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The Los Angeles Angels placed nearly a quarter of their roster on waivers Tuesday, including starter Lucas Giolito, relievers Matt Moore, Reynaldo Lopez and Dominic Leone, and outfielders Hunter Renfroe and Randal Grichuk, prompting a flurry of intrigue leading up to Thursday when the teams that win the claims will be revealed, sources told ESPN.

The use of waivers, in which the Angels essentially will give away the players for a $50,000 waiver fee and salary relief, stunned the baseball industry. Between now and the expiration of the waiver period Thursday, teams can place claims on players, who, in the meantime, are allowed to play. The team with the worst record on Thursday will be awarded the player — and because he will be on the team’s roster before Sept. 1, all claimed players will be eligible for the postseason.

Other players currently on waivers include New York Yankees center fielder Harrison Bader, New York Mets right-hander Carlos Carrasco, Chicago White Sox right-hander Mike Clevinger and Detroit Tigers reliever Jose Cisnero.

If all six Angels players are claimed, the team stands to save around $7 million in salary over the season’s final month — enough, perhaps, to push its payroll beneath the $233 million competitive-balance-tax threshold. Dipping beneath the tax would allow the Angels to recoup a second-round draft pick as compensation if Shohei Ohtani leaves as a free agent, rather than a fourth-round selection. Players who are not claimed simply would clear waivers and remain under contract with the Angels.

Regardless of who ends up where, considering where the Angels were a month ago, a dump of this magnitude, even of free agents to be, is almost unfathomable.

Late on July 26, the same day the Angels decided not to trade Ohtani, they acquired Giolito and Lopez from the White Sox for catcher Edgar Quero, a 20-year-old ranked by ESPN’s Kiley McDaniel as a top-100 prospect, and left-hander Ky Bush, now in Double-A. The price was heavy, but the Angels were indicating to the industry: They were pushing for a postseason spot to help convince Ohtani to remain in Anaheim.

Four days later, they dealt for Grichuk and first baseman C.J. Cron in a deal with the Colorado Rockies.

Since the Aug. 1 deadline, the Angels have a 7-17 record, the worst in the majors. Ohtani is no longer pitching, as an MRI showed a tear in his right ulnar collateral ligament. Mike Trout, their star outfielder, came off the injured list, played one game and returned with pain in his surgically repaired hamate bone. And the Angels, who were a half-game ahead of Seattle on deadline day, now are 63-69, while the Mariners, at 75-56, reside at the top of the American League West division.

The teams likeliest to benefit from the Angels punting are toward the bottom of the playoff table. While it’s possible San Diego (62-70) could pursue a claim, it’s unlikely. The Yankees’ attempt to move Bader, who is owed less than $1 million for the remainder of the season, suggests they aren’t in the market for Angels players.

The Miami Marlins, at 66-65, are regarded by teams as a favorite to pursue bullpen help, particularly with their big deadline acquisition, David Robertson, losing his closer’s spot this week. Just ahead of them, at 68-65, are the Cincinnati Reds, whose season-long starting pitching struggles make them an ideal landing spot for Giolito.

The current standings, in reverse order, then goes: San Francisco (68-63), Boston (69-63), Arizona (69-63), Minnesota (69-63), Chicago Cubs (69-62).

The pertinent standings will be determined Thursday morning. In the case of a tie between an American League and National League team, the AL team would have priority, according to MLB rules. If the tied teams are in the same league, the team with the worse record in 2022 would have priority.

Considering what Giolito and Lopez cost at the deadline, the ability to get them for next to nothing is a gift for teams struggling in the standings. Giolito, 29, was one of the biggest deadline prizes but has struggled in his six starts with the Angels, posting a 6.89 ERA and allowing 10 home runs in 32⅔ innings. Lopez, 29, has been lights-out for the Angels, striking out 19 in 11⅔ innings and logging a 2.31 ERA.

The 34-year-old Moore, who signed a one-year, $7.55 million deal this offseason, has had the best season of the group, striking out 47 in 43 innings, with a career-low walk rate and 2.30 ERA.

Leone, 31, is making around the major league minimum salary, making him a cheap and easy claim.

Renfroe, 31, and Grichuk, 32, are veteran outfielders whose salaries — $11.9 million and $10.3 million, respectively — could make them slightly less desirable, though with the minuscule acquisition cost, contending teams could see the salary covering two months: September and October.

The Angels, meanwhile, will be watching instead of playing in September, with this brutal one-month stretch the culmination of a season gone wrong.

