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Pirates Re-Sign Tanner Rainey To Minor League Deal

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Right-hander Tanner Rainey has reunited with the Pirates on a minor league deal and will report to Triple-A Indianapolis, as relayed by Alex Stumpf of MLB.com. He was designated for assignment by the Bucs just over a week ago but had cleared waivers and elected free agency, according to his transactions tracker at MLB.com.

Rainey, 32, signed a minor league deal with the Pirates in the offseason. He was selected to their roster in early May and spent almost a month on the roster. In that time, he struggled mightily through 11 appearances where he surrendered nine runs on seven hits and six walks while striking out six across 7 2/3 innings of work. A look under the hood reveals that eight of those appearances were actually scoreless, as he allowed all nine runs across the other three outings while combining to record just two outs in those appearances.

Meltdowns like that are sure to balloon a pitcher’s ERA, but Rainey retained the peripherals of a perfectly decent middle reliever. He struck out 24.3% of his opponents, and while his 16.2% walk rate was definitely alarming his ability to keep the ball on the ground and miss barrels was enough to allow him to maintain a solid 3.46 FIP and a decent 4.32 SIERA. Those numbers would be a marked improvement over last year, when he pitched to a 4.76 ERA and 5.42 FIP in 51 frames for the Nationals while walking 12.6% of his opponents and striking out just 19.0%.

Of course, the Pirates were surely hoping to help Rainey discover the form he flashed earlier in his Nationals career when they initially signed him. From 2019 to 2023, Rainey posted a 4.39 ERA with a 4.54 FIP in his 140 appearances for the club. That includes one major outlier season, however, as 2021 saw him torched to the tune of a 7.39 ERA in 31 2/3 innings of work. Rainey’s ERA was under 4.00 in the other four years of that stretch, and he even got some high-leverage work in during the 2022 campaign when he collected 12 saves.

If Rainey can get right, it wouldn’t be a shock to see him get another opportunity for a beleaguered Pirates team that could certainly use some help in the bullpen. Their 4.22 ERA ranks 20th in baseball, and key pieces like Tim Mayza and Justin Lawrence are currently on the shelf. Dennis Santana, David Bednar, and Caleb Ferguson are a decent late-inning trio, but Pittsburgh could use more solid middle relief options than Ryan Borucki and Kyle Nicolas. Of course, Rainey will need to compete with other non-roster veterans like Yohan Ramirez and Ryder Ryan to capitalize on those opportunities.

Photo courtesy of Charles LeClaire, Imagn Images

Giants Place Matt Chapman On 10-Day Injured List

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The Giants announced today that they’ve placed third baseman Matt Chapman on the 10-day injured list with a sprained right hand. Infielder Christian Koss was recalled to the club’s roster to replace Chapman. The infielder spoke at length Susan Slusser of the San Francisco Chronicle and Maria Guardado of MLB.com about his injury, noting that he’s certain to miss more than the minimum ten days after injuring his hand while diving towards third base in the eighth inning of the club’s game on Sunday.

Chapman indicated that he’s suffering from sprains in three of the fingers on his right hand, and each of those three fingers also has a bone bruise. The third baseman’s exact timeline for return is not yet clear, but he said he hopes to be back in action before the end of the first half. That suggests he hopes to return at some point before the All-Star break begins on July 14, although Slusser adds that Chapman is set to meet with hand specialist Dr. Steven Shin in Los Angeles on Friday and that the team will know more about his exact timeline for return after that meeting.

Even a few weeks without Chapman would be a frustrating bump in the road for a Giants team that has managed to outperform expectations in a big way this year, as they currently sit just 1.5 games back of the Dodgers in the NL West and firmly entrenched in the Wild Card mix. Chapman’s been a major part of that success so far, as he’s slashed an excellent .243/.360/.452 with a wRC+ of 134 while playing his typical excellent defense at the hot corner. That package has been enough to generate 2.5 fWAR in just 65 games, a figure that just nine players in the NL have managed to top so far this season. On top of his excellent season-long production, the veteran was also in the midst of a particularly hot stretch as he had been hitting .322/.429/.610 with a wRC+ of 194 over his past 17 games.

