MLB Player News

Stratton heads back to the minors to allow the Braves to replenish their overworked bullpen after Monday night’s slugfest against the White Sox.

Jimmy Herget opened the game by striking out the side in the first inning. Dollander then took over in the second and was cruising, allowing just one baserunner over four scoreless innings. He finally ran into some trouble in the sixth, issuing a bases-loaded walk before escaping the jam. Dollander returned for the seventh and tossed a scoreless frame to end an excellent day on the mound. He threw 67 of 102 pitches for strikes and generated 15 whiffs to strike out nine. The 24-year-old right-hander will take a 2.88 ERA, 1.00 WHIP, and a 32/7 K/BB ratio across 25 innings into a matchup against a struggling Mets team in New York on Sunday.

Church’s homer off Chris Paddack was his second of the year. He’s batting .231/.281/.365, and he doesn’t project to get a whole lot better than that. The Cardinals are treating him as their best option in left field against right-handers, but they still might send down Thomas Saggese and give Bryan Torres or Cesar Prieto a look there before Lars Nootbaar returns.

May struck out five and walked one. He’s now one of 23 major league pitchers with three wins, even though his ERA stands at 5.84, the league is hitting .337 against him and he’s averaging just less than five innings per start. He’ll face the Pirates next time out.

O’Brien took a blown save Sunday for allowing an inherited run to score, but he still hasn’t given up an earned run of his own this year. The appearance today was his third in four days, so he might need Wednesday off. JoJo Romero would probably close in his place. Ryne Stanek threw 32 pitches in a bad outing tonight, so he’ll likely be down, too.

We’re not sure what it was that caused the Marlins to think they could get Paddack turned around, but it certainly doesn’t seem to be happening. He has a 6.38 ERA, having given up five homers in 24 innings. That’s about his same home run pace from last year, when he allowed 31 in 158 innings for the Twins. It’s probably time to send him to the pen and give his spot to Braxton Garrett, who was clearly more deserving in the first place.

Marsee’s homer was almost too low to get out, but it was a 110.9 mph rocket to right. That’s two mph better than his previous hardest hit ball this year. With two singles afterwards, he raised his season average from .149 to .176 tonight.

Both hits came off Connelly Early. He would have added a second double later in the game if not for a fantastic catch from Ceddanne Rafaela at the wall in center. Stanton was in a 4-for-38 slump coming into tonight, leaving him at just .240/.296/.360 for the season.

Credit to Gil, but a lot of this was bad hitting. Gil’s velocity was actually down about 1.5 mph on his fastballs and 3.5 mph on his slider, and he ended up with just two strikeouts and three walks. He gave up eight hard-hit balls, but those produced one single and eight outs (one was a GIDP). Gil now has a 4.11 ERA and a 9/8 K/BB over 15 1/3 innings over three starts. He’ll face the Astros on Sunday, but he’s in line to be replaced in the Yankees rotation sometime next month.

Early has a nice 2.88 ERA, but there just isn’t much backing it up. His strikeout rate is average. His walk rate is high. His exit velocity numbers are bad. There’s still reason for optimism for the long term, but aside from the ERA, most everything right now suggests he’s currently a slightly below average starter. He’s currently lined up to face the Orioles on Sunday, though if the Red Sox make some moves this weekend, he could be pushed back to Monday against the Blue Jays.

Abreu was great in the WBC and the first 10 games of the season, but his OPS is already back under .800 now, as he’s gone 4-for-34 with no extra-base hits in his last nine games. He’ll bounce back and he should retain some mixed-league value, but it doesn’t look like that a big breakthrough is going to materialize here.