The Houston Astros announced Wednesday that right-hander Lance McCullers Jr. will miss the rest of the season following surgery to repair the flexor tendon in his right forearm and remove a bone spur.
To make matters worse for the defending World Series champion Astros, general manager Dana Brown said slugger Yordan Alvarez will be sidelined for at least four more weeks due to a right oblique strain.
McCullers missed a large portion of last season with a forearm strain and went 4-2 with a 2.27 ERA in eight starts after making his 2022 debut in August.
He originally sustained an injury to the tendon in his right forearm in Game 4 of the 2021 American League Division Series against the White Sox, and then aggravated it this February.
“After the injury happened in February, Lance worked his tail off to get back on the mound,” Brown said. “This guy is a warrior and did everything in his power to get back.
“But each time he built himself up to an increased pitch total off the mound, the pain would come back. It’s unfortunate, but we look forward to him being back on the mound next season.”
Alvarez, meanwhile, will likely be out until after the All-Star break after straining his right oblique during an at-bat against the Toronto Blue Jays last Thursday.
The 2019 AL Rookie of the year was leading the major leagues with 55 RBIs while batting .277 with 17 home runs in 57 games before getting hurt.
Alvarez was the MVP of the 2021 American League Championship Series and finished third in AL MVP voting last season, when he hit .306 with 37 homers and 97 RBIs in 135 games.
“With these oblique injuries, they're very tricky," Brown said Wednesday on his weekly visit with SportsTalk 790 AM in Houston. "I think it's going to take at least two weeks to get a feel for how it's feeling, how does he feel?
“So you take those two weeks, and then another week to figure out when he starts to have some activity, how's his body responding? So that's three weeks right there.
“So you're looking at, once he starts to swing a bat, maybe it's four weeks or so.”
MLB: Twins beat White Sox again for 10th straight victory
Max Kepler and Jose Miranda delivered run-scoring singles in the seventh inning and the Twins added four runs in the ninth to win their 10th straight game, 10-5 over the Chicago White Sox on Wednesday.
Alex Kiriloff had a solo home run, Will Castro and Miranda each finished with three hits and Ryan Jeffers contributed a two-run double for the Twins, whose winning streak is their longest since June 2008.
Minnesota has beaten the major league-worst White Sox seven times during the streak, with the other three wins coming against the 11–20 Angels.
Tommy Pham and Kory Lee homered for Chicago, which lost its third straight to fall to 6-25.
Twins center fielder Byron Buxton left in the second inning with right knee soreness after an unsuccessful attempt to steal second base.
Imanaga sharp again as Cubs hold off Mets
Shota Imanaga continued his historic start with seven scoreless innings and the Chicago Cubs completed a perfect relay for the game’s final out to hold off the New York Mets, 1-0.
Imanaga limited the Mets to three singles with one walk and seven strikeouts to improve to 5-0 with a 0.78 ERA in his first six major league starts.
He is the first pitcher since 1901 to go 4-0 with a sub-1.00 ERA and at least 28 strikeouts in his first five starts.
The Mets put runners at second and third with one out in the bottom of the ninth against Hector Neris before Jeff McNeil hit a flyball to medium left field. Ian Happ made the catch and relayed to third baseman Nick Madrigal, who threw home to get Pete Alonso for the final out.
Chicago scored the game’s only run in the fifth, when Matt Mervis led off with a double, moved up on a wild pitch and scored on rookie Pete Crow-Armstrong’s sacrifice fly.
Red-hot Lugo wins again
Seth Lugo pitched seven strong innings for his fifth win and Michael Massey hit a three-run homer to lift the Kansas City Royals to a 6-1 victory over the Toronto Blue Jays.
Lugo allowed just one hit until giving up Danny Jansen’s home run with two outs in the seventh. The right-hander walked two and struck out eight to improve to 5-1 and lower his ERA to 1.60.
Bobby Witt Jr. had two hits, scored once and had an RBI to help the Royals take two of three in the series.
Salvador Perez had an RBI single and extended his career-best streak of reaching base safely to 21 games. He leads the AL with a .355 batting average and 27 RBIs.
Kansas City gave Lugo all the support he needed with a three-run sixth. Kyle Isbel led off with a double, moved up on a sacrifice and scored on Witt’s single. Vinnie Pasquantino then doubled, and Perez’s hit plated Witt before Massey’s groundout made it 3-0.