Replacing Chapman on the roster is Koss, who made his big league debut for San Francisco earlier this year. He hasn’t hit much in the majors yet, with a career slash line of just .219/.275/.266 (57 wRC+) across 29 games. Koss is an impressive and versatile defender, however, and he’ll likely slide into the utility role Casey Schmitt was previously getting used in while Schmitt takes over for Chapman at the hot corner. The 26-year-old seemed to enjoy something of a breakout last year when he posted a 109 wRC+ in 40 games, but this year he’s hit just .180/.281/.240 across 20 games despite fairly strong peripheral numbers. Perhaps sliding into an everyday role while Chapman is out of commission will give Schmitt the opportunities he needs to play closer to his peripheral numbers, which suggest he can be an average-to-above average hitter in the majors if he can turn that underlying performance into on-field production.

Mariners’ Bryce Miller Out Four To Six Weeks With Elbow Inflammation

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8:03pm: Booth relays this evening that, according to Mariners GM Justin Hollander, Miller met with elbow specialist Dr. Keith Meister today and received a platelet-rich plasma injection in his ailing elbow. Miller won’t throw for the next two weeks, and Booth suggests that Miller could return to the Mariners in four-to-six weeks.

11:50am: The moves have now been formally announced by the team. Miller has been placed on the 15-day IL, retroactive to June 7, with elbow inflammation. Evans has been recalled from Tacoma and will indeed start tonight’s game.

9:00am: The Mariners are placing righty Bryce Miller back on the 15-day injured list, reports Tim Booth of the Seattle Times. Fellow right-hander Logan Evans will be summoned back from Triple-A Tacoma to make tonight’s start against the D-backs in his place.

Miller was out for most of May due to inflammation in his right elbow. The Mariners hoped a cortisone injection would calm down the pain and allow Miller to reclaim his spot in the rotation, but that clearly didn’t pan out. The 26-year-old Miller made two starts between IL stints and was rocked for eight runs on 11 hits and a pair of walks with only four strikeouts in nine innings. Between that pair of dismal outings and a another pair of clunkers that preceded his original IL stint, Miller has yielded 19 runs over his past 18 frames.

In some respects, Miller has seemed off all season. He posted a solid 3.52 ERA and 24% strikeout rate in his first six starts of the season but did so while walking nearly 15% of his opponents. That’s a huge departure from Miller’s excellent 5.7% walk rate in 2023-24, the first two seasons of his big league career. His average fastball has also dipped this year, falling from 95.2 mph in 2024 to 94.5 mph in 2025. He’s also allowing hard contact and line drives at the highest rates of his career.

From 2023-24, Miller posted a 3.52 ERA, 23.4% strikeout rate and 5.7% walk rate in 311 2/3 innings, cementing himself among Seattle’s long-term rotation plans in the process. Prior to this year, he’d been as durable as one can hope from a starter in today’s game. Miller skipped a couple starts in 2023 due to a series of blisters on his pitching hand, but this pair of IL placements due to elbow inflammation are the first two IL stints for actual arm injuries in either the big leagues or the minors. He started 31 games in 2024, 29 in 2023 (25 in MLB, four in Triple-A) and 26 in 2022.

There’s no immediate timetable on Miller’s absence. Given the rocky results and the inefficacy of the most recent cortisone injection, it seems fair to expect he could be sidelined for longer than the 19 days he missed on his last IL stint. The team will presumably have more information in the near future — if not when the IL placement is formalized today then in the days ahead.

In the meantime, the 24-year-old Evans will get another look in the big leagues. It’s well earned. A 12th-round senior sign out of Pittsburgh who commanded just a $100K draft bonus in 2023, Evans has quickly proven to be one of the more notable late-round steals in recent memory. He skyrocketed through the Mariners’ system last year and pitched so well that there was talk of a potential call to the big leagues just a year after he was drafted.

That didn’t come to pass, but Evans entered the year considered among the top 10 prospects in an absolutely stacked Mariners farm system and received his first call to the big leagues in late April. He’s since made six starts in the majors and posted a 2.83 ERA in 35 innings. His 17.4% strikeout rate is well below average, but his 6.9% walk rate is strong and his deep six-pitch arsenal gives opposing hitters a variety of average or slightly better offerings to keep in mind while facing him. Both Baseball America and MLB.com tout him as a high-probability fourth starter and note that his 6’4″ frame is that of a prototypical innings eater.

