MLB Player News

Dodgers infielder Justin Turner (hamstring) took swings against live pitching at the team's spring training facility in Arizona, MLB.com reports. Manager Don Mattingly expects Turner to return from the 15-day disabled list shortly after the All-Star break.

Pirates outfielder Andrew McCutchen hit his 15th home run Friday against the Reds.

McCutchen struck in the third inning. He worked a three-pitch at-bat against Mat Latos, homering on a 91 mph cutter. McCutchen later doubled. He finished the game 2 for 3, with two runs scored and one RBI. 

Nationals outfielder Bryce Harper only had one hit Friday, but made it count.

In the seventh inning, Harper stepped to the plate with no runners on. He clobbered a 90 mph sinker out to right field for the solo shot on the second pitch of the at-bat. Harper finished 1 for 4, with one run scored and one RBI. The big fly was his second home run of the season. 

If you own Charlie Blackmon in Fantasy Baseball, you've probably been disappointed with his performance since about mid-April. The regression was inevitable. He performed like the best player in baseball for the first six weeks and is clearly not the best player in baseball.

But he's also not as bad as he's shown the last eight weeks. Assuming he is -- and acting on that assumption -- would be even more short-sighted than whatever move you made to get him in the first place.

Blackmon has maintained a high contact rate throughout his struggles, striking out about once every six at-bats over his last 52 games, making his current .294 batting average pretty easy to buy. It was up in the .380 range before and, again, too good to be true, but now that it's regressed to this point, you could argue he's due for a resurgence of sorts. And what do you know? With his solo shot Wednesday, he's now homered in back-to-back games.

He also had this to offer after homering in Tuesday's game: "I just kind of felt like I got into maybe some bad habits. That kept me from being simple and direct to the ball. I've simplified things a little bit lately."

Individual statistics tend to normalize over the time. A player may not always take the most direct route to them, but in the end, they usually turn out like you'd expect them to. If we assume Blackmon is back to playing within himself, as both his recent comments and performance suggest, then we can hope for steadier production to close out the season rather than the extreme ups and downs of the first eight weeks.

Because combining the ups with the downs, he's still the ninth-best oufeidler in Head-to-Head points leagues. You'd give up the extreme highs of the first six weeks for that kind of production year-round.

Rockies outfielder Charlie Blackmon set the pace for his offense Wednesday, hitting a home run to lead off the top of the first inning in his team's 6-3 win over the Padres.

Blackmon's home run was the first of five in the game for the Rockies, who scored all six of their runs on the five blasts. He finished the game 2 for 4 and has now hit .294/.342/.475 with 14 home runs, 50 RBI and 16 stolen bases in 337 at-bats.

Dodgers outfielder Joc Pederson returned to Triple-A Albuquerque Wednesday, the Los Angeles Times reports.

Pederson was on the disabled list for about two weeks while recovering from a shoulder injury. He has hit .319/.437/.568 with 17 home runs, 42 RBI and 20 stolen bases in 273 at-bats with Albuquerque.

Pirates outfielder Andrew McCutchen has been on a run-producing tear recently, and he drove in two more runs in a 5-4 loss to the Cardinals Tuesday.

McCutchen went 1 for 3 with a walk in the loss, but made his lone hit count. He clubbed a two-run home run in the fifth inning to put the Pirates up briefly, before the Cardinals came back to win it.

McCutchen has drive in seven runs over the last five games, bringing his overall total to 56, good for fifth in the National League. He is hitting .319/.419/.546 with 14 home runs in 88 games. 

Rockies outfielder Charlie Blackmon provided all of the team's scoring with one swing Tuesday, in a 2-1 win over the Padres.

Blackmon went 2 for 4 in the game, and the big hit came in the third inning, when he clubbed a two-run home run. He scored once and drove in two runs, while striking out twice in the win.

Blackmon's home run was his first since June 12, and his 13th of the season. He is hitting .291/.340/.465 in 333 at-bats. 

Marlins outfielder Marcell Ozuna delivered a two-run home run in the ninth inning of his team's 2-1 win over the Diamondbacks Tuesday.

Ozuna went 2 for 4 and hit a double in the game, but his big contribution came against Diamondbacks closer Addison Reed in the ninth inning, driving a ball over the center field wall with his team down to its final out. Ozuna owns a 14-game hitting streak as well as a .279/.326/.467 line with 15 home runs and 51 RBI in 323 at-bats.

On Sunday, Major League Baseball revealed the National League reserves for the 2014 All-Star Game, which will be held on July 15 at Target Field in Minneapolis.

The following players were selected as reserves:

C Jonathan Lucroy, Brewers
C Devin Mesoraco, Reds
1B Freddie Freeman, Braves
2B Dee Gordon, Dodgers
2B Daniel Murphy, Mets
SS Starlin Castro, Cubs
3B Todd Frazier, Reds
3B Matt Carpenter, Cardinals
IF/OF Josh Harrison, Pirates
OF Charlie Blackmon, Rockies
OF Hunter Pence, Giants
OF Giancarlo Stanton, Marlins