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Cody Bradford Diagnosed With Rib Stress Fracture

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Rangers starter Cody Bradford has been diagnosed with a stress fracture in his rib, manager Bruce Bochy informed reporters (including Evan Grant of the Dallas Morning News). The left-hander will be out of action for at least another month. He has been on the injured list since April 14 with what the team initially indicated was a lower back strain.

The injury interrupted what had been a strong start to the season. The Baylor product secured the fifth starter spot out of camp. He’d done everything in his power over his first three outings to keep hold of that job. Bradford allowed only four runs (three earned) in 19 1/3 innings. He punched out 17 against two walks. After working five innings of two-run ball against the Cubs in his season debut, he tossed consecutive quality starts against the Astros and A’s.

Bradford had an up-and-down rookie season in 2023. He started eight of 20 appearances, allowing a 5.30 earned run average over 56 innings. He showed excellent control and decent swing-and-miss ability, but opposing hitters jumped on him for 1.77 home runs per nine. Bradford had allowed just one longball (to Dansby Swanson) in his three starts this season.

He’s one of four Texas starters on the injured list. Jacob deGrom and Tyler Mahle are still months away from completing rehab processes from Tommy John surgery. Max Scherzer should be back on the Globe Life Field mound in the next few weeks. The future Hall of Famer began a rehab stint with Triple-A Round Rock on Wednesday as he recovers from an offseason back procedure. He worked 2 1/3 innings in his first game action of 2024, getting to 52 pitches.

It now looks like Scherzer will be back well before the Rangers anticipate Bradford’s return. In the interim, they’ll proceed with a starting five of Nathan Eovaldi, Jon Gray, Dane Dunning, Michael Lorenzen and Andrew Heaney. Heaney has been rocked for a 6.26 ERA over his first five starts. If Bradford were healthy, that would likely have pushed Heaney to the bullpen. Texas called up former #2 pick Jack Leiter for a spot start last week but optioned him back to Round Rock a day later.

White Sox Designate Bailey Horn For Assignment

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The White Sox announced a series of roster moves, many of which were previously reported. Outfielders Rafael Ortega and Tommy Pham have been selected to the roster. Two more outfielders were removed, as Kevin Pillar has been designated for assignment and Dominic Fletcher has been optioned to Triple-A Charlotte. To open one more spot on the 40-man, left-handed pitcher Bailey Horn was also designated for assignment.

Horn, 26, was just acquired from the Cubs in February. The latter club was looking to open a 40-man spot for Cody Bellinger and flipped Horn across town for minor league right-hander Matt Thompson. That sent Horn back to his original organization, as he was drafted by the Sox but traded to the Cubs in 2021 for Ryan Tepera.

The southpaw has long shown big strikeout potential but also a concerning lack of command, trends that have continued into 2024. He has thrown 10 1/3 innings at Triple-A Charlotte so far this year, striking out 15 opponents but also giving out 10 walks. Four home runs allowed have also led to 13 runs crossing the plate, leading to an 11.32 earned run average.

Those poor results have bumped him off the 40-man and the Sox will now have a week to trade him or pass him through waivers. Despite the rough start to his season, he could perhaps garner interest based on his previous work. Over 2022 and 2023, he tossed 113 2/3 innings between High-A, Double-A and Triple-A. He had a 3.56 ERA in that time, striking out 30.5% of batters faced but also issuing walks at a 13.3% rate.

The Cubs only just added him to their 40-man in November to keep him out of the Rule 5 draft, meaning he has a full slate of options. If any club felt they had a way to harness the control going forward, they could acquire Horn and stash him in the minors for years to come.

Jesus Luzardo Place On Injured List, Will Undergo Testing Due To Elbow Tightness

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2:25pm: The Marlins have now formally placed Luzardo on the 15-day injured list with left elbow tightness and recalled Maldonado from Jacksonville. Luzardo tells Christina De Nicola of MLB.com that he feels this IL stint is precautionary and that he’ll only miss one or two starts.

9:35am: Right-hander Anthony Maldonado is being recalled from Triple-A Jacksonville to start tonight’s game, the team has now announced. It’ll be his major league debut. Maldonado is a reliever who’s only pitched 11 2/3 innings over eight appearances this season, so while he could probably give the club multiple innings, it seems the Fish will go with a bullpen game today.

