MLB Player News

Bumgarner hasn’t officially announced his retirement, but he also hasn’t pitched in the big leagues since a disastrous four-start stretch to open the 2023 season, which led to the Diamondbacks releasing him and eating the final $37 million left on his contract. The 35-year-old lefty cemented his legacy with the Giants earlier in his career as one of the legendary postseason performers of his era and appears likely to head back to the Bay Area in a limited role either as a guest instructor at spring training or front office consultant.

A three-game sweep for Houston concludes with what shall always be known as the Nick Allen game. Making his first start in a week, Allen hit a 367-foot homer off Shota Imanaga that was his first in 488 plate appearances dating back to 2024. It’s the fourth time in 407 career games that he’s both homered and collected three hits, and the first time he’s done both of those things and stolen a base. He raised his season OPS from .562 to .771 with the performance.

Lambert allowed five hits, walked four and struck out five in an erratic outing. He also hit a batter. This makes him 3-4 with a 3.79 ERA through seven starts. That he’s allowed only one homer in 40 1/3 innings has made him a viable fantasy starter to date, but his luck figures to change some there. He’s due to pitch at home against the Brewers next weekend.

With Bryan King resting, Pearson got the call over Bryan Abreu, who worked a scoreless eighth to set him up. Pearson walked Pete Crow-Armstrong to start the ninth, but he retired Nico Hoerner, Michael Busch and Alex Bregman afterwards. Pearson topped out at 100.4 mph today, but it’s kind of surprising the Astros have been so quick to trust him after he walked 11 in 8 2/3 innings during his minor league rehab assignment. Ability has never really been the question with Pearson, but we wouldn’t rush to pick him up at this point.

Aside from the homers, of course, Imanaga was pretty good today. He allowed just two other hard-hit balls, and he finished the game with 16 whiffs and a 33 percent CSW. It was definitely a less discouraging performance than when he gave up eight runs to the Brewers on Monday. Still, his ERA has suddenly jumped from 2.32 to 4.04 in the span of a week. He’ll certainly keep giving up some homers, but with his velocity and groundball rate back to where they were in 2024, he figures to remain a valuable fantasy starter.

The 86-mph double to right-center looked like an out off the bat, but center fielder Jake Meyers had him played to pull and wound up having to run a long way before coming up just short on a diving attempt. Before drawing the start at second today, Ramírez had just one at-bat in his first two days on the Cubs’ roster. It’s hard to see a path to significant playing time here without an injury, but he’d be interesting as a starting infielder.

Perez singled in the Royals’ first two runs in the fifth after Vinnie Pasquntino was intentionally walked to load the bases in front of him. Bryan Woo was down 2-0 in the count at the time, though if the Mariners had challenged ball two, it appears that it would have been overturned. It’s Perez’s first three-RBI game of the year. Still looking for some consistency at the plate, Perez has two three-hit games and four 0-fors in his last six games.

It’s Lugo’s first win in 10 starts since he beat the Braves on March 29. Lugo succeeded despite getting only three whiffs on 39 swings. He gave up 10 hard-hit balls, including four barrels. However, while Julio Rodríguez homered off him in the first, the remaining three barrels all turned into outs. Lugo will pitch in Texas against the Rangers next weekend, which makes him a streaming option. The Rangers are hitting just .217 and averaging 3.0 runs per game at home this year.

Erceg allowed two doubles and two singles before getting Luke Raley to ground out to end the game. It was the second time this season that he’s given up three runs, and he has a mediocre 4.43 ERA and a poor 18/13 K/BB in 20 1/3 innings. Obviously, this one didn’t actually hurt the Royals, but if he follows with another weak showing right away, it might open the door for Daniel Lynch IV to start getting some save chances. He’ll almost certainly be down on Monday after throwing 32 pitches today.

Woo had good velocity today, beating his season averages by nearly one mph, but he gave up 10 hard-hit balls anyway, including a 371-foot double that would have been a homer in 18 ballparks. Woo lost a three-game winning streak that saw him allow two runs in 18 innings over his previous three starts and fell to 4-3 with a 3.82 ERA on the season. He’ll probably bounce back against the D-backs next weekend.

A nice little breakthrough day for Emerson, who came in 2-for-17 in six games as a major leaguer. All three doubles were hard-hit balls, and he doubled his total of hard-hit balls from three to six. He’s probably not a mixed-league guy as the No. 9 hitter in Seattle’s order, but he’s already adding to his case to stick around as a starter after Brendan Donovan returns.