Aug. 17, 9:41pm: Lovullo didn’t provide many specifics in his postgame interview:

“It’s been a crazy day. All I know is that he’s dealing with a personal issue. We’re trying to figure that out. He didn’t show up today and he was put on the restricted list,” the manager said postgame (link via Alex D’Agostino of Sports Illustrated). “That’s as much as I know right now. … I knew that there was something going on today when I met with (the media), but I still believed he was going to be here. He just didn’t show up.”

“I know there was a lot of discussions about it at different points in time in the clubhouse today,” Lovullo later added. “There was a lot of curiosity. We care for Ketel.” John Gambadoro of 98.7 FM reported this evening that the D-Backs believe but aren’t positive that Marte remains at the team’s hotel in Boston.

6:08pm: The Diamondbacks placed second baseman Ketel Marte on the restricted list shortly before first pitch tonight in Boston. Infielder Jose Fernandez was recalled from Triple-A Reno. The team hasn’t publicly commented.

Nick Piecoro of The Arizona Republic reports that Marte traveled with the team to Boston but did not show up to Fenway Park. According to Steve Gilbert of MLB.com, the team had waited right up to game time in the hope that Marte would arrive. Piecoro adds that Marte was expected to serve as the designated hitter. Lars Nootbaar gets that assignment instead, albeit at the bottom of the lineup with Boston pitching a lefty opener in front of Brayan Bello.

Fernandez was with the team on the taxi squad because Nolan Arenado is day-to-day with a torso injury. Arenado isn’t playing tonight and might require a stint on the injured list. Fernandez draws right in at the hot corner as part of a makeshift infield that also features Ildemaro Vargas and Tim Tawa around star shortstop Geraldo Perdomo.

The restricted list is used when players are unavailable for non-injury reasons. There’s no minimum stint and players are not paid. It’s fairly common for a player to spend one or two days on the restricted list while attending to a personal matter (e.g. an extra day on paternity leave). Marte’s absence, however, seems to have caught the team off guard. Piecoro reports that the star second baseman is physically healthy but did not show up for the game.

It’s almost a year to the day that Piecoro and others reported that Marte’s work habits had frustrated some of his teammates. That was most directly traced to a few days he took off after the 2025 All-Star Break, which resulted in a two-day placement on the restricted list. Marte’s home in Arizona had been burglarized over the Break, but some teammates were reportedly irritated that he flew home to the Dominican Republic and missed their first series of the second half.

Manager Torey Lovullo and GM Mike Hazen generally backed him publicly. Marte apologized. He was in trade rumors over the winter but the D-Backs had a lofty ask and stopped taking calls in early January to focus on adding to the 2026 roster. He gained full no-trade rights in early April by reaching 10 years of service time.

The Diamondbacks are one game back of a Wild Card spot. Marte hasn’t been especially productive since the beginning of July and has a relatively disappointing .249/.314/.446 slash line across 519 plate appearances, though he leads the team with 21 home runs.

Kinley has spent the past year in the Atlanta bullpen, coming over in a 2025 trade with the Rockies and then re-signing on a $4.25MM deal ($3MM salary in 2026, $1.25MM buyout on a 2027 club option). The 35-year-old was dominant down the stretch in 2025 and pitched well through the end of June this season before running into a rough patch.

Through his first 30 innings in 2026, Kinley logged a flat 3.00 ERA with a strong 25.8% strikeout rate and 8.1% walk rate. He was too homer-prone along the way but was generally missing bats and doing a good enough job of keeping runners off the bases. He was tagged for three runs in an early-July appearance and hasn’t really recovered, however. Dating back to July 3, Kinley has a 6.39 ERA in 12 2/3 innings. He’s walked as many batters as he’s struck out in that span (10 apiece) and served up four homers.

