Category: Baseball

Every day, Pinstripe Alley offers updates on what the Yankees’ top American League opponents are up to through the Rivalry Roundup. The AL East is well-trodden ground there, but with the Trade Deadline behind us, we’re going to take a peek around MLB as a whole and check in with each of the other five divisions. Who’s surprising? Who’s underwhelming? Who’s simply mediocre at the moment? Read on and find out.

First Place: Milwaukee Brewers (70-43)

Top Position Player: Brice Turang (4.1 fWAR)
Top Pitcher: Jacob Misiorowski (5.0 fWAR)

Not to editorialize too much in this space, but I believe the Brewers blew it.

It is a fact that Milwaukee has the league’s best record at time of writing. It is also a fact that they had the league’s best record in 2025, and all it got them was a sweep at the hands of the Dodgers in the NLCS. The one player who it felt Milwaukee could snag at this deadline to put them at close to level footing with the Dodgers, Tarik Skubal, is going to Los Angeles for somewhat less than a king’s ransom. The Brewers added only Dustin May and JoJo Romero from the Cardinals, Antonio Senzatela from the Rockies, and additional bullpen and catching depth from Cleveland in a marginal move most missed.

Over the past decade, Milwaukee has demonstrated that they have essentially solved the regular season. The postseason has proved a harder beast to tame, winning just two playoff series and falling to to LA in both the 2018 and 2025 NLCS. The franchise has never won a World Series and it’s been 44 years since they were even there, back when they were an AL team. The Brewers have tons of very good players, but lack the boundless star power of the Dodgers, star power which they used to absolutely bully the Crew up and down the field in October. Furthermore, with labor tensions on the rise and a potential work stoppage in the offing when winter comes, shouldn’t there be more urgency to go more all-in for the rest of this season?

The Brewers are not the only team guilty of being overly safe. But they’ve done all the hard work, constructing a formidable platform on which a superstar like Skubal would have perfectly fit, were they only willing to pull the trigger. Instead, they once again got gun-shy, putting together a good offer but not one that blew the Tigers away. The far tougher path awaits. I wish them luck.

Second Place: Chicago Cubs (65-49)

Top Position Player: Pete Crow-Armstrong (7.3 fWAR)
Top Pitcher: Ben Brown (2.0 fWAR)

The Cubs were busy, busy bees at the deadline; and they had to be. Chicago remains comfortably afloat in the first Wild Card spot despite suffering through terrible injury luck, particularly in the rotation. So they went to work rebuilding their staff on the fly, and I think they did fairly well for themselves given a somewhat limited set of options.

First, the Jed Hoyer-led front office made a pair of deals with Toronto, a team which managed a shrewd buy/sell balancing act. Gone was DFA’d veteran Jameson Taillon, and in his place came Kevin Gausman. Gausman has not been ace material this year, and his walk rate has shot up, but it is far better to have him than to not. The Cubs continued with more of a lottery ticket by adding lefty Braxton Garrett, bolstered their bullpen with the Angels’ Ryan Zeferjahn, then concluded by bringing along old friend Clay Holmes (alongside Tyrone Taylor) from the aggressively-selling Mets.

In the aftermath, as MLB.com’s Mike Petriello noted on Bluesky, the Cubs now have a great collection of depth options in their rotation to go along with an offense which boasts NL MVP favorite Pete Crow-Armstrong at the top of the lineup. At the same time, none of their pitchers are the kind of guy you’d be pumped to see start the first game of a future playoff series. The Braves have Chris Sale; the Brewers boast Jacob Misiorowski; the Dodgers now have Skubal in addition to Yoshinobu Yamamoto.

Maybe something with Gausman clicks down the stretch and he becomes the ace they need, but otherwise, it’s a lot of good-but-not-great arms. After Skubal came off the board, that’s essentially all that the market could provide. Credit to the Cubs for working within those confines to upgrade their roster as much as they could.