Evans will join Bryan Woo, Luis Castillo, George Kirby and Emerson Hancock in the Seattle rotation for the time being. Woo and Castillo have both been excellent this season. Kirby missed the first eight weeks of the year with shoulder inflammation and stumbled out of the gate but has looked sensational over his past two starts, logging a flat 3.00 ERA with a 17-to-1 K/BB ratio in 12 innings. Hancock has made nine very good starts (combined 3.26 ERA in 49 2/3 innings) and two terrible starts (combined 13 runs in 5 2/3 innings), balancing out to a lackluster 5.04 ERA.

Logan Gilbert, arguably the Mariners’ top starter, has been on the shelf since late April due to a flexor strain but is expected back soon. He’s made two rehab appearances already and is scheduled to make a third — and, per Booth, perhaps final — rehab start for Tacoma tonight.

Roberts: Chance Of Ohtani Pitching Before All-Star Break Is “North Of Zero”

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Shohei Ohtani threw his third live session against hitters today and, as Jack Harris of the Los Angeles Times relays, his 44 pitches across three simulated innings of work went so well that Dodgers manager Dave Roberts went as far as to admit that the organization hasn’t completely ruled out the idea of Ohtani returning to the mound sooner than previously expected. The expectation in recent weeks has been that Ohtani would return to the mound at some point following the All-Star break, which runs from July 14 to July 17 this year. Today, however, Harris notes that Roberts indicated to reporters that there’s a “north of zero” chance that Ohtani is pitching in major league games before the break.

It’s a notable update on Ohtani’s timeline, even though Roberts’s phrasing hardly frames the idea of a return before the midsummer classic as guaranteed or even likely. Ohtani’s timeline has been kept extremely vague by Dodgers officials ever since he began ramping up shortly after Opening Day after his pitching rehab was paused in late February. Prior to that pause, the Dodgers were thought to be targeting a return to pitching at some point in May for Ohtani, but the timeline was pushed back to at some point in the second half after the club began to slow down his rehab process. In recent weeks, Roberts and team officials had begun to point to the All-Star break as the point after which Ohtani pitching in big league games for the Dodgers could be on the table.

That the possibility of him pitching before then has been acknowledged publicly at this point underscores that his rehab has been going quite well to this point, but could also be an acknowledgement of the Dodgers’ significant needs in the rotation. The Dodgers sport a 40-27 record at the moment that’s excellent on paper but doesn’t quite live up to the lofty expectations hoisted upon the reigning World Series champs before the season began. They’re just 1.5 games up on the Giants in the NL West, and would finish half a game back of the Cubs for a bye through the Wild Card round of the playoffs if the season ended today.

Issues with starting pitching have been the biggest thing holding the Dodgers back from pulling away from the rest of the league this year, as their 4.66 FIP in the rotation is worse than every NL club except the lowly Rockies. With eight starting pitchers currently on the IL and Ohtani also sidelined, L.A. is currently operating with a patchwork rotation that features Yoshinobu Yamamoto, Dustin May, Clayton Kershaw, and Justin Wrobleski. Yamamoto is in the NL Cy Young conversation this year, but Kershaw and especially May have pitched more like back-of-the-rotation veterans this year than the dominant arms they’ve been in previous seasons. Virtually any rotation in baseball would be better off with Ohtani’s electric arm in the mix, but the state of the Dodgers’ pitching staff could make them especially eager to get Ohtani back into the fold.

Of course, that’s not to say they’re about the rush their two-way superstar back into pitching before they’re confident he’s ready. It would have been easy for the Dodgers to make Ohtani in at least some capacity during last year’s playoff run, when the pitching staff was down so many starters they had to run regular bullpen games throughout the playoffs. They elected not to do so, however, instead prioritizing making sure Ohtani was fully healthy and ready to resume pitching before risking putting him on the mound in a big league game again. Even with today’s comments from Roberts, there’s little reason to think the Dodgers would send Ohtani out to the mound at Dodger Stadium before the break unless they’re completely confident he’s ready to resume pitching at a high level.