Kinley has always had some susceptibility to home runs, as one would expect for a fly-ball pitcher who’s spent the vast majority of his career calling Denver’s Coors Field his home park. However, he’s never struggled with the long ball to this extent. He’s averaging 1.9 homers per nine innings pitched this season. A career-worst 15.5% of the fly-balls he’s allowed this year have left the yard. That trait is exacerbated by the fact that Kinley is allowing more contact in the air than he ever has in a full season; his ground-ball rate on the year is just 29.2% — the seventh-lowest mark among the 329 pitchers who’ve tossed at least 40 innings in the majors this season.

Kinley is still sitting 94.4 mph on his four-seamer, but his slider’s results have taken a noticeable downturn this year. That’s not a good development considering it’s far and away his most-used offering (64.7%) and has typically graded as his best pitch. Opponents batted just .194 with a .297 slugging percentage against Kinley’s slider last year. In 2026, they’re hitting .215 but slugging .449. His swinging-strike rate on the pitch has fallen from 17.3% to a career-low 13.8%.

With Kinley off the roster and the trade deadline behind us, Atlanta can only place the right-hander on waivers. He’s still owed about $642K in salary, plus that $1.25MM buyout on a $5.5MM club option. The remaining $1.89MM left to be paid out might be too steep for another team to place a claim, but Kinley pitched well for most of the season and quality bullpen arms are hard to come by this time of year. It’s at least plausible that another club with some payroll wiggle room will scoop him up in hopes that he can provide a boost down the stretch.

Smith-Shawver made his return from UCL surgery in late July, lasting 4 1/3 innings and allowing a pair of runs in his first MLB action since May 29, 2025. The Braves sent him back down after the fact, and he’s been solid in two starts since: 11 innings pitched, two runs, three hits, four walks, 13 strikeouts. He’ll get the nod Wednesday at Target Field, allowing Atlanta to push workhorse Chris Sale back a bit. Gabe Burns of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution reports that Grant Holmes will start Thursday and Sale will take the mound Friday.

“I think I knew over the last few years that I could still make it back up, and that was the main goal,” Mancini tells Kubtako (one of many must-read quotes in a piece readers are strongly encouraged to check out in its entirety). “Three years ago I felt so far away and removed from the game, and really at that point after getting DFA’d by the Cubs had lost all confidence. Just kind of wanted to be away from the game and thought I was done. But as time went on, something in me just wasn’t sitting right and I wanted to get back out there and at the very least prove to myself that I could still play, because I thought that I could. And I’m glad I did and glad I stuck it out.”

Mancini details the difficulty of chasing that final goal while leaving his wife and young daughter at home. Fortunately, the two were in attendance for his return to the majors. Suiting up one last time with them in the stands “made it all worth it” in the end, per Mancini, adding that he “never in a million years” thought when his daughter was born in 2025 that he’d play a big league game in front of her.

An eighth-round pick by the Orioles out of Notre Dame back in 2013, Mancini got his first taste of the majors in 2016 — a cup of coffee that perhaps fittingly lasted the same number of games (five) as the one he received in putting a bow on his career with the 2026 Angels a decade later. He clubbed three homers in only 15 plate appearances during that rookie showing, setting the stage for what the next several years in Baltimore would hold.

Mancini debuted on the tail end of the Orioles’ run as a consistent postseason contender in the American League East. Throughout the team’s rebuild, he was a fixture in the heart of their order and one of the team’s best overall performers. He finished third place in 2017 Rookie of the Year voting after batting .293/.338/.488 and belting 24 homers. Had he not happened to be going up against a fellow rookie by the name of Aaron Judge, Mancini and second-place finisher Andrew Benintendi would likely have been in a close race for the top spot in the American League.

The righty-swinging Mancini slugged his way into the hearts of Orioles fans for the next couple years. Overall, from 2016-19, he posted a .276/.335/.485 batting line with 86 homers, 88 doubles and nine triples. That includes a career-best 35-homer showing with the 2019 O’s.

With the Orioles rebuilding under new front office leadership and rapidly assembling an impressive crop of young talent, Mancini looked like he might be one of the organization’s linchpins — a core player who debuted just as the rebuild began and saw it through to the other side. Life had other plans.

