MLB Player News

Salazar is 7-for-19 with two homers and eight RBI this spring. The 28-year-old ought to be some team’s No. 2 catcher, but he’s stuck behind Yainer Díaz and Victor Caratini in Houston, and it’s doubtful the Astros will carry three catchers initially. He’ll probably be stuck in Triple-A again, since the Astros value the depth too much to just give him away.

Butler, 25, hit a garbage-time homer in the eighth inning off Luis Curvelo that brought the Athletics to within seven runs. Still counts, and it’s nice to see Butler drive a baseball. He’s off to another less-than-spectacular start with a slash of .180/.255/.320 with two homers and one stolen base through 15 contests.

It’s always nice to enjoy a double burger every once in a while. Burger took Luis Severino deep twice; once on a solo shot, the other a three-run blast. The 30-year-old’s second season with Texas is off to a better start than his first campaign, and he’s now up to 11 RBI with a .492 slugging percentage through 15 games.

This would have been a very solid outing for Severino if not for Jake Burger. Unfortunately for Severino and the A’s, Burger took him deep twice — one solo, one three-run shot — so it was just a mediocre outing; albeit one that passed the eye test more so than his previous few outings. The 32-year-old struck out seven while issuing three walks, and saw his ERA climb to 5.59 on the campaign. He does have a friendly matchup on paper over the weekend against the White Sox, for those looking to take an early chance.

Eovaldi was brutal in his first couple starts, but he’s back to his winning form. The right-hander allowed only three hits while needing only 84 pitches to get through the outing, and he struck out seven against two walks. His ERA still sits at 5.40, but it was 11.57 after his first two appearances. Expect that number to continue to drop in the coming weeks, although he’ll face a decent Seattle lineup over the weekend.

Bird earned a ticket back to the minors after struggling to an inflated 7.71 ERA across seven innings to open the season. The final straw was likely Monday’s relief outing against the Angels where he allowed three runs in his lone inning of work courtesy of a gargantuan homer by Mike Trout. The 30-year-old came over from the Rockies in a trade deadline deal last July.

Crochet didn’t have much to add. “It’s tough,” he said. “I guess, I don’t really have anything to say. I’m just going to try and flush it as best as I can and move on to the next one. They had a good approach.” Crochet’s velocity wasn’t very good tonight, but he also never really got a chance to settle in during two miserable innings. If the claim is that he’s healthy, we’ll just have to take their words for it for now.

Initially sitting against the lefty Yusei Kikuchi, Grisham entered as a pinch-hitter in the fifth and hit a Yankee Stadium-only, three-run homer off Shaun Anderson. His two-run homer off Jordan Romano, which would have left all 30 ballparks, tied the game in the ninth. The homers were the first of the season for Grisham, who ranked among the league’s unluckiest hitters coming into the game. It will be interesting to see what happens now, as the Yankees are slated to face left-handers all four games in the series against the Angels. One imagines Grisham will at least start Tuesday to see if he can keep it going.

Only plunking Jo Adell prevented Warren from being perfect through three. However, the fourth started with a José Caballero error, and Warren was pulled after giving up a double with one out and then a single, a walk and another single with two outs. It probably had to be done with Warren up to 37 pitches in the inning. Warren struck out six, and since the run support wasn’t lacking, there’s a great chance he would have gotten a win tonight if only he could have overcome the error. He’ll face the Royals this weekend.

Kikuchi was clearly off tonight. While his fastball velocity was pretty normal, the rest of his pitches were all down one or two mph. For his changeup, it was actually closer to three mph. He walked four and gave up homers to Aaron Judge and José Caballero. Now possessing a 7.50 ERA, Kikuchi seems like a particularly poor mixed-league option. He’ll face the Padres on Saturday.

This was probably due. Romano hadn’t allowed a hit in five innings this season but also hadn’t pitched in a week coming into tonight. He gave up a leadoff single to Jazz Chisholm Jr., a homer to Trent Grisham, a double to José Caballero and a walk to Austin Wells, during which Caballero stole third base. With a full count on Ryan McMahon, Romano uncorked a game-ending wild pitch, which also still counted as ball four to McMahon. Romano will probably remain the Angels’ primary closer for now, but he won’t be able to afford another outing like this in the near future.