The Opener: Cubs, Rangers, Nootbaar
Diamondbacks first baseman Ildemaro Vargas and Dodgers third baseman Max Muncy are both fine after slamming into each other on a close play at first base last night (video via Talkin’ Baseball on X). Vargas is dealing with some bruises, and Muncy went through concussion protocol, but the infielders are expected to return to the lineup this weekend.
1. Cubs’ wild comeback
The Cubs were in danger of getting swept at home by the Athletics on Thursday. Chicago cut into a 6-1 deficit with an Ian Happ two-run homer in the seventh inning, but went into the final frame down three runs. Joel Kuhnel entered for the A’s and quickly got into trouble. The righty permitted five hits and recorded just two outs, one of which came via caught stealing. Luis Medina relieved Kuhnel with two runners on and the A’s clinging to a one-run lead. Dansby Swanson knocked in the game-tying tally, and Pete Crow-Armstrong followed with a walk-off single. PCA also homered earlier in the game, redeeming himself after losing a Shea Langeliers fly ball in the twilight, leading to an inside-the-park home run.
2. Seager, Langford expected back
The Rangers are getting reinforcements on Friday. Shortstop Corey Seager and outfielder Wyatt Langford are expected to return for a series against the Guardians, per Evan Grant of the Dallas Morning News. Seager has missed a couple of weeks with back inflammation. Langford has been sidelined since late April with a forearm strain. Outfielder Alejandro Osuna and utilityman Cody Freeman are heading back to the minors to clear spots for Seager and Langford, relays Grant. Texas has recovered since getting swept by the Angels and dropping three of four against the Astros (including a no-hitter). The club has won five of six games heading into a weekend matchup against Cleveland.
3. Nootbaar returning Friday
The Cardinals are also getting an important bat back into the lineup. Outfielder Lars Nootbaar is expected to make his season debut on Friday against the Reds, relays Derrick Goold of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. Nootbaar is returning from offseason surgery on both heels. Injuries have limited him in multiple seasons, but the outfielder played a career-high 135 games in 2025. Nootbaar should provide a boost to a lineup that ranks 29th in scoring since the beginning of May. “He takes his walks, he controls the strike zone, he puts it in play, so that will be helpful,” manager Oli Marmol said.
Photo courtesy of Matt Marton, Imagn Images
The Padres’ Problems Are Mounting
The past couple weeks have not been kind to the Padres. They now have a season-high five-game losing streak after being swept in today's matinee series finale in Philadelphia. It's their third four-plus game skid of the season and second in as many weeks, as they've dropped nine of ten.
Six of those have come at the hands of the Phillies, who have turned their season around after a brutal April and managerial change. Philadelphia obviously deserves credit for that, but San Diego's recent results have magnified the issues that existed even when they were winning games. They won 18 of 25 games in April despite an underperforming lineup and one of the weakest on-paper rotations in the National League. The roster deficiencies have begun to catch up.
San Diego's early-season success means they're still in playoff position. They're 32-29 and right in the thick of the Wild Card race. Two-thirds of the National League is above .500, so a team's placement in the standings can move quickly.
Ken Rosenthal of The Athletic wrote about the Padres' struggles this morning, observing that president of baseball operations A.J. Preller has never shied away from big swings at the deadline. Unless they go into a freefall over the next two months, they'll likely be tied to a number of big names on the trade market. The needs are stacking up.
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A’s Move Jack Perkins Into Rotation
Jack Perkins will make his first start of the season for the A’s on Friday. The second-year righty will go opposite Peter Lambert to kick off a weekend series with the Astros.
Manager Mark Kotsay told Martín Gallegos of MLB.com this week that Perkins will be part of the rotation. The A’s have lost Aaron Civale and Luis Severino to injury within the past 10 days. They optioned struggling left-hander Jacob Lopez to Triple-A on Tuesday. That has overhauled three-fifths of the rotation they’d used for most of the season.
Top prospect Gage Jump was called up when Civale went down. He had a shaky debut against the Mariners but fired seven innings of one-run ball to beat the Cubs in his second career start. They brought up another rookie, Kade Morris, this week. He’ll make his MLB debut on Saturday against Tatsuya Imai in the second game of the Houston series. Morris doesn’t have Jump’s upside but is viewed as a potential back-end starter.
