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Guardians place Carlos Carrasco on IL with hip strain
Bill Streicher-USA TODAY Sports

The Guardians placed right-hander Carlos Carrasco on the 15-day injured list Friday with a left hip strain and optioned infielder/outfielder Angel Martinez to Triple-A Columbus, per a team announcement. In their places, Cleveland recalled outfielder Will Brennan and reliever Peter Strzelecki from Columbus. The Guards also called up left-hander Joey Cantillo as the 27th man for Friday’s doubleheader against the Twins.

Cantillo will start Game 1 of today’s twin bill. Zack Meisel of The Athletic tweets that righty Alex Cobb, acquired from the Giants at the trade deadline, will start Game 2 for Cleveland. He’s on the 60-day injured list, so they’ll need to make a corresponding 40-man roster move between games one and two today.

It’s the second IL stint of the season for Carrasco, who opened the year on the 15-day injured list due to neck spasms. He signed a minor league deal to return to Cleveland over the winter, made the rotation in spring training, and is currently second on the team in games started, trailing only right-hander Tanner Bibee.

While Carrasco has been a consistent presence in Cleveland’s rotation this year, his results have paled in comparison to his peak years. The now-37-year-old righty has eaten up 103 2/3 innings but been clobbered for a 5.64 ERA. His 19.9% strikeout rate is a couple percentage points shy of league-average, while his 7.4% walk rate is better than average. However, Carrasco is working with a career-worst 91.8 mph average fastball velocity and has been extremely homer prone, yielding an average of 1.65 long balls per nine frames. A bloated 17% of the fly-balls he yields have left the park. He’s hit a particularly rough patch of late, surrendering 17 runs (on the strength of five homers) in his past 17 2/3 innings.

Carrasco clearly isn’t performing well at the moment, but his placement on the IL further tests the depth for a Guardians club that lost Shane Bieber for the season (Tommy John surgery) back in April and has seen young pitchers Logan Allen and Triston McKenzie struggle to the point that they’ve been optioned to Columbus. The Guards acquired Cobb prior to the deadline and signed veteran left-hander Matthew Boyd to a big league deal as he wrapped up his rehab from 2023 Tommy John surgery. Cobb will make his Guardians debut tonight, and Boyd isn’t expected to be too far behind him.

That could potentially give Cleveland a rotation of Bibee, Cobb, Boyd, Gavin Williams and journeyman Ben Lively down the stretch. There’s potential for a solid group there, but it’s anyone’s guess right now how Cobb will perform coming off hip surgery and how Boyd will perform on the back of last season’s ligament replacement procedure. It’s not the dominant Cleveland rotation we’re used to seeing, but the Guardians boast one of the best bullpens in baseball, which helps to offset some of the uncertainty.

As for Cantillo, Friday will mark his third big-league start. He’s been tagged for six runs in 7 1/3 innings thus far and will face a tough task in squaring off against a Twins team that has thrived against left-handed pitching this year. A former third-round pick, Cantillo has ranked among the Guardians’ more promising young arms since being acquired from the Padres back in the 2020 Mike Clevinger trade. He’s had some command troubles in the upper minors and missed a significant portion of the current season on the injured list, but Cantillo has a 4.21 ERA and 27.1% strikeout rate in 124 career Triple-A frames — albeit against a 13.4% walk rate that’ll need to improve if he’s to sustain success in the majors.

This article first appeared on MLB Trade Rumors and was syndicated with permission.

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All signs point to Yankees moving on from Anthony Volpe
MLB

All signs point to Yankees moving on from Anthony Volpe

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Kirk Cousins makes notable leadership move after Falcons practice
NFL

