MLB Player News

Giants first baseman Brandon Belt is out of the lineup for Saturday's game against the Rockies.

Belt is tied for the league lead with five home runs, and he's played every inning of the season at first base for the Giants. He's just 2 for 13 over his last three games. Belt has hit .292/.306/.625 in 48 at-bats.

Cardinals third baseman Matt Carpenter went 1 for 3 with one RBI and two walks in his team's 6-3 loss to the Cubs Friday.

Carpenter has been an on-base machine over the first part of the season, drawing nine walks and being hit by a pitch once while leading off in each of his team's first 10 games. He has hit .286/.435/.371 with one home run and four RBI in 35 at-bats.

Pirates outfielder Andrew McCutchen left Friday's game against the Brewers late, after lining out to third in the eighth inning. Afterwards, the team announced McCutchen left with "discomfort in his left ankle."

McCutchen was hitless in three at-bats, with one walk and a pair of stolen bases before the injury, and it is not clear exactly when it occurred. His status moving forward is not yet known, with the Pirates set to take on the Brewers yet again Saturday.

A matchup against Giants stud southpaw Madison Bumgarner on Friday night has surprising Rockies outfielder Charlie Blackmon grabbing some pine.

The left-handed hitting Blackmon has not cooled off since a three-game tear in which he bashed out 10 hits, including a 6-for-6 performance Arizona. He was 3 for 5 with two runs scored Wednesday against the White Sox and now owns a ridiculous .471 batting average on the season.

Marlins outfielder Marcell Ozuna was one of the few bright spots in his team's 7-1 loss to the Nationals on Thursday.

Ozuna took Washington ace Stephen Strasburg deep for a solo home run in the seventh inning, his only hit of the afternoon. He finished 1 for 4 with a run scored and an RBI. He has a hit in all but one of his first 10 games played. He is hitting .333 (12 for 36) with two homers and four RBI over that span.

Nationals outfielder Bryce Harper snapped out of a funk in a big way Wednesday, as he drove in his first three runs of the season in a 10-7 win over the Marlins.

Harper entered the game in run-production drought, but ended that with one swing of the bat. He took Marlins starter Brad Hand deep in the fourth inning for his first home run of the season, a three-run shot to the third deck in right field. He finished the game 2 for 4 as well, his first multi-hit game of the season.

Harper has gotten off to a dreadful start this season, and is still hitting just .207/.233/310 with 13 strikeouts and just one walk in 29 at-bats after Wednesday's game.  

Nationals outfielder Bryce Harper has been dropped to seventh in the order Wednesday.

Harper has now been passed by Ian Desmond in the lineup. With Ryan Zimmerman also returning, that pushes Harper down to the seventh spot. He's struggled to get going early, hitting just .160 in 25 at-bats.

Cubs outfield prospect Jorge Soler is on the Double-A disabled list with a sore right hamstring, MLB.com reports.

"We need to make sure he's 100 percent before he gets back on the field," president of baseball operations Theo Epstein said Tuesday. "He didn't pull it again, but it obviously hasn't healed all the way. We want him on the field as much as anybody -- he needs the at-bats. We can't force it right now."

Soler has made just one plate appearances this season, smacking a double.

Giants first baseman Brandon Belt has been scorching hot to start the season, a trend his continued Tuesday in a 7-3 win over the Diamondbacks.

Belt opened the game with his fifth home run of the season, a two-run shot to give the Giants a lead they would never relinquish. He ultimately went 2 for 4 with two RBI and two runs scored in the win.

Belt is hitting .343 through eight games, with five of his 12 hits going over the wall. He has driven in nine runs and scored nine more, though he has yet to walk while striking out 10 times. 

Considering he was owned in just 2 percent of leagues to begin the season, Charlie Blackmon was about the last player you'd expect to lead all hitters in Head-to-Head scoring in Fantasy Week 1 (March 30-April 6). But lead them he did, so now here we all are trying to make sense of it.

During his brief stints in the majors and throughout his minor-league career, one thing he's always been able to do is hit for average. He created some skeptics with his poor plate discipline last year, but it was a bit out of character for him, as he's shown by striking out only once so far this year. Even if he never walks a ton, his batting average should allow him to score a decent number of runs batting atop the Rockies lineup, and 20-25 steals are perfectly attainable for him in a table-setter role. Though nobody considers him a power hitter, he performed on about a 35-double, 12-homer pace in 82 major-league games last year, which was in line with his minor-league norms.

I don't think he's the kind of player you'll start every week and wouldn't stress about clearing roster space for him in shallower Head-to-Head points leagues, but trading off some of the speed for a little more power, I could see him contributing at about the same level as Brett Gardner, which would make him a clear-cut mixed leaguer. Just because you wanted Corey Dickerson to beat him out this spring doesn't mean he isn't valuable in his own right.