The Atlanta Braves returned three-time All-Star second baseman Ozzie Albies from his rehabilitation assignment and reinstated him from the injured list prior to Friday’s series opener against the host Miami Marlins.

Albies has been sidelined since fracturing his wrist during the Braves’ 6-2 loss to the visiting St. Louis Cardinals on July 21. He was trying to field a throw at second on a stolen-base attempt and bent his glove hand back when he collided with Cardinals outfielder Michael Siani.

He is batting .258 with eight homers and 46 RBIs in 90 games this season.

Albies, 27, has been a key player for the Braves since reaching the majors in 2017. He has smacked more than 20 homers on four occasions, including a career-best 33 last season. He has topped 100 RBIs twice and 100 runs three times.

Also on Friday, the Braves optioned infielder Cavan Biggio to Triple-A Gwinnett.

Biggio, 29, is 1-for-5 in four games with the Braves this season. He also has played for the Toronto Blue Jays and Los Angeles Dodgers this season.

The son of Hall of Famer Craig Biggio showed promise as a rookie with 16 homers, 48 RBIs and 14 steals in 100 games with the Blue Jays in 2019. He finished fifth in American League Rookie of the Year balloting.

But he has since failed to reach double digits in homers or even had as many as 70 hits in a season. Biggio has a .225 career average with 51 homers and 186 RBIs in 524 career games.

The Associated Press and Field Level Media contributed to this report.

Minutes before the MLB trade deadline in July, the Detroit Tigers shipped out their fourth player of the week and arguably the best to move across the entire sport when they dealt right-hander Jack Flaherty to the Los Angeles Dodgers. The Tigers proceeded to lose six of their next nine games. At 55-63 with barely a quarter of the season left, Detroit looked more or less like it has every year since Tarik Skubal joined the team in 2020: entirely forgettable.

Six weeks later, after securing another victory in a season that will end with him winning his first Cy Young Award, Skubal craned his neck in a half-moon to survey the Tigers’ clubhouse. He saw the members of MLB’s youngest everyday lineup and a patchwork pitching staff that has made the bullpen game into art. He was staring at a team that’s now tied for the American League’s final wild-card spot, a rise that has stunned the game — and even one of the people at the heart of the surge.

“It’s not traditional, and maybe not sustainable, but who cares?” Skubal said. “We need to win now.”

The Tigers own a 25-10 record since Aug. 11, the best in baseball, with a major league-leading plus-62 run differential. The Tigers are winning close games (10-2 in one-run games), they are winning road games (12-5) and they are playing the sort of baseball that manager A.J. Hinch, who knows a thing or two about young, ascendant cores, has been preaching all season.

Left for dead at the deadline, still doubted and dismissed as signs of life turned into much more, the Tigers start their most consequential series in a decade Friday night in Baltimore, where they’ll take on an Orioles team that like the other two current wild-card holders, the Kansas City Royals and Minnesota Twins, has spent recent weeks on the struggle bus. Everything has conspired to give Detroit a real path to ending the longest postseason drought in baseball with its first berth since 2014: three games at Camden Yards, three at home against Tampa Bay and a season-ending three-game home set against the worst team in baseball history, the Chicago White Sox.

“We’re young and all we want to do is win,” said outfielder Riley Greene, who at 23 years old is among the most tenured Tigers. “We’ll do whatever it takes.”

What it takes is simple: finishing at least one game ahead of Kansas City or Minnesota, which both own tiebreakers over Detroit as determined by head-to-head record. The Royals and Twins did their damage before this incarnation of the Tigers materialized and started running roughshod through the sport. Detroit’s sweep of Kansas City this week and Minnesota getting walked off in Cleveland on Wednesday and Thursday left the Tigers and Twins tied at 80-73.

On the surface, none of it makes sense. While their upside made the Tigers a sneaky potential contender in the AL entering the season, they cratered in June. The deadline exodus illustrated Detroit’s priorities: As many signs as they had shown, as many we-got-something-here flashes as they had produced, gone were Flaherty, outfielder Mark Canha, reliever Andrew Chafin and catcher Carson Kelly. Generally speaking, teams do not get rid of productive players and then find the best version of themselves.

“I said in July that I thought we were going to get younger and we were going to get better,” Hinch said. “And that was not a knock on anyone. We believed in our young players.”

