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The Seattle Mariners acquired first baseman Josh Naylor from the Arizona Diamondbacks on Thursday night, kicking off Major League Baseball’s trade season with a deal that bolsters Seattle’s efforts to return to the postseason and signals the Diamondbacks are open for business.

The deal, which sends left-handed pitching prospect Brandyn Garcia and right-handed pitching prospect Ashton Izzi to the Diamondbacks, reinforces Seattle’s intentions to aggressively add to its roster before the July 31 deadline.

The Diamondbacks, who entered the season with hopes of returning to their form in 2023 when they made a surprise run to the World Series, are expected to be similarly busy, with a number of impending free agents like Naylor. Among third baseman Eugenio Suarez and right-handers Merrill Kelly and Zac Gallen, Arizona has some of the most sought-after players on the trade market.

Naylor, 28, is a slugging first baseman whose low strikeout rate makes him particularly appealing to teams. Arizona acquired him over the winter from Cleveland, where he had spent the majority of his career following a trade from San Diego.

In 93 games this season, Naylor is hitting .292/.360/.447 with 11 home runs, 59 RBIs and 49 strikeouts in 394 plate appearances. Naylor, a 2024 All-Star known for occasional displays of on-field emotion, has hit .267/.329/.444 with 95 home runs and 402 RBIs in 691 career games. He has played 103 career games at designated hitter, where he could see time in Seattle, which ended a 20-year postseason drought in 2022 but finished one game behind the final wild-card winner in the American League each of the past two seasons.

While Garcia, 25, made his major league debut earlier this week as a reliever, he blitzed through the Mariners’ system as a starter after they selected him in the 11th round of the 2023 draft out of Texas A&M. With a power sinker that runs into the high 90s with a breaking ball that works from his low-slot delivery, he could wind up in either role. As a starter last season, he put up a 2.48 ERA between High-A and Double-A in 116 innings with 134 strikeouts and 47 walks, while in relief this year he struck out 42 and walked 17 in 33⅓ innings with a 3.51 ERA.

Izzi, 21, was a fourth-round pick out of high school in 2022 who tamed the California League last year with a 2.85 ERA in 110⅔ innings. Over 47.1 innings at High-A this season, he has struck out 54, walked 21 and allowed eight home runs with a 5.51 ERA.

Arizona, whose core of outfielder Corbin Carroll, second baseman Ketel Marte and shortstop Geraldo Perdomo remains one of the most talented in the game, has sought pitching on the trade market following injuries to Corbin Burnes and Jordan Montgomery and a 50-53 start. With Kelly and Gallen potentially leaving via free agency, bolstering the rotation going forward is seen as a priority, especially with a likely deal for Suarez, who is regarded as the best position player readily available at the deadline.

The Mariners, meanwhile, did not tap into their cadre of high-end prospects who comprise arguably the best farm system in baseball. Seattle has been loath to deal the best of them — including shortstop Colt Emerson, outfielder Jonny Farmelo and right-hander Ryan Sloan — for short-term options. The Mariners’ minor league pitching depth grew beyond Sloan and switch pitcher Jurrangelo Cijntje when LSU left-hander Kade Anderson fell to them with the No. 3 pick in the draft over the All-Star break.

Seattle entered Thursday night’s game against the Los Angeles Angels six games behind Houston for the AL West division lead but, at 54-48, is tied with Boston for the second wild-card spot in the AL.

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Sources: Yankees get 3B in Rockies’ McMahon

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Sources: Yankees get 3B in Rockies' McMahon

NEW YORK — The Yankees are acquiring third baseman Ryan McMahon from the Rockies in exchange for minor league pitchers Griffin Herring and Josh Grosz, sources confirmed to ESPN on Friday.

The Yankees will assume the remainder of 30-year-old McMahon’s contract, which includes approximately $4.5 million for the remainder of 2025 and $32 million over the next two seasons.

