MLB Player News

All five runs scored in the top of the ninth, with Solano hitting the Padres’ third homer of the inning. It’s his third four-hit game of the year. He’s doing his usual thing with a .287/.344/.418 line in 308 plate appearances this season. This will be his sixth straight year of hitting at least .280 over 200+ plate appearances. Freddie Freeman, at .282 and unlikely to play Sunday, is the only other major leaguer who can say they’ve done the same. Teammate Xander Bogaerts lost his streak this year.

Both runs allowed by Hart came off of solo homers, and outside of that the southpaw was solid in his first start as a member of the Padres. The southpaw struck out four while generating 10 swings-and-misses over his 80 pitches while walking just one. Hart has a tenuous hold on his fifth spot in the rotation, but this was a good building block. He’s scheduled to face the Cubs on Sunday.

While Ortiz didn’t allow a homer, he was consistently in trouble. The 26-year-old allowed nine hits and four walks, and wasn’t able to escape jams; with most of the damage coming in a four-run second. Ortiz also struggled over the Cactus League, so it’s fair to say that he’s not at his best right now. He’ll get a chance to change that Sunday against a not-so-great Angels’ lineup in Anaheim.

Schanuel already topped his career-best exit velocities at least a couple of times in spring training, but he was all of the way up to 109.8 mph on his single tonight. That’s four mph harder than he ever hit a ball last year. Schanuel probably isn’t going to turn into a mixed-league stud right away this year, but the added strength certainly makes him a lot more interesting for the long haul.

Lars Nootbaar and Brendan Donovan hit solo shots in the first two innings. Anderson allowed four other hits and a couple of walks, but he limited the damage otherwise. There’s nothing much at all here to like fantasy-wise. He’ll face the Guardians next time out.

Even though Kenley Jansen and Ben Joyce were unavailable after working the previous two days, the Angels got five quality innings from the bullpen tonight. Brock Burke, who seemed like the favorite to close, pitched a scoreless ninth in a tie game and wound up with the win after the Angels scored twice in the top of the 10th. Johnson, making his second professional appearance after giving up five runs Thursday, allowed only a single and a sac fly in the bottom of the 10th.

Mikolas gave up just three hard-hit balls and two hits tonight, but he didn’t last long enough to get a quality start. He wound up with three strikeouts, which is par for the course with him. He struck out exactly three in 14 of his 32 starts last year.

Nootbaar isn’t only hitting everything hard and typically more in the air this year, but he’s struck out only once in 19 plate appearances. Now that he’s playing every day and batting leadoff, he doesn’t need to maintain this kind of pace to be very useful in mixed leagues. Of course, his durability issues could always pose problems at some point.

Chapman gave the Giants a five-run cushion with a two-run single in the ninth. He also drew a pair of walks. Chapman was spectacular this spring, and so far it’s carried over into the games that actually count.