The rescue operation in August happened with an infusion of youthful talent over the course of about a week. Two days after a one-run win against San Francisco on Aug. 11, Kerry Carpenter (27), their slugging right fielder who had missed nearly three months with a stress fracture in his back, returned. Three days after that, Detroit called up shortstop Trey Sweeney (24) — a player they received in the Flaherty deal — and third baseman Jace Jung (23), another top prospect. A day later, Greene returned from the IL and Spencer Torkelson (25), the 2020 No. 1 draft pick they had demoted, rejoined a lineup filled with other 20-somethings: second baseman Colt Keith (23), outfielders Wenceel Perez (24), Justyn-Henry Malloy (24) and leadoff-hitting center fielder Parker Meadows (24).

“Then we started just rolling from there,” said Matt Vierling, who at 27 is regarded as a veteran. “And it hasn’t really stopped. This is the first time this group of guys has really tasted this. And I feel like we’re just playing with house money. Almost no one thought we’d be here. What have we got to lose? Let’s just see how far we can take this thing and keep it going. It kind of reminds me of a couple of years ago.”

A couple years ago, Vierling was with a Philadelphia Phillies team that blitzed its way to the 2022 World Series on a wave of talent and vibes. He senses similar juju on this team, a function, he said, of how Hinch manages the roster. Tigers players know that Hinch is going to pinch hit based on matchups (they have the third-most pinch-hit appearances in MLB this year) and use his pitching staff more as out-getters than as traditional starters and relievers.

During their 35-game stretch with baseball’s top record, the Tigers’ starting pitcher has gone two or fewer innings 40% of the time. The only constants in the rotation have been Skubal — who is 17-4 with an AL-best 2.48 ERA and has struck out 221 and walked 34 over 185 innings — and rookie Keider Montero. With right-handers Casey Mize and Reese Olson returning to the rotation from the injured list in the past two weeks, Hinch has not needed to white-knuckle his bullpen decisions quite as much. It has become a simple operation: Whoever is best suited to succeed in a particular spot, you’re up.

“We’re not trying to reinvent the wheel,” Hinch said. “We’re just focused on strengths. How do we use what we have best? And we have a lot of pitching. We have arguably the best pitcher in baseball, and we have creativity where we’re trying to just maximize what we’re doing. I’ve been there, I’ve done this, I’ve seen this. We just have chipped away. We talk about winning series and winning weeks. We generally play good defense. We’ve got athleticism.”

That dynamic ability was front and center in the finale of the Kansas City series, from Meadows tracking down everything in Kauffman Stadium’s spacious center field to Jung’s acrobatic slide at home to avoid a tag on a play where the ball beat him home by at least 10 feet. “It was just a freak play,” Jung said. “If you told me to do it again 100 times, I probably could only do it a couple.”

At this point, that’s all they need. A lockdown pitching performance here. A clutch hit there. A wild slide. Most of the Tigers are too young to know any different. What they do know is that if they secure that final wild-card slot, it’s likely to set up a matchup with the American League West champion Houston Astros, a franchise with which Hinch managed an upstart group of talented young players once upon a time.

“We just play hard every single day,” Vierling said. “That’s how these guys are brought up. That’s how I was brought up. And we’re never out of it because of that.”

JAMARCUS SHEPHARD COULDN’T be sure until he watched Ryan Williams burn past the Western Kentucky secondary in Week 1. But for Alabama‘s first-year wide receivers coach, there were signs in the summer of just how good the Crimson Tide’s 17-year-old, pass-catching wunderkind could be.

Days after arriving at Alabama, Williams told trainers that he wanted to be put on the same training plan as former Crimson Tide wide receiver DeVonta Smith. Soon, the five-star freshman was performing the flexibility and mobility regimen that powered Alabama’s 2020 Heisman Trophy winner.

And when Williams joined Alabama’s players-only training sessions weeks later, the reports of Williams’ playmaking that trickled back to Shephard were difficult to ignore.

“His teammates came off the field and they said, ‘Coach Shep, you should have seen that boy out there,'” Shephard told ESPN this week. “That was the veterans stamping him. That’s when you really started to think that he might have that magic.”

Like Williams, Ohio State freshman Jeremiah Smith‘s promise was clear upon his arrival in Columbus. Same for five-star Cam Coleman at Auburn. Breakout spring camp performances from Texas‘ Ryan Wingo, Clemson‘s Bryant Wesco Jr. and Michigan State‘s Nick Marsh proved early markers for what they would go on to contribute this fall.

