The Opener: Ginn, Emerson, Crews
Seattle is going with a tag-team approach for Tuesday’s matchup against the White Sox. Right-hander Luis Castillo is expected to piggyback fellow righty Bryce Miller. The club initially went with a six-man rotation when Miller returned, but will move Castillo to a bulk relief role, at least for now.
1. Ginn loses no-no, then the game
Athletics right-hander J.T. Ginn took a brutal loss on Monday night. He tossed eight no-hit innings with 10 strikeouts. After getting shut out for eight frames, the A’s opened the scoring with a tally in the top of the ninth inning. Ginn gave up a leadoff single to Adam Frazier in the bottom of the inning to break up the no-hitter. Zach Neto then ended the game with a walk-off home run. “You just keep your head up and keep moving forward,” Ginn told reporters (h/t Martin Gallegos of MLB.com). “It’s just the nature of the game that we play.” The 26-year-old righty has emerged as a reliable member of the A’s rotation. He’s delivered three straight quality starts to lower his ERA below 3.00. Ginn has gone 8+ innings in two of his last three appearances.
2. Emerson on the board
Mariners infielder Colt Emerson was called up on Sunday and immediately inserted into the starting lineup. The promotion happened so suddenly that his family wasn’t in attendance for his debut. Emerson went 0-for-3 in his first game. With more time to make the trip, Emerson’s parents and more than a dozen friends and relatives were in the stands on Monday against the White Sox. The 20-year-old snuck a line drive over the right field wall in the eighth inning for his first big-league hit. Emerson became the 11th player in Seattle history to homer for their first career knock (h/t Daniel Kramer of MLB.com). The last player to do it was Jarred Kelenic in 2021. Kelenic was in right field for Chicago, watching Emerson’s three-run blast soar over his head.
3. Crews headed back to the big leagues
Nationals outfielder Dylan Crews is expected to be recalled on Tuesday. The former No. 2 overall pick was somewhat surprisingly sent to Triple-A to open the season. Crews has rebounded from a slow start at Rochester with a strong May. The 24-year-old has hit .291 with nine extra-base hits in 14 games this month. Crews will get another shot to stick in the big leagues after a disappointing beginning to his career. The top prospect has a 78 wRC+ across parts of two seasons. He’s slashed .211/.282/.352 across 454 plate appearances. Crews has racked up 29 steals in 116 games, so the speed element has been there. He’ll just need to find a way to get on base more consistently.
Photo courtesy of Gary A. Vasquez, Imagn Images
Mets To Promote Nick Morabito
The Mets are planning to recall outfield prospect Nick Morabito for his major league debut, reports Will Sammon of The Athletic. He’ll fill the 26-man roster spot that’s being vacated by the previously reported DFA of veteran outfielder Austin Slater.
Morabito, the No. 75 overall pick in the 2022 draft, entered the season generally ranked between 10th and 20th among Mets farmhands. The 23-year-old has held his own thus far in his first taste of Triple-A, slashing a roughly league-average .253/.364/.390 in 175 trips to the plate. Morabito has walked at a hearty 12% clip, fanned in 22.9% of his plate appearances, connected on four home runs and gone 14-for-16 (87.5%) in stolen base attempts.
Morabito hasn’t hit the ball particularly hard in the upper minors, and despite this season’s four home runs, he’s considered to have well below-average power. He’s a plus runner who’s capable of handling all three outfield spots at an above-average level.
The Mets already have a crowded outfield mix, thanks in part to a pair of fellow rookies; Opening Day right fielder Carson Benge has come alive at the plate lately, and A.J. Ewing has hit the ground running since last week’s promotion to the big leagues. Juan Soto entered the season as the everyday left fielder, but he’s spent more time at designated hitter lately while playing through forearm and ankle issues (the latter stemming from an at-bat last week where he fouled a ball into his right foot).
Soto’s uptick in DH time and Slater’s DFA could create more outfield opportunities for the fleet-footed Morabito. The influx of youth and steady presence of Soto’s bat will likely continue to cut into playing time for outfielder/designated hitter MJ Melendez. The former Royals top prospect has predictably cooled off after a blistering start to the season. Melendez provided an early spark when he hit .345/.406/.655 in his first 33 turns at the plate, but that production was buoyed by a .533 average on balls in play and came in spite of a 36.4% strikeout rate and 68% contact rate. Melendez’s lack of contact has caught up with him. He’s hitting .133/.278/.200 with a 33.9% strikeout rate this month and is currently in a 1-for-20 slump.