Third Place: Pittsburgh Pirates (57-58)

Top Position Player: Brandon Lowe (3.1 fWAR)
Top Pitcher: Paul Skenes (3.6 fWAR)

In a departure from past seasons, the Pirates are both alive in the playoff hunt and adding to their roster at the deadline, albeit exclusively in the bullpen. After picking up Camilo Doval from the Yankees as a potential reclamation project—a project which the Yankees themselves attempted and failed to complete—Pittsburgh got more serious, trading for Luke Weaver from the Mets and Kirby Yates from the Angels. Those veterans (particularly Weaver) should give the Bucs more stability in their back-end as they look to end the longest active playoff drought in the Senior Circuit.

The warning signs for this team are everywhere, however. Paul Skenes has not looked like the best young pitcher in baseball this season, as a dip in velocity has allowed teams to get the jump on him. Ryan O’Hearn, one of their most reliable veteran hitters, suffered a nasty injury and will be out for another six weeks at minimum. He joins rookie Konnor Griffin on the IL; the shortstop may be back in time for the beginning of September, but it’s hard to know if Pittsburgh will be able to keep pace with a competitive NL in the meantime.

Still, the Bucs didn’t luck into being the second-highest scoring offense in the league most of the way through the season. They have a good collection of youth and experience in their lineup even despite the recent injuries, and have a fleet of young right-handed starters (including Skenes, who could always turn the corner) at their disposal. Too often, the Pirates have said “never.” It’s nice to see them at least say “maybe.”

Fourth Place: St. Louis Cardinals (56-58)

Top Position Player: JJ Wetherholt (4.0 fWAR)
Top Pitcher: Dustin May (2.6 fWAR) Andre Pallante (2.0 fWAR)

The Cardinals shoved the Yankees into a locker on Monday night, and if that result had come before the deadline rather than a few hours after, it’s easy to wonder if the front office might have been tempted to take a different approach. As it happens, though, St. Louis decided to assume a modest sell position, dealing May and Romero to Milwaukee as previously mentioned while sending Team Japan icon Lars Nootbaar to the Diamondbacks right before the closing bell.

It was the right time to move off all of those guys; they’re talented but flawed players who didn’t figure to be part of the next competitive Redbirds squad. St. Louis has struggled to begin the second half, and their youth movement is still a work in progress. Make no mistake: the now-extended JJ Wetherholt is agreat player. So is Jordan Walker. Alec Burleson thumped three homers in the Bronx on Monday night; he’s pretty good too. But the pitching staff isn’t there yet, and neither is the rest of their lineup.

If nothing else, though, St. Louis has demonstrated they’re a team you can’t afford to mess with. To the other teams in this division, take heed: if you have the opportunity to put the Cardinals away, you need to do it, or else you may just see them in the playoffs.

Last Place: Cincinnati Reds (54-58)

Top Position Player: Elly De La Cruz (4.1 fWAR)
Top Pitcher: Chase Burns (3.3 fWAR)

With Adley Rutschman and Liam Hicks taken off the table by division rivals, it appeared the Yankees’ only realistic path to an upgrade at catcher was Tyler Stephenson of the Reds. Even then, Stephenson’s defensive proclivities threatened to make it more of a lateral move, even with Austin Wells’ horrible 2026 season. Ultimately, Brian Cashman opted not to pull the trigger, and Cincinnati got no takers for their pending free agent catcher.

They got no takers for just about everyone, as it turned out—only flipping lefty first baseman Nathaniel Lowe to the cross-state rival Guardians and shipping Caleb Ferguson to the Cardinals just before the music stopped. It was fairly bleak for Reds fans. Cincy just didn’t have a lot of trade pieces worth getting excited about—that doesn’t mean there aren’t reasons to tune in to watch them.