Diamondbacks Place Justin Martínez On IL With UCL Sprain

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The Diamondbacks announced a series of roster moves today. Right-handers Kevin Ginkel and Bryce Jarvis have been recalled from Triple-A Reno and the club has also selected the contract of right-hander Tayler Scott. To open spots for those three, righty Jeff Brigham has been optioned to Reno while righties Justin Martínez and Christian Montes De Oca have both been placed on the 15-day injured list. Martínez has a sprained right ulnar collateral ligament while Montes De Oca has right elbow inflammation. To open a 40-man spot for Scott, righty Cristian Mena has been transferred to the 60-day IL.

The news on Martínez is ominous. The righty called the training staff to the mound during last night’s appearance. It was later relayed to reporters that he was experiencing elbow tightness. A sprain, by definition, involves some stretching or tearing of the ligament. Per Nick Piecoro of the Arizona Republic, manager Torey Lovullo says Martínez is now set for a second opinion on his injury.

Whenever a pitcher’s elbow is injured, it raises alarm bells about a possible surgery and those concerns certainly appear to be warranted here. It should be pointed out that not all sprains necessarily lead to a operation. To pick one recent example, Mason Miller was diagnosed with a mild UCL sprain in May of 2023 and ultimately did not head to the surgeon’s table. However, it took him four months to get back on the mound, as he wasn’t reinstated from the IL until September of that year.

It may take a few more days to determine the prognosis with Martínez but it seems like it will be an unfortunate development regardless. The righty seemed to break out as one of the best relievers in the sport last year. He tossed 72 2/3 innings for the Diamondbacks with a 2.48 earned run average. His 11.7% walk rate was certainly high but he struck out 29.5% of opponents and got grounders on 58.9% of balls in play.

The Diamondbacks believed in that breakout enough to lock up Martínez for the long term. He and the club agreed to a five-year extension in March that guarantees him $18MM, with two club options as well. Unfortunately, the first season of that deal has been a bit of a bust so far. Martínez already missed about three weeks due to some shoulder inflammation and is now back on the IL again with an even scarier diagnosis. He has only been able to throw 15 1/3 innings with a 4.11 ERA this year.

Martínez and A.J. Puk were supposed to be the two big weapons in the Arizona bullpen this year. Puk made just eight appearances before landing on the IL in mid-April due to elbow inflammation. He was later diagnosed with a flexor strain and transferred to the 60-day IL. His return timeline is unclear. Now it seems possible the Snakes may have to proceed without either of those hurlers for a while. They also put Kendall Graveman on the 15-day IL yesterday due to a hip impingement.

It’s the latest punch in what has been a bruising season for the Diamondbacks. They have lost starters Corbin Burnes and Jordan Montgomery to Tommy John surgery. Their bullpen has taken a number of hits. Some of their healthy pitchers have been underperforming. Though the Snakes came into the season with high hopes, they are now fourth in the National League West and 5.5 games back in the Wild Card race, a less than ideal time to be hemorrhaging key players.

If Martínez does have a serious injury, there would be one silver lining for the Diamondbacks in the long term. His extension has a conditional club option for 2032, valued at just $3MM. That would be triggered if he requires surgery or missed a certain number of days on the IL during the course of the deal.

While the club awaits for information there, they have to proceed with the business of the games on the schedule. They have added a number of arms to the active roster, which includes adding Scott to the 40-man. The 33-year-old Scott elected free agency last month after being designated for assignment by the Astros, which led to a minor league deal with the Diamondbacks.

He seemed to have a nice late-bloomer breakout with Houston last year, posting a 2.23 ERA over 68 2/3 innings. He struck out 25.2% of batters faced, though also gave out walks at a 12.4% pace. There was likely a bit of luck in that ERA, as his .230 batting average on balls in play and 84.9% strand rate were both to the fortunate side. ERA estimators like his 4.13 FIP and 4.04 SIERA pointed to some regression though still suggested he could be a capable big league arm.

The pendulum swing ended up being quite strong. He posted a 5.40 ERA through 16 2/3 innings to start this year. His .313 BABIP and 65.2% strand rate went to the other side of average as his strikeout rate fell to 20.5% and his walk rate climbed to 15.4%.

Since he’s out of options, that got him bumped off the roster and to free agency. Since landing with the D’Backs, he has thrown 3 1/3 scoreless innings for Reno. He may have a tenuous grasp on a roster spot, given his out-of-options status, but he, Ginkel and Jarvis will give the club three fresh arms after they used eight different pitchers to get through yesterday’s 11-inning game against the Mariners.