Early in spring training 2020, the Orioles announced that Mancini would be leaving camp to undergo an undisclosed medical procedure. Days later, Mancini and the team announced that doctors had recently discovered a malignant tumor in his colon. He had immediately undergone surgery to remove the growth.

Seven weeks later, Mancini opened up in a poignant Player’s Tribune piece titled “I Am So Lucky,” detailing that he’d been diagnosed with Stage 3 colon cancer just weeks before his 28th birthday. (Again, fans unfamiliar with Mancini’s story are highly encouraged to read the entire piece.) Routine bloodwork performed during that year’s spring training revealed abnormally low iron levels and prompted further testing. Mancini hadn’t been feeling any symptoms. As he noted: “Without the Orioles I never would have caught this before it may have been too late.”

Mancini began chemotherapy after his surgery. Nearly nine months after the original announcement from the team, Mancini gave not just Orioles fans but all baseball fans — who’d rallied behind him amid his life-altering diagnosis — the news they’d awaited. He was cancer-free. Alongside that announcement came his declaration to be ready for Opening Day 2021, and ready he was. O’s fans welcomed Mancini back with a prolonged standing ovation (YouTube link) — one that Mancini would say still induced goosebumps after the fact.

Mancini returned to the game with a 21-homer showing for the 2021 Orioles, hitting .255/.326/.432 in 147 games and 616 plate appearances. He took a national stage that season not simply by making his emotional return from life-threatening illness, but enjoying a strong year at the plate and participating in the 2021 Home Run Derby. Mancini bested Matt Olson in Round 1 of the event and took down Trevor Story in Round 2 as he made it all the way to the finals before falling to current Orioles first baseman Pete Alonso. By season’s end, there was little doubt in anyone’s mind: Mancini was named 2021’s AL Comeback Player of the Year.

Mancini posted similar numbers through the first half of the 2022 season in Baltimore for an O’s club that still hadn’t quite emerged from its organizational overhaul. As Mancini approached free agency for the first time, GM Mike Elias fielded trade interest ahead of the deadline and eventually wound up sending Mancini to the 2022 Astros — with whom he won a World Series ring.

That winter in free agency, Mancini and the Cubs agreed to a two-year, $14MM contract — the second season being a player option. Things in Chicago didn’t go well. Mancini hit only .234/.299/.336 in 263 plate appearances as a Cub before being cut loose. Until this final run with the Angels, that had stood as his final stint in the majors.

All told, Mancini will retire from baseball as a lifetime .263/.327/.448 hitter. He played in 836 major league games, took 3396 plate appearances, smacked 129 homers and 156 doubles, plated 404 runs and scored 408 times. He took home about $33MM in salary along the way.

More importantly, the affable Mancini was a clubhouse leader, fan favorite and source of inspiration to countless onlookers both inside and outside the baseball world. His career is one punctuated by the improbable — whether that’s an eighth-round pick carving out an eight-year career as a clubhouse leader and beloved fan favorite, overcoming cancer or making a mid-30s return to the diamond following an unceremonious release in Chicago and an absence of nearly three calendar years.

What’s next for Mancini remains unclear. He tells Kubatko that he’d been doing some public speaking prior to engineering his latest comeback bid and teased a potential future in broadcasting. Mancini jokes that 34 is too young to be fully retired, quipping: “I can’t play that much tennis.”

Whatever the cards hold, Mancini has forever captured the adulation of Orioles fans and baseball fans at large. Congrats to him on a fine career, and best wishes to the Mancini family in Trey’s post-playing days.

1. Crow-Armstrong walks off White Sox

As the NL MVP race heats up, Cubs outfielder Pete Crow-Armstrong delivered another signature moment last night. PCA led off the game with a home run, then came through with a walk-off blast in the 10th inning. The two-homer game gave him a second consecutive 30/30 campaign. Crow-Armstrong leads the league at 7.7 WAR (per Baseball Reference). “I don’t think I’ve ever met a player like that,” lefty Shota Imanaga said through an interpreter (h/t Jesse Rogers of ESPN). “Expectations you might have for him, he always surpasses them.”