Chase Burns continues to rise as a young ace for an exciting young pitching staff which continues to hold a lot of promise for the years ahead. Elly De La Cruz remains one of the most electric players in baseball, even though we may not see him steal 67 bases like he did in 2024 again. Sal Stewart is already a formidable heart-of-the-order bat for the Redlegs as a rookie; he could be there for a long time. Cincinnati is a terribly flawed squad, it’s true. But they don’t lack for hope.

ARLINGTON, Texas — It’s simple mathematics.

Six players subtracted from the Giants’ roster trade deadline means just as many opportunities for other, younger players over the final seven odd weeks of the regular season.

San Francisco wasted no time getting on board with the youth movement. After all the dust settled, the average age of the 26-man roster was 27.2 years old — tied for fourth-youngest.

“I think as much as anything it’s going to be an opportunity for us as a front office and a coaching staff to evaluate some of our players,” president of baseball operations Buster Posey said. “Some of them are going to get longer runways than they have in the past.”

These five players have the most to gain from the Giants’ trade deadline moves:

Marcelo Mayer

Talk about a change of scenery.

The California kid is back in his home state. He’s out of pressure-packed Boston and the weighty expectations of rabid fans who eagerly awaited his arrival as a top prospect.

Mayer has a chance to hit the restart button on his big league career that never quite got off the ground with the Red Sox. Remember, he is still only 23 with less than a season of MLB service time — lots of time for him to get his career .625 OPS closer to his .826 figure in the minors.

“[We] still believe there’s a lot of upside there,” Posey said.

Sure, it would be great if he was able to recapture what made him a No. 4 overall draft pick and a consensus top-20 prospect for four years running. But the Giants’ future hardly hangs in the balance. The infield is already crowded, and all this lottery ticket cost was a bullpen arm.

Once he is cleared to return from a stress reaction in his forearm, Mayer should be the regular starter at second base for the rest of the season. If anything, he’ll be part of an extra friendly competition for playing time next spring — with fellow Chula Vista High alum Casey Schmitt.

Blade Tidwell

After the trades of Robbie Ray and Tyler Mahle, as well as the elbow surgery Trevor McDonald is set to undergo this week, the Giants have three vacancies in their starting rotation.

Tidwell was the first pitcher called up from Triple-A to get an audition and will certainly get more after limiting the Rangers to two runs on six hits over five innings. Needing 100 pitches to make it through the longest outing of his young career, he was determined to pitch more efficiently.

“I don’t want to be the five and dive guy,” Tidwell said.

He could have helped their beleaguered bullpen earlier in the season but was instead stretched out as a starter at Triple-A. All along, manager Tony Vitello said, “he was champing at the bit.”

He really only used his four-seamer and his best secondary weapon, a slider, in his brief look in the bullpen. As a starter, Tidwell recently added a curveball to expand his arsenal to six pitches.

Vitello, who coached him at Tennessee, described the stocky 6-foot-3 right-hander as a Skittle — “rough on the exterior but a little softer than people realize on the inside.”

Now, maybe fans will get a chance to get to know him as well as his college coach.

Keaton Winn

Vitello was asked about the situation in the back end of the bullpen after the Giants shipped away Erik Miller and Caleb Kilian, the last two arms to close games for them.

“Interesting,” he said with a nervous smile. “I think opportunity is the word that stands out.”

The Giants’ bullpen wasn’t strong to begin with, and it’s even more depleted of high-leverage, backend arms after trading its two most sought-after relievers at the deadline.

The brief experiment using Winn as the closer blew up when Vitello called on the former starter for a third day in a row for the first time in his career, causing a mild elbow strain.

But he’s back healthy and, almost by default, possesses the nastiest stuff of any of the remaining relievers. If he can rediscover the upper 90s with his fastball and combine that with his devastating splitter, that’s a closer’s archetype if there ever was one.

The job, if it even exists, is again his for the taking, especially after Dylan Smith allowed the Giants to be walked off Tuesday in Texas for the second time in his past three appearances.