Jeffrey Springs is the only member of the season-opening starting five currently in the rotation. Luis Morales opened as the fifth starter but pitched poorly and was optioned in early April. He’s now working short relief in Triple-A and still struggling.
J.T. Ginn moved from the bullpen to take Morales’ rotation spot and has had a quietly strong year. He carries a 2.74 ERA with a 23% strikeout rate over 65 2/3 frames. Ginn pitched six innings of one-run ball against the Cubs tonight, but a bullpen meltdown spoiled the strong start. The A’s gave up four in the bottom of the ninth and got walked off.
They’ll hope that Perkins can make a similarly successful transition from relief. The 26-year-old has started four of his 29 big league appearances. The A’s brought him up last June as a multi-inning reliever. They moved him to the rotation in August until a shoulder strain ended his season. Perkins opened this season at Triple-A Las Vegas. The A’s recalled him in early April.
Perkins owns a 5.46 ERA across 28 innings on the season. He’s striking out 26.4% of opponents behind an excellent 14.3% swinging strike mark. Perkins has also halved his walk rate, but he has hit six batters. He issued a lot of free passes at every stop throughout his minor league career. This year’s 5.6% walk percentage is probably a blip, but Perkins has quality stuff. He’s sitting in the 96 mph range with his fastball while getting lots of chases and whiffs with his breaking ball and changeup.
The next few weeks will essentially be audition time for all three of Jump, Perkins and Morris. The non-Lopez depth starters at Triple-A (i.e. Morales, Joey Estes and Chen Zhong-Ao Zhuang) have not performed well. Mason Barnett is in long relief but would probably be the next one up for a rotation look if Perkins or Morris falter. Braden Nett, acquired in the Mason Miller trade, just came off the Triple-A injured list. Last year’s first-round pick Jamie Arnold is at Double-A and has been inconsistent.
Pitching, starting and relief, would be the apparent priorities for the A’s if they’re in position to add at the deadline. They sit 2.5 back of the Mariners in the AL West after today’s tough loss. They’re in possession of the final Wild Card spot despite being two games under .500 at 30-32.
Rangers Re-Sign Josh Sborz To Minor League Deal
The Rangers are re-signing reliever Josh Sborz to a minor league contract, reports Evan Grant of The Dallas Morning News. He’d been granted his release earlier in the week.
Sborz pitched parts of four MLB seasons with Texas between 2021-24. While he had a mostly nondescript 4.86 earned run average across 150 regular season innings, he carved out a place in team history in October ’23. Sborz worked 12 frames of one-run ball over 10 appearances during the Rangers title run. He was one of Bruce Bochy’s top setup arms and fired 2 1/3 scoreless innings to earn the save in the World Series clinching Game 5 at Chase Field.
Shoulder problems have mostly hampered him since that triumphant moment. Sborz was limited to 16 2/3 innings in 2024. He missed all of last season working back from a debridement procedure, as he encountered a setback during a brief minor league rehab attempt. Texas opted not to tender him an arbitration contract but was able to retain him via minor league deal.
The 32-year-old has been healthy this year but hasn’t pitched well enough to earn a roster spot. Sborz allowed 13 runs across 14 1/3 innings at Triple-A Round Rock. He fanned 17 of 65 opponents (26.1%) but issued nine walks and gave up six home runs. He spent a month working on his mechanics outside of game action before being reassigned to Double-A a couple weeks ago. Texas bumped him back to Round Rock on May 27. He allowed hits to five of 10 batters faced in two innings before briefly testing the market.
It’s not uncommon for players to re-sign on a minor league deal after triggering an opt-out. They get a couple days to gauge whether there are better paths to an MLB opportunity elsewhere. The new deal could have a slightly higher minor league salary and include new upward mobility/opt-out chances that weren’t in the previous agreement.
Aaron Judge Diagnosed With Rib Stress Fracture, Reevaluated In 4-6 Weeks
The Yankees will be without the game’s most feared slugger for a couple months. New York announced that Aaron Judge has been diagnosed with a stress fracture in the first rib on his right side. He’ll go for follow-up imaging in four to six weeks to gauge his healing and rehab process.
