MLB Player News

With Luke Jackson (back) heading to the injured list, Teng will get a chance to work out of the Giants’ bullpen. The 25-year-old hurler registered a 4.22 ERA, 1.44 WHIP and a 96/48 K/BB ratio across 79 innings at Triple-A Sacramento to end the 2023 campaign. Teng will be making his big league debut when he gets his name called by manager Bob Melvin.

The run came in the first on a very odd play. Singles from Bobby Witt Jr. and Carter Jensen put runners on the corners with one out. Salvador Perez then broke his bat on a soft liner to short that Jacob Wilson either dropped intentionally or got spooked by a bat shard. Wilson picked the ball up and threw to second for an out, but Witt scored just ahead of the relay home. Severino went on to strike out eight and walk two in his second win of the year. It’s just his fourth quality start in 18 tries in home games in Sacramento since he signed with the A’s a year ago. He’ll pitch in Philadelphia next week.

Joel Kuhnel got five outs between the eighth and ninth tonight, but since it was 5-1 when he entered, he wasn’t in line for a save. Leiter came in with one on in a 5-2 game in the ninth and walked Isaac Collins before striking out Jac Caglianone to end the game. It’s his third save, but he has a 6.23 ERA and seems to be only a minor part of the Athletics’’ closer-by-committee situation at the moment.

Wacha probably wouldn’t have gotten through five if the A’s hadn’t made three outs on the basepaths and given away another on a sac bunt. That said, Wacha was really unfortunate to give up eight hits. He allowed just two hard-hit balls and three with xBAs over .500. This leaves him 2-2 with a 3.13 ERA with the Guardians next on the schedule.

Butler is up to .187/.260/.308 in 100 plate appearances. He’s been sitting against left-handers, which seems like the right move for the A’s but one that cuts into his fantasy value. Maybe he’ll wind up with 20 homers and 20 steals anyway, but he’s probably not going to be of much help in the other categories in the process.

This was an impressive start. Cavalli forced multiple swing-and-misses with all five of his pitches and his knuckle-curve was especially sharp, forcing eight. That pitch is his make-or-break offering and when it’s on, he is nasty. Cavalli did get to relax with his lineup spotting him a two-run lead in the first inning and eight-run margin in the fourth. After they blew the game open, he threw 24 consecutive strikes to finish off his outing and complete six innings for the second time this season. That’s sensational in-game awareness. He’s also struck out 10 batters in consecutive starts and will try to stay hot with a two-start week on deck against the Twins and Marlins.

Now this is how to pour it on in a blowout win. Mead didn’t have a hit in eight days, but was in the lineup here with the left-handed pitching David Peterson on the mound and certainly got his. Just as a reminder as to how small the samples still are this early in the season, Mead entered this game with a .175 batting average and .652 OPS. After it, he left with a .226 batting average and .798 OPS.

Well, it’s not his fault. Soto has been locked in since coming off the injured list as the Mets’ freefall continues. He doubled in his first at-bat here, homered in his second, and fell a triple short of the cycle by the time his squad turned in another embarrassing performance. In all, he had five hard-hit balls and looks like even this team-wide catastrophe cannot stop him from putting up huge numbers.

Peterson’s horrible season just keeps getting worse. The first two batters of the game got hits off him and both came around to score. However, the real avalanche came in the fourth inning. Peterson walked three – including one to push a run home with the bases loaded on his final batter – and allowed two hits. All in all, two runs came home. Then Sean Manaea promptly hit his first batter before allowing a loud grand slam to Brady House. Even the context of two inherited runners scoring does little to help our opinion of Peterson who now has a 6.53 ERA and may not have a safe spot in the Mets’ rotation moving forward.

This was the good version of Pallante. His slider forced seven swings-and-misses as he dotted in beautifully low and below the zone and played it well off his sinker for the righties and fastball for the lefties. He also got the Pirates to hit into lots of harmless contact, whether it was lazy pop-ups or ground balls. He’ll take a 3.73 ERA into his next start against the Brewers.

The box score won’t tell you that Nick Yorke hit what was nearly a walk-off home run off O’Brien with two outs in the ninth before Nathan Church leapt up to rob it. Watching on hopelessly, O’Brien could not believe his eyes. If that ball wasn’t caught, O’Brien may have blown his third save in his last four tries. It was though and O’Brien’s eight saves trail only Mason Miller and David Bednar so far this season.