Tampa Bay left-hander Shane McClanahan will continue his comeback from two major arm surgeries on Saturday afternoon when the Rays face the Minnesota Twins in the second game of a three-game series in St. Petersburg, Fla.

McClanahan (1-2, 5.00 ERA), a two-time All-Star, missed over two seasons with injuries. He was 11-2 with a 3.29 ERA in 21 starts in 2023 before he underwent Tommy John surgery that August.

After missing the entire 2024 season while rehabbing, McClanahan suffered a left triceps injury in a 2025 spring training game. He eventually underwent surgery to repair nerves in his triceps area, causing him to miss a second straight season.

Saturday will mark McClanahan’s fifth start of 2026. He comes in off a 6-3 loss at Pittsburgh last Sunday in a game in which he allowed four runs on eight hits in 4 1/3 innings, with no walks and five strikeouts.

Perhaps the more important stats, however, came on the radar gun. McClanahan’s velocity improved to an average of 95.5 mph on his fastball, and he had seven pitches that touched 97 mph or more. He had accomplished that feat just twice in his first three outings.

“I felt today was probably the best I’ve thrown all year — in a really long time, for that matter,” McClanahan, 28, told MLB.com. “Unfortunately, it doesn’t go your way sometimes. Obviously, it was a great step (and) felt good, but I want to win.”

“I was very encouraged by Shane’s outing,” Rays manager Kevin Cash said. “The velocity alone was encouraging to see. Very happy. I think he took a big step.”

Minnesota has lost seven of the past eight games. Tampa Bay enters action on Saturday in second place in the American League East, just 2 1/2 games behind the New York Yankees. Should McClanahan return to his old form, the Rays figure to have a big say in the division title race.

Tampa Bay opened the series vs. Minnesota with a 6-2 victory on Friday as Junior Caminero hit a pair of tape-measure homers and drove in three runs, and Jonathan Aranda also homered twice. Drew Rasmussen picked up his second win, allowing one run on five hits and a walk over six innings while striking out six.

All four of the home runs came off Twins starter and ex-Rays pitcher Taj Bradley, who hadn’t allowed a homer in his five previous starts while compiling a glossy 1.63 ERA.

“I didn’t know he hadn’t given up a homer, but it makes sense because his stuff is really good right now,” Cash said. “We were fortunate that we could get some pitches that we could handle and put some really good swings on them. Two powerful guys (Caminero and Aranda) who were behind the ball and knocked them a long ways.”

Caminero’s first home run traveled 450-feet over the batter’s eye in center field. His second caromed near the top of the batter’s eye and traveled “only” 435 feet.

“Those weren’t cheap ones that Caminero hit,” Minnesota manager Derek Shelton said. “This kid (age 22) is going to be one of the best young hitters in the game for a long time. Tonight, he showed why.”

Right-hander Bailey Ober (2-0, 4.15 ERA) will be tasked with turning off the Rays’ power on Saturday. He allowed just an unearned run and three hits while striking out 10 over 6 1/3 innings in his most recent start Sunday against Cincinnati. He wasn’t part of the decision in a 7-4, 10-inning loss after departing with a 2-1 lead.

Ober is 0-1 with a 5.79 ERA in two career starts against Tampa Bay. He pitched against them on April 3 and allowed three runs on four hits and two walks in a no-decision in his team’s 10-4 win.

McClanahan is 1-1 with a 4.35 ERA against the Twins, though he has not pitched against them since 2022.

The Rays took two of three games in the teams’ early April series in Minneapolis.

–Field Level Media

No player better symbolizes the topsy-turvy nature of the New York Mets than Kodai Senga.

On Saturday afternoon against the visiting Colorado Rockies, the Mets will need the right-hander to snap his slump to ensure New York doesn’t risk falling into another tailspin.

Senga (0-3, 8.83 ERA) is slated to face his former teammate, Rockies left-hander Jose Quintana (0-2, 6.23), in the middle contest of a three-game series.