Victor Bericoto

The primary reason the Giants were comfortable trading Heliot Ramos was because of the package of prospects he garnered in return (6-foot-7 lefty Henry Lalane and Kaeden Kent, whose dad just went into the Hall of Fame). But it probably wouldn’t have happened if Bericoto didn’t break out in the way he did this year before going down with an oblique strain.

All he did was hit: A spring training OPS of 1.121 that earned him the Barney Nugent Award as the top player in his first big-league camp. An .804 OPS in 43 games at Triple-A. And even better results in 24 games in the majors, batting .293 with four homers for an .857 OPS.

The 24-year-old Venezuelan is on the mend now — he just began a rehab assignment — and there should be a spot in left field waiting for him once he is fully recovered.

If not Bericoto, then maybe Bo Davidson gets his first look in the big leagues, though the undrafted community college product has run into trouble after recently reaching Triple-A.

Parks Harber is another worthy option, but the Giants may not want to add him to the 40-man roster with a lockout anticipated this winter. Davidson would also require a 40-man spot, but that’s a decision the Giants have to make this winter or risk losing him to the Rule 5 draft.

Adrian Houser

It was a bit of a surprise to see Houser enter in the eighth inning of Tuesday’s loss to the Rangers. But he only threw two pitches, and Vitello said that the shortest of Houser’s eight relief appearances since being demoted to the bullpen had no bearing on the conventional wisdom.

That being Houser’s likely return to the starting rotation.

With one more year left on the contract he signed last offseason, it’s worth seeing if Houser can perform in the role he was brought in to do, especially with how dicey next year’s rotation looks.

The results have been better since his move to the bullpen: A 2.08 ERA in 26 innings (though with a 4.17 FIP), opposed to the 5.73 ERA he posted in 14 starts to begin the year.

It might not end up looking all that different. Houser has thrown four-plus innings four times in relief, and the Giants will discuss using him behind an opener if he returns to the rotation.

Covering the Corner has heard from a source that the Guardians will designate Gabriel Arias for assignment when calling top prospect Angel Genao up for tonight’s game.

This comes after a particularly frustrating night for Arias in which he made an error that led to a three-run homer and struck out twice and left a small village on base. Overall, this season, Arias has an 85 wRC+ – compared to his career 76 wRC+ – and has played mostly solid defense at third and shortstop.

Overall, Arias’s arm was not enough to compensate for mental lapses in the field and, most of all, for his propensity to miss pitches in the zone and smack the few pitches he did hit directly into the ground. A career groundball rate of 52% and a zone-contact rate of only 72% is just not sustainable, no matter how hard you hit the ball… especially when your defense is just good and not excellent. I wish Arias well on whatever comes next. Perhaps he will make it through waivers to Columbus or try his wares at another organization hungry for shortstop options.

The most interesting part of this news is that with José apparently not going on the IL, I wonder where Angel Genao will get everyday at-bats as one would assume the organization wants for him. He will play third base when José DH’s and has a day , of course, but I also wonder if he could see reps at second base while the team lets Travis Bazzana DH, pushing Nate Lowe and Rhys Hoskins to mainly a platoon first base role (Hoskins not being able to hit lefties this year doesn’t seem to be something the Guardians believe is meaningful data). Arias going does remove the idea of him replacing Lowe and Hoskins defensively at first base late in games which is my only qualm… and it’s a small one.

The best news here would be if José is able to tolerate the pain to continue to play.

Good for the Guardians for continuing to be aggressive with their best bats as their offense continues to flounder. Feels like it has to pay off one of these days.

San Francisco Giants @ Texas Rangers

Wednesday, August 05, 2026, 1:35 PM CDT (105.3 The Fan / Rangers Sports Network)

The Shed

LHP Carson Whisenhunt vs. LHP Cody Bradford

Go Rangers!

Diamondbacks News

Carroll and Marte Struggle at Plate, in Field, Rodriguez Stumbles as Padres Narrow Gap
Corbbin Carroll continued struggling at the plate. So did Marte. Marte also had a rare defensive blunder that exacerbated a rough inning for Rodriguez. Roderiguez had a bumpy outing but gutted out 5.2 innings of work to save the bullpen for today and tomorrow.

