MLB Player News

Kirby struck out six. His one walk was issued to the last batter he faced in the eighth, Yordan Alvarez. Kirby has averaged 97 mph with his fastballs and sinkers in back-to-back starts. He did that a total of once last year, on Aug. 17 against the Mets. He’s still not missing as many bats as usual, but his groundball rate is way up, which should help with his ERA. He’s 2-2 with a 3.25 ERA right now, and he’s due to face the Rangers next.

The Astros are going with Tatsuya Imai, Spencer Arrighetti, and Kai-Wei Teng for the Guardians series this weekend. There was some question surrounding what the Astros would do with their rotation when Hunter Brown came off the injured list, and it appears, for now, that Burrows may be the odd man out. With a 5.86 ERA through 14 starts, he doesn’t need to be held in most league types.

Mahle threw just 33 of his 63 pitches for strikes and got three whiffs on 20 swings. His velocity was fine, sitting 93.2 mph on his four-seamer, which is better than we saw in recent MLB starts. However, given how inefficient he was, it would be shocking if the Giants brought him back later this week. We’d expect him to make at least one more start at Triple-A, which should allow Trevor McDonald to take another turn in the rotation.

The Yankees’ top prospect was applying a tag on a stolen base attempt at second base when his wrist appeared to bend backwards. He immediately dropped his glove and held onto his wrist in clear pain. We will await word from the Yankees on the severity of the injury, but it didn’t look good on Tuesday.

García is inching closer to a return to the Blue Jays bullpen. With Louis Varland emerging as a top-tier closer, García should help Toronto in the middle innings when he does return.

Encarnacion-Strand now has 16 home runs and 46 RBI to go along with a .292 average and .924 OPS. His swinging strike rate at Triple-A with Baltimore is almost 16 percent, which is not ideal, but his zone contact rate remains around league average. He’s also sporting a nearly 50 percent hard-hit rate. He’s just 26 years old, so it may not yet be time to fully write him off.

Pena was hitting .311/.354/.673 with 26 home runs and three steals in 61 games at Double-A this season. He’s an aggressive hitter who doesn’t walk much and also had a contact rate around 70 percent at Double-A with a swinging strike rate over 16 percent. The power is nice to see, but his contact profile is going to need to improve as he climbs into the higher minors.

This was Herz’s first rehab start outside of the complex league, and it went pretty well. The left-hander also struck out three and didn’t walk a single batter while throwing 29 of his 38 pitches for strikes. We don’t have Statcast data at Single-A, but seeing that level of command is nice for Herz coming off Tommy John surgery. There’s a chance that his next start is at Double-A.

It seems the quick turnaround of the day game following a night game is playing a role here. It’s unclear who will DH in Ohtani’s place, but Max Muncy could be a possibility with Tommy Edman slated to play third.

Larnach’s fourth career four-hit game pushed him up to .264/.368/.396 for the season, but while that’s really pretty good, he hasn’t at all enhanced his stock with a 30 percent hard-hit rate that is barely two-thirds of his career average, His bat speed is down, and he’s managed just four homers in 212 plate appearances. He’s been fine for the Twins in the process, but it hasn’t been in the kind of way that is going to make him more attractive to his current team or to other potential suitors in 2027.

Matthews had a 10-0 lead through 3 1/2 innings, and he managed to keep this one uninteresting despite giving up eight hits and nine hard-hit balls. It’s his fifth quality start in seven tries since getting the call last month. Unfortunately, he was lit up for seven runs in both of his other outings, leaving him with a 4.78 ERA. He’s not a great option in shallow leagues at this point, but those hunting wins could try him in his two home starts next week. The first will come against the Dodgers, but at least it’ll be Eric Lauer opposing him, and he’ll get the Rockies in his second start.