Michael Lorenzen tossed seven strong innings and Troy Johnston had what proved to be the decisive two-run single in the seventh in the Rockies’ 4-3 win on Friday.

The loss halted a modest two-game winning streak for the Mets, who snapped a 12-game skid with Wednesday’s 3-2 victory over the Minnesota Twins.

The early-season slide is just a continuation of the struggles the Mets endured over the final three-plus months of last season. New York had the best record in the majors at 45-24 through June 12 but missed the playoffs after stumbling to a 38-55 mark the rest of the way.

The Mets’ slump began last season on the day after Senga suffered a right hamstring injury covering first base. Senga, who was 7-3 with a 1.47 ERA in 13 starts when he was injured, missed only a month of action but went 0-3 with a 5.90 ERA in his final nine starts before ending the season with Triple-A Syracuse.

Senga opened this season by allowing four runs over 11 2/3 innings in his first two starts, but he’s surrendered 14 runs (13 earned) over just 5 2/3 innings in his last two starts. That includes seven runs (six earned) in 3 1/3 innings in his most recent appearance, a 12-4 setback to the Chicago Cubs on April 17.

Senga’s start was pushed back from Thursday so he could throw two side sessions.

“This is a guy that’s very meticulous about his work and his mechanics and things like that,” Mets manager Carlos Mendoza said Friday afternoon. “Just got to go out there and do it.”

Lorenzen’s longest outing of the season helped the Rockies move into position to earn their third series win of the season.

When the Rockies finished 43-119 last season, they didn’t win their first series until a three-game sweep of the Miami Marlins from June 1-3 — a trio of wins that improved them to 11-50. Colorado didn’t record its third series win until taking two of three games against the Minnesota Twins from July 18-29.

“Any time you are winning more games than last year, there is going to be better energy,” said Rockies manager Warren Schaeffer, who replaced Bud Black as skipper following Colorado’s 7-33 start. “They are playing well right now.”

Quintana, who pitched for the Mets from 2023-24, took the loss in his most recent start on Monday, when he gave up six runs (four earned) over five innings as the Rockies fell 12-3 to the Los Angeles Dodgers.

Senga is 2-0 with a 1.47 ERA in three career starts against the Rockies, while Quintana is 2-3 with a 4.25 ERA in five starts against New York.

–Field Level Media

Chicago White Sox rookie left-hander Noah Schultz earned his first major league victory last weekend.

As he aims to win successive starts when he faces the visiting Washington Nationals on Saturday afternoon, Schultz is confident he gained perspective, too.

“Calm myself down with nerves and stuff like that, that hopefully are gone,” he said. “Getting ahead of guys and attacking hitters.”

A product of Oswego East High School in suburban Chicago, Schultz (1-1, 3.86 ERA) will pitch at Rate Field for the first time since losing to the Tampa Bay Rays on April 14 in his MLB debut.

Schultz, 22, regrouped Sunday in a road start against the Athletics, yielding only a solo home run in five innings while walking one and striking out six.

He’ll aim again to channel his full arsenal against the Nationals.

“Noah was really good,” Chicago manager Will Venable said. “Got back to the fastball, that’s obviously among his best weapons. And really got to that and did a nice job of mixing the four-seamer, the two-seamer. Ended up landing some sweepers in the zone, the cutter was in the zone, which is a big pitch for him, too.”

Luis Garcia Jr. had two hits and James Wood worked three walks for the Nationals in Friday’s series opener, but Washington struggled to deliver in the clutch.

Seranthony Dominguez struck out Wood with a runner at third base to close a 5-4 victory as the White Sox won for the fourth time in the past five games.

The hot streak has coincided with a power surge for Chicago first baseman Munetaka Murakami, whose solo shot Friday gave him six homers in the past seven games and 11 home runs this season.

Right-hander Jake Irvin (1-3, 6.00 ERA) will start for the Nationals on Saturday in the second contest of a three-game series. After defeating the crosstown Chicago Cubs at Wrigley Field on March 29 behind five innings of two-run ball, Irvin is 0-3 with a 6.63 ERA in four April starts.