Without any playoff appearances during Ohtani’s first five seasons, the Angels over the winter signed left-hander Tyler Anderson, utilityman Brandon Drury, closer Carlos Estevez and Moore while trading for Renfroe and infielder Gio Urshela in hopes of contending. Buoyed by Ohtani’s MVP season, the Angels looked primed to ship players out — including potentially Ohtani — until they won seven of eight in late July and owner Arte Moreno decided to hold their superstar and try to build a championship contender around him.

It failed, and the biggest shedding of players via waivers ever in August will happen Tuesday accordingly.

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Stanton won’t blame ailing elbows on torpedo bats

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Stanton won't blame ailing elbows on torpedo bats

NEW YORK — Giancarlo Stanton, one of the first known adopters of the torpedo bat, declined Tuesday to say whether he believes using it last season caused the tendon ailments in both elbows that forced him to begin this season on the injured list.

Last month, Stanton alluded to “bat adjustments” he made last season as a possible reason for the epicondylitis, commonly known as tennis elbow, he’s dealing with.

“You’re not going to get the story you’re looking for,” Stanton said. “So, if that’s what you guys want, that ain’t going to happen.”

Stanton said he will continue using the torpedo bat when he returns from injury. The 35-year-old New York Yankees slugger, who has undergone multiple rounds of platelet-rich plasma injections to treat his elbows, shared during spring training that season-ending surgery on both elbows was a possibility. But he has progressed enough to recently begin hitting off a Trajekt — a pitching robot that simulates any pitcher’s windup, arm angle and arsenal. However, he still wouldn’t define his return as “close.”

He said he will first have to go on a minor league rehab assignment at an unknown date for an unknown period. It won’t start in the next week, he added.

“This is very unique,” Stanton said. “I definitely haven’t missed a full spring before. So, it just depends on my timing, really, how fast I get to feel comfortable in the box versus live pitching.”

While the craze of the torpedo bat (also known as the bowling pin bat) has swept the baseball world since it was revealed Saturday — while the Yankees were blasting nine home runs against the Milwaukee Brewers — that a few members of the Yankees were using one, the modified bat already had quietly spread throughout the majors in 2024. Both Stanton and former Yankees catcher Jose Trevino, now with the Cincinnati Reds, were among players who used the bats last season after being introduced to the concept by Aaron Leanhardt, an MIT-educated physicist and former minor league hitting coordinator for the organization.

Anthony Volpe, Jazz Chisholm Jr., Cody Bellinger, Paul Goldschmidt and Austin Wells were among the Yankees who used torpedo bats during their season-opening sweep of the Brewers.

Stanton explained he has changed bats before. He said he has usually adjusted the length. Sometimes, he opts for lighter bats at the end of the long season. In the past, when knuckleballers were more common in the majors, he’d opt for heavier lumber.

Last year, he said he simply chose his usual bat but with a different barrel after experimenting with a few models.

“I mean, it makes a lot of sense,” Stanton said. “But it’s, like, why hasn’t anyone thought of it in 100-plus years? So, it’s explained simply and then you try it and as long as it’s comfortable in your hands [it works]. We’re creatures of habit, so the bat’s got to feel kind of like a glove or an extension of your arm.”

Stanton went on to lead the majors with an average bat velocity of 81.2 mph — nearly 3 mph ahead of the competition. He had a rebound, but not spectacular, regular season in which he batted .233 with 27 home runs and a .773 OPS before clubbing seven home runs in 14 playoff games.

“It’s not like [it was] unreal all of a sudden for me,” Stanton said.

Yankees manager Aaron Boone described the torpedo bats “as the evolution of equipment” comparable to getting fitted for new golf clubs. He said the organization is not pushing players to use them and insisted the science is more complicated than just picking a bat with a different barrel.

“There’s a lot more to it than, ‘I’ll take the torpedo bat on the shelf over there — 34 [inches], 32 [ounces],'” Boone said. “Our guys are way more invested in it than that. And really personalized, really work with our players in creating this stuff. But it’s equipment evolving.”

As players around the majors order torpedo bats in droves after the Yankees’ barrage over the weekend — they clubbed a record-tying 13 homers in two games against the Brewers — Boone alluded to the notion that, though everyone is aware of the concept, not every organization can optimize its usage.

“You’re trying to just, where you can on the margins, move the needle a little bit,” Boone said. “And that’s really all you’re going to do. I don’t think this is some revelation to where we’re going to be; it’s not related to the weekend that we had, for example. Like, I don’t think it’s that. Maybe in some cases, for some players, it may help them incrementally. That’s how I view it.”

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Rangers’ Eovaldi gets season’s 1st complete game

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Rangers' Eovaldi gets season's 1st complete game

CINCINNATI — Nathan Eovaldi pitched a four-hitter for the majors’ first complete game of the season, and the Texas Rangers blanked the Cincinnati Reds 1-0 on Tuesday night.

