Mining the News (4/28/26)

Kirby Lee-Imagn Images

American League

Orioles

• Brandon Young will get an extended look in the majors with Dean Kremer out for weeks.

Right-hander Brandon Young was called up from Triple-A in the corresponding move, and Young started Friday’s game in Kremer’s place, getting the win while allowing three runs on seven hits and a walk over 5 2/3 innings of work.

Young will probably get an extended run as Baltimore’s fifth starter since Kremer will miss “several weeks,” as O’s president of baseball operations Mike Elias told MASNsports.com’s Roch Kubatko and other reporters. Elias said Kremer’s injury surfaced during his between-starts prep work, and that “our plan is to try to keep his arm in as good of shape as possible because it’s not bothering him too much to throw right now, but we’ve got to let that thing heal and get his lower body condition back.”

Tigers

• Justin Verlander will be on the IL for a while longer.

The next steps for Verlander aren’t clear. He’s likely to throw at least one more bullpen session before moving to live competition. He will need at least one simulated game or rehab start before returning to major-league play. But the longer his IL stint lingers, the longer his return-to-play process could take.

In Verlander’s place, right-hander Keider Montero has pitched well for the Tigers, carding a 3.68 ERA.
…

“We’ll be with him every day and just continue to pay attention to the symptoms and see what he can handle,” Hinch said. “I know he was mildly happy with the (Wednesday) session just because he’s a perfectionist. But it was progress, whatever that means. He’s going to need to do more and more to really have a distinct plan.”

National League

Brewers

• Quinn Priester struggled with his command during his rehab.

Priester, who is on the injured list recovering from thoracic outlet syndrome, didn’t allow a hit or a run and struck out a pair over 2 1/3 innings for Triple-A Nashville on Sunday in the Sounds’ series finale in Charlotte. But after walking three batters and hitting another in his season debut on Wednesday — and seeing all four of those runners score — Priester walked three more batters on Sunday and found the strike zone with only 18 of his 45 pitches.

He topped out at 92 mph after averaging 93.2 mph with his sinker in the Majors with the Brewers last season.

• William Contreras is adjusting his pregame routine.

An obsessive attendee of early batting practice on the field during his years with the Brewers, despite the extra wear and tear on a catcher from all of those swings, Contreras has agreed to move some of those sessions inside to the batting cage. The shift allows for more focus on impacting the baseball precisely with tee work or flips, or hitting “live” pitching on the Trajekt Arc pitching machine, without worrying about whether the baseball clears the fence.
…
So, Contreras agreed to compromise. He was out on the field for early BP on Friday, when the Brewers opened a homestand against Paul Skenes and the Pirates. On Saturday, if they stick to this new plan, he will do his work inside.

“I said, ‘Let’s try. Give me a week or two’” Martinez said. “And he’s been real good with it. You could see the change right away. Out there, you can get a little bit lost.”

Cardinals

• Nathan Church may start stealing some center field starts from Victor Scott II.

With Nootbaar working his way back from the 60-day injured list and the outfield picture set to shift, Church’s emergence is beginning to complicate what once looked like a straightforward alignment.

Victor Scott II, the incumbent center fielder, has struggled out of the gates for St. Louis, slashing .191/.243/.206 with one extra base hit and three stolen bases in his five attempts. The Cardinals were high on Scott coming into the season, but Church is making it increasingly difficult to justify taking his bat out of the lineup, even if that means a potential shift in center field.

Cubs

• Phil Maton struggled in his 2026 debut and could not command his cutter.

Phil Maton gave up two of those runs, himself, and it was hard to say it was a relief to see him back after his knee tendinitis sojourn – which has to have been at least a little bit about trying to get his mechanics and velocity back. No dice on the velocity, which was still massively down from last year (his base cutter sat 90.6 mph last year, and this year it’s barely scraping 89 mph). The cutter is dropping much more than last year, too, making it move a whole lot more like a standard-issue cutter than something weird like he was throwing last year.

He’s not ready to be the closer just yet.

• Moisés Ballesteros will start more at catcher.

The club is accelerating the catching program for Ballesteros, who received his first start this season behind the plate in Monday night’s 9-7 loss to the San Diego Padres at Petco Park. And then, in front of a sellout crowd of 41,478, he showed his flair for hitting by delivering a grand slam.

Dodgers

• The manager said that Hyeseong Kim 김혜성 will get more opportunities.

Dave Roberts had high praise for Hyeseong Kim, as the rookie continues to make an impact for the Dodgers.

The Dave Roberts Hyeseong Kim connection is becoming more important as the season goes on, with Kim earning more opportunities thanks to his performance at the plate and steady defense. Ahead of the matchup against the Cubs, Roberts explained what has stood out most

While Kim isn’t an everyday starter just yet, his recent performance at the plate and in the field has clearly caught the attention of the Dodgers’ manager.

• Shohei Ohtani made a mechanical adjustment.

The Dodgers manager, Dave Roberts, pointed to Wrobleski’s ability to handle pressure and Ohtani’s recent mechanical adjustment as key reasons for optimism moving forward.
…
“[Ohtani] told me his setup was a little bit off, and he detected that… and now it’s in a much better place.”

“It is [back]. His swing is getting closer to where he wants it to be.”

• Roki Sasaki made an adjustment to his splitter.

Earlier in the week, ahead of his weekly bullpen in between starts, Roki Sasaki had an idea.

He wanted to throw his splitter harder, he told pitching coaches Mark Prior and Connor McGuiness, similar to how he threw the pitch in Japan. After months of inconsistency, Sasaki finally felt his delivery was in a good enough place to make the change. McGuiness made a couple of tweaks — the biggest one being a slight grip adjustment— and the two coaches gave Sasaki the all clear to try the pitch in his bullpen session in San Francisco.

…

Everything about Sasaki’s splitter, from usage to spin and velocity, played up in the Dodgers’ 12-4 win over the Chicago Cubs. Of his 99 pitches, nearly half were splitters, marking a significant uptick in his pitch usage. Coming into Saturday’s game, Sasaki went to the splitter on average 31 percent of the time. He also threw it much harder against the Cubs. Well above his season average of 85 mph. The force generated nearly twice as much spin and five additional inches of horizontal break, essentially making it a completely different pitch.

• The team will not name a closer, but is confident in Tanner Scott.

The Dodgers will not name a closer in Díaz’s absence and will instead implement a closer-by-committee strategy, with Scott in line to see the bulk of the save opportunities. Thursday presented the first since Díaz was placed on the IL, and it was indeed Scott who was tabbed for the ninth. He induced three balls in play for three outs on 13 pitches and picked up his first save of the year.
…

“Very high,” Roberts said when asked about his confidence in Scott. “You can see it from his demeanor, the confidence that he has on the mound and the throws are convicted, and you’re seeing the swings that are kind of off the barrel. So, yeah, I feel really confident and comfortable with Tanner.”

Phillies

• Adolis García tried to change to an old batting stance, but it didn’t work for him. Now, he is trying on another stance.

Still, it’s been a battle at the plate recently, so García and the Phillies hitting coaches tried something new early in the Cubs series. García returned to his batting setup from 2023, the year he hit 39 home runs and was named American League Championship Series MVP. It didn’t pan out.

“He just couldn’t get comfortable with it,” hitting coach Kevin Long said. “When you don’t feel good, I certainly understand that. It just didn’t come back to him.”

Now, García is back to presetting his bat a bit lower, as he tried in spring training. The results have not materialized, but the metrics are encouraging.