MLB Player News

Carpenter said he likes his current role as part-time player and full-time mentor for the Cardinals and is open to doing it again next year. It’s unclear what his salary demands might be. Carpenter cashed in likely for the last time after he hit .305 with 15 home runs and 37 RBI in 47 games for the Yankees in 2022. The Padres signed him to a two-year, $12 million contract that winter. Last offseason, San Diego traded him to Atlanta to offload his salary and the Braves released him, which allowed him to sign a one-year contract with St. Louis. He’s hitting .236 with four home runs and 15 RBI in 127 at-bats this year.

Abrams hit

Crews also drew a walk and scored a second run. The homer is the seventh for the former second-overall pick, and it improves his slash to .210/.279/.355 over 50 games and 186 at-bats. Crews can’t be trusted in redraft leagues, but there have been just enough good moments to suggest he can be a fantasy regular in the coming campaigns.

King gets the boot after giving up a run in the loss to the Orioles on Sunday. The Astros will announce who will replace King in the bullpen before Monday’s game against the Marlins.

Nuñez continues to pile up the steals, and the pair today give him 37 on the season with five of those coming in the month of July. They unfortunately come with a slash of .246/.330/.293, so unfortunately Nuñez is very much a one-category player. That one category does keep him on the radar, at least.

The Padres scored 11 times in the final two innings, with the last six runs coming off position player Tyler Tolbert in the ninth. France’s slam came off Lucas Erceg in the eighth. It was his second career slam. He’d been without one in 78 career plate appearances with the bases loaded coming into the season, but he’s had two in 11 chances this year. He also now has three two-homer games this year after racking up just two in his first seven seasons. He mostly just started against lefties initially, but it’s now been a month since he was left out of the Padres’ lineup as a healthy scratch. He’s batting .275/.335/.537 in 243 plate appearances.

It was hardly his fault, as Manny Machado and Xander Bogaerts messed up on consecutive groundballs, but Márquez left with the bases loaded and none out in the fourth, only for Yuki Matsui to come in and get a strikeout and a double play afterwards. Márquez allowed five hits, walked two and struck out two before being lifted. He’s held it together with a 4.20 ERA in four starts this month, but he’s completed five innings just once and has an ugly 11/10 K/BB in 15 innings. He doesn’t seem like a lock to get a start next weekend against the Marlins.

Instead of giving Vásquez a start against the Braves this week, the Padres decided to have him piggyback with Germán Márquez today. Vásquez definitely put together the better performance of the two, so maybe he’ll start next time through, assuming that he isn’t needed in relief again before then.

At least that’s better than the 12 runs the Royals gave up in four innings after Cameron departed. Cameron, who fanned 16 over 12 innings in his final two starts of the first half, struck out just one of the 26 batters he faced today. He’s given up at least five runs and taken a loss in four of his last five starts, leaving him 5-8 with a 5.27 ERA this season. Still, his rotation spot is most likely safe. He’ll face the Tigers next weekend.

Merrill, who was 0-for-13 in his previous three games, had his first three hits through four innings and then added a two-run homer off utilityman Tyler Tolbert in the ninth in what ended up being a 19-2 game. It was a rather cheap way to achieve his first two-homer game in 372 days, but fantasy leaguers waiting for something from him all year will certainly take it. The steal was his 20th, which has helped keep him relevant.

Tatis’s homer was hit 107.6 mph off Matt Strahm in the sixth. He’s gone deep in back-to-back games and is up to seven homers on the year after going his first 55 games without one.