As for Mena, he just landed on the IL a few days ago with a shoulder strain. Lovullo said his absence would be measured in “weeks, not days.” Given today’s IL transfer, he will be ineligible for reinstatement until early August.

Photo courtesy of Rick Scuteri, Imagn Images

Orioles Select Luis Vázquez

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The Orioles announced that they have selected the contract of infielder Luis Vázquez. He’ll take the active roster spot of infielder/outfielder Jorge Mateo, who has been placed on the 10-day injured list due to left elbow inflammation, retroactive to June 7th. The 40-man roster count climbs from 38 to 39. The O’s added that right-hander Matt Bowman, who was recently designated for assignment, has cleared waivers and accepted an outright assignment to Triple-A Norfolk.

Vazquez, 25, was acquired from the Cubs in a minor trade back in January. The infielder was a 14th-round pick by Chicago back in 2017 but made it to the majors for the first time just last year with an 11-game stint on the North Side. Vazquez split time between shortstop, third base, and second base during his brief call-up and looked competent at all three of those positions defensively, but hit just .083 with six strikeouts in 14 plate appearances during that brief call-up to the majors. Other than that, he spent the entire year at Triple-A Iowa, where he hit a solid but unspectacular .263/.347/.432 in 64 games, which in terms of wRC+ sat right around league average with a figure of 98.

During the offseason, the Cubs committed to a complete overhaul of their third base and bench mixes. Aside from promoting top prospect Matt Shaw, they brought in Jon Berti, Vidal Brujan, and Justin Turner to round out the bench mix while parting ways with not only starting third baseman Isaac Paredes but also longtime bench pieces like Patrick Wisdom, Nick Madrigal, and David Bote. Vazquez found himself let go as part of that purge and was designated for assignment to make room for the addition of Berti to the 40-man roster, which ultimately facilitated his trade to the Orioles organization. The infielder didn’t last long on the Orioles’ own 40-man roster and was outrighted to the minors just a week after the club acquired him. He received some consideration for an Opening Day roster spot but ultimately began the season at Triple-A Norfolk, where he’s slashed .280/.345/.447 with a 114 wRC+ in 37 games this year.

Vazquez is now set to take over for Mateo on the Orioles’ bench. Mateo’s dealing with discomfort in his surgically repaired elbow after undergoing Tommy John surgery last year, so while MLB.com notes that Mateo underwent an MRI that revealed no structural damage it’s hardly a surprise that Baltimore has decided to be cautious with their utility man. Mateo is presently in the midst of his worst season as an Oriole with a 44 wRC+ and a 35.4% strikeout rate, so it’s possible that the time off could give him some time to reset as well. The soon to be 30-year-old remains a useful bench piece despite his paltry offense this year thanks to his elite baserunning (14 steals in 15 attempts this year as a part-time player) and his versatility to handle virtually every spot on the diamond as needed. Vazquez, Ramon Urias, and Dylan Carlson will all be tasked with helping to pick up the slack while Mateo is on the shelf.

As for Bowman, the right-hander made his debut back in 2016 and spent a few years as a solid middle reliever for the Reds and Cardinals before falling off the map for a few years due to injuries. He resurfaced in 2023 and has bounced between the Yankees, Twins, Diamondbacks, Mariners, and Orioles over the past three years while putting together a 4.79 ERA and 4.91 FIP in 56 1/3 innings. He’ll now head to Triple-A to serve as non-roster relief depth for Baltimore going forward.

Rangers To Sign Craig Kimbrel To Minor League Deal

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The Rangers are signing right-hander Craig Kimbrel to a minor league deal, reports Ken Rosenthal of The Athletic. The righty elected free agency yesterday after Atlanta passed him through waivers unclaimed.

Kimbrel, 37, signed a minor league deal with Atlanta in the middle of March. He reported to Triple-A Gwinnett and logged 18 innings with an earned run average of 2.00. His 12.9% walk rate was a bit high but he also struck out 32.9% of batters faced. Atlanta called him up a few days ago but designated him for assignment after just one appearance. He tossed one scoreless inning against the Giants, allowing one hit and surrendering one walk while striking out one opponent.