Grading Arizona’s Relatively Quiet Deadline
One of many upcoming deadline grade pieces.

Other Baseball News

The 2026 Deadline Awards
The winners. The losers. The head-scratchers. All of them looked at here.

Marcel Ozuna Released
That it took so long is actually the most surprising part.

WPBL Week One: The Queen’s List
The inaugural week of the Women’s Professional Baseball League is in the books.

Cincinnati Rudderless at Deadline
Two days later and essentially the whole world is trying to figure out what Cincinnati was doing on Monday.

I almost forgot that there was an afternoon game. It’s a busy day. I’m going to post this early, so I don’t forget to.

There were a couple of roster moves:

• Trey Yesavage to the IL.
• Chad Dallas to Buffalo. Might as well use up the five times you can send a guy down. And he won’t be able to pitch today.
• Chase Lee is back.
• As is Lazaro Estrada, who can come back because Yesavage is going on the IL.

Also Vlad is getting the day off. He looked like he was dealing with pain yesterday. They say it is just a day off, but I think there is a let’s rest the hamstring component to it.

TODAY’S GAME: The first-place Houston Astros (59-56) will host the Toronto Blue Jays (53-61) today for a matinee rubber game in the finale of their three-game series in Houston.

Astros ace RHP Hunter Brown (3-1, 3.42 ERA) will get the start for the Astros today opposite the Blue Jays and RHP Jameson Taillon (2-6, 5.92 ERA), who was named today’s starter just prior to last night’s game.

WINNING WAYS: The Astros have won 12 of their last 14 games dating back to July 20. This streak has put the Astros at a season-high three games over .500, a mark they’ve been at twice this season at 6-3 (April 4) and 58-55 (Aug. 2).

THE TURNAROUND: After a slow start to the season, the Astros are 39-25 since May 22, which is the second-best record in the AL in that span. On that date, the Astros were 20-31, 11 games under, which is their low water mark for the season.

Winning Percentage since May 22, AL

1. Red Sox 39-24 (.619)

2. Astros 39-25 (.609)

3. Tigers 35-27 (.565)

THAT’S OFFENSIVE: The Astros lead the AL in runs scored (536), SLG (.416), and OPS (.738), while ranking second in home runs (156), batting average (.246), OBP (.322) and hits (955). In the Majors, the Astros rank third in homers, trailing only the Nationals (166) and Yankees (164).

THE LINEUP: The Astros have used 113 different lineups in their 115 games, repeating a lineup just twice on the season, which includes using the same lineup on Monday and Tuesday. DH Yordan Alvarez has the most starts at any spot in the lineup among Astros, hitting second 102 times.

ASTROS-JAYS: The Astros have played just 90 games against the Blue Jays in their franchise history, which are their fewest against any single opponent. Their .567 all-time winning percentage against the Blue Jays is their second-highest against any opponent, bested only by their record against the Angels (144-92, .610).

DIESEL POWER: RHP Hunter Brown will make his 11th start of the season and his ninth since returning from a lengthy stint on the IL with a right shoulder strain. He has shown some rust upon his return, going winless in his first six starts back, but has rebounded to go 2-0 with a 1.42 ERA (2ER/12.2IP) in his last two starts.

YESTERDAY’S TRADE: The Astros made one trade on Monday, acquiring OF Daulton Varsho and cash from the Blue Jays in exchange for RHP Spencer Arrighetti. Varsho, 30, was activated on Monday and started the first two games of this series for the Astros, batting cleanup in both contests.

MVP-CALIBER: Yordan Alvarez leads the AL in all three Triple Crown categories, ranking first in batting average (.329), HR (35), and RBI (84). Additionally, he leads MLB in OPS (1.087), OBP (.443), SLG (.644), and TB (264)…in the AL, he ranks first in hits (135), extra-base hits (59), and runs (78), and second in walks (80).