2. Ohtani homers twice in Colorado

Not to be outdone, Dodgers slugger Shohei Ohtani also drilled two homers on Monday. He led off the fifth inning with a solo shot off Tomoyuki Sugano. Ohtani tagged Juan Mejia for a two-run homer the following inning. He picked up two more knocks to record his first four-hit game of the season. Ohtani sits at 6.7 WAR, a full win behind PCA. Phillies lefty Cristopher Sanchez is sandwiched between them at 7.0 WAR. Ohtani, a four-time MVP winner, typically has the inside track on the competition due to his two-way contributions. A knee injury has kept him off the mound since early July, though.

3. Marte placed on restricted list

The Diamondbacks have shared limited details about the status of second baseman Ketel Marte, who was put on the restricted list before Monday’s game against the Red Sox. Marte was with the team in Boston but did not make it to Fenway Park for the game. Arizona waited as long as it could for the infielder to arrive, but was forced to replace him in the lineup. Marte had a similar situation last season when he spent two games on the restricted list coming out of the All-Star Break. The team will likely shed more light on the veteran before tonight’s matchup in Boston.

Photo courtesy of David Banks, Imagn Images

This is the same injury designation that shelved Fried in the middle of May and cost him two months. The Yankees haven’t specified whether this is an equally severe issue. They’re off today, so manager Aaron Boone should provide more detail when he meets with the beat tomorrow.

Fried has taken the ball five times in between the injured list stints. He has pitched well, working to a 1.82 ERA with a near-32% strikeout rate during that stretch. Fried expressed some frustration after his last appearance against Seattle, though, saying he was “a little erratic” and “didn’t necessarily have (his) best stuff” (link via Brendan Kuty of The Athletic). He still managed to work five innings of one-run ball, and his 93.3 mph average sinker speed was in line with his previous marks.

The Yankees have had an excellent pitching staff all season, keeping them on track for a playoff berth despite their offensive struggles without Aaron Judge. No team has a lower rotation ERA than their 3.38 mark on the season, and they’re allowing just 2.69 earned runs per nine since the All-Star Break. Will Warren has had a tough time with the home run ball, but the rest of the rotation has been in excellent form.

Rodón’s return is a silver lining, as they can plug him into the rotation spot. He’s back after a six-week absence due to elbow inflammation. Rodón also missed time to begin the year working back from last fall’s elbow procedure. He has made nine starts with a 3.30 ERA and 26.8% strikeout rate.

The news comes as a surprise considering Nardi wasn’t previously known to be dealing with an elbow issue. The southpaw has been on the injured list since late May with a stress reaction in his ribcage. Nardi apparently hurt the elbow after starting a throwing program in recent weeks. McCullough didn’t provide details on the forthcoming procedure beyond noting that Nardi is “looking at a lengthy time away.”

Any kind of ligament repair would likely cost him all of 2027. A full Tommy John surgery would certainly rule him out for next year. Even an internal brace procedure would come with a 12-14 month recovery timeline that might cost him all of next season. The Marlins will likely provide more specifics once the operation takes place.

Nardi is a talented reliever who has had a rough stretch of injury luck. He dealt with a muscular issue in his elbow late in 2024, ending his season in August. Recurring lower back pain cost him all of last year. Then came the rib issue and now a seemingly more serious elbow problem. Nardi has allowed over five earned runs per nine over the past couple seasons but had a 2.67 ERA across 57 1/3 frames back in 2023. He struck out 31% of opponents that season and has continued to miss bats at an above-average rate even as his run prevention marks have climbed.

The Marlins already moved Nardi to the 60-day injured list in early June. He’ll remain there for the rest of the season. There’s a decent chance they’ll run him through waivers at the beginning of the offseason rather than reinstating him onto the 40-man roster. Nardi has crossed the four-year service threshold and is eligible for arbitration for two seasons after this one. He’s barely making more than the league minimum, but the Fish may prefer to have the open roster spot over the winter if the injury will cost him most or all of next season.