9:22am: The Marlins announced Friday that lefty Jesus Luzardo has been scratched from his scheduled start today and will instead undergo testing on his left elbow. The 26-year-old southpaw experienced discomfort in his most recent bullpen session.

It’s an ominous development for Miami’s Opening Day starter, who’s gotten out to a dreadful start to his season. Through his first five trips to the mound, Luzardo carries a 6.58 ERA in 26 innings. His velocity has held up from last year, but his strikeout rate is down four percentage points (from 28.1% to 24.1%) and his walk rate is up by roughly the same amount (from 7.4% to 11.6%). It’s a far cry from Luzardo’s 2022-23 form, wherein he pitched to a combined 3.48 ERA in 279 frames.

The news is all the more worrisome when considering Luzardo’s injury history. Although he made 32 starts and tossed a career-high 178 2/3 innings last year, that’s hardly been the norm for the talented southpaw. Luzardo had Tommy John surgery during his senior year of high school. The Nationals selected him in the third round of the 2016 draft anyhow and ultimately traded him to the Athletics as part of the package to acquire relievers Ryan Madson and Sean Doolittle. Luzardo continued to climb the minor league ranks and draw considerable prospect fanfare, but he also missed nearly two months of the 2019 season in the minors with a shoulder strain. Oakland flipped him to the Marlins in a 2021 trade for Starling Marte. Luzardo wound up being limited to 18 starts in 2022 because of a forearm strain.

Miami’s rotation has already been devastated by injury. Ace Sandy Alcantara, the 2022 NL Cy Young winner, underwent Tommy John surgery in October and won’t pitch this season. Top prospect Eury Perez, who debuted last season with 91 1/3 innings of 3.15 ERA ball at just 20 years of age, had Tommy John surgery earlier this month. Left-hander Braxton Garrett, who broke out with a 3.63 ERA in 247 2/3 innings from 2022-23, has yet to pitch this season due to a shoulder impingement.

Luzardo now joins that growing list of injured arms, leaving a Miami rotation that projected to be the team’s strength in tatters. Right-hander Edward Cabrera and lefties Ryan Weathers and Trevor Rogers are the team’s three healthy big league starters at present.

Right-hander Sixto Sanchez just made his first start since 2020 but lasted only 2 2/3 innings after opening the season in a bullpen role. He once ranked as an elite pitching prospect but has seen his career derailed by a series of shoulder injuries. He pitched one minor league inning from 2021-23 and is surely on an innings cap this year as a result. Top prospect Max Meyer, who was recently optioned to Triple-A Jacksonville despite a dominant start to the season, will also have his workload managed in 2024 — his first season back from his own Tommy John procedure. It stands to reason that he’ll be back in the Miami rotation at some point — likely sooner than later now — but it’s unclear how many innings can be expected of the former No. 3 overall draft pick.

The Marlins’ season already looked to be effectively over before the first month had drawn to a close. The team currently sits with a 6-20 record and a -47 run differential. The offense ranks 27th in the majors in batting average, 28th in on-base percentage and 29th in slugging percentage. They’ve gotten just five hits from their catchers all season. Any small chance of the Fish climbing out of this hole would’ve required things to break just right for them — including and arguably led by a return to form for their top starter. The obvious hope is that Luzardo will receive a clean bill of health and miss minimal time, but a lengthy absence would only serve as a further nail in the coffin on a catastrophic 2024 season in South Florida.

Mets Designate Zack Short For Assignment

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The Mets announced that outfielder J.D. Martinez has been recalled from Triple-A Syracuse, with infielder Zack Short designated for assignment as the corresponding move.

Martinez, 36, signed a one-year deal with the club last month. That deal came about very late in the offseason, not being made official until March 23, when Spring Training was effectively done. Players with at least five years of service time cannot be optioned to the minors without their consent, but Martinez agreed to be sent down since he missed the spring and needed to get some at-bats.

His return should bolster the Mets lineup, as he is a .287/.350/.524 hitter in his career and is coming off a strong season with the Dodgers. He seemed to be selling out for power last year, as his 31.1% strikeout rate was a career high by four points, but he also hit 33 home runs and slashed .271/.321/.572. Manager Carlos Mendoza indicated earlier this week that the club was planning to activate Martinez today, which was now come to fruition.