An All-Star last season, McMahon was batting .217 with 16 home runs and a .717 OPS in 100 games for Colorado in 2025. He hit home runs in the first two games after the All-Star break and another on Tuesday and is on pace to keep his four-year 20-homer streak alive.

While the production has resulted in a 92 OPS+, which suggests McMahon has been 8% worse than the average major league hitter this season, he still represents a significant offensive upgrade at third base for New York.

The Yankees have had Oswald Peraza, one of the worst hitters in the majors, manning third base nearly every day since the club decided to release DJ LeMahieu, another former Rockies player, earlier this month and move Jazz Chisholm Jr. to second base. Peraza, while a strong defender, is slashing .147/.208/.237 in 69 games this season. His 24 wRC+ ranks last among the 310 hitters with at least 160 plate appearances this season.

Defensively, McMahon is a Gold Glove-caliber third baseman whose four Outs Above Average is third in the majors this season. He joins a Yankees club that has been marred by sloppy defense, most recently on Wednesday when it committed four errors in a defensive meltdown against the first-place Toronto Blue Jays.

Herring, 22, has recorded a 1.71 ERA in 89⅓ innings across 16 starts between Low- and High-A this season. He was a sixth-round pick out of LSU in the 2024 draft.

Grosz, an 11th-round pick in 2023, had a 4.14 ERA in 87 innings over 16 games (15 starts) for High-A Hudson Valley this season.

With third base addressed, the Yankees will continue to seek to acquire pitchers to bolster both their rotation and bullpen.

MLB.com first reported on the Yankees trading for McMahon.

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Mets trade for reliever in Orioles left-hander Soto

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Mets trade for reliever in Orioles left-hander Soto

The Mets acquired left-handed reliever Gregory Soto from the Orioles on Friday in exchange for two minor leaguers in what could be the first of multiple moves by New York to bolster its bullpen before the trade deadline Thursday.

The trade, which sent Class A right-hander Wellington Aracena and Double-A right-hander Cameron Foster to Baltimore, gives the Mets a hard-throwing left-hander to complement the club’s only lefty on the roster, Brooks Raley, who returned from Tommy John surgery last week.

Soto, who is 30 and was an All-Star with the Detroit Tigers in 2021 and 2022, has posted a 3.96 ERA with a 27.5% strikeout rate in 45 appearances this season. The Mets will be his fourth team since the 2022 season.

On Monday, Mets president of baseball operations David Stearns plainly signaled that upgrading the bullpen for the stretch run is his top priority.

The need is clear. Injuries and overuse have depleted a relief corps that led the majors in bullpen ERA through May 31. Since June 1, the group has posted 4.52 ERA, good for 23rd in the majors.

Aracena, 20, is 1-1 with a 2.38 ERA in 17 games for St. Lucie. The Orioles said he is one of two pitchers in the minors this season to have thrown at least 60 innings without surrendering a home run.

Foster, 26, is 5-2 with two saves and a 2.97 ERA while pitching at the Double-A and Triple-A levels.

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Fenway concession workers strike for Sox series

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Fenway concession workers strike for Sox series

BOSTON — Hundreds of Aramark workers at Fenway Park are on strike and planning to stay out for all of a homestand between the Boston Red Sox and the Los Angeles Dodgers starting Friday night.

Concession workers had set a deadline of noon Friday for Aramark and Fenway Park to reach an agreement with the Local 26 chapter of the Massachusetts and Rhode Island hotel, casino, airport and food services workers union.

The union went on strike at noon asking for “living wages, guardrails on technology and R-E-S-P-E-C-T!”

With the Red Sox and Dodgers scheduled to start at 7:10 p.m. EDT, union officials had a request for fans attending this homestand with food and beer workers on strike.

“We’re asking you to NOT buy concessions inside the ballpark,” Local 26 wrote on social media. “Tailgate before the games!”

Union workers walked the picket line wearing green T-shirts declaring “FENWAY WORKERS ON STRIKE.” They carried signs in the shape of a baseball proclaiming Local 26.

The Red Sox go out of town Monday with a game that night at Minnesota.

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