MLB Player News

The latest series of Rangers’ cuts leaves their major-league spring training roster at 43 players. Arihara, Tropeano and Workman will function as organizational pitching depth and Pozo provides some emergency catching depth moving forward.

The Rays needed a reliever with Mason Englert (forearm) on the IL, so Martin was added to the 40-man roster, and Michael Grove was transferred to the 60-day injured list. Martin has thrown 9 1/3 scoreless innings at Triple-A this season with an 11/6 K/BB ratio.

Englert has allowed 10 earned runs on 19 hits in 12 2/3 innings this season for the Rays. There is no word yet on the severity of the injury, but right forearm tightness can often be a precursor to other, more serious injuries.

Sugar Land was just acquired from the Yankees on Sunday, and he will now be up with the Astros with Nick Allen (back) on the injured list. Shewmake will serve as a reserve infielder with Carlos Correa regularly starting at shortstop and Isaac Paredes at third base.

Allen was scratched from Saturday’s game with back spasms, and now we know the absence will be longer than a few days. There is no word yet on Allen’s timeline for return.

We already knew Javier would be sidelined for more than a few weeks with the injury, so this may not meaningfully change his recovery timeline. He was originally placed on the injury list on April 10th, so this now means he can’t return until early June.

The Red Sox were up 8-3 heading into the ninth inning and trying to stretch their relievers through the end of the game after Sonny Gray left the game in the third inning with a hamstring injury. However, Ryan Watson allowed two doubles and a single in the ninth inning, and Chapman was called out to stop the bleeding. He struck out Spencer Torkelson but allowed a double to Riley Greene that knocked in two runs. He then got a groundout to end the game and nail down his fourth save of the season.

It hasn’t been a great start to the season for Narváez, who is slashing .234/.265/.277 on the season. The RBI today was his first RBI of the season. That said, he does have a 52 percent hard-hit rate and a league-average zone contact rate. He has just been chasing out of the zone more than he did last year. He should only be on the radar in two-catcher leagues, but we should see a boost in performance coming.

Greene is off to a solid start to the season, slashing .263/.372/.388 with one home run and 14 RBI. The 25-year-old is taking a far more cautious approach this season, cutting his swing rate by 10 percent, chasing outside of the zone six percent less, and improving his contact rate by seven percent. As of now, his strikeout rate would be a career low, and his walk rate would be a career high. This approach change could lead to a decrease in home run numbers, but Greene still has a 49 percent hard-hit rate, so he continues to do damage when he does make contact.

The two earned runs scored on Flaherty’s own error when he fielded a bunt attempt and had Caleb Durbin dead to rights between third base and home plate before throwing the ball away. Flaherty struggled with command all day, throwing just 56 percent of his pitches for strikes. He was also down two mph on almost all of his pitches. He did produce a 37 percent whiff rate, and some of the command and velocity issues could be connected to the 11 AM start as part of Marathon Monday. The 30-year-old has 20 walks in 23 innings this season and is not a recommended start next week in Cincinnati.

There had been some reports that the Rays would use an opener, but that doesn’t appear to be the case. Scholtens threw five shutout innings in his last appearance, which was a bulk relief role. He could make a decent streamer in deeper formats.