Martinez was already on the 40-man roster but the Mets had limited options in terms of getting him onto the active roster. The only optionable position players currently on the squad are Brett Baty and DJ Stewart. Baty has been the club’s everyday third baseman this year while Stewart has been great at the plate. Going back to his time with the club last year, he’s hit 14 home runs in 240 plate appearances. He has struck out at a hefty 28.7% clip but also drawn walks 10.4% of the time.

That left the Mets having to cut someone who is out of options and they decided on Short. The infielder, who turns 29 next month, was claimed off waivers from the Tigers in November. He took 12 plate appearances with the Mets this year and produced a line of just .111/.273/.111 in that time.

He spent the past three years with the Tigers and has a career batting line of .172/.266/.304 in 462 plate appearances. He’s been better in Triple-A, having slashed .226/.361/.397 since the start of 2021 while drawing walks in 16.2% of his appearances at that level. Since he’s played all three outfield spots and the three infield positions to the left of first base, he could be a solid utility piece if his major league offense were a bit more like his minor league work.

The Mets will have a week to trade him or pass him through waivers. In his absence, Joey Wendle will be the backup infielder, with a regular alignment of Baty, Francisco Lindor, Jeff McNeil and Pete Alonso on the dirt.

White Sox To Select Rafael Ortega, Option Dominic Fletcher

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In addition to their previously reported promotion of Tommy Pham and DFA of Kevin Pillar, the White Sox will select the contract of veteran outfielder Rafael Ortega and option fellow outfielder Dominic Fletcher to Triple-A Charlotte, reports Daryl Van Schouwen of the Chicago Sun-Times. They’ll need a second 40-man move to open a spot for Ortega.

The 32-year-old Ortega has appeared in parts of seven big league seasons between the Rockies, Angels, Braves, Marlins, Cubs and Mets, hitting .247/.324/.352 in 1284 plate appearances. That includes a strong 2021-22 showing with the crosstown Cubs, wherein he played a semi-regular role and hit .265/.344/.408 with 18 homers, 24 steals, a 10.6% walk rate and a 20.5% strikeout rate in 701 plate appearances. He appeared in 47 games for the Mets last season and batted .219/.341/.272.

Ortega inked a minor league deal with the Sox over the winter and has gotten out to a .241/.378/.431 slash in Charlotte. He’s homered three times, swiped six bags and drawn a walk in 18.7% of his plate appearances on the young season. He’s a left-handed hitter who can handle all three outfield spots.

Fletcher, 26, was acquired in an offseason swap that sent pitching prospect Cristian Mena to the Diamondbacks. The hope for the Sox was that he’d give them an MLB-ready outfielder with solid defensive skills who could build on an impressive rookie showing with the ’23 D-backs. Fletcher hit .301/.350/.441 with a pair of homers, five doubles and a triple in his first 102 MLB place appearances with the Snakes last season. He didn’t walk much (6.9%) but also posted a 21.6% strikeout rate that was lower than average.

Unfortunately, Fletcher hasn’t been able to sustain that pace or anything close to it following his change of scenery. He’s appeared in 20 games and taken 66 turns at the dish, hitting just .203/.277/.271. Though last year’s strikeout rate was solid, he’s fanned in more than 30% of his plate appearances on the young season. He’ll head down to Triple-A just one day after older brother David Fletcher was sent to Triple-A by the Braves (albeit David via outright assignment rather than optional assignment).

The younger Fletcher brother already has a strong track record in the upper minors, which lends some hope that he can right the ship in a lower-pressure setting. If he’s able to get back on track, the current state of the White Sox’ roster should rather easily afford him another opportunity to prove that he can stick at the big league level. The White Sox can control the former No. 75 overall draft pick for six full seasons, and Fletcher has a minor league option remaining beyond the current year as well.

White Sox To Select Tommy Pham, Designate Kevin Pillar For Assignment

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The White Sox are set to select the contract of veteran outfielder Tommy Pham, reports Daryl Van Schouwen of the Chicago Sun-Times. Fellow outfielder Kevin Pillar will be designated for assignment as the corresponding move, Ken Rosenthal of The Athletic reports. Pham had an out clause in his minor league contract that he could exercise if not added to the roster heading into this weekend. He’ll earn a prorated $3MM salary on his deal with the South Siders.