New York announced that Judge is expected back at some point before the end of the season. It’ll almost certainly not be until August at the earliest. He’ll be placed on the 10-day injured list before tomorrow’s series opener with the Red Sox and seems likely to wind up on the 60-day IL at some point.
Judge sat out this week’s series against the Guardians. The Yankees announced he was going for testing on a ribcage injury despite feeling the pain mostly in his right shoulder. Fans had some concern when the team sent Judge to a doctor who specializes in treating thoracic outlet syndrome this afternoon. It seems that was to rule out the nerve condition.
Thoracic outlet syndrome would have been the nightmare outcome. A rib fracture seems unlikely to be a career-altering injury. While it’s not a worst case scenario, it’s clearly not good news. It’ll take until around the All-Star Break for the team to even check into the rib’s healing. He’d need to build up baseball activities and live batting practice sessions from there. An absence of this length is also going to require a rehab assignment to get accustomed to game speed.
Judge has felt an increasing amount of discomfort while hitting over the past few weeks. There was no single play this season that caused the injury. Bryan Hoch of MLB.com notes that Judge actually suffered a stress fracture of the same rib and a partially collapsed lung on a diving catch attempt back in 2019. That wasn’t diagnosed until the following March. The pandemic then shut down the sport for a few months, so that injury didn’t cost him any game time.
This injury has clearly weighed on Judge’s performance. He hit .243/.368/.437 with five home runs in May. That’d be a good few weeks for most hitters but was Judge’s lowest OPS in a month since April 2024. He had an OPS north of 1.000 this April, slugging 12 homers through the season’s first five weeks.
The Yankees are also without Giancarlo Stanton and Jasson Domínguez. Utility players José Caballero and Max Schuemann have started the last three games in right field. They’ll probably bring Spencer Jones back up from Triple-A Scranton/Wilkes-Barre now that a Judge IL stay is confirmed. Domínguez is taking batting practice and could begin a rehab assignment this week. Stanton told Jon Heyman of The New York Post that he’s hoping to be back from a calf strain in about two weeks.
New York led MLB in scoring in May even without a herculean month from the three-time MVP. Ben Rice and Cody Bellinger are having fantastic seasons. Jazz Chisholm Jr. has picked things up after a bad start. Paul Goldschmidt, back in the everyday lineup thanks to the Stanton and Domínguez injuries, is having a resurgent year. The bottom third of the order has been an issue, especially Austin Wells behind the plate, but this should still be an above-average lineup.
It’s clearly not going to be as potent without Judge as the anchor though. It’s unlikely this will dramatically change their deadline trajectory, as Domínguez should be back before too long to hold an outfield spot until Judge returns. It could certainly impact a tight division race, with New York holding a half-game advantage over Tampa Bay in the AL East.
Red Sox To Option Brayan Bello To Triple-A
The Red Sox are optioning right-hander Brayan Bello to Triple-A Worcester, reports Dan Roche of WBZ. Boston will add recently acquired lefty reliever Joe La Sorsa to the active roster for tomorrow’s series opener in The Bronx.
Bello was knocked around again this afternoon, giving up eight runs over five innings to take the loss against the Orioles. He’s now sitting on a 6.34 earned run average over 61 frames on the season. He’s striking hitters out at a career-low 15.6% rate. Bello has a career-worst average exit velocity allowed while giving up a lofty 1.48 home runs per nine innings.
The primary issue is that Bello has had no answers for left-handed batters. They carried a .323/.384/.554 line with nearly as many walks as strikeouts in 147 plate appearances into today’s start. He hasn’t been good against right-handed hitters either, but the numbers against lefties are completely untenable. That was also an issue for Bello early in his career.
Boston has tried to work around that by using a left-handed opener in front of Bello on four occasions. He has pitched very well in those outings, but the opener (Jovani Morán or Tyler Samaniego) has allowed at least one run in each. The Sox have gone 1-3 in those games despite Bello having a combined 0.71 ERA across 25 1/3 innings.
The 27-year-old righty was asked about the stark difference between his performance as a bulk arm versus starts. He was clearly unhappy with the question.
