MLB Player News

Don’t panic. Fantasy managers should anticipate Houston continuing to manage Tucker’s workload with extreme caution over the final few weeks of the regular season, especially since he didn’t head out on a minor league rehab assignment. The 27-year-old fantasy superstar made his long-awaited return on Friday night at designated hitter following a three-month absence due to a fractured shin.

The first hit was a popup that Max Clark had problems with in left, but the homer was absolutely crushed. Olson, who finished last year as the Braves’ No. 2 hitter, has hit third in both of his appearances this spring. New manager Walt Weiss apparently wants a more traditional No. 2 hitter in between him and Ronald Acuña Jr., and he has some perfectly fine candidates in Drake Baldwin, Jurickson Profar and Mike Yastrzemski.

He struck out two. Statcast, which crapped out halfway through his outing, had López’s fastball velocity down four mph from last year in the first inning, but he seemed comfortable on the mound. Hopefully, he’ll build up from here.

Statcast was down while Holmes was on the mound, but the in-game velocity readings were good for the rehabbing right-hander. Holmes is a near lock to open up in the Braves rotation with Spencer Schwellenbach and Hurtson Waldrep down.

Just an odd day. Clark’s misses came back-to-back in the first inning. He whiffed on a Matt Olson popup, which was scored generously as a single, and then had Austin Riley’s fly to the warning track go off his glove and bounce over the wall for an error. One batter later, he wound up with the ball again, having collected Ozzie Albies’ groundball double that went down the line and bounced off the side wall, and he slipped while making a poor throw to second. Finally, the one time he reached base, he had to be told to go to first, since he didn’t realize it was ball four (the scoreboard said it was 3-1, so that wasn’t so much his fault). Clark, who is Baseball America’s No. 6 overall prospect, is likely to open this season back in Double-A.

Counsell added that Long is feeling better after being diagnosed with a left elbow sprain following a collision at first base last weekend. The 24-year-old slugging prospect mashed 20 homers in 607 plate appearances for Triple-A Iowa last season. The expectation is that he’ll still be medically cleared to join Team Chinese Taipei for the upcoming World Baseball Classic.

Díaz’s one ball in play was pushed 372 feet down the right field line. It’s his first spring homer since 2024, as he went without one in 40 at-bats last year. Díaz hit second today after leading off in his spring debut. He’ll almost certainly occupy one of those two spots on Opening Day, but which will probably come down to whether the team thinks it has anyone worth hitting ahead of him.

Boyle got the weaker split-squad, as Royce Lewis was the only regular the Twins brought with them today. Still, that Boyle went without a walk was nice. He allowed one hit and struck out two. As a result of the Nick Martinez signing, it will probably take an injury to open up a spot for either Boyle or Ian Seymour in the Rays rotation.

Feduccia was really disappointing after being acquired from the Dodgers at last year’s deadline — he hit .151 with no homers in 102 plate appearances — but since the Rays declined to upgrade over the winter, he’s probably going to make the team alongside Nick Fortes. That Feduccia is a lefty could allow the Rays to go with a true platoon behind the plate, but it seems likely that Fortes will get the majority of the playing time initially.

Roden is 3-for-4 with a grand slam in two games, good for a .750/.833/1.500 line. Last year, he hit .407/.541/.704 in Grapefruit League action to win a roster spot on the Jays. Not much good happened after that, though. Roden is at a disadvantage as he contends with James Outman for a spot on the Twins bench, since Outman is out of options and is the superior center fielder. Roden might be a better left field option than Trevor Larnach, but Larnach is locked into a job and Roden’s left-handed bat wouldn’t make a ton of sense behind two left-handed corner outfielders in Larnach and Matt Wallner, at least not unless the Twins decide to stick Larnach at DH primarily.

Jackson started this game at second base, which is notable considering Jackson Holliday is currently working back from hamate bone surgery. Jackson re-established his MLB credentials last season, slashing 276/.328/.447 with five homers and 21 RBI in 183 plate appearances with Baltimore, and could be an option to start at either second base or third base for Jordan Westburg (oblique) when the season begins.