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Note: This article was published shortly before a San Diego radio station reported that general manager A.J. Preller said that Fernando Tatis Jr. has finally been cleared to begin his hitting progression.

A 23-year-old star shortstop walks into a doctor’s office and… well, we don’t exactly know what happens next, at least in the case of Fernando Tatis Jr. On Monday, Tatis had his left wrist examined by the surgeon who repaired the fracture he sustained during the offseason, but the Padres did not announce a timetable for his return, because while he had been cleared to resume nearly all baseball-related activity, doctors had yet to allow him to swing a bat at full intensity. That holding pattern lasted until Friday morning, shortly after this article was originally published, when general manager A.J. Preller revealed that Tatis was finally cleared to take hacks. The green light comes with team in the midst of a four-week skid after briefly supplanting the Dodgers atop the NL West.

All the uncertainty has been par for the course, as the entire saga of Tatis’s wrist injury is rather murky. In early December, shortly after the lockout began, he was reportedly involved in a motorcycle accident in the Dominican Republic, via which he sustained “minor scrapes.” He apparently did not begin feeling the effects of the injury until he began taking swings in mid-February in preparation for spring training. On March 14, with the lockout finally over, the team announced that x-rays revealed he had suffered a fracture; when asked about the motorcycle accident at the time, the shortstop responded, “Which one?” and acknowledged “a couple incidents” without further specificity. Tatis underwent surgery to repair his scaphoid bone on March 16, at which time general manager A.J. Preller estimated a three-month recovery and a mid-June return.

That timetable proved to be too optimistic. As of early May, Tatis was running and taking grounders, but on June 14, Preller told reporters, “Another MRI scan continues to show healing, but it was not quite at the level for … a full green light.” In other words, he had not been cleared to hit, though he was able to play catch at full intensity. Eight days later, he was able to swing “at 40% intensity” for what acting manager Ryan Christenson called “a systems check” (manager Bob Melvin was in COVID-19 protocol at the time). After a visit to doctors on June 28, Tatis said he expected to be taking swings in two weeks, but he did not get the expected green light in Monday’s follow-up.

Via the San Diego Union-Tribune’s Kevin Acee, the delay reflected the team exercising caution because there had not been a full consensus from among the doctors the Padres were consulting on whether Tatis has healed enough to begin swings:

Multiple people insist Tatis has had no setbacks.
As stated in previous tweet, team is being extremely cautious. As is often the case in these situations, doctors differ on opinions re: what is "enough" healing.
Tatis could begin swing progression by the weekend.

— Kevin Acee (@sdutKevinAcee) July 14, 2022

The hope that Tatis would finally be cleared at some point this weekend has now been realized. The expectation is that his “progression from dry swings to swinging against live pitching is expected to take about 10 days,” after which Tatis will go on a rehab assignment whose length of time will be dictated by how comfortable he feels and how quickly he gets up to speed. Thus, even with Friday’s announcement, it sounds like he won’t be back until the end of this month or early in August. Read the rest of this entry »

As free-agent signings go, you could be forgiven for having missed Martín Pérez’s return to the Rangers. His agreement to a one-year, $4 million deal happened amid a flurry of signings in mid-March, just after the lockout ended, and the transaction even slipped through the cracks in our coverage. That will happen for a guy who’s been knocked around while bouncing around, but in his return to Texas, the 31-year-old lefty has pitched his way onto the AL All-Star team, making him the longest-tenured major leaguer from among this year’s first-time honorees.

The honor is well-deserved. In 106 innings thus far, Pérez has pitched to a 2.72 ERA (71 ERA-) and 3.07 FIP (76 FIP-). His FIP ranks fifth in the AL, and his ERA and 2.3 WAR both rank sixth. Already, all of those numbers represent career bests, including his WAR, which matches his total from 2016. At that time, Pérez was just 25 years old but already in the post-hype phase of his career.

