MLB Player News

O’Brien was great here, throwing 11 of 15 pitches for strikes and securing his fifth save of the season. There was some concern that O’Brien’s role as the best reliever in the Cardinals’ bullpen wouldn’t mean much on a rebuilding team, but the Cardinals are now 10-8 on the season. If they can keep games close, they are likely going to squeak out close victories, which should mean more save opportunities for O’Brien than many anticipated.

The 27-year-old hurler hasn’t pitched in the big leagues since the 2022 season with the Giants and spent the past two seasons pitching in Japan. Given the unbelievable number of injuries that the Astros are dealing with in their starting rotation at the moment, they need to stockpile depth any way that they can, so this move makes sense.

Donovan is day-to-day. Leo Rivas might be needed to start in his place Saturday against the Rangers.

The 27-year-old hurler has been shelved since his first start of the spring due to a left oblique strain. He’s expected to require the full 30 days that are allotted to him on a minor league rehab assignment in order to build back up before potentially joining the M’s rotation. Barring any setbacks along the way, that would put his return in mid-May.

Lowe is batting just .167, but he does have three homers and nine RBI through 62 plate appearances. His chances of pulling off a big rebound don’t seem great, given his poor exit velocity and strikeout numbers to date, but he might get to 20 homers and 20 steals without being much help elsewhere.

Soriano struck out eight. He walked four and threw first-pitch strikes to only 11 of 23 batters, but that didn’t hurt on a night in which he gave up two hits. He’s through five starts having allowed just one run this season, so he’ll take a 0.28 ERA into next week’s outing against the Blue Jays.

The Angels will have to hope it’s just the Yankees that Romano melts down against. He allowed a double tonight, but he got whiffs on six of the eight swings against him. He should be available to close if there’s a save chance Saturday.

Waldron’s velocity was up this spring before his IL stint, and he held on to those gains tonight, with his fastball up about two mph and his knuckleball up three mph from where he was in 2024 before missing almost all of last season. That still doesn’t make him a great bet for fantasy purposes, but he has more of a chance against major league hitters than he used to. Of course, it still didn’t work out tonight, and we certainly wouldn’t trust him in Coors against the Rockies next week.

Even if Fernando Tatis Jr. functioning as a backup second baseman does make it a little more workable to have Castellanos, Miguel Andujar and Ty France all on the roster together, it’s still not going to make sense for the Padres to stick with this arrangement forever, especially since Luis Campusano might be a better right-handed DH than any of them. At this point, Castellanos seems like the obvious choice to get the boot if the Padres want to add a little more versatility. He’s just 7-for-43 with three doubles and no RBI.

Muncy obliterated a 2-1 cutter from Tomoyuki Sugano in the second inning for a 452-foot (107.9 mph EV) solo shot that made it a 2-0 ballgame. He then smacked an RBI double in the third inning that made it 3-0. Muncy also tagged Zach Agnos for a 419-foot (105.2 mph EV) solo shot in the fifth that made it 6-1. It’s already Muncy’s second multi-homer game of the young season. He’s off to a terrific start at the dish, slashing .254/.338/.556 with six homers and seven RBI in his first 71 plate appearances.

Smith got the scoring started in the ballgame with a sacrifice fly that plated Shohei Ohtani in the opening inning. He then added on with an RBI single in the fourth that extended their advantage to 5-0. With his two-hit attack, the 31-year-old backstop is slashing a healthy .300/.377/.417 with two homers and 10 RBI in his first 69 plate appearances on the season.