Eovaldi struck out eight and walked none in his fifth career complete game. The right-hander threw 99 pitches, 70 for strikes.

It was Eovaldi’s first shutout since April 29, 2023, against the Yankees and just the third of his career. He became the first Ranger with multiple career shutouts with no walks in the past 30 seasons, according to ESPN Research.

“I feel like, by the fifth or sixth inning, that my pitch count was down, and I feel like we had a really good game plan going into it,” Eovaldi said in his on-field postgame interview on Victory+. “I thought [Texas catcher Kyle Higashioka] called a great game. We were on the same page throughout the entire game.”

In the first inning, Wyatt Langford homered for Texas against Carson Spiers (0-1), and that proved to be all Eovaldi needed. A day after Cincinnati collected 14 hits in a 14-3 victory in the series opener, Eovaldi (1-0) silenced the lineup.

“We needed it, these bats are still quiet,” Texas manager Bruce Bochy said of his starter’s outing. “It took a well-pitched game like that. What a game.”

The Reds put the tying run on second with two out in the ninth, but Eovaldi retired Elly De La Cruz on a grounder to first.

“He’s as good as I have seen as far as a pitcher performing under pressure,” Bochy said. “He is so good. He’s a pro out there. He wants to be out there.”

Eovaldi retired his first 12 batters, including five straight strikeouts during one stretch. Gavin Lux hit a leadoff single in the fifth for Cincinnati’s first baserunner.

“I think it was the first-pitch strikes,” Eovaldi said, when asked what made him so efficient. “But also, the off-speed pitches. I was able to get some quick outs, and I didn’t really have many deep counts. … And not walking guys helps.”

Spiers gave up three hits in six innings in his season debut. He struck out five and walked two for the Reds, who fell to 2-3.

The Rangers moved to 4-2, and Langford has been at the center of it all. He now has two home runs in six games to begin the season. In 2024, it took him until the 29th game of the season to homer for the first time. Langford hit 16 homers in 134 games last season during his rookie year.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

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Source: USC flips Ducks’ Topui, No. 3 DT in 2026

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Source: USC flips Ducks' Topui, No. 3 DT in 2026

USC secured the commitment of former Oregon defensive tackle pledge Tomuhini Topui on Tuesday, a source told ESPN, handing the Trojans their latest recruiting victory in the 2026 cycle over the Big Ten rival Ducks.

Topui, ESPN’s No. 3 defensive tackle and No. 72 overall recruit in the 2026 class, spent five and half months committed to Oregon before pulling his pledge from the program on March 27. Topui attended USC’s initial spring camp practice that afternoon, and seven days later the 6-foot-4, 295-pound defender gave the Trojans his pledge to become the sixth ESPN 300 defender in the program’s 2026 class.

Topui’s commitment gives USC its 10th ESPN 300 pledge this cycle — more than any other program nationally — and pulls a fourth top-100 recruit into the impressive defensive class the Trojans are building this spring. Alongside Topui, USC’s defensive class includes in-state cornerbacks R.J. Sermons (No. 26 in ESPN Junior 300) and Brandon Lockhart (No. 77); four-star outside linebacker Xavier Griffin (No. 27) out of Gainesville, Georgia; and two more defensive line pledges between Jaimeon Winfield (No. 143) and Simote Katoanga (No. 174).

The Trojans are working to reestablish their local recruiting presence in the 2026 class under newly hired general manager Chad Bowden. Topui not only gives the Trojans their 11th in-state commit in the cycle, but his pledge represents a potentially important step toward revamping the program’s pipeline to perennial local powerhouse Mater Dei High School, too.

Topui will enter his senior season this fall at Mater Dei, the program that has produced a long line of USC stars including Matt Leinart, Matt Barkley and Amon-Ra St. Brown. However, if Topui ultimately signs with the program later this year, he’ll mark the Trojans’ first Mater Dei signee since the 2022 cycle, when USC pulled three top-300 prospects — Domani Jackson, Raleek Brown and C.J. Williams — from the high school program based in Santa Ana, California.

Topui’s flip to the Trojans also adds another layer to a recruiting rivalry rekindling between USC and Oregon in the 2026 cycle.

Tuesday’s commitment comes less than two months after coach Lincoln Riley and the Trojans flipped four-star Oregon quarterback pledge Jonas Williams, ESPN’s No. 2 dual-threat quarterback in 2026. USC is expected to continue targeting several Ducks commits this spring, including four-star offensive tackle Kodi Greene, another top prospect out of Mater Dei.

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