As a veteran with years of big league experience, Kimbrel has the right to reject an outright assignment and elect free agency. He did exactly that and has quickly secured this minor league deal with the Rangers.

Kimbrel’s track record is well known. He has been one of the most dominant relievers in the sport at times and is currently fifth on the all-time saves list. The bigger question is whether he can still be an effective big leaguer, as his recent track record is shaky. He had an ERA north of 5.00 in both 2019 and 2020. He got that down to more reasonable levels for the 2021-23 seasons but struggled again last year. He had a 2.80 ERA in the first half with the Orioles but was lit up for a 10.59 ERA in the second half, getting released before the season ended.

This year, any club could have given him a big league shot. It was reported that his minor league deal with Atlanta had a “rolling opt-out” that essentially allowed any club to offer him a major league role at any time. If any had done so, Atlanta would have needed to decide whether to call him up themselves. As far as we know, no club took advantage of that contract provision. Atlanta did call him up but for literally one day.

That has left him to settle for another minor league deal. He will presumably report to Triple-A Round Rock shortly and will get some work for that club as he tries to get another chance in the majors.

For the Rangers, they have been looking for cheap bullpen solutions for a long time. In the offseason, they clearly wanted to upgrade the group but also wanted to avoid the competitive balance tax. They signed Chris Martin, Hoby Milner, Luke Jackson, Jacob Webb, Shawn Armstrong and Luis Curvelo to major league deals, none of them worth more than $5.5MM. They also acquired Robert Garcia, who has not yet qualified for arbitration, in the deal that sent Nathaniel Lowe to the Nationals.

They are currently running a four-man rotation with Nathan Eovaldi on the injured list and Kumar Rocker recently optioned to the minors. They can have Tyler Mahle, Jack Leiter, Patrick Corbin and Jacob deGrom start the next four games but might need to do something creative by Saturday. Perhaps they will do a bullpen game or call up a minor leaguer for a spot start. Perhaps a fresh arm will be needed in the next week and Kimbrel could be that guy.

Photo courtesy of Robert Edwards, Imagn Images

Akil Baddoo Accepts Outright Assignment With Tigers

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The Tigers announced to reporters, including Chris McCosky of Detroit News, that outfielder Akil Baddoo is staying in the organization. He was designated for assignment last week but has now cleared waivers and accepted an outright assignment to Triple-A Toledo.

Baddoo was also outrighted off Detroit’s roster in December. That was his first career outright assignment and he had less than three years of service time at that point, meaning he did not have the right to elect free agency. He was added back to the roster about a month ago but has now been outrighted a second time. He had the right to elect free agency this time but has decided to stay in the Tigers’ system as non-roster depth.

Back in 2021, Baddoo looked like a Rule 5 steal. That was his first year with Detroit after getting plucked from the Twins. He got into 124 games, hit 13 home runs and stole 18 bases. He slashed .259/.330/.436 for a 108 wRC+.

It seemed like maybe the Tigers had grabbed an everyday outfielder but his production has tailed off since then, leaving him now as a depth option. Since the start of the 2022 season, he has stepped to the plate 682 times in the majors with a .201/.288/.323 line and 74 wRC+.

Still, the Tigers are probably happy to have him around. He has continued putting up good numbers in the minors, with a .250/.351/.433 line and 111 wRC+ for that 2022-25 stretch. Matt Vierling has been on the injured list for much of this year and it’s nice to have options available if another injury pops up.

Photo courtesy of Junfu Han, Imagn Images.

Dodgers Recall Matt Sauer, DFA José Ureña

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3:50pm: It’s now official, with the Dodgers announcing they have recalled Sauer and designated Ureña for assignment.

8:03am: Speaking to reporters (including The Athletic’s Fabian Ardaya) after last night’s extra-innings victory over the Padres, Dodgers manager Dave Roberts revealed that the team is planning to recall right-hander Matt Sauer from Triple-A. Sauer is already with the team in San Diego as a member of the taxi squad, but the Dodgers will need to formally add him to the roster before he can pitch this evening. To do so, they will designate veteran righty José Ureña for assignment (per Ardaya).

