald faced four batters and got three flyouts, with one flare single following in. His velocity is a little up from last year, and while we wouldn’t want to count on him being a shutdown closer, he might be the Diamondbacks’ best option in the ninth to begin the year.

Kelly’s velocity was down only about one mph from last year, so that’s good in his first outing back from his back issue. Still, he indicated afterwards that he’s probably IL bound to start the year. It should be a short stay, and Kelly could still be of use in deeper mixed leagues come mid-April.

The only two likely major leaguers Wacha faced tonight were bottom-of-the-barrel-types Jorge Barrosa and Ildemaro Vargas, so this is a particularly poor result, even if Wacha did wind up with six strikeouts. His velocity is down about 1.5 mph from last year, and he doesn’t seem like a very good bet for at least the beginning of the season.

With a .296/.321/.630 line in 28 plate appearances, Jensen is doing what he needs to in order to ensure that he’s in the lineup most of the time at the beginning of the season. There’s a chance that he’ll wind up as a top-10 fantasy catcher if he approaches 500 at-bats as a rookie.

The former top prospect opened the scoring in the ballgame as the smacked a two-run single off of Landen Roupp in the top half of the first inning. He struck out in each of his other two plate appearances. Bleday has had a nice spring at the plate, hitting .290 (9-for-31) with a pair of homers and eight RBI. It sounds like he could open the season in the strong side of a platoon for the Reds, getting a chance to do damage against right-handed pitching.