He pitched into the sixth inning during Monday’s 9-4 home loss to Atlanta, allowing four runs (three earned) and three hits with no walks and four strikeouts.

“Good things happen when you get ahead,” Irvin said. “Just give our guys every chance to win.”

Irvin took a no-decision against the White Sox in his lone career appearance against them, last Sept. 27 at Rate Field. He allowed four runs and six hits in six innings, including a two-run home run to Colson Montgomery.

Wood has walked nine times in the past four games and boasts eight games this season in which he has received multiple free passes. His streak of consecutive games with a home run stopped at three on Friday.

Wood leads the National League with 10 home runs, one fewer than Murakami and Houston’s Yordan Alvarez.

Washington’s CJ Abrams went 0-for-4 in the series opener and is 2-for-27 with eight strikeouts in the past seven games.

The Nationals have lost three games in a row and six of their past eight.

–Field Level Media

Two second basemen who have demonstrated early on that they’re serious about making the National League All-Star team hope to continue fast starts at the other’s expense Saturday afternoon when Xavier Edwards and the Miami Marlins once again visit Luis Arraez and the San Francisco Giants.

Both players had three hits Friday night, and Edwards’ teammates collected 13 more in a 9-4 triumph during the opener of a three-game series. Miami posted its sixth straight win in San Francisco dating back to August 2024.

With a double, two singles and a walk in five plate appearances, Edwards raised his season batting average to .347, the second-best mark in the majors.

The three-hit game was the 26-year-old’s second of the season. He has logged multiple hits in 11 of his 26 games.

Edwards is finding success despite bouncing around the batting order. He already has been slotted second, fourth and seventh for multiple games this season. He was in the cleanup spot for the Friday contest.

“With X’s skill set, it makes it easy for me. I feel like I can put him anywhere with the combination of where other guys are,” Marlins manager Clayton McCullough said this week. “He’s a really good hitter, (and) as he’s continuing to get time in the major leagues, he’s getting better. He’s evolving.”

Edwards has never batted against left-hander Robbie Ray (2-3, 2.86 ERA), the Giants’ scheduled Saturday starter. Ray will be making his 11th career start and 12th career appearance against the Marlins, against whom he is 4-5 with a 2.29 ERA.

The 34-year-old veteran has been a victim of poor run support in all three of his losses this season. He allowed two runs in a 3-0 defeat to the New York Yankees, both runs in a 2-1 setback at Cincinnati and all three runs in a 3-0 loss at Washington on Sunday in his latest start.

Similarly, Marlins right-hander Eury Perez (2-1, 4.15 ERA) has yet to face the Giants in his three-year career.

Miami has won four times in five starts by Perez this season, the most of recent of which was his best outing of the young campaign. The 23-year-old held the Milwaukee Brewers to one run, which was unearned, over six innings on Sunday in a 5-3 home victory.

Perez will have to deal with a hot-hitting Arraez, who had three singles in five at-bats on Friday. The only time the two faced off previous was last July, when Arraez was playing for the San Diego Padres. Perez induced two groundouts from Arraez, who managed a single.

The three hits on Friday raised Arraez’s season average to .320, quite an improvement over his .211 mark through his first five games as a Giant.

Arraez has hit .346 since then.

“He’s found who he is,” Giants manager Tony Vitello said following the Friday contest. “He had some hard-contact outs early in the year. Maybe he didn’t have as much to show for it as maybe he deserved. He’s caught his rhythm.”

–Field Level Media

According to Baseball Savant’s metrics, Seattle’s Josh Naylor ranks 350th in sprint speed out of 352 players.

He was slowed even further after fouling a pitch off his foot in the fourth inning Friday in St. Louis, prompting a visit from manager Dan Wilson and trainer Kyle Torgerson.

Imagine the Cardinals’ surprise as Naylor stole second after drawing a walk, and three batters later, he chugged home on a Dominic Canzone single to left field.

