MLB Player News

The headliner here is Rodriguez, though the Twins’ top prospect was never really a candidate to break camp with the big league club — especially after missing time with an ankle injury during spring camp. Dobnak could have potentially pushed to make the Opening Day roster in a long reliever role, but he’ll begin the season as extra depth at the Triple-A level instead. Ramirez could have been an option for the bullpen, but suffered a “significant tear” in his shoulder earlier in the week.

After grounding out in his first at-bat, Tatis only barely missed in his second, hitting a 359-foot flyout. After that came the 421-foot homer and 386-foot double. He has three homers in five games. Since finally delivering his first homer on May 30, he’s hit .294/.347/.506 with 11 homers in 62 games.

Despite giving up eight hard-hit balls, Vásquez yielded a mere two hits. He’s allowed just the two runs over 15 2/3 innings in his last three appearances, but he’s also struck out only three in that span, which wouldn’t seem to bode well. He’ll likely stay in the rotation for now and face the Guardians next weekend, but after that, the Padres might be able to pick from him and Walker Buehler once Joe Musgrove returns.

Javier gave up flyball after flyball tonight and while most turned into outs, two became homers. But that’s Javier these days. He’s been an extreme flyball pitcher since the day he entered the league, but he no longer gets enough strikeouts to make it work; he fanned just two tonight and has a 25/16 K/BB in 32 1/3 innings over the course of the season. The Astros have Thursday and next Monday off, so there’s a good chance that they’ll put Javier back into the bullpen for a spell.

And cost Mason Miller a save. At least, we’re assuming Miller would have pitched with a three-run lead despite throwing 22 pitches last night. He, of course, did not pitch once the lead expanded to five with Hays’ homer in the bottom of the eighth. It was Hays’ second homer in 13 games during an injury-plagued season. He just signed with the Padres earlier in the day after being released by the White Sox on Friday.

Varsho had been limited to two singles in 18 at-bats since being acquired from the Blue Jays on Monday. The homer was hit 395 feet to right center off Randy Vásquez. That tied his fourth longest shot of the season. Last year, Varsho hit 400-foot flies 12 times, topping out at 467 feet at Coors (437 feet elsewhere). This year, he’s gotten to 400 only twice, hitting a homer 405 feet in April and a triple 403 feet in May.

Dodgers prospect James Tibbs III homered for one of the six hits off Kikuchi. He got up to 69 pitches tonight. opening up the possibility that he could rejoin the Angels rotation next weekend. He has been out since Apr. 30 with shoulder inflammation.

Glasnow allowed one hit and no hard-hit balls with his fastball at 94-98 mph in the 47-pitch outing tonight. He’s due for at least one and probably two more rehab starts as he makes his return from a back injury.

It looked like Rodriguez was going to be pulled in the seventh, but the Diamondbacks wanted him to face Shohei Ohtani, who was 0-for-3 with two strikeouts, for a fourth time, and he retired Ohtani on a groundout with his 115th and final pitch of the day. Rodriguez, who hadn’t previously fanned more than seven batters in a game this season, moved to 11-4 with a 2.70 ERA. He finishes the season series 2-0 with a 1.88 ERA in four starts against the Dodgers. He’ll face the Braves next.

He struck out two. Ginkel had gone 52 appearances without a save. His only previous chance came in the 10th inning of a game against the Pirates on July 28, but he had just a one-run lead then and was charged with his first and only blown save for allowing the automatic runner to score. Ginkel got the opportunity today because Brandyn Garcia was unavailable after working the previous two days. Garcia hasn’t been named Arizona’s closer, but he’s clearly Torey Lovullo’s first choice right now.

Wrobleski gave up six hits and three walks. The unearned run was his own fault, as he threw the ball into right field on Ryan Waldschmidt’s sac bunt in the second. Wrobleski, who overtook his previous career high for innings today, has allowed 15 earned runs and nine homers over 13 2/3 innings in his last three starts, taking his ERA from 2.62 to 3.44. Velocity hasn’t been an issue, but the Dodgers won’t just live with these results forever. If he’s not better against the Brewers next weekend, he might be looking at a role change or a demotion to Triple-A.