Adcock was pushed off the 40-man roster when San Diego needed to select another catcher, Blake Hunt, onto the MLB team. The Padres are without their top two catchers, Freddy Fermin and Luis Campusano, so they’ve needed 40-man spots for Rodolfo Durán and Hunt. Adcock, who signed a major league contract in December, did not appear in a big league game with San Diego.

The 29-year-old righty has pitched parts of three seasons at the big league level. Adcock has suited up with the Mariners and Mets, working to a 5.48 ERA across 23 innings. The Elon product spent the first two months of the season on the minor league injured list. He was only activated at Triple-A El Paso on June 3. Adcock walked three of five opponents and allowed two runs in his first appearance. He rebounded with perfect frames in his next two outings before being bumped from the roster.

Adcock has a prior outright and can elect free agency instead of remaining with the Chihuahuas. He’d likely be limited to minor league offers if he tests the market.

Gonzales signed an offseason minor league deal. He’d spent all of last year unsigned after undergoing flexor surgery at the close of the 2024 season. Gonzales started 12 of 13 Triple-A appearances and allowed nearly eight earned runs per nine across 47 1/3 innings. The 34-year-old southpaw had a modest 15.2% strikeout rate while sitting in his usual 90 mph range with his fastball.

The Halos opened a spot on the 40-man roster when they designated Trey Mancini for assignment this afternoon. They therefore didn’t need to announce a corresponding move tonight, but they will need to open an active roster spot once Heineman joins the club for their weekend series in West Sacramento.

Heineman will probably bump Logan Porter back to Triple-A. The Halos have operated with a Logan O’Hoppe/Porter tandem for the past week. They’ve needed to go well into the catching depth chart with Travis d’Arnaud out due to plantar fasciitis and Sebastián Rivero undergoing hamate surgery. O’Hoppe’s bat has picked up this month after a very slow start, while Porter has a full slate of minor league options and can go back to Triple-A.

The 34-year-old Heineman has spent the past year and a half in Toronto. He had a career-best .289/.361/.416 showing over 64 games last year. Heineman has been a light-hitting depth catcher for the majority of his career and owns a .154 average with one homer in 87 plate appearances this season. He got some run while Alejandro Kirk was out with a broken thumb. Brandon Valenzuela outplayed him and remained on Toronto’s MLB roster as the backup when Kirk returned.

Heineman is out of minor league options and had to get through waivers for the Jays to send him to Triple-A. The Angels jumped the waiver line with the trade, taking on the remainder of his $1.2375MM arbitration salary in the process. Heineman is an excellent receiving catcher with a good arm, so he’ll improve the team defense behind the dish. He’ll remain eligible for arbitration for another two seasons if he holds his MLB job.

5:50pm: The Royals are acquiring right-hander Randy Dobnak from the Mariners, reports Jeff Passan of ESPN. Dobnak triggered an upward mobility clause in his minor league deal with the M’s a few days ago. Kansas City will need to open a 40-man roster spot but have several players who could be transferred to the 60-day injured list. Though Dobnak is getting a 40-man spot, he has options and Passan says Dobnak will be sent to Triple-A Omaha initially.

Dobnak, 31, signed a minor league deal with the Mariners in the offseason. It was recently reported that there was a June 15th upward mobility clause in that deal. The way such clauses usually work is that the player is offered up to the 29 other teams in the league. If any one of them wants to give him a roster spot, the signing team has to trade him or give him a roster spot themselves.

The righty triggered the clause after a pretty decent showing for Triple-A Tacoma. He logged 70 innings over 13 starts, allowing 4.24 earned runs per nine. Considering that the Rainiers play in the hitter-friendly Pacific Coast League, that’s not too bad. His 12.8% strikeout rate was barely half of typical big league average but his 7.9% walk rate was good and his 59.9% ground ball rate was very strong.

The Mariners are perhaps the team with the least need for more rotation depth. They are already six deep at the major league level and struggling to juggle Logan Gilbert, George Kirby, Bryan Woo, Bryce Miller, Emerson Hancock and Luis Castillo. They also have prospects Ryan Sloan and Kade Anderson dealing in the minors.