MLB: Tigers' Flaherty strikes out first 7 batters, fans 14 in doubleheader opener
Jack Flaherty tied an American League record with seven straight strikeouts to open the game and finished with a career-high 14 before the St. Louis Cardinals rallied for a 2-1 win over the Detroit Tigers in a doubleheader opener on Tuesday.
Flaherty’s game-opening seven strikeouts matched the AL record shared by Joe Cowley of the 1986 Chicago White Sox, Carlos Rodon of the 2016 White Sox, Tampa Bay’s Blake Snell in 2018 and Seattle’s Luis Castillo two years ago.
Miami’s Pablo Lopez holds the major league record by striking out the first nine batters of a game in 2021.
Flaherty’s 14 strikeouts were the most by a Tigers pitcher since Max Scherzer had 14 against Pittsburgh on Aug. 14, 2014.
Detroit took a 1-0 lead into the ninth, but Nolan Arenado, Paul Goldschmidt and Alec Burleson had one-out singles before Pedro Pages followed with a go-ahead sacrifice fly for his first career RBI.
In the second game, Wenceel Perez homered from both sides of the plate, including a tiebreaking shot in the fifth inning, to lift the Tigers to an 11-6 win.
Streaking Twins beat White Sox
Max Kepler had a tiebreaking sacrifice fly in the ninth inning to lead the Minnesota Twins to their ninth straight victory, 6-5 over the Chicago White Sox.
Minnesota’s win streak is its longest since a 10-game run in June 2008. The Twins also have won seven consecutive games against the White Sox.
After Andrew Benintendi homered in the eighth to tie it at 5, Bryon Buxton led off the ninth with a walk and took third on Manuel Margot’s single. Kepler’s fly to center gave the Twins a 6-5 lead and Jhoan Duran pitched around a leadoff single by Tommy Pham in the bottom of the ninth for the save in his season debut.
Danny Mendick added his first home run of the season for Chicago, which dropped to a major league-worst 6-24.
Caratini, Hader lift Astros to wild win
Victor Caratini hit a pinch-hit, two-run homer with two outs in the 10th inning after Josh Hader pitched two innings for the first time since 2019 in the Houston Astros’ 10-9 win over the Cleveland Guardians.
David Fry’s RBI double in the top of the 10th put the Guardians ahead by one, but Caratini took Hunter Gaddis deep to give the Astros their third straight win.
Hader pitched a scoreless ninth before returning for the 10th. He got more than three outs in a regular-season game for the first time since getting four on Aug. 14, 2020, and had his first two-inning appearance in five years.
Josh Naylor and Estevan Florial hit three-run homers and Andres Gimenez also went deep for Cleveland, which rallied from an 8-3 deficit with a five-run sixth.
Angels’ Mike Trout to undergo knee surgery
Los Angeles Angels center fielder Mike Trout will undergo surgery to repair the torn meniscus in his left knee, the team announced Tuesday.
Trout will be out indefinitely, but the injury is not thought to be season-ending, ESPN reported.
The news is a devastating blow to the Angels, who will be without the three-time AL MVP for at least a couple of months.
Trout underwent an MRI after playing in the Angels’ win over the Philadelphia Phillies on Monday but was initially unaware that he had suffered a significant injury.
“It's crazy, because I look back and I don't even know when I did it,” Trout told reporters on Monday. “I was kind of telling myself, ‘Maybe I just banged it on something and I didn’t realise it.’ And then after the game, getting treatment on it, it was really sore.
“The plan was just to see how I felt in the morning. If I woke up and it was sore, just get it looked at. That was the plan. Last night was tough for me to sleep. It was just aching all night.”
Trout is batting .220 this season and leads the majors with 10 home runs.
This will be the third season in the last four that Trout has missed significant time due to injury. The 11-time All-Star missed the last half of last season with a broken bone in his hand, and a calf injury limited him to 36 games in 2021.
The Angels are reeling as a franchise after losing Shohei Ohtani in free agency to the cross-town rival Dodgers, a major blow to a team that has missed the playoffs in each of the last nine seasons.
Los Angeles entered play Tuesday at 11-18.
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