HEAVY TRAFFIC: DH Yordan Alvarez has reached base safely in 20 straight games (since July 10), batting .423 (30×71) with 16 runs, eight doubles, six home runs, 17 RBI, 21 walks, a .559 OBP and a 1.348 OPS during the streak. Alvarez also has onbase streaks of 25 games (May 22-June 19) and 22 games (April 4-28) this season.

STREAK SNAPPED: SS Jeremy Peña had his career-high 15-game hitting streak snapped last night, in which he hit .422 (27×64) with three doubles, one triple, seven homers, 15 RBI and a 1.292 OPS. Peña’s streak was the longest streak by an Astro since 3B Alex Bregman had a 16-game streak from May 28-June 15, 2024.

VENEZUELAN HIT KINGS: 2B Jose Altuve went 3×4 last night and has multiple hits in each of his last three games, raising his career hits total to 2,473, which now ranks fourth in Major League history among Venezuelan-born players.

Hits Among Venezuelan-born Players (MLB history)

1. Miguel Cabrera: 3,174

2. Omar Vizquel: 2,877

3. Luis Aparicio: 2,677

4. Jose Altuve: 2,473

CHIPPING IN: Several Astros are on mini hot streaks, including OF Taylor Trammell, who’s hit three homers with seven RBI and a 1.068 OPS in his last nine games. C Yainer Diaz has hit safely in five of his last seven games, batting .500 (13×26) with two home runs, four RBI and a 1.231 OPS in that span. RF Cam Smith has hit safely in six straight games, batting .385 (10×26) with two doubles, one triple, four RBI and a .945 OPS during his streak.

STALKING 500: RHP Bryan Abreu has 499 career strikeouts, needing just one strikeout to reach 500 for his career…he would become just the fourth reliever in franchise history to record 500 strikeouts with the club, joining LHP Billy Wagner (694), RHP Brad Lidge (557) and RHP Dave Smith (529).

TODAY IN ASTROS HISTORY: 1994 – 1B Jeff Bagwell goes 3×4 with a double, homer and five RBI in the Astros 12-4 win over the Giants at the Astrodome. That night, Bagwell records homer number 38, extra-base hit number 69, and RBI number 112 on the season, all new single-season club records at the time. Bagwell would play another five games that season before a broken hand and the players strike ended his year.

Game Info

Game Date/Time: Wednesday, August 5, 1:10 p.m. CT

Location: Daikin Park, Houston, TX

TV: SCHN, SCHN 2

Radio: KBME 790 AM & 94.5 FM HD2; TUDN 102.9 FM HD2 (Spanish)

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It’ll be up to Bryan Woo of the Seattle Mariners to put an end to the Detroit Tigers’ four-game winning streak at T-Mobile Park tonight, with Detroit coming into this one as a +140 underdog at Polymarket.

However, the Mariners ace owns the worst xERA of his career, and his recent struggles are the reason I’ll be backing the Tigers on the road.

Let’s get into my Tigers vs. Mariners prediction as part of my MLB picks for Wednesday, Aug. 5.

Who will win Tigers vs Mariners tonight: Tigers moneyline (+140)

The Seattle Mariners have a Bryan Woo problem — he’s given up 10 earned runs across his last 10 innings — and it won’t get any easier against a Detroit Tigers team that has put up 63 runs over their last six games. To put it mildly, it’s the hottest offense in baseball, ranking seventh-highest in WRC+ during the season — we’ll take that to the bank.

Woo is coming into his bump day with a career-high xBA, xSLG, xwOBA, and xERA (3.54). It gets even worse against a Tigers lineup that rocked him for five earned runs on nine hits back in June. I’m expecting a ton of traffic on the base paths as a result.

Detroit counters with opener Drew Anderson, who’s limiting the Mariners to a .375 xSLG across a smaller sample size (14 at-bats). I’d price the Tigers closer to +120, so I'll take this value and run with it.