The Royals, meanwhile, have recently seen their starting group take a few notable hits. Each of Cole Ragans, Kris Bubic and Seth Lugo have landed on the IL in the past six weeks. That has left them with a patchwork rotation consisting of Michael Wacha, Luinder Avila, Noah Cameron and Stephen Kolek in four spots. Mitch Spence made a spot start this week but was immediately optioned back to the minors afterwards. Depth arms like Ben Kudrna and Ryan Bergert required season-ending surgeries earlier this year.

In short, they can use any fresh arms they can find, so Dobnak is a sensible pickup for them. If he gets called up at some point, he can add to his major league track record, which currently consists of 140 2/3 innings over multiple seasons with the Twins with a 4.86 ERA, 13.9% strikeout rate, 6.1% walk rate and 56.8% ground ball rate.

Photo courtesy of Frank Bowen IV, Imagn Images.

Stratton, 29, was acquired from the Pirates last summer after Pittsburgh designated him for assignment. Atlanta sent minor league outfielder Titus Dumitru and cash the other way and have been using Stratton as an up-and-down reliever since then.

He has tossed 17 1/3 big league innings since that trade with a 2.08 earned run average. That’s obviously a nice number but there’s some luck in there. He has benefited from a .261 batting average on balls in play and 87.9% strand rate. Though his 22.5% strikeout rate and 7% walk rate in that span are decent, his 4.00 FIP and 3.73 SIERA suggest he has been more serviceable than dominant. In the minors this year, he has thrown 24 2/3 innings with a 4.38 ERA, 21.2% strikeout rate and 47.1% ground ball rate, with a bloated 14.2% walk rate.

He now heads into DFA limbo, which can last as long as a week. The waiver process takes 48 hours, so Atlanta could spend as long as five days exploring trade possibilities. It seems likely that Stratton will garner interest somewhere. He still has options, which is always appealing for clubs. He also has intriguing stuff, averaging about 96 miles per hour with his four-seamer and sinker. He has also thrown a cutter and a slider this year. He also had some decent results with the Bucs earlier in his career and now has a 3.75 ERA in 69 2/3 big league innings.

As for Strider, he landed on the 15-day IL a few days ago due to elbow inflammation. The club subsequently announced that he would be shut down for four weeks before undergoing a follow-up MRI. If that imaging is clean, he can begin ramping back up.

Even if everything goes to plan, the ramp-up period will probably take as long as the shutdown period, so he is probably looking at an absence of a couple of months even in a best-case scenario. That means this transaction shouldn’t really alter expectations about his return but it does concretely rule him out until the middle of August.

Photo courtesy of Ron Chenoy, Imagn Images

Wynns, 35, is a veteran depth catcher. He has appeared in 299 big league games scattered across eight seasons, never topping 66 contests in any individual campaign. He doesn’t provide much from the batter’s box, currently sitting on a career line of .228/.273/.342. That translates to a 66 wRC+, indicating he has been 34% below league average at the plate.

He has a stronger reputation in regards to his work behind the plate. Publicly available metrics generally give him solid grades for his blocking and his work with the running game. His framing numbers aren’t as strong but mostly due to some poor results earlier in his career. He’s been closer to league average when looking at the past three to five seasons.

Wynns finished last season with the Athletics. They tendered him an arbitration contract, agreeing to a $1.1MM salary for 2026. He got out to a slow start to the season and was designated for assignment and then released in early May. That led to a minor league deal with the Angels, though that club traded him to Atlanta for cash. He spent a little over a week on the roster with Atlanta until Drake Baldwin came off the injured list, which squeezed Wynns onto the waiver wire. He currently has a .075/.125/.075 line in 57 plate appearances this year.

Now that he’s a free agent again, Wynns will look for his next opportunity. Catching depth is always in demand, so he should get calls, though he may have to settle for a minor league deal. If any club gives him a spot, he can be paid the prorated league minimum for any time spent on the roster. That will be subtracted from what the A’s pay, as they are currently on the hook for the remainder of his salary.

Photo courtesy of Matt Marton, Imagn Images

Weiss, 29, made his big league debut with the Astros this season. The former D-backs farmhand parlayed a breakout 2024-25 performance in the Korea Baseball Organization into a one-year, $2.6MM deal with the ‘Stros. Weiss turned in a 3.73 ERA in 16 starts with the KBO’s Hanwha Eagles in 2024 and a 2.87 ERA across 178 2/3 innings last year, all the while showing strong strikeout, walk and ground-ball rates.