“First of all, just stop talking about bullpen and starting games,” he said in Spanish via the team’s interpreter (link via Jen McCaffrey of The Athletic). “I’ve always been a starter, and when I’ve been successful as a starter, no one asks your question (about) whether I have to be in the bullpen or starting games. So, just starting from there, just stop that talk, because I’m just having a bad season. That’s it. It’s not whether I’m a starter or I’m a reliever. It’s just, having a bad season. I know that I can turn it around.”
Marcos Grunfeld of El Emergente, a native Spanish speaker on the Boston beat, directly translated Bello’s comments a little more firmly:
“First of all, just stop talking about this bullpen-starter crap because when I’m pitching well as a starter, nobody talks about it. Now that I’m having a bad season as a starter, everybody wants to talk crap about it. The first thing is that we should stop talking about it and focus on the good things. Yes, I’m having a bad season as a starter, but I believe things are going to get better.”
In any case, the Sox probably would’ve proceeded with the demotion based on Bello’s performance alone. He’s in the third season of a $55MM extension signed in Spring Training 2024. Bello posted a 4.49 ERA that year and had a career season in 2025. He turned in a 3.35 mark across 166 2/3 innings, albeit with a drop in strikeouts that has only heightened this year. Bello is playing on a $6MM salary and guaranteed $44.5MM from 2027-29 (including a buyout on a 2030 club option).
Pitchers must spend at least 15 days on an optional assignment unless they’re recalled to replace an injured player. Boston can carry an extra reliever until his next scheduled start on Tuesday. Rookie southpaw Jake Bennett, who made his first two career starts earlier in the season, seems the likeliest candidate to come up. He owns a 1.60 ERA with plus strikeout and walk marks in Triple-A.
The Red Sox still need to create a 40-man roster spot to select La Sorsa’s contract. Garrett Crochet could move to the 60-day injured list, assuming he won’t be back from his low-grade lat strain within the next three weeks. A transfer would backdate to his initial April 26 placement.
Twins Sign Austin Voth To Minor League Deal
The Twins signed right-hander Austin Voth to a minor league contract. The move was announced by their Triple-A affiliate in St. Paul, as he’ll start tonight’s game for the Saints.
Voth elected free agency on Tuesday after being outrighted by the Blue Jays. The 33-year-old had two very brief stops on Toronto’s big league roster. He made two long relief appearances, giving up six runs in as many innings. Voth surrendered eight hits, walked five batters, and threw three wild pitches while recording one strikeout.
The big league work wasn’t impressive, but Voth pitched well out of the Triple-A rotation. He made eight starts there and turned in a 2.90 earned run average, albeit while averaging less than four innings per appearance. Voth had a below-average 17% strikeout rate compared to a tidy 6.8% walk percentage. He doesn’t have big stuff but has mixed five pitches and been around the strike zone.
Minnesota pulled the plug on Simeon Woods Richardson with last week’s DFA. They traded him to Toronto for cash yesterday. Bailey Ober recently went down with a mild flexor strain that’ll shut him down completely for 10-14 days. He’ll be on the injured list for most or all of June. Kendry Rojas also recently suffered a triceps strain and Mick Abel has been out since the middle of April.
They’re currently operating with a four-man rotation of Joe Ryan, Taj Bradley, Zebby Matthews and Connor Prielipp. Rookie Mike Paredes is with the big league club in long relief but could draw into the rotation. John Klein is the only depth starter on optional assignment. Voth is the only other starter on the Triple-A team with MLB experience and will probably get a look as a long man at some point this summer.
Red Sox Acquire Joe La Sorsa
6:41pm: Boston announced the trade but has yet to reveal the corresponding move.
5:20pm: The Pirates are going to trade left-hander Joe La Sorsa to the Red Sox, reports Ari Alexander of 7News Boston. The Bucs will get cash in return, per Alex Speier of The Boston Globe. It was reported a few days ago that the southpaw was triggering an upward mobility clause in his minor league deal. Alexander says that La Sorsa will be with the Sox in New York tomorrow as they kick off a series against the Yankees. Boston will need to open a 40-man roster spot for La Sorsa.
La Sorsa, 28, will be appearing in his fourth straight major league season once he gets into a game with the Sox. From 2023 to 2025, he pitched for the Rays, Nationals and Reds, posting a 5.21 earned run average in 57 innings.
