MLB Player News

Díaz progressed to his first official bullpen session over the weekend as he continues to work his way back from March surgery to repair a torn patellar tendon in his right knee, and re-stated to reporters Monday that he plans to pitch in the majors this season. Obviously, the Mets don’t have anything to play for at this point, but it doesn’t seem unreasonable that he could wind up getting a handful of appearances in before the regular season wraps up in preparation for next spring.

Fermin exited Wednesday’s game after two innings. If he needs to miss a day or two, the Padres don’t really have any flexibility to call up a catcher without giving up on Nick Castellanos or Ty France. Their only position players with options are Jackson Merrill, Gavin Sheets and Fermin.

Castro was hit by a Spencer Arrighetti pitch, but X-rays were negative. He’s considered day-to-day. Tyler Freeman replaced him tonight and will probably start Thursday if Castro can’t go.

Johnston was hit by a Spencer Arrighetti pitch in the first inning Wednesday, though he remained in initially. If he can’t play Thursday, then it’s more likely Jake McCarthy will be in the lineup.

This was just unfair. With a night off from hitting, Ohtani was able to tear apart the Mets’ lineup. His 22 swings-and-misses were his most since joining the Dodgers and was just the sixth time a pitcher reached that mark so far this season. Coincidentally, his teammate Yoshinobu Yamamoto did so last night against these same Mets. Nevertheless, it’s easy to forget how advanced Ohtani’s feel for pitching is considering how much praise he gets for his offense. He led with his fastball that sat around 97 mph and mixed in plenty of sweepers, splitters, and curveballs whenever he needed to. Possibly his most impressive sequence of the night, he threw his four hardest fastballs in his second-to-last inning after the Mets put runners on second and third with one out in a one-run game. All four of those fastballs were harder than 100 mph. Now through 18 innings this season, he’s struck out 18 batters and allowed just one earned run. Sometimes you just have to sit back and appreciate greatness. He’s expected to be back in the lineup on Friday night in Colorado and is scheduled to make his next start in San Francisco against the Giants.

What would we be saying about Rushing if he was on another team? This was just his fifth start this season and he already has four home runs and eight RBI. Each of his homer and double in this one were hit at least 104 mph and both came against changeups. It’s difficult to foresee him getting enough plate appearances on this stacked Dodgers team to be fantasy viable, but if he ever did he looks like he could be a star.

Francisco Lindor owes Williams one after the outing. To begin the eighth inning, Williams forced a weak groundball from Teoscar Hernández. It should have been a routine play, but Lindor waited back on it at shortstop and Hernández – who busted it out of the box – beat it out. Then there was a walk, a long single, and a loud grand slam from Dalton Rushing. Sadly, Williams has had tendencies to lose focus when things go wrong behind him and this looked like one of those times. This was also his first time pitching in nine days as the Mets are trapped in an eight-game losing streak. After not allowing an earned run up to this point, he now has a 6.75 ERA on the season. Ouch.

Up from Triple-A, Melendez wasted no time making his presence known with his new club. He doubled in each of his first two at-bats accounting for the only two hits and only run Shohei Ohtani would allow in this game. The Mets offense has been a catastrophe so far this season and Juan Soto is still on the injured list, so any level of production could keep Melendez in the lineup for the near future.

Holmes did his part here outside of two poor pitches. With two out and no one on in the second, he let an 0-2 changeup to Dalton Rushing bleed too much over the plate and he roped in down the line for a double. Then, Hyeseong Kim launched a sinker that sat middle-middle into the right field seats. Besides that little blip, he was stellar. His sweeper and changeup combined to force nine of his 13 total swings-and-misses and each were lethal. He’ll take a 1.96 ERA into his next scheduled start against the Twins.

Caminero got the Rays going with a solo home run in the third inning of this one and found himself in the middle of two rallies later on. He’s beginning to heat up, reaching base in five consecutive games. We’re just waiting for the home runs – this was his third – to start pouring in like last season.

Working in a bulk relief role following opener Cole Sulsler, Scholtens cruised against the feeble White Sox lineup. He had a very slider-heavy approach as they accounted for nearly half of his total pitches against a mostly left-handed lineup. It worked out here despite only forcing five total swings-and-misses. He lines up for a two-start (or two bulk appearance) week coming up against the Reds and Twins at home.