Two innings later, Naylor hit a tiebreaking solo homer, leading the Mariners to a 3-2 victory in the opener of a three-game interleague series that continues Saturday.

“This is this is how he plays. This is what he does,” Wilson said. “… He plays the game hard, and everyone around him plays the game hard because he’s leading it.”

Naylor, who played for Canada in the World Baseball Classic, has gotten off to the slowest start of his career. He is batting .198 with three homers and 11 RBIs, but he has started to heat up, going 10-for-20 over his past six games.

“It’s a long season, and it’s a hard game we play,” Naylor said, “so you just keep your confidence up, keep your positivity up. Show up every day is the most important thing. If you’re not gonna show up, you have no chance to succeed. So showing up every day and just going to work — good, bad or ugly. Put in the work and you’ll go to bed happy.”

George Kirby put together a quality start — six-plus innings, two runs — as the Mariners snapped an eight-game road losing streak.

“Getting that first one on the road is really important to set the tone for the series,” Naylor said. “The guys did a great job (Friday) through and through — offense and defense, pitching, baserunning. It was an awesome, complete game.”

The Cardinals took their first one-run loss of the season after winning their first five narrow decisions. They rallied from a two-run deficit to tie the score but were unable to pull off their 10th comeback victory in 25 games.

“No matter what, we’re going to fight,” said Cardinals right fielder Jordan Walker, who hit a 110.4 mph grounder right to shortstop J.P. Crawford in the eighth that the Mariners turned into an inning-ending double play.

The Saturday pitching matchup is scheduled to feature Mariners right-hander Bryan Woo (1-2, 2.25 ERA) and Cardinals left-hander Matthew Liberatore (0-1, 3.67).

Woo is coming off his first victory of the season, a 5-2 decision against the visiting Texas Rangers on Sunday. He allowed two runs on four hits over seven innings with one walk and six strikeouts. He won his lone previous start vs. St. Louis, when he threw six innings of two-run ball and struck out nine last Sept. 8.

Liberatore pitched well Sunday at Houston but didn’t get a decision in a game the Cardinals won 7-5 in 10 innings. Liberatore gave up one run on three hits through six innings, with two walks and four strikeouts. He is 0-1 with a 13.50 ERA in two career appearances (one start) against Seattle.

–Field Level Media

The Toronto Blue Jays will be going to a closer-by-committee if the situation arises Saturday afternoon against the visiting Cleveland Guardians.

Jeff Hoffman has struggled as the closer this season and he was told Friday by manager John Schneider that the team will mix-and-match for now instead of putting the onus on one particular pitcher in the ninth inning.

“It’s still finding spots for guys, so whoever that may be in the ninth inning, for now, it’ll be that guy,” Schneider said.

The Blue Jays did not need a closer in their 8-6 loss to Cleveland on Friday in the opener of the three-game series. Toronto fell behind 5-0 and never had a lead.

Hoffman understood the move, saying there are other relievers pitching better than him currently. The right-hander is 3-for-6 on save chances to go with a 1-2 record and a 7.59 ERA.

“That gives them the nod to go out there and do it for the group,” he said. “I’m good for whatever is going to put us in the best position to win as many games as possible.”

Schneider said, “I don’t want to lose sight of the fact that he’s striking out half the hitters he’s facing. There’s a component to it where you want to just stop some momentum, and we’re still going to use him in big spots.”

The Blue Jays will look to bounce back when they send out right-hander Kevin Gausman (1-1, 2.54 ERA) on Saturday. Gausman is 5-5 with a 2.30 ERA in 11 games (10 starts) against Cleveland. Last season, he was 1-0 with 0.00 ERA in two starts vs. the Guardians, allowing three hits, two walks and one hit batter while striking out 15 in 14 innings.

Left-hander Joey Cantillo (1-0, 3.20 ERA) is scheduled to start for the Guardians. He has pitched one-third of an inning in his career against Toronto, retiring the only batter he faced last season.