Morabito was selected to the 40-man roster back in November in order to shield him from selection in December’s Rule 5 Draft. As such, he’s in the first of three minor league option years. Enough time has passed in 2026 that he can’t accrue a full year of major league service this season, meaning Morabito will be under club control for at least six additional years — all the way through 2032. That timeline could change, depending on whether Morabito is optioned back to Syracuse at any point (and on how long said optional assignments last).
Mets To Designate Austin Slater For Assignment
The Mets are expected to designate outfielder Austin Slater for assignment, reports Jon Heyman of the New York Post. The veteran latched on with New York in late April after getting DFAed by the Marlins. The team has yet to announce the move.
Slater took the spot of another well-traveled outfielder, joining the club when Tommy Pham was designated for assignment. The Mets were Slater’s third team in a little over a month. He opted out of a minor league deal with the Tigers before signing with the Marlins. After a dozen games in Miami, the outfielder lasted just nine games in New York.
A platoon bat for much of his career, Slater has just four plate appearances against right-handed pitching this season. He picked up two hits in those chances. The veteran scuffled against lefties, posting a .444 OPS with a bloated 33.3% strikeout rate.
Slater’s skillset is somewhat duplicative of Tyrone Taylor‘s contributions, and he doesn’t offer the same defensive ability. With A.J. Ewing emerging as an everyday option in the outfield, the Mets didn’t need two right-handed bench outfielders. Slater will now head back through the DFA process. If the Mets don’t find a trade partner, and no club claims him, the veteran can forego a minor league assignment and choose free agency. That’s how he landed with the Mets after departing the Marlins.
Photo courtesy of Mark J. Rebilas, Imagn Images
Nationals Option Brady House
The Nationals announced they’ve optioned third baseman Brady House to Triple-A Rochester. That creates an active roster opening, which they’ll reportedly fill tomorrow by recalling former #2 overall pick Dylan Crews.
It’s a surprise demotion, as House has started 38 of Washington’s 48 games this year. He was in the lineup for tonight’s extra-inning loss to the Mets and still hitting third in Blake Butera’s lineup. Despite continuing to hit him in the middle of the order, the Nats now decide to send House down for his first work against Triple-A pitching since he made his MLB debut last June.
House, the #11 overall pick in the 2022 draft, limped to a .234/.252/.322 line over 73 games as a rookie. This year’s numbers are better but still middling. House carries a .227/.282/.399 mark across 177 trips to the plate. He’s drawing walks at a modest 7.3% clip against a 28% strikeout rate. He’s in the bottom 15 among hitters (minimum 150 plate appearances) in contact rate.
The plate discipline remains a work in progress, but House’s seven home runs tied him with Daylen Lile for third on the team behind James Wood and CJ Abrams. He’d connected on three of those homers this month, albeit with a .224 average and .264 on-base percentage entering tonight’s game. House has graded poorly defensively, tying Junior Caminero for the lead among third basemen with eight errors. Both Defensive Runs Saved and Outs Above Average have him bottom five at the position.
Washington’s infield defense probably won’t improve much with a combination of Jorbit Vivas and José Tena covering third base. Curtis Mead has hit well off the bench and could get a look there too, though the Nationals seemingly prefer him as a first baseman. That’ll open some at-bats at designated hitter for Wood and Lile, as Crews will surely be in the lineup on an everyday basis. Jacob Young is the team’s best defensive outfielder; he’s day-to-day after taking a fastball to the ribs this evening, though Butera said postgame that x-rays were negative (via Mark Zuckerman of Nats Journal).
House entered this season with 105 days of MLB service. He needs to be on the big league roster for 67 days this year to cross the one-year threshold before the end of the season. He’s a little less than two weeks short of that right now, but there’s ample time for him to play his way back onto the active roster during the summer.
Jake Fraley To Undergo Sports Hernia Procedure
Rays outfielder Jake Fraley will undergo sports hernia surgery tomorrow, reports Marc Topkin of The Tampa Bay Times. He’ll be out for six to eight weeks.