Miami’s bullpen held up reasonably well early on despite an up-and-down performance from Pete Fairbanks. Although their closer has been much sharper of late, the middle relief group has started to get exposed. That’s particularly true from the left side, where both John King and Cade Gibson have had ugly second halves. The Fish should be looking for depth options for the stretch run and could stand to upgrade there over the winter.

Ibáñez is on his third organization of the season. He opened the season with the A’s and batted .118 in 11 games before being designated for assignment in late April. The Mets snagged Ibáñez off waivers and outrighted him to Triple-A a couple weeks later. He spent the next three months in the minors but was injured for a good chunk of that time. The Mets released him last week.

The 33-year-old Ibáñez spent a few seasons with the Tigers as a right-handed hitting role player. He hit well against lefty pitching in 2023 and ’24 but dipped to league average production against southpaws last year. Ibáñez is a well below-average hitter versus righties, so he needs to hit lefties to have much value off the bench.

Seattle has underperformed all season and particularly struggled against left-handed pitching. They have a .219/.300/.347 batting line against southpaws. Ibáñez isn’t an option to address their woes at shortstop but has plenty of experience at the other infield spots. The M’s have a heavily left-handed infield with Josh Naylor, Brendan Donovan and Cole Young. Righty-swinging Weston Wilson is in a bench role and has been an above-average hitter against southpaws in his career. That hasn’t been the case in 2026, as Wilson is batting .215 with three homers in 73 plate appearances with the platoon advantage.

Estrada is a 27-year-old who has played an up-and-down middle relief role for the last couple seasons. He has a near-7.00 earned run average across 20 1/3 MLB innings. The Cuban-born pitcher has a decent minor league track record but has yet to fool big league hitters. Estrada missed a couple months early in the season with a shoulder impingement and has been limited to 25 Triple-A frames this year. He carries a 2.52 ERA with an above-average 26% strikeout rate.

It’s a little surprising that the minor league production wasn’t enough to convince another team to take a flier on waivers. This is Estrada’s first outright and he has less than three years of MLB service time. That means he’ll need to accept the assignment and play out the rest of the season with the Bisons. Estrada will be a minor league free agent after the season if Toronto doesn’t put him back on the 40-man roster.

Francys Romero reported the move before the club announcement.

Pecko has gone from relatively unheralded sixth-round pick to one of Houston’s better pitching prospects. The 6’2″ righty has a five-pitch arsenal with slightly above-average control that should allow him to slot at the back of a rotation. Pecko lands sixth among Astros prospects at Baseball America and ninth at MLB Pipeline, with both outlets projecting him as an MLB-ready #4/5 starter.

The Towson product has missed some time in each of the last two seasons. Pecko missed the first month this year but has been in the Triple-A rotation since the final week of April. He has a 4.94 earned run average across 74 2/3 innings. That’s about the expectation for a pitcher in the Pacific Coast League.

Pecko has a league average strikeout and walk profile while working in the 94-95 mph range with his four-seam fastball. He also has a sinker, cutter, slider and curveball but rarely uses a changeup. None of those are necessarily plus offerings, but it’s a deep enough arsenal that he could be a serviceable MLB starter right away.

Houston could certainly use stability at the back of the rotation. Ronel Blanco only completed five innings in one of his first five starts since coming back from Tommy John surgery. The Astros optioned him after the Mariners tagged him for five runs across four innings on Saturday. Pecko could compete with Tatsuya Imai (recently demoted to the bullpen) for that rotation job behind Hunter Brown, Peter Lambert, Cristian Javier and Hayden Wesneski.