Pham, 36, only got into four games with the White Sox’ Triple-A affiliate in Charlotte but handled himself well, going 5-for-17 with a double, two steals, one walk and just three strikeouts in 18 total plate appearances. The veteran corner outfielder is coming off a season where he slashed a combined .256/.328/.446 with 16 homers, 27 doubles, three triples and 22 stolen bases in 481 plate appearances between the Mets and Diamondbacks. If he can come anywhere close to that level of production, he’d immediately become one of the most productive bats in a punchless White Sox lineup that ranks dead last in Major League Baseball in runs scored, home runs, batting average, on-base percentage and slugging percentage.

Given the White Sox’ disastrous start to the season, Pham seems likely to be afforded fairly regular playing time. Left fielder Andrew Benintendi is out to an astonishingly bad .165/.202/.188 start through his first 89 plate appearances and could see his playing time take a hit. That’s particularly true given that right fielder Gavin Sheets has been the team’s best offensive player at .246/.361/.464. Sheets came up as a first baseman though, so it’s also feasible that he could see some extra reps there, considering Andrew Vaughn’s own woeful .170/.255/.216 output on the season. Designated hitter Eloy Jimenez has a grim .200/.280/.333 line in 50 plate appearances, but he’s been swinging the bat well over the past week.

Pillar, 35, also signed a minor league pact with a $3MM base salary. He made the big league roster out of camp but — like the majority of Chicago’s offense — has sputtered to begin the season. He’s only received 32 plate appearances but has turned in a tepid .160/.290/.360 batting line with a homer and two doubles in that time. With Pillar and Pham both being right-handed hitters, their simultaneous presence on the roster apparently was deemed redundant.

Once one of the game’s premier defensive center fielders, Pillar has settled into a bench role in recent seasons. He spent the 2023 campaign with the Braves, hitting for decent power but struggling to get on base — evidenced by his .228/.248/.416 slash and nine round-trippers in 206 plate appearances. That’s right in line with Pillar’s overall production over the past four seasons; he’s a .224/.265/.408 hitter in 598 turns at the plate during that span.

The White Sox will have a week to trade Pillar, pass him through outright waivers or release him. A release is most common for veterans in situations like this one. That’d put Pillar back on the open market and allow him to field interest from the other 29 teams around the league.

Braves Activate Ozzie Albies

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The Braves announced Friday morning that they’ve reinstated Ozzie Albies from the 10-day injured list. The star second baseman is expected to be back in the lineup for today’s game. It’s a rather remarkable recovery for a player who spent just the 10-day minimum on the injured list after suffering a fractured big toe when he was hit by a pitch on April 15. Albies is returning to the club without a rehab assignment, though he took batting practice throughout the week.

Whether there’ll be any lingering effects remains to be seen, but Albies has gotten out to an excellent start in 2024. Through 15 games and 70 trips to the plate, he’s slashing .317/.386/.492 with a pair of homers, a pair of steals and just a 12.9% strikeout rate. If the foot injury doesn’t provide any more problems for him, he’s laid the foundation for an excellent follow-up effort to a career year at the plate in 2023, which saw Albies pop a personal-best 33 home runs and bat .280/.336/.513 in 660 plate appearances.

Atlanta won’t need to make any corresponding moves to get Albies back onto the roster. The Braves announced yesterday that infielder David Fletcher passed through waivers unclaimed and had been assigned outright to Triple-A Gwinnett. He’d been on the big league roster, so that paved the way for Albies’ reinstatement.

In 787 games since debuting with the Braves as a 20-year-old back in 2017, Albies is a .273/.326/.479 hitter with 133 home runs and 78 stolen bases. The three-time All-Star and two-time Silver Slugger winner is in the sixth season of a seven-year, $35MM contract extension he signed back in April of 2019. He’s earning $7MM this year and next, and the Braves hold a pair of $7MM club options on him for the 2026-27 campaigns.

The Opener: Martinez, Pitchers’ Duel, Rizzo

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As the 2024 season continues, here are three things we’ll be keeping an eye on around the baseball world headed into the weekend:

1. Martinez to debut:

The Mets are expected to activate veteran slugger J.D. Martinez for his club debut today, as manager Carlos Mendoza indicated earlier this week. The club won’t need to make a 40-man move to accommodate Martinez but will need to clear space on the active roster prior to tonight’s game against the Cardinals. Martinez, 36, lingered on the free agent market deep into Spring Training but ultimately landed in Queens on a one-year deal just before Opening Day.