Three weeks into the season, Williams and Smith lead their programs in catches, yards and touchdown receptions. At Texas, the top-ranked Longhorns are using Wingo early and often. Coleman and Wesco — leaders of respective youth movements within their programs — have each found the end zone in the early weeks. And Marsh, with 11 catches for 234 yards, has authored a more productive start to 2024 than all but four Big Ten pass catchers this season.

Together, they comprise a select group of first-year wide receivers making an immediate impact on college football in 2024. Among ESPN’s top-100 wide receivers in the 2024 class, just nine completed more than 10 routes across the first three weeks of the season. Within that same group, only 12 first-year pass catchers were targeted at least five times with just three eclipsing 10 total targets.

As first-year wide receivers at large are seeing limited opportunity, the elite of the elite are still breaking through at the highest level of the sport. In Williams, Smith, Coleman, Wingo, Wesco and Marsh, there are six of college football’s great outliers in 2024, standing within an exclusive group of talented freshmen pass catchers carving significant roles this fall.

“Wide receivers take time to develop, but you knew those guys would make an impact,” said one SEC general manager. “They were different at the high school level. Not just from an ability standpoint, but their bodies, too. They were all college-ready. We’re seeing that now.”

IDENTIFYING PRODUCTIVE FRESHMAN wide receivers is a multifaceted challenge for college programs.

A prospect has to meet the physical demands to compete against high-level defenses. But modern offenses also require crisp technique, sharp route running and a firm grasp of the playbook. Not many freshman wide receivers check all three boxes.

However, there was little question about Smith, the Buckeyes’ 6-foot-3, 200-pound phenom.

ESPN’s fourth-ranked prospect in 2024, Smith already possessed college-ready speed and measurables when he logged 88 catches for 1,376 yards and 19 touchdowns in his senior season at Florida’s Chaminade-Madonna Prep. One Power 4 talent evaluator who recruited Smith called him a “physical freak”.

During his early months at Ohio State, Smith showed the Buckeyes staff all the intangible elements they needed to see, too. In Week 1, he was one of only four freshman wide receiver starters across the country, and Smith hauled in six passes for 92 yards with two touchdowns in Ohio State’s Aug. 31 opener against Akron.

Smith has completed 45 routes, more than any other freshman pass catcher. Through two games, he leads Buckeyes receivers with 11 catches for 211 yards and three scores as the latest branch in Ohio State’s vast wide receiver tree.

“He’s built different,” Ryan Day said last month. “Just the way his approach is. You can see his size and speed and all that. But typically somebody with that type of talent doesn’t have the discipline, the focus that he does.”

With top-end physical talent and maturity beyond his years, Smith isn’t a typical freshman wide receiver. His fellow first-year pass-catching contemporaries are outliers, too.

Last fall, ESPN’s top-100 first-year wide receivers from the 2023 class averaged 13.1 total targets, 7.9 catches, 110.3 yards and 0.7 touchdowns in their debut seasons. A quarter of the way into 2024, Williams, Smith and Marsh have already reached 13-plus targets, and Coleman and Wingo — eight targets each — are more than 50% of the way there. Four members of the group have at least seven receptions through Week 3. All six newcomers have already eclipsed 110 yards.

Among the common advantages for these five freshmen: nearly all of them enrolled early.

“I think being able to come in in the spring gives them a leg up,” Auburn’s Hugh Freeze said during a recent SEC coaches teleconference.

OF THE NATION’S six breakout freshmen pass catchers, all but one was a midyear enrollee in January. Williams, who reclassified from 2025 into the 2024 class to land in college a year early, is the only one who waited until June to join his program.

Early enrollment is standard practice in 2024. But the spring semester is when Smith, Coleman, Wingo, Wesco and Marsh set themselves apart, laying the seeds for the respective fall breakouts.

When Coleman began spring practice, Auburn receivers coach Marcus Davis quickly noticed Coleman’s obsession with technique and his commitment to the small details.

Alabama WR Ryan Williams is 17 years old and the youngest player in the FBS and already has 4 touchdowns in 8+ quarters of play 😱 pic.twitter.com/4QMaAd4sbg

— Field Yates (@FieldYates) September 14, 2024

“From the first to second practice, I saw how he picked up on stuff,” Davis told ESPN. “You tell him something in the meeting room and then he’s going to apply it. I don’t even have dang TikTok, but he’s sending me clips of guys in the NFL playing with certain route techniques at 11 o’clock at night. Once you get a guy like that all you’re doing is sharpening that toolbox up.”

