MLB Player News

Rays second baseman Nick Franklin went 1 for 3 at the plate in his first rehab game for Triple-A Durham on Tuesday.

Franklin, who is currently on the 15-day DL with an oblique injury, hit a single and struck out once in the appearance. Franklin is yet to appear in a game for Tampa Bay this season after picking up the injury just before the beginning of the season.

Yankees third baseman Chase Headley is out of the starting lineup Tuesday against the Blue Jays, according to Newsday.

Headley has started the last six games at third for New York, but was charged with an error in the eighth inning of Monday's game, leading to the go-ahead run for Toronto. Gregorio Petit will take his spot and bat ninth. Headley is hitting .247 with 10 RBI in 97 at-bats this season.

Angels manager Mike Scioscia swapped left fielder Matt Joyce and second baseman Johnny Giavotella in the batting order for Monday's game against the Mariners. Giavotella hit sixth, while Joyce, who has just one hit in 21 career at-bats against the M's starter Felix Hernandez, is now batting seventh.

Joyce is also struggling at the plate recently. He has just four hits in his last 10 games and only one RBI. Giavotella, meanwhile, has been a bit of a sparkplug for the Angels. He's hitting .250 (8 for 32) with three RBI over his last 10 games. 

Rays second baseman Logan Forsythe has heated up recently, getting 8 hits in 20 at bats (.400) over the last six games. 

Forsythe's fast start has several career highs in jeopardy. He's hitting .296 for the season--his previous best was .273. He already has 11 RBI and seven doubles, putting a bullseye on his previous bests of 26 RBI and 13 doubles over an entire season.

Forsythe is just focusing on his approach at the plate, a strategy he thinks will help the entire team turn around their slow start. 

"If we keep the mindset of having good at-bats like we have been the whole year and kind of keeping the line moving, we'll get back to where we were," he said, per Fox Sports.

Like much of the Rangers offense, the struggles for shortstop Elvis Andrus continued in Sunday's 7-1 loss to the A's. Despite drawing a couple of walks on the afternoon, Andrus went hitless and has seen his season batting average drop to .224.

Andrus' defense is suffering just as much as his offense is, as he committed his seventh error of the season on Sunday, which is the second-most in the American League. He has been at shortstop for every inning of every game for the Rangers so far. One might wonder if manager Jeff Bannister would consider giving the former two-time All-Star a rest in the coming days.

Rays second baseman Nick Franklin is scheduled to begin his rehab assignment with Triple-A Durham Tuesday, according to the Tampa Tribune.

Franklin is currently on the 15-day DL with an oblique injury. He has not played in a game yet this season with Tampa Bay after posting a .160 average with six RBI in 81 at-bats in 2014.

The White Sox left two regulars out of the lineup on Sunday and moved another to DH to give him a day's rest from playing the field. 

Catcher Tyler Flowers is out of the lineup. For the third time in five games, he'll be replaced by Geovany Soto, who will bat eighth in the order. 

Third baseman Conor Gillaspie is also out of the starting lineup, for just the fifth time this year. He's replaced by Gordon Beckham, who'll bat seventh. 

Jose Abreu moves from first base to DH, swapping positions with Adam LaRoche, who gets his third start of the year at first base. 

White Sox infielder Gordon Beckham may have needed to leave and return like the Prodigal Son to Chicago before he found success, according to the Daily Herald.

Beckham, in his second stint with Chicago, is hitting .350 with four RBI in 20 at-bats. Manager Robin Ventura is liking what he's seen from Beckham so far this season. 

"It can happen, it can jump on guys when there are expectations and the pressure gets there," manager Robin Ventura said. "For him, it might have been helpful to get traded away and go away for a while and come back with more of a clear conscience of who he is, where he's at. You get some information from somewhere else that maybe sticks in your skull differently than it did here.

"He's in a good frame of mind and that's the other big thing. All the stuff that has been said about him, but he can play baseball. We know that. He's a good player."

Astros second baseman Jose Altuve went 1 for 4 at the plate in Houston's 11-4 win over the Mariners Saturday.

Altuve did his damage in the fourth inning when he took a Taijuan Walker pitch to deep center field for a three-run bomb, his third of the season.

Altuve's one hit also broke his streak of nine straight multi-hit games, but still boasts a .371 average with 19 RBI in 105 at-bats.

First baseman Albert Pujols (hamstring) will return to the Angels' lineup Saturday in San Fransico after missing two games with a hamstring issue.

Pujols exited Wednesday's game with the injury and sat out Thursday's and Friday's contest.

The move will shift center fielder Mike Trout back to the second spot in the lineup while Kole Calhoun stays in the cleanup role.

During Pujols' two-game absence, second baseman Johnny Giavotella moved from ninth to leadoff but will bat seventh on Saturday for the first time this season.