MLB Player News

Altuve is not in Sunday's lineup against the Rangers, Chandler Rome of the Houston Chronicle reports.

He is hitting .345 with seven home runs and 14 strikeouts over his last 14 games, and will get some well-deserved rest in this one. Aledmys Diaz will start at the keystone, hitting seventh.

Chavis is starting at second base and hitting seventh Sunday against the Rays, Christopher Smith of MassLive.com reports.

He started on the bench Friday and Saturday after getting the promotion from Triple-A prior to Friday's game, but he'll finally be a part of the starting nine against tough righty Tyler Glasnow. Given the amount of injuries facing the Red Sox at the keystone, it would seem logical for Chavis to get regular work, at least in the short term, but it remains to be seen if that will be the case next week. Tzu-Wei Lin is the only other healthy player on the 25-man roster who has significant experience at second base.

Torres is not in Sunday's lineup against the Royals.

As the Yankees deal with mounting injuries to their offensive core, Torres is in the midst of a 7-for-35 skid at the plate, striking out 29.7 percent of the time over that nine-game span. Tyler Wade will start at shortstop, hitting ninth.

Drury went 3-for-4 with a double, a home run, two runs scored and two RBI in Saturday's 10-1 win over the A's.

He's now homered in back-to-back games, although those are Drury's only two long balls on the year. The 26-year-old still only sports a .181/.234/.333 slash line through 19 games, though, and time is running out for him to prove to the Jays that he deserves to keep a starting role -- whether at second base or elsewhere -- after Vlad Guerrero Jr. joins the big-league roster and displaces Drury from third base.

Polanco is sitting for the second game of Saturday' doubleheader against the Orioles, Phil Miller of the Minneapolis Star Tribune reports.

Polanco went 0-for-5 in the first game of the day. Ehire Adrianza will fill in at shortstop for the nightcap.

Estrada will be called up by the Yankees on Sunday.

Estrada will replace Aaron Judge, who suffered an oblique injury Saturday. Estrada spent three days on the big-league roster earlier this month but did not get into a game.

Chavis remains out of the lineup for Saturday's game against the Rays, Pete Abraham of The Boston Globe reports.

The Red Sox promoted their top hitting prospect ahead of Friday's series opener, but he's been on the bench for both of his first two games with the big club. A corner infielder by trade, Chavis had been receiving work at the keystone prior to his callup, but the Red Sox may not be comfortable enough with his defense at the position to deploy him there on a regular basis. Tzu-Wei Lin will instead pick up a second straight start at second base with all of Dustin Pedroia (knee), Brock Holt (eye) and Eduardo Nunez (back) on the injured list.

Semien went 2-for-4 with a run in a loss to the Blue Jays on Friday and now has five multi-hit efforts in his last nine games.

Semien is a career .251 hitter, even when factoring in his .325 average through 95 plate appearances thus far this season. Therefore, skepticism persists that he'll be able to keep up anything close to his current pace, but the shortstop isn't yet showing any signs of a downturn. A look at Semien's peripheral stats reveals that a combination of improved plate discipline and a corresponding spike in contact rate have led to his stellar numbers in the early going. Both Semien's 11.6 percent walk rate and 86.7 percent contact rate are easily career highs and will naturally be pivotal to disproving the notion that his current numbers are simply outliers.

Drury went 1-for-4 with a solo home run in Friday's win over the A's.

Drury has been really struggling this season, batting .147/.194/.250 with a strikeout rate pushing 40 percent. It's nice to see him get on the board with his first long ball of the year, but Drury's playing-time outlook moving forward is murky with Vlad Guerrero Jr.'s arrival seemingly imminent. Second base is a possibility, although Drury hasn't really played the position much at all over the past two seasons.

Altuve went 2-for-5 with a home run and three RBI in Friday's 7-2 win over the Rangers.

He went back-to-back with Alex Bregman in the first inning, giving Justin Verlander all the offense he would need. Altuve now has eight homers in 19 games to begin 2019 after smacking only 13 all of last year, but that power display has come at a price -- the 28-year-old has only stolen one base in two attempts so far.