Despite that relatively modest contract, Martinez was among the most fearsome hitters available in free agency this winter. A six-time All-Star and three-time Silver Slugger award winner, the veteran has a .293/.359/.550 slash line since he first joined the Tigers more than a decade ago. The 2023 season saw Martinez revamp his swing to prioritize power over contact, and it resulted in him slugging .572 with 33 homers in just 113 games for the Dodgers last year. That power production should allow Martinez to transform a Mets lineup that offers little in the way of slugging outside of first baseman Pete Alonso.

2. Early season pitchers’ duel in Boston:

The Cubs are set to open a three-game set against the Red Sox in Fenway Park at 7:10pm local time this evening, and two of the league’s best performers to this point in the 2024 campaign are set to face off on the mound. Boston is set start Kutter Crawford, whose 0.66 ERA in 27 1/3 innings of work this season is the lowest among all right-handed starters in the majors (min. 20 innings). Meanwhile, Chicago will counter with offseason addition Shota Imanaga, whose 0.84 ERA in 21 1/3 frames is the lowest among all lefty starters with that same qualifier this season. While each hurler’s start to the 2024 season has been surprisingly dominant, both appear to have mostly earned that strong production to this point in the season; Imanaga’s 2.06 FIP leads all starters, while Crawford’s 2.26 figure is only bested by Tanner Houck among righty starters.

3. Rizzo approaching milestone:

Yankees first baseman Anthony Rizzo has struggled somewhat early in the 2024 campaign, slashing just .242/.312/.354 in 109 trips to the plate. He’s heated up in recent days, however, slashing .294/.333/.647 with two home runs in his past five games. In addition to bringing his season line closer to league average, Rizzo’s pair of long balls have put a notable milestone in sight. With 298 homers now under his belt, just two more will make him the 161st member of the 300 home run club in MLB history.

With the Yankees headed to Miller Park for a three-game set against the Brewers this weekend, Rizzo could be in prime position to reach the milestone in the coming days. The 34-year-old slugger is plenty familiar with the Brewers’ ballpark from ten seasons with their division-rival Cubs and is a career .243/.319/.482 hitter with 17 homers in 314 trips to the plate in his time hitting in Milwaukee. In addition to his solid track record against the Brewers, Rizzo will benefit from park factors this weekend: Miller Park has the fifth-most homer-friendly ballpark in the majors for left-handed batters in recent years per Statcast, just behind Rizzo’s home ballpark of Yankee Stadium.

The A’s Overpowering Closer

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In what’ll be another rough season for the A’s, the front office is looking for young players to establish themselves as key long-term pieces. In the first few weeks, no one has shown more promise in that regard than Mason Miller.

Miller was a third-round pick in 2021. His stuff had taken a major step forward during his final collegiate season. As The Athletic’s Stephen Nesbitt wrote last week, Miller had a hard time keeping on weight and maintaining his strength until he was diagnosed with Type 1 diabetes in 2018. While the primary concern was in allowing Miller to navigate a serious health condition, learning how to manage the issue permitted the 6’5″ righty to rapidly bulk up. His velocity spiked into the mid-upper 90s, leading the A’s to roll the dice on his upside.

Injuries essentially robbed Miller of traditional minor league development. He lost almost all of the 2022 season to shoulder issues. He had pitched all of 28 2/3 professional innings before the A’s called him up last April. He had an impressive four-start debut before reporting forearm soreness. Testing revealed a mild UCL sprain and the A’s shut him down for a few months. Miller returned in September, working 2-3 inning stints to finish the year. He closed his rookie campaign with a 3.78 ERA in 33 1/3 innings.

Oakland GM David Forst announced early in the offseason that Miller would work out of the bullpen in 2024. Forst suggested it wasn’t a permanent switch. Rather, the A’s were using the 25-year-old in shorter stints in an effort to keep him healthy before a move back to the rotation in 2025. While they certainly had high hopes that his power arsenal would translate, Miller has surpassed even the loftiest expectations in the first few weeks.

Including tonight’s four-out save in the Bronx, Miller is up to 11 1/3 innings of two-run ball. He has successfully locked down all six of his save chances. After allowing two runs in his season debut against the Guardians, he has rattled off eight straight scoreless outings. Four of those have been perfect innings in which he has recorded multiple strikeouts.