The signing hasn’t panned out as hoped. Weiss has appeared in nine games as an Astro, two of them starts, and posted a 7.62 ERA in 26 frames. He’s fanned a roughly average 22.9% of his opponents but also issued walks at an unacceptable 15.3% clip. More problematic is how homer-prone Weiss has proven against big league hitters; in his 26 frames, he’s faced 131 hitters and surrendered eight long balls. That’s an average of 2.77 round-trippers per nine innings. Put another way, he’s surrendered a homer to 6.1% of the batters he’s faced.

Weiss’ performance in Sugar Land hasn’t been better. He’s pitched 20 1/3 innings there and been tagged for an 8.41 earned run average. He hasn’t been quite so homer-prone or given out quite as many walks, but he’s fanned fewer hitters and struggled badly with men on base.

There’s still time for Weiss to turn things around, but Houston’s early return on that minimal investment isn’t anywhere close to what the team hoped. Weiss had already been pitching at the Triple-A level for more than a month, and he’ll now head back to the Space Cowboys and try to pitch his way back into Houston’s big league plans.

The 39-year-old Carrasco has been on and off the roster all year long. He and the club clearly have an understanding about a relationship they are both comfortable with. As a veteran with years and years of service time, he can’t be optioned to the minors. Instead, he has been repeatedly added to the roster to give the club a fresh arm. After a short period of time, he is designated for assignment, clears waivers, elects free agency and then signs a new minor league deal.

For the club, the benefit is obvious, as they effectively get a 41st man on their 40-man roster. Carrasco’s occasional appearances allow them to rest their other arms and reduce wear and tear over a long season. For Carrasco, he would probably prefer a steadier job but that’s hard to find, with his age and effectiveness. He posted a 6.36 earned run average from 2023 to 2025. He has a much better ERA of 3.00 this year, though in a small sample of nine innings over five appearances. With this gig, at least he gets sporadic hits of big league pay.

Last night’s game was suspended due to rain in the second inning. It was continued today with the Giants eventually winning 7-2. Grant Holmes had started last night but was replaced when the game continued today, with Atlanta using four pitchers to get through the remainder. As they go into the nightcap, Carrasco could be called upon to cover multiple innings, if needed.

Camargo, 26, signed a minor league deal with Atlanta last year. He has a very small amount of big league experience, having played five games with the Twins in 2024. He went hitless in seven plate appearances but did draw a walk. He hasn’t hit much in the minors either but has generally received favorable reviews for his glovework on the farm.

Drake Baldwin was behind the plate for the first game. Teams usually don’t ask a catcher to squat for both ends of a doubleheader, so Sandy León or Camargo could catch the second game. That could perhaps allow Baldwin’s bat to stay in the lineup as the designated hitter while the club still has a catcher on the bench. Camargo has an option and could be easily sent back to the minors after the game.

Photo courtesy of Aaron Doster, Imagn Images

Mancini, 34, made his return to MLB last week after an absence of about three calendar years. It’s the second comeback story in the former Orioles star’s career. Mancini was diagnosed with Stage 3 colon cancer during spring training back in 2020, missed the season but returned to great fanfare the following season after announcing that he’d gone into remission and was cancer-free.

Though this comeback may not be quite so emotional, it’s still rather remarkable. Mancini hit .234/.299/.336 in 79 games with the ’23 Cubs and was released that summer. He didn’t play anywhere in 2024 and logged only 74 Triple-A games with the Diamondbacks organization last year. The list of 34-year-olds who return to MLB after a 35-month absence surely isn’t all that long, and it had actually been four years since Mancini was last a legitimate contributor on a big league roster.

Despite that long layoff, Mancini picked up three hits in his return to the Show. His brief Angels tenure will conclude with a 4-for-13 performance and an oddball .308/.286/.462 batting line — a byproduct of tallying three singles, a triple and a sacrifice fly in his short time as a Halo.

Looking beyond his tiny sample of plate appearances with Anaheim, Mancini has been reasonably productive in his recent Triple-A work. Dating back to last season, he’s slashed .295/.375/.500 with 22 homers and 33 doubles in 559 plate appearances between the D-backs’ Reno affiliate and the Angels’ Salt Lake club. That’s a nice-looking line on the surface, but it bears stating that said production is only about 8% better than average (by measure of wRC+) in the Pacific Coast League’s supercharged offensive environment.