As a refresher, players automatically qualify for arbitration when they have at least three years of service time and don’t already have a guaranteed contract. For players who finish a season between two and three years, the top 22% of players in terms of service time also qualify, as long as they spent at least 86 days of the most recent season on the active roster or injured list. The cutoff will vary slightly from year to year, depending on the details of the players in the 2-3 window. Looking at previous years, the recent cutoffs have been as low as 2.115 and as high as 2.146:

2025: 2.140
2024: 2.132
2023: 2.118
2022: 2.128
2021: 2.116
2020: 2.125
2019: 2.115
2018: 2.134
2017: 2.123
2016: 2.131
2015: 2.130
2014: 2.133
2013: 2.122
2012: 2.140
2011: 2.146
2010: 2.122
2009: 2.139

The exact placement can be notable for a player’s earning power, as Super Two qualification means a player can get four arbitration raises instead of the standard three. Assuming the 2.130 line holds, guys like Rico Garcia (projected to finish this year at 2.130), Tyron Guerrero (2.133) and Quinn Priester (2.134) will just make it, while players like Randy Vásquez (2.129), Riley O’Brien (2.129) and Drey Jameson (2.126) will just miss.

It’s possible that the next collective bargaining agreement impacts the future of arbitration while the expected winter lockout could directly impact this class. The current CBA expires December 1 with a lockout widely expected. In a normal offseason, teams have until late November to decide whether or not to tender contracts to arbitration-eligible players. For players without deals in place, January is the deadline for exchanging arbitration figures, then hearings take place in February. In the 2021-22 offseason, a new CBA wasn’t reached until March 10. Once that lockout ended, March 22 was quickly set as that year’s filing deadline. Hearings took place during the season.

When the salary arbitration system began in the 1973-1975 CBA, it was for all players with at least two years of service time. It was pushed to three years in the 1985-1989 CBA. In the 1990-1993 CBA, Super Two designation was given to 17% of players in the 2-3 window. The 2012-2016 CBA pushed that 17% threshold to 22%. In the last round of CBA talks, the MLBPA tried to get back to all two-year players qualifying for arbitration but eventually backed off that stance as the negotiations played out. The 22% threshold carried into the current CBA. In May of this year, the MLBPA’s initial proposal for the next CBA featured a jump to 44%.

Hullihen also projected the next qualifying offer to be $23.1MM back in June. That projection has not changed in the intervening months.

Rodríguez, 26, has never appeared in a big league game for the Bucs. He was acquired from the Orioles in a cash deal last month and has been kept on optional assignment since then, putting up a huge .351/.424/.509 line in 15 Triple-A games.

Minor league success is nothing new for Rodríguez. He now has 1,403 Triple-A plate appearances under his belt with 62 home runs, a 12.5% walk rate, a .298/.388/.508 line and 135 wRC+. But in 132 big league plate appearances, he has hit just .177/.288/.301 with a 31.8% strikeout rate.

That’s a small sample size but it might be somewhat telling regardless. Scouting reports from Baseball America suggest he has the Pedro Cerrano profile, with huge power but an inability to hit spin. Pitchers can just stay away from the fastball and watch him struggle, which is easier for big league arms to do since they tend to have better command of their secondary stuff. That might explain the gap between his minor league and major league results, even with the small sample size.

Rodríguez is in his final option season, so he will be out of options next year. Perhaps that has also played a role in him bouncing around the league a bit. Cleveland designated him for assignment in March. He was traded to the O’s but got the DFA-and-trade treatment again last month.

Now that the trade deadline has passed, he can’t be traded again. The Bucs will have to place him on waivers. Perhaps another club will be intrigued by the huge minor league numbers, especially since he can be kept in the minors for the remainder of the season.

Photo courtesy of Ken Blaze, Imagn Images

The IL placements don’t come as any surprise. It was already reported that Swanson’s oblique injury was serious enough to put him on the shelf for several weeks. Manager Craig Counsell said today that it would be about four weeks, per Taylor McGregor of Marquee Sports Network. That will leave Nico Hoerner covering shortstop for the foreseeable future while Pedro Ramírez will get more playing time at second. Matt Shaw could factor in at the keystone if he can return from his own IL stint before Swanson. Shaw has been on the IL since late June due to left hand sprain. He could start a rehab assignment on Wednesday, per Bastian.