COVERS INTEL: When Bryan Woo gets hit, he gets hit hard. His 42.5% hard-hit rate is in the 22nd percentile of all qualified MLB starters. He's served up four homers across his last four starts as a result.

Tigers vs Mariners Over/Under pick: Over 7.5 (-103)

We’re taking a shot at Woo’s struggles, Detroit’s bullpen, and riding recent MLB trends to get the job done for us tonight.

There are just too many variables pointing toward another short outing from Woo. While the strikeout numbers are still average this season, his career-high 42.5% hard-hit rate is impossible to ignore against an offense as hot as Detroit’s. On the other side, expect the opener in Anderson to last a maximum of two frames before turning the ball over to the bullpen — that’s just far too many innings to cover.

The Tigers and Mariners are a combined 17-3 to the Over across their last 10 games played, with Seattle ranking as the eighth-best Over team in baseball (hitting at a 53.3% clip). And the icing on the cake? The Over is 6-0 across Woo’s last six starts.

Tigers vs Mariners weather

It's shaping up to be a perfect night of baseball in Seattle tonight, with clear skies and temperatures sitting at 68°F come first pitch. We'll see little to no impact on game conditions as a result.

Tigers vs Mariners odds

• Moneyline: Tigers +140 | Mariners -150
• Run line: Tigers +1.5 (-150) | Mariners -1.5 (+144)
• Over/Under: Over 7.5 (-100) | Under 7.5 (-104)

Tigers vs Mariners trend

To say the Tigers are heating up would be an understatement. Across their four-game winning streak, they lead MLB in runs, hits, RBI, XBH, and OPS. The bandwagon is loading up — hop on in. Find more MLB betting trends for Tigers vs. Mariners.

How to watch Tigers vs Mariners and game info

Tigers vs Mariners latest injuries

This article originally appeared on Covers.com, read the full article here and view our best betting sites or check out our top sportsbook promos.

The Pittsburgh Pirates are moving on from one of their major offseason acquisitions. 

Broadcaster Mike Rodriguez reported Aug. 5 that the team has released designated hitter Marcell Ozuna, who signed a one-year deal worth $12 million in February. The two sides had a mutual option for 2027. 

Ozuna, a 14-year MLB veteran, consistently struggled at the plate this season, hitting .203 with eight home runs, 29 RBI and a .612 OPS in 70 games. He became a weak point for an offense that’s become one of the best in baseball. The Pirates enter action Wednesday with the MLB lead in hits at 1,027, and they rank third in runs scored (584) behind just the Washington Nationals (610) and Chicago Cubs (585.) 

Required Reading: Pittsburgh Pirates at Milwaukee Brewers odds, picks and predictions

Accompanying offseason additions by GM Ben Cherington have been a major reason for the offensive surge. Second baseman Brandon Lowe was acquired in a trade with the Tampa Bay Rays and has hit 23 homers so far this season. Injured first baseman/outfielder Ryan O’Hearn has added 17 blasts after signing a two-year deal.

Hopes were high that Ozuna could perform similarly. He hit 39 homers and earned an All-Star nod with the Atlanta Braves in 2024 and was still a reliable hitter in 2025, when he hit 21 homers and posted a .756 OPS. However, his numbers improved only modestly from a .181 batting average in April, and he’d skidded to a .216 mark in July. 

In the corresponding roster move, outfielder Ronny Simon is expected to be promoted from Class AAA Indianapolis. He’s performed well in the minors this season, hitting .330 with seven homers, 53 RBIs and an .889 OPS. 

The Pirates enter Aug. 5 3.5 games back of the Arizona Diamondbacks for the National League’s final wild-card playoff spot. They have not reached the MLB postseason since 2015 and have not posted a winning record since 2018. 

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Pittsburgh Pirates release DH Marcell Ozuna amid offensive struggles