The Angels will either trade Mancini or place him on waivers (outright or release) in the next five days. The waiver process takes 48 hours, so it could take up to a week before we know the outcome of today’s DFA.

A release was always the likely outcome, given that Fernández was placed on the minor league injured list last month and remained there at the time of his DFA. Injured players cannot be passed through outright waivers, meaning the Nationals’ only alternative was to try to find a trade partner for an injured 30-year-old with minimal MLB track record. That didn’t pan out.

Fernández has pitched in parts of three big league seasons — 2026 included. He has just 15 2/3 frames in the majors, however, during which he’s been tagged for 14 runs (a dozen earned) on 15 hits and eight walks with 12 punchouts. Five of the 15 hits he’s surrendered have been home runs.

It’s been some time, but Fernández was once a prospect of some note. The Giants plucked him from the Rockies in the 2017 Rule 5 Draft after a big age-21 campaign in A-ball. It’d have been hard to carry him on the roster for the whole season anyhow, but Fernández wound up missing the entire year after suffering a UCL tear during spring training. He spent the year on San Francisco’s 60-day injured list and was then scooped up by the Marlins off waivers in the offseason. After Fernández missed the entire 2019 season as well, the Fish returned him to the Rockies, as he still hadn’t fulfilled his Rule 5 requirements.

Injuries and the canceled 2020 minor league season wound up keeping Fernández off a minor league mound for three years. He returned with a nice showing between Double-A and Triple-A in 2021 (2.53 ERA, 23.7 K%, 9.0 BB% in 42 2/3 innings) and made a brief big league debut that season. He struggled in the minors in 2022-23 with the Rockies and Blue Jays before spending 2024 pitching in Mexico. Fernández made a brief MLB return with the Dodgers and Nats last season as well.

Those ugly 2022-23 showings in the minors have skewed his numbers there, but Fernández posted a decent 4.17 ERA with a strong 28.5% strikeout rate and sharp 7.7% walk rate in 54 Triple-A frames last year. He was sporting a 3.27 ERA through 11 Triple-A frames at the time of his minor league IL placement.

Fernández might simply re-sign with the Nats on a minor league deal — that type of outcome is common in these situations — but he’ll have the opportunity to chat with the league’s other 29 clubs before making any sort of determination.

It’s the second time Cleveland has released Allard this season. He opted out of a minor league deal back in mid-May and was granted his release, though he re-signed not long after. Allard has been pitching well in Columbus of late but exercised an opt-out provision in his contact and was granted his release, MLBTR has learned.

The 28-year-old Allard thrived in a swingman role with the Guards last season, tossing 65 innings across 35 appearances (two of them starts) and recording a sharp 2.63 ERA. Pristine command (5.3% walk rate) helped Allard achieve those results, but he’s a soft-tossing lefty who had one of 2025’s lowest strikeout rates (15.8%) and lower-than-average groundball marks as well (38%). Metrics like SIERA (4.41) and FIP (3.54) didn’t support that shinier earned run average.

Allard has made four appearances for Cleveland this season. He’s pitched 8 2/3 innings and been tagged for 10 runs on 16 hits and three walks. His Triple-A work has been much better  — particularly since re-signing in mid-May. Allard has a 4.11 ERA overall through 30 2/3 innings, including a 2.49 ERA, 23.7% strikeout rate and microscopic 2.2% walk rate since signing that last contract with the Guardians.

There’s no new pitch or big velocity spike buoying those results. Allard is still averaging just under 90 mph on a four-seamer that spearheads a five-pitch repertoire (four-seamer, cutter, sinker, curveball, changeup). Teams have a good sense of what to expect from the former first-round pick. He can fill the fifth spot in an injury-marred rotation and slide into a swing role when said rotation gets healthier. Allard can’t be optioned, so he’d have to stick on any club’s 40-man roster once he’s selected or else be exposed to waivers.

It’s also possible Allard quickly re-signs on a new minor league arrangement with Cleveland. He spent all of last year with the Guardians and has now signed five minor league contracts with them dating back to Feb. 2025. The two parties are clearly comfortable with one another and enjoy a good working relationship. As I dove into at greater length in last week’s mailbag for Trade Rumors Front Office subscribers, opting out (or electing free agency over an outright) and re-signing offers players the opportunity to negotiate new out clauses and presents several paths to greater earnings.