Adding Miller is likely about the shortstop position. Ramírez and Triantos have played short in the minors but only briefly and not in many years. Hoerner is perfectly capable of being the regular there but he would be the only real option for that spot without this move.

The 29-year-old Miller signed a minor league deal with the Cubs in the offseason. He has a decent .296/.350/.457 line in Triple-A this year, translating to a 102 wRC+. That is probably setting expectations a bit too high, however, as that production is buoyed by a .328 batting average on balls in play. He has a more modest .238/.287/.342 line and 75 wRC+ in his big league career.

Even if he doesn’t hit much, he can contribute in other ways. He’s a fast runner and has 18 career steals, only getting caught twice. He only has eight big league innings at shortstop but has logged hundreds of innings there in the minors. He has experience at every spot on the diamond except for catcher, so he’s a fine fit for a bench role.

As for Cabrera, he just came off the IL yesterday, missing several weeks with a hamstring strain. But in his first outing back, a blister prevented him from getting through four innings. It seems the Cubs have decided to give him a couple of weeks to let that heal up.

Blisters have been an ongoing issue for Cabrera throughout his career. By the time he’s eligible to return from this absence, it will be September. Per Jesse Rogers of ESPN, Counsell said the Cubs will keep him in shorter bursts since the blister issues get worse as a game goes on. In other words, he’ll be a reliever in September.

What remains to be seen is if this is just a plan for this year or going forward. It’s entirely possible Cabrera’s blister is healed in the offseason but, as mentioned, this isn’t his first time dealing with this problem. While with the Marlins, he hit the IL due to a blister in both 2021 and 2025.

Cabrera is under club control for two more seasons after this one. The Cubs gave up a notable package to get him out of Miami, sending away three players, including Owen Caissie to get three seasons of Cabrera. Presumably, they wanted him to be a staple of their rotation for that time frame and wouldn’t give up on his starting potential easily, but perhaps they feel he’s more likely to avoid further absences by staying in a relief role.

As for Palencia, this is a procedural move. Elbow inflammation sent him to the 15-day IL on June 16. He has already been on the shelf for 60 days and is therefore eligible for reinstatement at any time. He has been on a rehab assignment for almost two weeks and could be back any day now.

Photo courtesy of Vincent Carchietta, Imagn Images

The 34-year-old Emanuel started the first half of today’s twin bill against St. Louis and pitched well. The Cards pushed two runs across but were limited to five hits and three walks. Emanuel punched out four batters. It’s as strong a showing as one could’ve reasonably expected from a journeyman lefty who was pitching in the independent Atlantic League just a few weeks ago. He kept the Reds in the game and spared the bullpen ahead of tonight’s encore. Cincinnati didn’t win, but that falls more on an offense that only managed one run against rookie left-hander Quinn Mathews & Co. than it does on Emanuel.

Solid as today’s showing was, Emanuel probably went into it knowing it’d be a one-off appearance barring something truly extreme. He’s not going to be available to pitch for the next four days. The Reds will need fresh arms. Such is the life of an out-of-options journeyman/veteran who’s called to the big leagues for a spot start.

With today’s appearance in the books, Emanuel can now officially say he’s pitched in parts of three major league seasons. He’s pitched briefly with the Astros and Marlins, tossing exactly 17 2/3 innings with each club (Houston in ’21, Miami in ’24). The 6’4″ UNC product has logged a 4.46 ERA, 16.8% strikeout rate, 8.1% walk rate and 51.2% ground-ball rate in that time. He typically works off a three-pitch mix fronted by an 89-90 mph sinker. Emanuel complements that heavy sinker with a slider in the upper 70s and a changeup in the low 80s.

With the trade deadline behind us, the Reds have no choice but to put Emanuel on waivers. It’s quite likely that he’ll clear but perhaps today’s performance piqued the interest of a club in need of a long man or a spot starter this coming weekend. Failing that, he’ll be outrighted back to Louisville and have the option to either accept the assignment or reject in favor of free agency — which is his right as a player who’s previously been outrighted in the past.