The Guardians expect to have struggling Steven Kwan back in the lineup on Saturday after he didn’t start on Friday. Kwan, who is batting .227 (22-for-97) with one homer and eight RBIs, did enter the game as a ninth-inning defensive replacement in the series opener.

“We were looking to get him two days off and one of them on the (Rogers Centre) turf,” Guardians manager Stephen Vogt said. “We just wanted to give him a chance to reset the legs. Playing center field is a new beast. We just wanted to give him two days to get his body back underneath him.”

Kwan, a four-time Gold Glove left fielder, has been playing mostly in center this season.

“I don’t think moving between left and center field has affected his offense,” Vogt said, “but it’s a new workload that he’s never had in the big leagues. I wouldn’t read any more into this day off other than we wanted to get him two days off by using the off day (Thursday).”

It worked out well. Daniel Schneemann replaced Kwan in the leadoff spot on Friday and Angel Martinez started in center field.

Schneemann, batting leadoff for the first time this season, led off the game with a home run against Max Scherzer. He also walked and doubled.

Martinez hit two-run homers in the first and third innings.

Toronto lost Nathan Lukes in the first inning Friday when he left the game with what the team announced was left hamstring discomfort. Schneider said the outfielder was to going have an MRI.

–Field Level Media

The Boston Red Sox had counted on pitching to keep them close in some recent games. But it’s going to take the bats to get going for them to make a turnaround.

They carry a four-game losing streak into Saturday afternoon’s road game against the Baltimore Orioles.

The Orioles hammered six home runs, including a pair of two-run blasts from Adley Rutschman, in Friday night’s 10-3 triumph.

“All these guys have that capability in them,” manager Craig Albernaz said. “It was good to see kind of everything come together.”

Coby Mayo has homered in three consecutive games for the Orioles. Rutschman was in his second game back coming off the injury list.

“We’ve got great hitting coaches,” Rutschman said. “Everyone in our clubhouse kind of knows we’re trying to put the gas on as early as possible and just put together good ABs and try to string some runs across early.”

The Red Sox will try to prevent a second five-game skid this season. The three runs for Boston in the series opener marked their most offense in four games, but that’s not likely to be enough. The Red Sox have lost six of their last seven games overall.

“I don’t think we have a bad team,” Red Sox manager Alex Cora said. “We’re just going through a bad stretch.”

A pair of left-handers will try to get back on track with Saturday’s starting assignments on the mound.

Garrett Crochet (2-3, 7.88 ERA) will start for Boston in an attempt to stop a personal two-game skid. He allowed a total of 16 runs (15 earned) in 6 2/3 innings in losses to Minnesota and Detroit, allowing two home runs in each game. He has struck out at least seven in four of his five outings.

Crochet has faced the Orioles five times, with three of those in starts. He’s 1-1 with a 1.64 ERA with 28 strikeouts in 22 innings.

Trevor Rogers (2-2, 4.08) has lost his last two starts when facing Arizona and Cleveland, surrendering 10 runs (nine earned) in 9 2/3 innings. All three of the homers he has surrendered this year have come in those two games.

Rogers is 1-2 with a 2.13 ERA in five career starts vs. the Red Sox.

Friday’s result marked Baltimore’s first game against an American League East rival this year. Albernaz said he likes the competitive nature of the division with every team built to win.

But regarding the impacts of those meetings, those will take care of themselves.

“For us, we prepare just like it’s another game,” Albernaz said.

Baltimore has outfielder Tyler O’Neill available after he was brought back from the concussion injury list, though he didn’t play Friday night.

“He’s a guy who has a track record of hitting,” Albernaz said. “Just lengthens the lineup when he’s in there. Good to see him healthy and back. He’ll bring some thump.”

Rutschman said the Orioles could be gearing up for a good stretch given that the roster is coming back together.

“It’s an unbelievable group to be a part of,” Rutschman said. “Just the positive energy everyone brings.”

Saturday’s game time has been moved up four hours to 12:05 p.m. because of the threat of inclement weather later in the day.

–Field Level Media