7:51pm: The Mariners are placing Randy Arozarena on the 10-day injured list, reports Adam Jude of The Seattle Times. Seattle’s left fielder hasn’t played since Friday due to left hamstring tightness, so it’ll be a retroactive placement to June 13.

Ryan Divish of The Seattle Times reports that the Mariners expect it to be a minimal IL stay. Arozarena is dealing with a mild strain that would’ve left him unavailable for the next few days. A team can only backdate an IL placement by a maximum of three days, so Seattle opted for the IL stint tonight rather than waiting a few days and risk shelving Arozarena beyond the next week.

A roster quirk will lead to the first big league call for 26-year-old outfielder Curtis Washington Jr., Divish reports. He’ll be selected onto the MLB roster and be available for tonight’s game against the Orioles. Washington is playing with High-A Everett, which is about 30 miles outside Seattle. The team’s Triple-A affiliate, the Tacoma Rainiers, are on the road this week for a series in Salt Lake. Washington can make the quick drive to T-Mobile Park. The M’s will need to open a spot on the 40-man roster but can do so by transferring infielder Will Wilson to the 60-day injured list.

Washington, a Purdue product, is a former 19th round pick. He’s hitting .190 over 44 games in High-A this season. He’ll surely be designated for assignment or outrighted this week but will collect a major league salary for a day while joining an MLB clubhouse. If tonight’s game is a blowout in either direction, maybe Dan Wilson can get him in as a pinch-hitter or defensive substitute and etch his name into an MLB box score.

Jude notes that outfielder Connor Joe was pulled from Tacoma’s lineup and will head to Seattle for tomorrow’s game. Joe is already on the 40-man and has appeared in 18 big league games this season. He’ll fill in as a right-handed bench bat with Victor Robles likely to replace Arozarena in left field for the next week. Josh Naylor and Luke Raley are also day-to-day, which pushed Miles Mastrobuoni and Rob Refsnyder into tonight’s lineup against Baltimore righty Brandon Young. Dan Wilson will likely only have backup catcher Mitch Garver and Washington Jr. available off the bench today.

In one other lineup note, today’s game officially marks J.P. Crawford’s first appearance as Seattle’s third baseman. The longtime shortstop was activated from a minimal 10-day injured list stint due to a right hand injury. He’s leading off and manning the hot corner, his first action there since the 2018 season with Philadelphia.

The Mariners had telegraphed the position change, as Crawford has been working out at third base for the past month. It’s to the former Gold Glove winner’s credit that he’s not only on board but actively approached the team about the possibility. Rookie Colt Emerson is the franchise’s long-term shortstop, so Crawford sought to expand his versatility in advance of his first trip to free agency. That allows Emerson to stay at his natural position while potentially making a case for the front office to bring Crawford back on a multi-year deal in the offseason.

8:38am: The Dodgers will designate infielder Santiago Espinal for assignment as the corresponding move for today’s activation of utilityman Tommy Edman, manager Dave Roberts told the team’s beat late last night (via Katie Woo of The Athletic).

It’ll be Espinal’s second DFA of the past few weeks. The Dodgers signed him to a minor league contract over the winter, and he clearly made a strong impression in spring training. He hit .378/.415/.644 in 53 plate appearances, and Roberts indicated barely two weeks into camp that Espinal was extremely likely to make the team.

That huge spring production hasn’t carried over to the regular season. Espinal has taken 60 plate appearances and turned in a .268/.276/.375 slash that relatively closely resembles his lifetime .261/.314/.350 output in 1836 trips to the plate as a major leaguer. He’s played third base, second base and first base for Los Angeles so far this season and also has some prior, albeit limited experience at shortstop (343 innings) and in the outfield (114 innings).

Espinal, 31, is a veteran of seven major league seasons who has more than six years of big league service. He had a particularly nice run with the Blue Jays in 2021-22, when he slashed .282/.340/.382 in 737 turns at the plate. The output was obviously light on power, but he did connect on nine round-trippers and 38 doubles, chipping in a triple and a dozen steals along the way. He struck out in a tiny 13.3% of his plate appearances against a 7.9% walk rate.

