MLB Player News

Neely will take the roster spot of Justin Steele with Steele going on the 15-day injured list with elbow tendinitis. Neely has tremendous stuff and has succeeded in the minors, but wasn’t effective in the majors his last go-around with six runs allowed in four innings.

Bird earned a ticket back to the minors after struggling to an inflated 7.71 ERA across seven innings to open the season. The final straw was likely Monday’s relief outing against the Angels where he allowed three runs in his lone inning of work courtesy of a gargantuan homer by Mike Trout. The 30-year-old came over from the Rockies in a trade deadline deal last July.

Crochet didn’t have much to add. “It’s tough,” he said. “I guess, I don’t really have anything to say. I’m just going to try and flush it as best as I can and move on to the next one. They had a good approach.” Crochet’s velocity wasn’t very good tonight, but he also never really got a chance to settle in during two miserable innings. If the claim is that he’s healthy, we’ll just have to take their words for it for now.

Initially sitting against the lefty Yusei Kikuchi, Grisham entered as a pinch-hitter in the fifth and hit a Yankee Stadium-only, three-run homer off Shaun Anderson. His two-run homer off Jordan Romano, which would have left all 30 ballparks, tied the game in the ninth. The homers were the first of the season for Grisham, who ranked among the league’s unluckiest hitters coming into the game. It will be interesting to see what happens now, as the Yankees are slated to face left-handers all four games in the series against the Angels. One imagines Grisham will at least start Tuesday to see if he can keep it going.

Only plunking Jo Adell prevented Warren from being perfect through three. However, the fourth started with a José Caballero error, and Warren was pulled after giving up a double with one out and then a single, a walk and another single with two outs. It probably had to be done with Warren up to 37 pitches in the inning. Warren struck out six, and since the run support wasn’t lacking, there’s a great chance he would have gotten a win tonight if only he could have overcome the error. He’ll face the Royals this weekend.

Kikuchi was clearly off tonight. While his fastball velocity was pretty normal, the rest of his pitches were all down one or two mph. For his changeup, it was actually closer to three mph. He walked four and gave up homers to Aaron Judge and José Caballero. Now possessing a 7.50 ERA, Kikuchi seems like a particularly poor mixed-league option. He’ll face the Padres on Saturday.

This was probably due. Romano hadn’t allowed a hit in five innings this season but also hadn’t pitched in a week coming into tonight. He gave up a leadoff single to Jazz Chisholm Jr., a homer to Trent Grisham, a double to José Caballero and a walk to Austin Wells, during which Caballero stole third base. With a full count on Ryan McMahon, Romano uncorked a game-ending wild pitch, which also still counted as ball four to McMahon. Romano will probably remain the Angels’ primary closer for now, but he won’t be able to afford another outing like this in the near future.

Judge had a two-run homer in the first and a solo shot in the sixth for his 47th career two-homer game. He seemed especially proud of the second one tonight, as reliever Shaun Anderson had gone up and in on him in consecutive at-bats. The homers were his 373rd and 374th, moving him ahead of teammate Paul Goldschmidt and into third place on the active list behind Giancarlo Stanton (454) and Mike Trout (408).

He wasn’t far off from a truly massive night, as he hit a ball 393 feet to center with the bases loaded in the fourth. Statcast said it would have been a homer in four ballparks, but it was an easy play for Cody Bellinger in Yankee Stadium. Trout hit the two homers, both of them no-doubters, later in the game. The three-run homer tied it at 7-7 in the sixth, and the two-run shot broke an 8-8 tie in the eighth. The Angels, though, lost in the ninth anyway. The two-homer game was Trout’s 30th. He’s never hit three. He matched and overtook Duke Snider for 58th place on the all-time home runs list with Nos. 407 and 408 tonight.

Martinez got the Guardians off to a solid start with a solo blast off Matthew Liberatore. He’s homered twice to begin the 2026 season, and he’s slashing .319/.385/.511 over 15 games and 47 at-bats. You can do a lot worse than that, and you could do worse than giving Martinez a spot on a fantasy roster in most formats.

It comes in a losing effort, but it’s another impressive outing for Walker. His eighth homer of the season came in the sixth inning off Gavin Williams, and it would have left every park in baseball according to Baseball Savant with an exit velocity of 107.6 mph. Yes the sample is small, and yes, Walker’s previous struggles can’t completely be ignored, but this is a 23-year-old with some of thes best bat-speed in the sport who has flashes his unreal talent even in his poor campaigns. This has been fun to watch. The question is if he can be a semblance of this player for the rest of 2026/beyond.