The Rangers originally signed Pérez out of Venezuela on July 2, 2007, via a $580,000 signing bonus. As a 17-year-old he held his own against college draftees in the Northwest League in 2008 and made prospect lists in each of the next five seasons as the team looked to his arrival, hopeful that he could help further the Rangers’ run after back-to-back pennants in 2010 and ’11. The hype was intense. As Jamey Newburg, who has covered Rangers’ prospects dating back to the late 1990s, wrote for D Magazine in June, after splitting his 2009 season between Low-A and Double-A stops, “[H]e flashed unnatural confidence for a teenager, a willingness to throw any pitch in any count. Baseball America tabbed him as the 17th-best prospect in baseball, third among left-handed pitchers (behind Brian Matusz and Madison Bumgarner and ahead of Aroldis Chapman). His feel for the craft and unassuming build triggered comparisons to the likes of Ron Guidry and Johan Santana.” No pressure, kid!

Pérez debuted as a 21-year-old in 2012 and spent part or all of the next six seasons with the team, but the hopes that he would develop into a homegrown ace faded as he battled injuries (including 2014 Tommy John surgery) and a hitter-friendly ballpark. In his time in Texas, he pitched to a 4.63 ERA (103 ERA-) and 4.44 FIP (103 FIP-), totaling 8.6 WAR. The Rangers signed him to a four-year, $12.5 million extension in November 2013, one that included club options for the ’18–20 seasons, but after picking up the first one, they had seen enough, declining his $7.5 million club option for 2019 and paying him a $750,000 buyout.

After reaching free agency, Perez signed modest one-year deals with the Twins and Red Sox, the latter twice; each of those deals included a club option that the team subsequently rejected as well, with Boston giving him what amounted to a 23% pay cut to return for 2020. Though his nomadic stretch began with a very solid first half for Minnesota in 2019, his second-half fade sent him packing. Last year, he pitched his way out of the Red Sox rotation and into its bullpen for the final two months of the season. For those three years, he pitched to a 4.88 ERA (106 ERA-) and 4.75 FIP (107 FIP-) and 2.8 WAR, with his 2021 numbers — a 4.74 ERA (105 ERA-) and 4.82 FIP (114 ERA-) in 114 innings — suggesting that he would be in for more of the same in 2022, though not necessarily with a contender.

To the Rangers, even those unimpressive 2021 numbers represented an improvement upon most of their returning options. While bigger names such as Clayton Kershaw and Carlos Rodón spurned the team’s advances to sign with contenders, just before the lockout Texas landed Jon Gray via a four-year, $56 million deal to head the rotation. Pérez was added in the post-lockout frenzy in the belief that he still represented not only a potential improvement but also a possible mentor for a young staff. “We want a guy with some experience, that’s been through some ups and downs in the big leagues and does things the right way,” said manager Chris Woodward at the time. “That would be probably more beneficial than anything they’ll do on the field to be honest with you. But the next part of that would be the expectation to compete on the field. Obviously we want to bring in somebody that’s gonna be good and that’s gonna pitch quality innings for us.”

Pérez has more than lived up to expectations for the Rangers already, not only with his performance but also, as Newburg reported, with his mentoring of several minor league hurlers. The 6-foot, 200-pound southpaw has never been a pitcher who has missed a ton of bats, and he isn’t suddenly doing so now; though his 19.7% strikeout rate represents a career high, it’s still 1.7 points below the rate of the average starter this season. That said, he’s coupled a slight increase in strikeouts (from 19.1%) with a slight drop in walk rate (from 7.1% to 6.0%), and so his 13.8% strikeout-walk differential is not only a career high, but also nearly double his 7.0% mark from 2012 to ’21. Read the rest of this entry »

From the point at which the Twins chose him with the second overall pick out of a Georgia high school a decade ago, Byron Buxton figured to make an All-Star team, or several of them. Yet not until Sunday, in the midst of his eighth major league season, did the powerful and fleet-footed center fielder officially become one. Buxton was among the reserves added to the American League team via a vote by his fellow players.

