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PHILADELPHIA — Michael Lorenzen, Byron Buxton, Johnny Cueto and Jonathan Hernandez were among the players left off rosters for wild-card series that started Tuesday, while the Texas Rangers made the surprise inclusion of former top draft pick Matt Bush.

The Minnesota Twins included Carlos Correa and rookie Royce Lewis along with right-hander Chris Paddack, who made a pair relief appearances last week in his return from Tommy John surgery. Correa hasn’t played since Sept. 18 because of plantar fasciitis in his left foot, and Lewis has been sidelined since straining his left hamstring Sept. 19.

Outfielder Jose Siri made Tampa Bay’s roster after missing the final three weeks with a broken hand.

Milwaukee dropped first baseman Rowdy Tellez, who homered twice in the 2021 postseason but slumped this season.

Lorenzen, 31, no-hit Washington on Aug. 9. The right-hander then went 2-2 with a 7.96 ERA in his next five starts and was dropped from the Phillies’ rotation. His last four appearances were out of the bullpen.

Wes Wilson, a 29-year-old infielder who made his debut in August and played in eight games, was included on the 26-man roster against the Miami Marlins as a right-handed bat off the bench.

Cueto was dropped by the Marlins after going 1-4 with a 6.02 ERA in only 52⅓ innings. Miami included 23-year-old left-hander Ryan Weathers, acquired from San Diego on Aug. 1.

Correa said Monday he is good to go for the series against Toronto. Buxton hasn’t played since Aug. 1 and was limited to DH duty this year because of knee trouble. Rookie Andrew Stevenson was included over Jordan Luplow as a reserve outfielder.

Lewis could be a Twins designated hitter against Toronto, with Jorge Polanco playing third base and Edouard Julien at second base.

Paddack had Tommy John surgery May 18, 2022, and while a candidate for the rotation next season, he is expected to add bullpen depth in October. Starting pitcher Bailey Ober was left off, with Pablo Lopez, Sonny Gray and likely Joe Ryan starting if there’s a Game 3. Kenta Maeda has been recalibrated for relief work.

Toronto kept 14 position players and dropped catcher Danny Jansen, who broke his right middle finger Sept. 1. Tyler Heineman is the backup to Alejandro Kirk. Rookie Cam Eden, who played in five games after a late-season call-up for his major league debut, is the fourth outfielder and a pinch running option.

Hyun-Jin Ryu, who made his season debut Aug. 1 after returning from Tommy John elbow surgery, was left off the roster with Kevin Gausman and Jose Berrios lined up for the first two games and either Chris Bassitt or Yusei Kikuchi available to start Game 3 if it’s necessary.

Texas said Hernández has a right shoulder injury and included Bush, who hasn’t pitched a big league game since June 30 for Milwaukee. The right-handed Bush, 37, is the only player on the Rangers’ roster who was also part of the 2016 team that was swept by the Rays. That was the rookie season for Bush, which came 12 years after he was drafted — the longest gap for an overall No. 1 pick to make his debut — and after the period when Bush had several alcohol-related incidents even before a near-fatal accident and time in prison.

Bush missed all of the 2019 and 2020 seasons with Texas after twice having surgery. He had surgery in 2018 to repair and reinforce the partially torn ulnar collateral ligament in hopes of avoiding Tommy John surgery.

When that didn’t work, he had Tommy John surgery in 2019. It was the second time the 2004 No. 1 overall draft pick had that ligament replacement surgery. The first was in 2007, soon after being converted from shortstop to pitcher by his hometown San Diego Padres.

Siri had been sidelined since his right hand was broken by a pitch from Minnesota’s Dylan Floro on Sept. 11. Siri hit .222 with 25 homers and 56 RBIs for the Rays.

Top prospect Junior Caminero, a 20-year-old infielder who was called up in late September, was included for the best-of-three series against Texas after hitting .235 with one homer and seven RBIs in seven games.

Outfielder Luke Raley was left off the roster. He has not played since Sept. 20 because of a cervical strain.

Tellez hit 35 homers for Milwaukee in 2022 but batted just .215 this season and has homered just once since May 22. His playing time started to dip after the Brewers acquired first baseman Carlos Santana and outfielder/designated hitter Mark Canha at the trade deadline.

Rookie outfielder Garrett Mitchell also was left off the roster against Arizona. The Brewers’ starting center fielder to open the year, he played three games last week after returning from an April shoulder injury.

Outfielder/designated hitter Jesse Winker was included. He hasn’t played a major league game since July 24 and hit just .199 with one homer in 197 plate appearances, though he had a .962 OPS in 23 games with Triple-A Nashville.

Utility player Owen Miller and rookie outfielder Joey Wiemer, who both ended the regular season in the minors, are on the roster.

Arizona left off utility player Jace Peterson, who hit .183 with nine RBIs after he was acquired from Oakland, but did include outfielder/first baseman Pavin Smith, who hasn’t played for the Diamondbacks since Sept. 11. Arizona omitted left-hander Kyle Nelson, who allowed nine runs over his last 7⅓ innings, and did take right-hander Bryce Jarvis, who debuted Aug. 14 and went 2-1 with a 3.04 ERA in 11 appearances.

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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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