Kirk Cousins makes notable leadership move after Falcons practice

Kirk Cousins might be relegated to the job of backup quarterback, but he is showing veteran leadership to his Atlanta Falcons teammates. Following Sunday's practice, Cousins pulled aside rookie defensive end James Pearce to encourage the first-round pick after his fourth practice in the league at Flowery Branch, Georgia. "QB Kirk Cousins pulled aside Pearce after practice to compliment him on a pass batted down," wrote Marc Raimondi of ESPN. Cousins reportedly had a solid day of practice on Sunday, going 7-of-12 passing against the first-team unit. If Cousins wants out of Atlanta, he's not showing it at practice. The four-time Pro Bowl quarterback is competing on the field and being a good teammate around the facility. Cousins' actions on the field backed up what Falcons general manager Terry Fontenot praised Cousins for before the team's practice on Sunday. “Outside, it's a lot more of a deal than it is in the building,” Fontenot said to the media about the idea of friction between the Falcons and Cousins, per video from D. Orlando Ledbetter of the Atlanta Journal Constitution. “He shows up, he does his job, just like anybody ... We've gotta build the best 70-man roster so we can go win games. "That's what we're focused on, and Kirk, just like all the other players, is focused on coming in here and doing their job. That's what he's been doing." Fontenot didn't dismiss the idea that Atlanta would trade Cousins before the season. He said the Falcons will do whatever it takes to make the team better, but stressed that Cousins has been a professional throughout the process of being replaced by Michael Penix Jr., a first-round pick from the 2024 draft. “In terms of making moves, whether it's trades or acquiring players, we're always looking at those factors," Fontenot said. "We're gonna do whatever we can do to make this team the best it can possibly be. But he's been a great professional, and he's handled himself well.” Cousins is coming to work in a manner that will make another owner want to take a chance on the veteran quarterback. That could be one of his best-selling points before he plays in his 13th season in the league.

New report suggests Christian Wilkins release related to 'incident' with teammate
NFL

New report suggests Christian Wilkins release related to 'incident' with teammate

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Top three notable names to leave the NBA for Europe this summer
NBA

Top three notable names to leave the NBA for Europe this summer

There are only 450 spots in the NBA, 540 if you count two-way contracts. Each year, there's a group of players who hit the free-agency market and quietly fade into the obscurity of professional basketball outside of the NBA's bubble. Most of those players head overseas, either to Europe, Australia or China. In recent years, the jump from the NBA to Europe has grown in popularity. The talent level across the top European leagues has dramatically increased, with some teams now closing in on NBA levels of skill and athleticism. And with that talent increase, the pay has started to rise, too. It makes sense, then, that some notable names for NBA fans have made the jump across the Atlantic this summer. Here are the top three players to head to Europe since the start of the offseason. Lonnie Walker IV This time last summer, there was significant chatter about whether Lonnie Walker IV would earn the 15th and final spot on the Boston Celtics roster. The same roster that had won the NBA championship just months earlier. After seeing his Exhibit 10 deal with Boston expire, Walker ended up heading to Lithuania to play for Zalgiris Kaunas before the Philadelphia 76ers brought him back for the second half of the season. Now, after failing to secure a new contract with the Sixers, Walker is heading to Israel, where he's signed a three-year, $10 million deal with Maccabi Tel Aviv. Walker will now be one of the highest earners within all of European basketball. Oshae Brissett Walker will join Oshae Brissett over in Tel Aviv, as the former NBA champion has also signed with the franchise this summer. Brissett is just 18 months removed from playing a role on the Celtics roster that won the 2024 championship. Brissett doesn't have the athleticism and scoring skill that Walker brings to the table. As such, he won't be bringing home the same level of pay packet. However, he will undoubtedly be one of the better players, both in the Israeli league and in Europe. Brissett leaves the NBA having played in 233 games, averaging 6.6 points and 3.9 rebounds on 41.9 percent shooting from two-point range and 33.7 percent from deep. Shake Milton Nobody can deny that Shake Milton has outperformed expectations after entering the NBA as the 54th pick in the 2018 draft. He leaves the NBA having suited up for 359 regular-season games and 40 postseason outings. Milton has spent time with the Philadelphia 76ers, Minnesota Timberwolves, Detroit Pistons, New York Knicks, Brooklyn Nets and Los Angeles Lakers. Impressively, he's consistently earned playing time, regardless of what roster he's been on. Nevertheless, it would appear that Milton has sought out an opportunity where he can be a core member of a rotation. According to Donatas Urbonas of BasketNews, Milton has signed a two-year deal to play in Serbia for Partizan Belgrade. If he can adjust to the physicality of the Serbian league and the slightly different rules set, Milton could become a high-level player in the domestic league and perhaps even in Europe.

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