Lorenzen, 34, was one of several veterans the Rockies added to their rotation in the offseason. In an attempt to build a more respectable pitching staff, they gave Lorenzen $8MM, Jose Quintana $6MM and Tomoyuki Sugano $5.1MM on one-year deals.

In the case of Lorenzen, it was an interesting marriage from both perspectives. For the team, there was seemingly some hope that his diverse arsenal would help him navigate the difficulties of pitching at altitude, as he throws seven distinct pitches and doesn’t throw any of them more than a quarter of the time. From Lorenzen’s point of view, he probably felt he would get some decent run as a starter. He had posted some decent results with other clubs in previous seasons but often found himself kicked to the bullpen against his will.

Unfortunately, the experiment hasn’t worked out. Lorenzen has made 26 appearances this year, logging 115 2/3 innings, allowing 7.08 earned runs per nine. His 45.2% ground ball rate and 8.7% walk rate are fine figures but he has only punched out 14.6% of opponents, well shy of league average. The pitch mix didn’t help him at Coors Field, as he has a 9.12 ERA at home this year, compared to a 5.61 ERA on the road.

The Rockies went into the deadline as sellers. Lorenzen would have been a logical trade candidate as an impending free agent on a poor team but this year’s numbers surely tamped down interest. He stayed in Colorado past the deadline but the club has now decided to move on. Since the deadline has passed, Lorenzen will be on waivers soon. As a veteran with at least five years of service, he can reject an outright assignment and elect free agency while keeping his money. The Rockies might skip that step and release him.

Colorado will remain on the hook for the money Lorenzen is still owed. Once he is a free agent, another club could sign him and would only have to pay him the prorated league minimum salary, with that amount subtracted from what the Rockies pay.

Perhaps that arrangement would be of interest to some clubs. Lorenzen has a 3.73 ERA as a reliever in his career, almost a full run better than his 4.71 starter ERA. Upgrades are hard to find at this time of year, with the deadline in the rear-view. Though Lorenzen isn’t having a good year, perhaps some club feels a move away from Coors Field and a shift to the bullpen could get him back on track. It wouldn’t be expensive to take a shot.

For the Rockies, they will now have a rotation spot to fill as they limp to the finish line of another lost season. Sugano, Ryan Feltner and Kyle Freeland are listed as the starters for the next three games. Gabriel Hughes has been holding down a spot for over a month now. Tanner Gordon has been in long relief and could perhaps slide into Lorenzen’s spot. Quintana is on the 60-day injured list with an elbow sprain and hasn’t begun a rehab assignment. Eiberson Castellano is on the 40-man roster. Keegan Thompson, Valente Bellozo, Jack Mahoney and Mason Adams are some non-roster options.

Photo courtesy of David Frerker, Imagn Images

Hoffmann, 26, was acquired from the Royals just over a year ago. The Snakes sent outfielder Randal Grichuk to Kansas City ahead of last year’s deadline, getting Hoffmann in return. He has mostly been kept on optional assignment. Between the Royals and Diamondbacks, he has 23 2/3 big league innings under his belt, allowing 6.85 earned runs per nine. His 20% strikeout rate, 15% walk rate and 32.4% ground ball rate are all subpar figures.

He has shown more potential in the minors but this year’s trends are not good. In 2025, his first season as a full-time reliever, he logged 42 1/3 innings in Triple-A with a 3.19 ERA. His 31.7% strikeout rate, 7.2% walk rate and 54.2% ground ball rate were all above average.

He started this year in the majors but didn’t fare well and was optioned before the end of April. He put up a 6.07 ERA, 16.9% strikeout rate and 13.8% walk rate in 13 1/3 Triple-A innings before hitting the minor league injured list with an undisclosed ailment in June. He was transferred to the 60-day IL in July. He was still on the IL at the time of this transaction. Injured players can’t be placed on outright waivers and the trade deadline has passed, so Hoffmann will have to be placed on release waivers in the coming days.

Photo courtesy of Michael McLoone, Imagn Images