The honor is well deserved given that the 28-year-old Buxton ranks fourth among all outfielders in WAR (limiting the definition to those who have played at least 50% of their games in the pasture):

By WAR and wRC+, where his mark of 132 is in a virtual tie for 11th among the same group, Buxton is clearly having a strong season, but as his slash line shows, it’s been an uneven one. He’s hardly the first player to make an All-Star team despite carrying an on-base percentage below .300, even in the past decade; Salvador Perez did it annually from 2014-18, in seasons where his first-half OBP was as low as .259, and where his final mark as low as .274 (both 2018). Likewise with batting average when, for example, Mike Zunino had a first-half mark of .198 just last year. Read the rest of this entry »

For the first time in 30 years, a pair of brothers will be in the same All-Star Game lineup. On Sunday, when the full squads were announced, catchers Willson Contreras of the Cubs and William Contreras of the Braves both made the National League team. They’ll each be in the starting lineup, as Willson won the fan vote as the NL’s starting backstop, and William, who was elected as a reserve catcher by his fellow players, has been named to replace the injured Bryce Harper as the starting designated hitter.

This is the first time since 2003 that a pair of brothers has been named to the Midsummer Classic. That year, the Reds’ Aaron Boone was a reserve for the NL while the Mariners’ Bret Boone was a reserve for the American League. The last time two brothers started the same game was in 1992, when the AL squad featured Toronto’s Roberto Alomar at second base and Cleveland’s Sandy Alomar Jr. at catcher.

By my count, a total of 18 19 sets of brothers (including one set of three brothers) has made the All-Star team at least once, with 10 sets making it in the same season at least once; both of those counts include players who were selected but did not get into the game. Five sets started in the same year at least once:

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On the day he was officially named to the National League All-Star team for the second time, Sandy Alcantara continued to roll, underscoring his case to start the All-Star Game for the NL. The 26-year-old righty’s seven shutout innings against the Mets extended his scoreless streak to 19 innings and his run of starts lasting at least seven innings to 12 in a row, the longest in the majors in seven years.

Matching zeroes with Taijuan Walker at Citi Field, Alcantara held the Mets to six hits and one walk while striking out four; the Marlins won 2-0 in 10 innings. The surprise wasn’t that he stifled the Mets so much as it was that he made a comparatively early exit by his high standards. Alcantara’s pitch count of 93 was 10 short of his major league-leading average through his first 17 turns, and was his shortest outing since his 83-pitch start against the Giants on Opening Day. In his last two starts, he’d thrown a career-high 117 pitches in a June 29 complete game against the Cardinals, then 107 in his July 5 follow-up, eight innings of two-hit shutout work against the Angels.

After Sunday’s game, manager Don Mattingly praised Alcantara’s labor-intensive effort, suggesting that he didn’t have his best stuff, particularly when it came to throwing his slider for strikes:

“It was probably one of his best performances from the standpoint where he wasn’t clicking with all his stuff… Today, he had to fight. He didn’t have all his stuff today. Him and [catcher Jacob Stallings] did a nice job of using his stuff and getting through it.”

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Shohei Ohtani is doing remarkable things again. The reigning AL MVP has been on an exceptional run as a pitcher lately, not only making a bit of history but also bolstering his cases to start the All-Star Game and to win additional hardware. While his hitting was the more amazing of his two endeavors in 2021, his improvements on the mound have pushed him into new territory.

On Wednesday night, Ohtani threw seven innings of two-hit ball against the Marlins, striking out 10 and allowing just one unearned run. That run came in the first inning, as the fans in Miami (they do have those, right?) were still settling into their seats. Jon Berti reached on a throwing error by shortstop Luis Rengifo, took third on a Joey Wendle double, and scored on a Garrett Cooper sacrifice fly. The run ended Ohtani’s streak of scoreless innings at 21.2, the longest of his career, but from there he cruised. He didn’t allow a hit after giving up a one-out single in the second to Miguel Rojas and retired 15 straight batters from that point until he walked Jesús Sánchez with one out in the seventh. For good measure, Ohtani also drove in the go-ahead runs via a two-run single off Trevor Rogers and later walked, stole a base, and scored another run. Nobody has had a game like that in at least the last century.