Espinal’s bat hasn’t been the same since. He’s totaled 1033 plate appearances between the Jays, Reds and Dodgers but mustered only a .247/.296/.328 line in that time. He still rarely strikes out (13.2%), but Espinal’s walk rate and already minimal power output have dipped to untenable levels.

The Dodgers will outright, release or trade Espinal within the next week. He already signed a new minor league contract after being designated for assignment last month. Another return on a minor league deal can’t be ruled out, but with Edman now healthy and each of Alex Freeland, Miguel Rojas and Hyeseong Kim on the 40-man roster (the latter currently in Triple-A), Espinal might prefer to seek out an opportunity with another organization whose infield/bench group is less crowded.

Milwaukee took a bounceback flier on Rengifo in the offseason. He had a solid run with the Angels from 2022 to 2024, slashing .273/.323/.431 for a 111 wRC+ while playing every position except for first base and the battery. He had a downturn at the plate in 2025, hitting just .238/.287/.335 for a 73 wRC+. That was particularly poor timing, as that swoon occurred just before he became a free agent.

The Brewers gave him a $3.5MM guarantee on a one-year deal with a mutual option and incentives. Obviously, they hoped that Rengifo could put his rough season behind him and get back on track. Unfortunately, he’s gotten even worse. In 209 trips to the plate, he has a .205/.280/.254 line and 53 wRC+. Part of that is due to a .233 batting average on balls in play but Rengifo also didn’t hit a home run as a Brewer.

That performance has prompted the club to move on. Rengifo now heads into DFA limbo, which can last as long as a week. The waiver process takes 48 hours, so the Brewers could take as long as five days to explore trade interest. Given his performance and his contract, there shouldn’t be too much interest. Rengifo has more than enough service time to reject an outright assignment in favor of free agency while keeping his salary in place. The Brewers might skip that formality and just release him.

One way or another, he’s likely to be on the open market in the coming week. Assuming that comes to pass, the Brewers will be on the hook for the remainder of the money. Another club could sign him for the prorated league minimum for any time spent on the roster, with that amount subtracted from what the Brewers pay.

What remains to be seen is how the Brewers distribute the playing time on the left side of their infield. They have been using Rengifo at third and Joey Ortiz at shortstop with David Hamilton getting regular playing time spelling both guys at those spots. As mentioned, Rengifo wasn’t doing much with the bat. That’s also true of the other two. Hamilton has a .231/.316/.320 line and 83 wRC+ on the year while Ortiz has a .207/.299/.262 line and 64 wRC+.

Pratt has almost exclusively played shortstop in his minor league career. The only other spot he has played is second base and that was only 21 innings at the Complex League in 2023. Presumably, Pratt is coming up to take over the shortstop job and will play there regularly.

Ortiz could spell Pratt on occasion but he might now be battling Hamilton for playing time at third. Ortiz has experience at the hot corner, as he was Milwaukee’s regular guy there in 2024. He moved over to short in 2025 after Willy Adames became a free agent and signed with the Giants. Hamilton and Ortiz are both strong defenders but the Brewers may look for a third base upgrade at the deadline if neither starts hitting.

Photo courtesy of Christopher Hanewinckel, Imagn Images

Brown, the third-place finisher in last year’s AL Cy Young voting, made only two starts this season before a shoulder strain sent him to the injured list. He was excellent in his first two starts (one run, 17 strikeouts, six walks in 10 2/3 innings) but has now been out of action more than two months. The Astros sent him on four minor league rehab starts — one in Double-A, three in Triple-A — and he logged a pristine 1.88 ERA with a 38.9% strikeout rate and 5.6% walk rate in 14 1/3 innings.

Based on those results, Brown seems plenty ready to step back in atop Houston’s rotation. The 27-year-old has been one of the best pitchers in the American League since his 2024 breakout, combining for 366 innings with a 2.88 ERA, a 27.1% strikeout rate, an 8.3% walk rate and a 48.6% ground-ball rate — all comfortably better than the league-average rate stats among pitchers.

Since Brown’s placement on the injured list, Houston starters have collectively posted the second-worst ERA in the majors. Their 5.14 mark leads only Colorado’s 6.19 ERA. Astros starters rank 21st in total innings since that time (327 1/3), 18th in strikeout rate (21.3%) and dead last in walk rate (11.6%).