Fraley landed on the 10-day injured list on Saturday. The surgery timetable may lead to a transfer to the 60-day IL at some point. Fraley has had at least one injured list stint in every season of his MLB career. He had three absences last year between Cincinnati and Atlanta, capping him at 76 games. Between the injuries and his limited usage against left-handed pitching, Fraley has yet to reach 400 plate appearances in a season.
It has been a slow start for the 30-year-old outfielder. Fraley has hit .232/.300/.390 with two home runs in 90 trips to the dish. It’s nevertheless suboptimal for the Rays to lose him, as their bench skews very heavily to the right side. Topkin notes that the Rays’ two lefty-hitting outfielders who are on optional assignment, Jacob Melton and Victor Mesa Jr., are themselves on the minor league injured list.
Middle infielder Carson Williams came up as the corresponding move for Fraley’s IL placement. Manager Kevin Cash tells Topkin that’s driven partially by Ben Williamson, who hasn’t played since Friday while dealing with back tightness. Cash didn’t rule out an injured list stint. Teams can backdate an IL placement by up to three days, so the Rays may view Tuesday as the cutoff for deciding whether to put him on the shelf for at least another week.
Athletics Outright Michael Stefanic
The Athletics sent infielder Michael Stefanic outright to Triple-A Las Vegas, per the MLB.com transaction tracker. They’d designated him for assignment on Saturday when they acquired Alika Williams from Pittsburgh to replace Stefanic as a utility infielder.
Stefanic had a brief stint on the big league roster. The A’s had called him up on Tuesday when they lost Jacob Wilson to the injured list. Stefanic played twice, once starting at second base and entering the other game as a pinch-hitter. He went 2-5 with a run scored. It marks five consecutive years with some MLB action for the 30-year-old infielder. He’s a lifetime .231/.315/.269 hitter at the major league level.
The righty-hitting Stefanic has been a fantastic Triple-A performer throughout his career. He owns a .326/.422/.447 batting line in more than 2000 plate appearances. Stefanic has elite strike zone judgment and pure contact skills, but he doesn’t hit for much power. He’s also more of a second/third baseman than a true shortstop, which limits his value off the bench for MLB clubs. That’s evidenced by the A’s going with Williams as a more valuable defender behind their middle infield pairing of Jeff McNeil and fill-in shortstop Darell Hernaiz.
Stefanic has been outrighted a handful of times throughout his career. That gives him the right to elect free agency, though it seems likelier he’ll accept the assignment back to Las Vegas and hang around as non-roster infield depth.
Kyle Teel Shut Down With LCL Sprain
It will be quite some time before Kyle Teel makes his season debut. The White Sox second-year catcher sprained the lateral collateral ligament (LCL) in his right knee, relays Brooke Fletcher of Chicago Sports Network. He’ll be down for 3-6 weeks before he’s able to start a new rehab assignment.
Teel suffered the injury on Saturday in a rehab game with Triple-A Charlotte. Manager Will Venable told reporters (including James Fegan of Sox Machine) that the lefty batter got hurt when his cleat got stuck during a swing. He was working his way back after sustaining a Grade 2 strain of his right hamstring while playing for Italy in the World Baseball Classic.
It’s a frustrating setback for a surprisingly competitive Sox team. Chicago enters their series in Seattle with a 24-22 record that has them in a Wild Card spot and only a game behind Cleveland in the AL Central. A playoff berth still seems like a long shot given the Sox’s rebuilding pitching staff, but they’re a more live threat than most would’ve anticipated at the beginning of the season.
The offense has been a big part of that. Chicago is tenth in scoring and ranks in the top half of the league in both on-base percentage and slugging. Only the Yankees have hit more home runs than the Sox’s 66 longballs. Teel would likely have slotted into the top half of the lineup after a .273/.375/.411 showing over his first 78 MLB games.
Chicago has instead rolled with a Drew Romo/Edgar Quero pairing behind the plate. Romo, who entered the season with essentially no MLB track record, has connected on four homers in 13 games since being called up to supplant Reese McGuire as the backup catcher. Quero has had a very tough year, yesterday’s walk-off homer against the Cubs notwithstanding.