He signed a minor league deal with the Pirates in the offseason and has been pitching for Triple-A Indianapolis. He has thrown 26 innings with a 3.46 ERA. His 21.2% strikeout rate is around average while his 5.8% walk rate and 47.9% ground ball rate a few ticks better than par.
The lefty triggered an upward mobility clause in his deal at the end of spring training. The way such clauses work is that the player must be offered to the 29 others teams in the league. If any of them want to give the player a roster spot, the signing team has to either trade him or give him a roster spot themselves. If they all pass, he will stay with the signing team. La Sorsa stayed with the Bucs in late March, suggesting all clubs passed on him at that time. In this case, the Sox have signed up.
Boston has three lefties in the bullpen, though Aroldis Chapman is the closer. That leaves Jovani Morán and Danny Coulombe as the lefty options for situations before the ninth inning. Coulombe spent about three weeks on the injured list due to cervical spasms and has a 6.55 ERA around that IL stint. Morán has a much better 3.19 ERA but has gotten some help from a fortunate .197 batting average on balls in play and 85.2% strand rate. La Sorsa will give the Sox another option in the southpaw relief corps.
The Sox don’t have a lot of flexibility in their current bullpen mix. Of their eight relief arms, only Justin Slaten and Greg Weissert are optionable, but those are two of their two setup arms. La Sorsa himself is optionable but, as mentioned, he is expected to be with the big league club in the Bronx tomorrow. Perhaps Coulombe will be designated for assignment, as that would open up a spot on both the active and 40-man rosters for La Sorsa. Other options for that kind of move would be Tyron Guerrero and Ryan Watson, who both have ERAs north of 5.00 at the moment.
Photo courtesy of Thomas Shea, Imagn Images
Pirates Pursuing Bullpen Upgrades
The Pirates are actively pursuing bullpen help, reports Ken Rosenthal of The Athletic. A source tells Rosenthal that just about every club is looking for additions in that department but the Bucs are being more aggressive than most.
It’s an understandable pursuit for Pittsburgh. The club has been rebuilding for many years but is making a more serious run at contention this year. The results so far are fairly encouraging, as they are 33-29 and currently in possession of a Wild Card spot.
That is thanks in part to a resurgent offense, something that MLBTR’s Leo Morgenstern covered earlier this week. In the rotation, they have a solid group consisting of Paul Skenes, Braxton Ashcraft, Mitch Keller, Jared Jones and Bubba Chandler. The starting depth is strong enough that Carmen Mlodzinski got bumped out, much to his chagrin.
The relief corps, however, is a relative weak spot. Pittsburgh relievers have a collective 4.32 earned run average, which puts them 19th out of the 30 clubs in the league. Their 23.8% strikeout rate is decent, putting them 11th, but their 11.2% walk rate is better than just seven other clubs and their 39.5% ground ball rate puts them ahead of just six teams.
Dennis Santana was one of the club’s best relievers last year, with a 2.18 ERA. He was probably a bit lucky to have that figure, as he had a .211 batting average on balls in play and 80.7% strand rate. His 3.21 FIP and 3.68 SIERA suggested a bit of regression was coming but his ERA has shot way up to 5.47 this year. Gregory Soto has taken over the closer’s role and has a 2.86 ERA on the year but he has gotten some help from a .194 BABIP and just 3.6% of his fly balls clearing the fence. Evan Sisk and Wilber Dotel have ERAs barely above 1.00. Despite strong underlying numbers, they have gotten some luck and can’t maintain ERAs quite that good. On the other end of the spectrum, Mason Montgomery and Yohan Ramírez have ERAs near 5.00 despite deserving better.
It’s not an awful group but all contenders generally look for bullpen help before the trade deadline. For the Pirates, since they have a strong rotation and a lineup that is performing well, it’s not at all a surprise that the bullpen would be a focus.
It may be hard to pull off a notable deal in the short term, however. The trade deadline is still almost two months away, falling on August 3rd this year. A number of American League teams are struggling but none of them are really buried in the standings since the poor results are so widespread. The Athletics currently have the final Wild Card spot even though they have a 30-31 record. The Angels are in the basement with a 24-39 record but are only seven games back of the A’s. The National League is a bit stronger but, again, very few teams would consider themselves out of it. The Giants and the Rockies are the only N.L. teams more than six games out of a playoff spot.
