MLB Player News

It was a successful major league debut for McGreevy as the 24-year-old right-hander held the Rangers to one run over seven frames. After five shutout innings, the Rangers strung together three base hits in the sixth to put a run on the board. McGreevy scattered two other hits and a walk while striking out three batters. It’s unknown whether he’ll remain in the rotation with Erick Fedde now in the mix, but he certainly earned himself another look with Wednesday’s performance.

Man did the Orioles need this one. After watching their bullpen blow a one-run lead in the ninth, it seemed like things were unraveling again for Baltimore before Santander crushed a pitch off Ryan Walker for a game-winning bomb. It was his 42nd home run of the season and 97th RBI. The 29-year-old has likely made himself a lot of money this offseason.

The 29-year-old was tasked with preserving a 3-2 lead in the ninth inning, but he walked two batters and allowed a weird, long bloop single to the outfield to suffer the blown save. Gregory Soto would come on and get the Orioles out of the jam, but Domínguez now has a 4.37 ERA on the season. After Craig Kimbrel was designated for assignment on Wednesday, the Orioles have tons of questions to answer about their bullpen performance.

Conforto blasted a two-run shot off Zach Eflin for his 18th home run of the season. It briefly gave the Giants a 2-0 lead. The 31-year-old has enjoyed a bit of a bounceback season despite only playing in 122 games so far. He is on pace to play the most games since 2019 while posting his high batting average, most home runs, and most RBI over the same span too.

This is Eflin’s seventh quality start in eight starts since coming to the Orioles. The right-hander struck out five and walked one on the day with the only blemish being a home run allowed to Michael Conforto. He’s set to make one more start next week against the Yankees.

Webb struck out eight and walked two, but he had run his pitch count up to 96 pitches after five frames. The 27-year-old had his sweeper working on Thursday, leading to a 30 percent whiff rate and 29 percent CSW. He figures to make one final stop next week against the Diamondbacks.

Holliday also made a tremendous leaping grab at second base and had an overall solid game. He’ll need to string together a few more of them over the weekend because all of Jordan Westburg, Ryan Mountcastle, and Ramon Urias appear to be close to returning to the Orioles’ lineup, which could squeeze the younger Orioles out of the lineup in the final week of the season.

The homers came off Brandon Leibrandt in the final two innings of the game. He wound up with four homers in the three-game series against the Reds, and his current .405 slugging percentage and .696 OPS are his high marks since early May.

Sale’s velocity was down from the start today. He dialed it up some in the third, but he was particularly low in the final two innings. In the fifth, six of his seven fastballs failed to reach 91 mph. On the whole, he averaged 92.7 mph with his fastball, down from 94.9 mph on the year. Sale’s velocity was also down in his first two starts on September before bouncing back last time out against the Dodgers. We’re guessing some of this is intentional as he tries to save bullets for the postseason. It hasn’t hurt him in the process; he’s allowed only three runs this month, and the Braves have won his last eight starts. He’s 18-3 with a 2.38 ERA headed into a potentially huge final regular-season start next week against the Mets.

Aguiar gave up two homers, the seventh and eighth he’s allowed in 31 2/3 innings this season. Somewhat incredibly, this is the Reds’ first loss in seven games with Aguiar on the mound; they had been 6-0 in spite of his 4.88 ERA. Aguiar should get one more start against the Guardians next week.

His 25th two-homer game, four of which have come this year. It’s been a disappointing season for Olson, but he’s now two homers and six RBI away from a fourth straight 30-homer, 100-RBI campaign.