All of that only underscores Brown’s importance to the Houston staff. They’ve used a dozen different starting pitchers since Brown’s injury. Spencer Arrighetti (2.57 ERA in 63 innings) and minor league signee Peter Lambert (3.47 ERA in 57 innings) have posted season-saving performances for the ‘Stros. Cody Bolton (4.70 ERA in 7 2/3 innings while acting as an opener) is the only other pitcher to start even one game for Houston and post an ERA under 5.00. Mike Burrows, Tatsuya Imai, Kai-Wei Teng and Lance McCullers Jr. have all started between seven and 13 games since Brown’s injury. Burrows’ 5.70 ERA in that span is the best of the bunch.

Diaz, also 27, has been out for the past six weeks due to an oblique strain. He’d been scuffling to begin the season, logging a career-worst .238/.255/.347 slash (62 wRC+) through his first 106 plate appearances. Diaz is coming off a pedestrian 2025 showing (.256/.284/.417) but was one of the game’s best-hitting catchers from 2023-24, when he logged a combined .293/.318/.478 line and popped 39 home runs over 996 plate appearances.

In Diaz’s absence, Christian Vázquez has shouldered the majority of the workload behind the plate. He’s hitting just .218/.277/.340 on the season and has seen his typically exceptional defensive ratings dip a bit. As a whole, Houston’s catching corps has been one of the least productive units in baseball. Their combined 60 wRC+ (indicating they’ve been 40% worse than average at the plate) leads only the Yankees (49), Phillies (49) and White Sox (47).

The 29-year-old Murray came to the Astros from the Rays at the 2022 trade deadline. He was part of the three-team swap sending Trey Mancini to Houston, Jose Siri to Tampa Bay and prospect Chayce McDermott to Baltimore. The 29-year-old righty pitched in the majors both this season and last. He’s totaled 25 innings of relief and been tagged for 13 earned runs (4.68 ERA) on 29 hits and 10 walks with 16 strikeouts.

Murray sits just under 96 mph with his four-seamer. A low-80s slider is his go-to secondary offering, though he’ll occasionally sprinkle in a changeup, sinker or cutter. The former 23rd-round pick struggled badly in his first two stints at the Triple-A level with the Rays in 2022-23. He then missed nearly all of 2024 due to injury. He returned to post decent minor league numbers last season (64 innings. 4.64 ERA, 23.8 K%, 10.8 BB%) and has been outstanding this season: 15 1/3 innings, 1.17 ERA, 19-to-6 K/BB ratio.

Murray still has a full slate of minor league options remaining. That, coupled with above-average velocity and this year’s showing in Sugar Land, could lead another club to show some interest either in a minor trade or via a waiver claim. Houston will have five days to trade him before he needs to be placed on waivers. Since outright waivers are a 48-hour process, we’ll know the result of his DFA within the next week.

Rutledge, 27, was a waiver claim out of the Nationals organization last month. Washington selected him in the first round of the 2019 draft, 17th overall. Rutledge spent several years ranked among the Nats’ most promising farmhands but never found his stride in the majors. Obviously, there wasn’t a minor league season in 2020, which set back Rutledge’s development. He then missed more than half the 2021 campaign due to shoulder troubles that limited him to 36 1/3 minor league frames. He spent another month on the 2022 injured list due to an undisclosed issue.

Although Rutledge has been mostly healthy since, the results haven’t been there. He’s pitched briefly in parts of four big league seasons but has a 6.29 ERA and just a 19% strikeout rate in 103 major league frames. Rutledge has had solid command at the game’s top level (7.3% walk rate), but he’s been quite prone to free passes in the minors, evidenced by a career 13.5% walk rate in 194 1/3 innings of Triple-A work. That shaky command has contributed to an unsightly 5.60 earned run average during his time in Triple-A.

The Phillies haven’t specified what Rutledge’s injury is, but he was on the minor league injured list at the time of his DFA. Since injured players cannot be placed on outright waivers, their only choices were to find a trade partner or release him. They’ve opted for the latter. It’s relatively common for players in this situation to re-sign a minor league deal with the organization that released them, though Rutledge doesn’t exactly have a long history with the Phillies, who claimed him off waivers just five weeks ago.