Even if there are some teams who consider themselves cooked, they may not want to make a trade right now. Clubs in buyer position tend to get more aggressive as the deadline approaches, so a team in seller position might hold and try to drum up frenzied bidding later on in the season.
A great many relievers around the game could be imagined as potential trade candidates, so it’s almost pointless to wonder who the Bucs could be looking at right now. That being said, perhaps the most obvious relief trade candidate at the moment is Antonio Senzatela. He is 31 years old, is playing for a rebuilding Rockies club and is an impending free agent. His deal has a $14MM club option but it’s hard to see that being picked up. He has already been connected to the Padres in a trade rumor.
A starter for most of his career, Senzatela missed most of 2023 and 2024 due to Tommy John surgery and struggled badly in 2025. He got moved to the bullpen last year and finished the season with a 6.65 ERA. This year, he has a 1.30 ERA in 34 2/3 relief innings. His four-seamer velocity has ticked up to 97.3 miles per hour after being at 94.9 mph last year. His 20% strikeout rate isn’t strong but he is only walking 7.7% of batters faced and is inducing grounders at a 43.5% clip.
His .209 BABIP and 89% strand rate are helping him out but his 3.30 FIP and 3.86 SIERA point to him being capable of good results even with neutral luck. He’s also pitching more than two innings per outing, with his 34 2/3 innings coming in 17 appearances. Of course, that’s just one of dozens of relievers who could be on the market in the coming months. Individual and team performances will shake up the field over the next few weeks.
Photo courtesy of Charles LeClaire, Imagn Images
Astros Designate César Salazar, Rhylan Thomas For Assignment
The Astros announced a series of moves prior to tonight’s game. They signed first baseman/outfielder LaMonte Wade Jr. to a major league deal, selected catcher Collin Price to the major league roster and reinstated outfielder Joey Loperfido from the 10-day injured list. Loperfido has been optioned to Triple-A. In corresponding moves, outfielder Zach Cole has been optioned to Triple-A while catcher César Salazar and outfielder Rhylan Thomas have been designated for assignment. The Wade signing was reported earlier today.
Salazar, 30, has been a depth catcher with the Astros for many years. His defense is well regarded but he doesn’t hit much, with a career .189/.295/.216 line. He burned his final option year in 2025, which led to him being bumped off the roster in March of this year. He cleared waivers and stuck around as a non-roster depth option.
He was added back to the roster in early May when Yainer Diaz suffered an oblique strain. Salazar and Christian Vázquez have been the catching duo for the past month but Salazar has hit .056/.227/.056 in that time.
Salazar will be bumped out for Price, who was a sixth-round pick in 2022. Price reached Triple-A last year and showed some promise. He hit 18 home runs and drew walks at a solid 10% clip, but he also struck out in 30.3% of his plate appearances. He has been better this year, with ten home runs already, a 13.5% walk rate and 25.5% strikeout rate. Even in the hitter-friendly context of the Pacific Coast League, his .235/.360/.476 line translates to a 118 wRC+, indicating he has been 18% better than league average. Defensively, Baseball Prospectus ranks him as a strong framer but subpar blocker.
Since this is the first big league call for Price, he has a full slate of options. Whenever Diaz is able to return from the IL, Price could be easily sent back to the minors. Vázquez is an impending free agent, so perhaps Price could be in line for more playing time next year if he continues putting up good numbers here in 2026.
Thomas, 26, was just claimed off waivers from the Mariners last month. He was optioned to Triple-A Sugar Land and hasn’t appeared with the Astros in the big leagues. According to his transactions tracker at MLB.com, he landed on the minor league IL last week. Injured players can’t be placed on outright waivers so Thomas will most likely be released.
His major league track record consists of three games with the Mariners last year, with Thomas hitting .125/.200/.250 in those. In Triple-A, he had a big .325/.380/.411 line last year, while stealing 35 bases, but has just a .253/.304/.307 line this year.
As for Salazar, he will likely be on waivers in the coming days. Since he already has one outright under his belt, he would have the right to elect free agency if he is passed through outright waivers again.
Photo courtesy of Nick Turchiaro, Imagn Images