The Sox could transfer Teel to the 60-day injured list if they need to open a spot on the 40-man roster at some point. That’ll backdate to Opening Day and would be a formality, as he’s unlikely to be ready for MLB action until late June at the earliest. Quero and Romo are the only healthy catchers on the 40-man.
Nationals To Recall Dylan Crews
The Nationals are likely to recall Dylan Crews from Triple-A Rochester tomorrow, reports Mark Zuckerman of Nats Journal. He’ll meet the big league club in D.C. for the second game of their ongoing series against the Mets.
Zuckerman writes that the call-up was independent of what happened in tonight’s game. Washington center fielder Jacob Young was hit in the midsection by a 93 mph fastball from Mets starter Christian Scott. He was replaced by Joey Wiemer. It’s too soon for the Nats to know whether Young will miss any time, but that could end up being a coincidental corresponding move for the pre-planned Crews promotion.
Crews will get his first MLB look of the 2026 season. Washington optioned the former #2 overall pick and top prospect at the end of Spring Training. Crews had a dismal camp, striking out 11 times in 34 plate appearances while collecting three hits (all singles). That followed a .208/.280/.352 showing in his first full MLB season in 2025.
Washington’s front office felt Crews needed a reset against Triple-A pitching. He had a middling start to the season, batting .247/.346/.404 in April. Crews has gone on a tear since the calendar flipped to May, hitting .291/.339/.527 with seven doubles and a couple home runs in 14 games. He has still fanned in a quarter of his plate appearances, but the recent form was enough to convince the club he’s ready for another shot against MLB arms.
The Nationals can justify Crews’ demotion based on the slow start to his MLB career and his unimpressive spring. That said, they’re surely also aware of the service time ramifications. Crews entered this season with one year and 35 days of MLB service. He needed to spend 137 days on the big league roster to cross the two-year mark in 2026. There are only 132 days remaining in the regular season, meaning Crews will fall narrowly short of that mark even if he’s in the Majors for good.
That’ll push his path to free agency back to the 2031-32 offseason at the earliest, barring an overhaul of the service time structure in the collective bargaining agreement. Crews would be on track for early arbitration as a Super Two player after the 2027 season if he sticks in the big leagues, though he still has a full slate of options and could plausibly be sent back down if he continues to struggle against MLB pitching.
Crews spent most of last season as Washington’s right fielder. He has divided his time between all three outfield spots in Triple-A. Young is one of the sport’s premier defensive outfielders but doesn’t provide much at the plate. James Wood and Daylen Lile aren’t coming out of the lineup. They could rotate through a designated hitter spot divided mostly between Jorbit Vivas and José Tena if the Nationals prefer Crews in a corner.
If Young requires an injured list stint, it’d be simple enough to plug Crews into the everyday center field role. They’d otherwise need to drop someone from the active roster if Young is day-to-day. Wiemer still has an option remaining and hasn’t hit since his out-of-nowhere tear in the first week of the season. The slumping Vivas would seem the other candidate if Washington needs an active roster spot, but he is out of options.
Dodgers Sign Jonathan Hernández
The Dodgers announced the signing of reliever Jonathan Hernández to a major league deal. Chayce McDermott was optioned to Triple-A Oklahoma City in a corresponding move. L.A. transferred Ben Casparius to the 60-day injured list to open a spot on the 40-man roster.
Hernández spent the first six weeks of the season with the Phillies on a minor league contract. He was granted his release yesterday after triggering an opt-out provision. Philly opted not to give him an MLB look, but he’ll get his first major league opportunity since 2024 with the two-time defending champions.
The 29-year-old Hernández has spent the majority of his career with the Rangers. He pitched his way into a late-inning role in Texas in 2020 but underwent Tommy John surgery the following April. The hard-throwing righty pitched well upon his return in the second half of ’22. He ran into trouble over the next couple seasons, combining for a 5.40 ERA over 62 appearances between 2023-24.
Texas waived Hernández late in the ’24 season. He had a brief stint with the Mariners and spent last season in the Rays’ system on a minor league contract. An injury kept him out until September and limited him to 12 Triple-A appearances. The sinkerballer has been healthy this year, working 15 innings of eight-run ball with Philly’s top affiliate. He has recorded 22 strikeouts against five walks while getting ground-balls at a lofty 57% clip.