With his 10 strikeouts, Ohtani reached double digits for the third game in a row, something he’d never done before in his stateside career, and something only one other pitcher (Corbin Burnes) has done this season; six pitchers did it last year, with two (Shane Bieber and Robbie Ray) putting together four-game streaks. Over his past four starts, Ohtani hasn’t allowed a single earned run and has struck out 40 batters, something only seven other pitchers have done (one of them twice) since 1913, the year that earned runs became an official stat:

That’s some pretty cool company, even if the list heavily skews towards the recent past thanks to ever-increasing strikeout rates — so much so that Ohtani required fewer innings to complete the feat than all but one pitcher (Sale). It’s also worth pointing out that none of the aforementioned hurlers were regularly taking their cuts as hitters on the days they weren’t pitching. Read the rest of this entry »

The Giants won a franchise-record 107 games last year, then reloaded after being knocked out of the Division Series by the Dodgers. But since posting a 14-7 record through the end of April, things haven’t gone their way. Though they snapped a six-game losing streak with a late-inning comeback against the Diamondbacks on Wednesday night, they’ve dropped 12 of their last 16 games, largely against sub-.500 teams. As the season’s midway point approaches, they’re barely above .500 at 41-39, and what’s more, they just lost their hottest hitter, Evan Longoria, to an oblique strain.

It’s not clear at this writing how Longoria was injured, but losing him is a blow nonetheless. The 36-year-old third baseman is hitting .242/.331/.462 with eight home runs; his 123 wRC+ is fourth among Giants regulars. In the two weeks prior to his injury, as the team has struggled, he hit for a team-high 166 wRC+ (.316/.413/.553) with three of those eight homers.

Longoria already missed the first 30 games of the season due to surgery to repair a torn ligament in his right index finger, making this the fifth straight season in which he has landed on the injured list. Last year, he was limited to 81 games due to a dislocated sternoclavicular joint in his left shoulder as well as a right hand contusion. In 2020, he missed the first seven games of the season due to an oblique strain; reportedly, he tweaked the muscle on his right side while swinging on July 14 of that year and was back in the lineup on July 30. In terming his current strain mild, manager Gabe Kapler offered similar optimism that this won’t be a long-term absence, though Longoria is out through at least the All-Star break. Read the rest of this entry »

The Mets aren’t the only team awaiting an ace’s return from injury. Chris Sale is scheduled to start for the Red Sox’s Triple-A Worcester affiliate on Wednesday, and if all goes well, the 33-year-old lefty could join the big club after that, in time to help a team whose rotation is looking rather threadbare as it heads into a crucial stretch of the season. While Sale pitches for Worcester, fast-rising prospect Brayan Bello — whose rotation slot Sale is filling — will debut in Boston against the Rays.

After winning 92 games and falling just two wins short of a trip to the World Series in 2021, the Red Sox stumbled to a 14-22 start, and were just 23-27 at the end of May. Though they went 20-6 in June, they actually lost ground to the Yankees, who went 22-6. After splitting their first four games of July, they’re 45-36, 13 games out of first place, and while they now occupy the top AL Wild Card spot, they’re about to face a major test. The three-game series they began on Monday kicked off a brutal 27-game stretch against teams .500 or better, with seven apiece against the Rays (44-37) and Yankees (58-23, a 116-win pace) followed by three against the Blue Jays (44-38), four against the Guardians (40-39), three against the Brewers (47-36) and three against the Astros (53-27).

That’s a weighted opponents’ winning percentage of .595 for that span, a 96-win pace over the course of 162 games, with all but Cleveland currently occupying a playoff spot. The good news for the Red Sox is that 17 of the 27 games are at home, but the bad news is that their rotation currently has three starters (Nathan Eovaldi, Rich Hill, and Garrett Whitlock) on the injured list and a fourth (Michael Wacha) whose status is in question after being scratched on Sunday, forcing manager Alex Cora and chief baseball officer Chaim Bloom to piece things together on a day-by-day basis. Hence the higher stakes when it comes to the progress of Sale and the debut of Bello. Read the rest of this entry »