Miller has punched out 23 of 45 opposing hitters, the highest strikeout rate in the majors. His already eye-popping stuff has leveled up in short bursts. Miller’s fastball is sitting in the 100-101 MPH range. Both the heater and his upper-80s slider have been essentially untouchable.

Even in a minuscule sample, it doesn’t seem outlandish to call Miller one of the top relievers in MLB. The quality of the arsenal is self-evident. He’s missing bats at the levels we’ve seen from the likes of Edwin Díaz, Félix Bautista and Andrés Muñoz. Given his injury history, one can question whether he’ll be able to stay healthy all season. There’s no reason to doubt his talent.

Miller fell just shy of the cutoff for a full service year in 2023. The A’s control him for six seasons. He’ll qualify for early arbitration as a Super Two player during the 2025-26 offseason. That’ll allow him to go through the arb process four times instead of the standard three, yet Miller could stick with the A’s through the ’29 campaign.

Opposing teams will probably try to convince Forst to put Miller on the trade block this summer, but it’s hard to see any realistic way that he gets moved. Even rebuilding clubs rarely trade relievers with the kind of talent that he possesses when they’re in their pre-arbitration seasons. That’s before considering that the A’s presumably still intend to give him a chance to compete for a rotation spot next year. If Miller turns in a full season as a top 3-5 reliever in the sport, perhaps they’d consider him too valuable to take out of the bullpen, but there’s nothing to suggest their long-term plans have changed at this point.

Image courtesy of USA Today Sports.

Orioles Notes: Means, Suarez, Perez, McKenna

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The Orioles could soon welcome John Means back for his season debut. Manager Brandon Hyde told reporters yesterday the O’s were considering activating Means to start on Sunday against the A’s (X link via the Baltimore Sun’s Matt Weyrich). The left-hander has been on the injured list all year, as the team opted to build him up slowly this spring. While Means made four starts late last year in his return from Tommy John surgery, he experienced residual elbow soreness that kept him off the postseason roster.

Means would likely have found himself on some kind of innings limit after throwing 31 2/3 combined frames between 2022-23. With that in mind, the O’s opted against pushing him this spring. The 2019 All-Star has started five games at Triple-A Norfolk on a rehab stint. The results have not been good, as he’s allowed 18 runs over 11 2/3 innings. The O’s probably aren’t especially concerned, though, as the southpaw’s primary focus has been building his workload. He got to 79 pitches over 4 1/3 innings on Tuesday.

If Baltimore decides to give Means one more rehab appearance, righty Albert Suárez would likely take the ball on Sunday. The 34-year-old has twirled 11 1/3 scoreless innings in two starts since the O’s selected his contract last week. Suárez couldn’t have asked for much better in his return to the big leagues for the first time in seven years. Whether it’ll be enough to hold a roster spot once Means is ready isn’t clear, but Suárez has outpitched fellow back-end arms Dean Kremer and Cole Irvin in a very limited look.

Despite the long layoff between his big league appearances, Suárez is out of options. Baltimore can’t send him back to Norfolk without first exposing him to waivers. Irvin is also out of options, but the O’s could theoretically send Kremer down if they want to ensure all three pitchers stay in the organization.

They could also nudge one of those players to the bullpen. Baltimore’s roster flexibility is limited in that regard as well, though. Five of the eight current members of their bullpen — Craig Kimbrel, Danny Coulombe, Mike Baumann, Jacob Webb and recent trade pickup Yohan Ramírez — can’t be sent down. Neither Yennier Cano nor Keegan Akin are going to be optioned. Unless the O’s were to option grounder specialist Dillon Tate, they could soon need to DFA one of their out-of-options arms.

That might happen once lefty Cionel Pérez returns to the big league club. He landed on the 15-day IL with a moderate oblique strain shortly after Opening Day. The Orioles sent him to Norfolk on a rehab stint yesterday, suggesting he’ll be back in the next week or two. Pérez, who is also out of options, turned in a 3.54 ERA behind a massive 60.7% ground-ball percentage over 53 1/3 innings last season.

The news out of Norfolk isn’t all injury related. Ryan McKenna was assigned outright after clearing waivers at the start of the regular season. Danielle Allentuck of the Baltimore Banner tweets that the career-long outfielder has started taking reps at second base in an effort to expand his defensive flexibility. While McKenna has not appeared there in a game yet, successfully acclimating to the infield could give him a better chance of cracking a loaded Baltimore bench at some point during the season.

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