At Clemson, Wesco established himself as a slippery playmaker who surprised the Tigers’ staff with his refined route running. Marsh, who Michigan State wide receivers coach Courtney Hawkins recently described as “program-changer,” settled in fast in East Lansing and had three catches, including a 75-yard score, during the Spartans’ spring scrimmage.

For Texas coach Steve Sarkisian, Wingo’s involvement in the Longhorns’ offense in the early weeks of the season — seven catches for 197 yards, including a 75-yard touchdown connection with Arch Manning in Week 3 — is rooted in what Wingo proved in February, March and April, then reinforced in fall camp.

“How you know a guy can play early is, does he make plays when opportunities come his way?” Sarkisian said before Texas’ Week 3 meeting with UTSA. “That showed up in the spring game. That showed up in our scrimmages and fall camp. And he [hasn’t] disappointed.”

With each of the early enrollees, the spring offered signs of Year 1 promise. From there, the next step on each campus was how to prepare the first-year pass catchers for the fall.

At Auburn, Davis pulled Coleman in for extra time in the film, reinforcing the fundamentals they’d honed together in spring camp. In Columbus, the Buckeyes’ staff challenged Smith to compete with the veterans in an elite wide receivers room, elevating himself through the daily battles.

But perhaps the most instructive immersion came with the wide receiver who got to campus last. It took only a handful of big plays and a few fall practices for DeBoer to see what Williams could do for the Crimson Tide. When planning began for Alabama’s Week 1 visit from Western Kentucky, DeBoer and his staff sought to strike a balance for Williams.

“You’re trying to not put too much on his plate but also make sure we give him opportunities to make plays” DeBoer said on the SEC coaches teleconference.

“It wasn’t like holding anything back for the most part when he was out there in Week 1. He’s comfortable pretty much in any spot. There’s packages to get him in certain positions, but really we’re just moving forward like he’s a second, third, fourth-year guy.”

Williams caught two passes against Western Kentucky in Week 1. The first: an 84-yard touchdown before halftime. The second: a 55-yard score after splitting a pair of Hilltoppers defenders.

“The more and more that he made plays, even within the first game, you just had him out there more and more comfortable,” DeBoer said.

THE FIRST SNAP of Wesco’s college career didn’t go well. Jammed straight into the turf at Atlanta Mercedes-Benz Stadium by a Georgia defender, the moment was reflective of everything about the 34-3 beatdown.

“His first college play was not good,” Dabo Swinney said. “They let him know this was big-boy football. But then he settled down.”

Wesco played another 11 snaps against Georgia. A week later against App State, Wesco made his first career reception on the Tigers’ third play and housed it for a 76-yard touchdown.

“He’s special,” Swinney said.

Resilience is part of what comes next for this class of ultra-talented freshman pass catchers. Each has now navigated an early, nonconference slate with much more difficult conference games ahead. Hence why durability is another point that comes up in projecting what’s next for this group.

Coleman missed Auburn’s Week 3 game with a shoulder injury and is questionable headed into this weekend’s visit from Arkansas. Shephard harps on the importance of rest and nutrition, a balance each freshman wide receiver needs to find as they prepare for first runs through a slate of SEC, Big Ten and ACC defenses.

“You’re going to see faster, stronger, more physical people,” Shephard said. “You’re going to take some extra hits. That’s where sleep and recovery and nutrition week-to-week is so important.”

Right on the 💰🤘@ArchManning @_Ryanwingo1 pic.twitter.com/RJYX9ku3At

— Texas Football (@TexasFootball) September 15, 2024

At No. 4 in the latest AP Top 25, Alabama could be staring down another College Football Playoff run, potentially deep into December and January. Williams, who is up to 10 catches for 285 yards and four touchdowns through three games, will be an important part of that success.

No different from their early-season gameplanning, the Crimson Tide aren’t shielding Williams from much of anything. Prior to Alabama’s Week 3 trip to Wisconsin, the Crimson Tide made sure Williams understood the sort of physicality he’d encounter in Madison.

“Our scout defenders got more handsy,” Shephard said. “They yanked Ryan to the ground at one point and Ryan still made the catch. Those are the things that give you the confidence that he’s going to be able to do it in the games.”