Drafted by the Yankees in 2017, Sauer made his MLB debut last season with the Royals, who had selected him in the Rule 5 draft. However, Kansas City DFA’d him after he gave up 14 runs in his first 14 games, and he returned to finish out the season in New York’s farm system. The righty elected free agency this past offseason and signed a minor league contract with the Dodgers in December. This will already be Sauer’s fifth stint with the Dodgers this year. He made the travel roster for the Tokyo Series (although he did not appear in a game) and has since been optioned and recalled several times. All told, he has thrown 20 2/3 innings over seven appearances, allowing nine runs (seven earned) on 16 hits. The 26-year-old has only struck out 13 batters (16.7% K%), but his low walk rate (3.8%) and high groundball rate (49.2%) have helped him keep runners off the bases and runs off the board. As has been the case each previous time he was recalled, Sauer isn’t likely to stick around on L.A.’s 26-man roster for long. That said, a player can only be optioned five times in a season, so the next time the Dodgers option him will be the last.

Due to the Dodgers limited rotation depth – Tony Gonsolin recently joined fellow starters Tyler Glasnow, Blake Snell, Roki Sasaki, Emmet Sheehan, River Ryan, Kyle Hurt and Gavin Stone on the IL – Sauer is likely to pitch multiple innings as part of a bullpen game today. However, Bill Plunkett of the Orange County Register suggests he will probably come in after an opener rather than start the game.

Ureña signed with the Dodgers last week, shortly after the Blue Jays DFA’d him. As Ardaya notes, the Dodgers will only be on the hook for a prorated portion of the league minimum salary for the few days he spent on their active roster. In that time, Ureña made two appearances for L.A., giving up one run on four hits over three innings. Altogether, he has pitched 18 1/3 innings this season for the Mets, Blue Jays, and Dodgers, with a 5.40 ERA and 5.09 SIERA to show for it. Considering his long MLB track record and versatility – he can pitch into the fifth inning as a starter or touch 98 mph out of the bullpen – he shouldn’t have trouble latching on somewhere else. The journeyman might not be seeing the same success he enjoyed with the Rangers in 2024 (3.80 ERA in 109 IP), but there’s a reason three contending clubs have put him on their roster this season.

Chris Stratton Elects Free Agency

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Right-hander Chris Stratton has elected free agency, according to his transactions tracker at MLB.com. The Dodgers had sent him outright to Triple-A Oklahoma City, indicating he cleared waivers after being designated for assignment a few days ago. However, he has exercised his right to head to the open market.

Stratton, 34, has been on and off the Dodgers’ roster in recent weeks. He was released by the Royals a couple of weeks ago. That left Kansas City on the hook for what’s left of the two-year, $8MM deal he signed ahead of the 2024 campaign. Any other team can sign him and only pay him the prorated league minimum for any time spent on the roster, with that amount subtracted from what the Royals pay.

The Dodgers have done so twice in recent weeks. The first time resulted in Stratton making two appearances before being designated for assignment. He went unclaimed on waivers, elected free agency and then re-signed with them. In the second stint, he made just one appearance before getting the DFA treatment again. As a player with at least five years of service time, he can reject an outright assignment and keep his salary commitments in place.

The Dodgers currently have 14 pitchers on the injured list and they have been trying various methods to keep the staff fresh. They are also a third-time competitive balance tax payor and are above the top line this year, meaning they face a 110% tax on any new spending. Stratton has therefore been a nice fit for them as a veteran arm who has been both cheap and available.

It wouldn’t be a surprise to see him reunite with the Dodgers yet again but he is now free to discuss opportunities with all clubs. Los Angeles just got Michael Kopech and Kirby Yates off the IL, perhaps lessening their need to sign Stratton a third time.

Stratton hasn’t been in great form lately. Since signing that aforementioned deal with the Royals, he has a 6.13 earned run average in 79 1/3 innings. His 18.3% strikeout rate and 11.9% walk rate in that time are both subpar figures, though he’s been getting grounders at a healthy 46% clip.

But he does have years of previous experience as an effective big league reliever. From 2020 to 2023, he logged 255 1/3 innings with a 3.91 ERA, 24.5% strikeout rate, 8.8% walk rate and 41.9% ground ball rate. Since there’s no real cost in picking him up, he should land a new deal in the coming days.

Photo courtesy of William Purnell, Imagn Images

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