Hernández has a standard sinker-slider combination, sitting in the 96 mph range with the heater. He’ll be available in middle relief as the Dodgers enter the 12th day of a two-week stretch without an off day. Hernández hasn’t pitched in five days and should be at full strength. He’s out of minor league options, so it could be a brief stint on the roster if L.A. needs to swap him out for another fresh arm later in the week.
Casparius has been out since April 13 with shoulder inflammation. The transfer officially rules him out of MLB action until June 12. Casparius has yet to begin a rehab assignment so he might not be ready by then either way. According to the MLB.com injury tracker, he was throwing at the club’s Arizona complex earlier this month.
Fabian Ardaya of The Athletic first reported the Hernández signing.
Dodgers Acquire Eric Lauer
May 18: Shi Davidi of Sportsnet reports that the Jays are sending around $2.5MM in cash to cover the bulk of Lauer’s salary. The Dodgers are picking up around $600K, though that’s only a marginal amount above the roughly $550K that a minimum salary player would have made the rest of the year. Davidi adds that the Jays will not receive a player to be named later, so it’ll be Lauer and cash for a nominal cash consideration.
May 17: The Blue Jays announced they’ve traded left-hander Eric Lauer and cash to the Dodgers for a player to be named later or cash considerations. Los Angeles transferred reliever Brusdar Graterol from the 15-day to the 60-day injured list to open a spot on the 40-man roster.
Toronto designated Lauer for assignment earlier in the week. They’re paying down some portion of the approximate $3.1MM remaining on Lauer’s $4.4MM arbitration salary, though the precise amount hasn’t been reported. The Dodgers will pay a 110% tax on whatever amount of Lauer’s salary they’re assuming.
Lauer posted solid numbers as a starter and swingman with the Padres and Brewers from 2018-22, but his career was at a crossroads after a rough 2023 campaign. The left-hander didn’t pitch in the big leagues at all in 2024, as he spent his time in the minors with the Astros and Pirates and also had a stint in the KBO League with the Kia Tigers. Toronto inked Lauer to a minor league contract in the 2024-25 offseason, and he ended up being one of the unsung heroes of the Jays’ run to the American League crown.
Initially called up as a long reliever and bulk pitcher, Lauer was moved into a full-fledged starting role by June before being shifted back into bullpen work in September and throughout the postseason. Lauer posted a 3.18 ERA, 23.9% strikeout rate, and 6.1% walk rate across 104 2/3 regular-season innings and then delivered a 3.12 ERA in 8 2/3 playoff frames.
Despite these solid numbers, the Jays still viewed Lauer as a swingman or depth option heading into 2026, as Toronto addressed the rotation by signing Dylan Cease and Cody Ponce, and then reuniting with Max Scherzer. However, fate intervened again with a swath of injuries that quickly thinned the Blue Jays’ pitching depth, leaving Lauer again in a starting job.
This time, Lauer came back to earth. He posted a 6.69 ERA over 36 1/3 innings and eight outings this season, and his 16K% and 9.9BB% also went in the wrong direction from 2025. Lauer wasn’t entirely healthy himself as he battled through a bad case of the flu, but there also seemed to be some discord between the left-hander and the team over his usage. Lauer went public with his displeasure over first his lack of starting opportunities, and then the Jays’ decision to use an opener for some of Lauer’s outings.
Ironically, Lauer now finds himself on a team known for non-traditional pitcher deployment, so it wouldn’t be a shock if the Dodgers again use an opener if Lauer is lined up to face a team with several tough right-handed batters atop a lineup. That assumes Lauer will start at all, though that is probably the likeliest scenario given the team’s rotation needs.
Tyler Glasnow and Blake Snell are both on the injured list, leaving Los Angeles with two holes in its preferred six-man rotation model. Roki Sasaki‘s starting job is also less than stable given the right-hander’s shaky start to the 2026 campaign, though Sasaki might retain his rotation role just by dint of a lack of other options. Lauer could be inserted alongside Sasaski, Shohei Ohtani, Yoshinobu Yamamoto, Justin Wrobleski, and Emmet Sheehan. Down on the farm, River Ryan might be approaching readiness for a return to the majors as well, so the Dodgers again find themselves in the odd position of both technically having a rotation surplus, yet also a shortage of arms.
Katie Woo of The Athletic first reported the Dodgers were acquiring Lauer.