MLB

The Boston Red Sox placed starting pitcher Walker Buehler on the 15-day injured list with inflammation in his pitching shoulder, manager Alex Cora told reporters on Friday.

"Miss two starts and hopefully be back as soon as the days are over," he said.

"We're working on a few things regarding Walker. We'll see where we're at over the weekend," Cora added. "He hasn't bounced back the way we wanted, so we have to wait."

Buehler, 30, signed a one-year, $21 million deal with the Red Sox this offseason. In six starts he's 4-1 with a 4.28 ERA, 1.22 WHIP and 28 strikeouts in 33.2 innings.

He was originally scheduled to start on Friday before being placed on the IL. Brayan Bello (2-0, 3.27 ERA) took his place.

Injuries have been a recurring theme in Buehler's career. He's undergone Tommy John surgery twice, with one of them costing him the entire 2022 season. He returned in May of last year for the Los Angeles Dodgers, making 16 starts, though he finished with a rough 5.38 ERA and 1.55 WHIP.

Starting pitching has been a bit of an issue for the Red Sox this season, outside of a strong campaign from Garrett Crochet to this point. Boston has already given nine different pitchers a start and had finally appeared to be back to full strength, with Lucas Giolito returning this week, only for Buehler to head to the IL.

In his absence, Sean Newcomb—who was moved back to the bullpen upon Giolito's return—could be reinserted into the starting rotation for the next two weeks.

Antonio Senzatela is one of the best pitchers to bet against in Major League Baseball.

The Colorado Rockies right-hander comes into Friday’s matchup against the San Francisco Giants with a 5.22 ERA and seven home runs allowed.

Senzatela’s brutal form on the mound to start 2025 is the perfect sight to see for the Giants after they failed to score more than four runs in each of their last six games.

Antonio Senzatela Over 5.5 Hits Allowed (-110)

The over on Senzatela’s hits allowed feels like a steal.

The 30-year-old right-hander gave up at least nine hits in his three road starts in 2025. He’s allowed at least six hits in every appearance this season.

Senzatela isn’t a strikeout pitcher—he only has 13 punchouts in six starts—and the opponents’ expected batting average against him is .342, per Baseball Savant.

Willy Adames Over 1.5 Total Bases (+105)

There’s a cornucopia of Giants batter props that look juicy because of the matchup against Senzatela.

Willy Adames is 2-for-7 with a homer against the right-handed hurler and he’s had a pair of two-hit performances in his last three games.

Adames is also a better hitter inside his new home ballpark. He has a .236 batting average in San Francisco, which is 23 points better than his away mark.

Most of his success has come against righties. He has a .256 average, 21 hits and both of his home runs off right-handed pitching.

Heliot Ramos Home Run (+700)

Heliot Ramos has done most of his major damage against right-handed pitching.

Four of his five homers have come against righties.

Senzatela has allowed seven home runs in 2025, six of which have come against right-handed bats.

It’s the ideal matchup for Ramos, and the +700 price looks spectacular compared to Matt Chapman at +400 or Adames at +425.

Click into the DraftKings display below for more on this game and the rest of tonight's schedule.

New York Yankees manager Aaron Boone revealed that infielder Jazz Chisholm Jr. could miss roughly four to six weeks with an oblique injury, per Bryan Hoch of MLB.com.

The Yankees announced Friday that they placed Chisholm on the 10-day injured list with a right oblique strain, retroactive to Wednesday.

Chisholm suffered the injury during the first inning of New York's 15-3 win over the Baltimore Orioles on Tuesday.

He appeared to be uncomfortable in his first at-bat of the game, holding his side after fouling off the first pitch. Chisholm stayed in and hit a double, but was replaced by a pinch runner on the bases and didn't return.

The 27-year-old wasn't too worried about the oblique issue after the game.

“I’m really not as concerned as everybody else,” Chisholm said, via Hoch. “I feel pretty good. I’ve torn my oblique before, so I know it’s not like torn or anything. I can cough without any pain or anything like that. It’s just to be cautious and not try to overdo it.”

The former All-Star is in the midst of his second year in New York, as the team traded for him in the middle of the 2024 season. Chisholm excelled after the swap, recording 11 home runs and 23 RBIs to go along with an .825 OPS in 46 games following the deal.

He wasn't off to a hot start to open his 2025 campaign, owning a .181/.304/.410 slash line in 30 appearances despite racking up seven homers.

Until Chisholm is able to return, New York could rely on infielder Jorbit Vivas after calling him up on Friday.

Vivas has recorded 30 hits in 26 games with Triple-A Scranton/Wilkes-Barre during his 2025 campaign.

Amid a series of complaints from players about the strike zone so far this season, MLB has denied that changes were made to the size of the zone.

In a statement to The Athletic's Jayson Stark, Ken Rosenthal and Eno Sarris, an MLB official explained the zone hasn't changed and umpires haven't been instructed to call balls and strikes differently:

"The rulebook strike zone has not changed and we have not instructed umpires to call a different strike zone. In response to consistent player and club desire to have umpires evaluated more closely to the rulebook strike zone, we agreed with the MLB Umpires Association in their new CBA to reduce the size of the ‘buffer’ around the border of the strike zone, which essentially protects an umpire from being graded ‘incorrect’ on extremely close misses."

The Athletic's report details players' frustrations after MLB negotiated a deal with the Major League Umpires Association to change how home-plate umps are graded and evaluated.

A key change in the deal involved the "buffer zone" that umps are given as part of their evaluation. It had been two inches on all four areas of the zone (both sides, top, and bottom) but is now set at .75 inches.

Los Angeles Angels catcher Travis d'Arnaud told The Athletic that his research found there have been around 250 more close pitches that were called balls so far this year compared to the same point in 2024.

"We pulled the numbers of strikes that were called balls in the first week of the season, this year versus last year," d’Arnaud said. "Last year, there were like 300 or so. This year, (we found) like 550 at the same point in time, with strikes that are called balls."

The MLB official also said that teams were informed of the change when the new umpire collective bargaining agreement was finalized and "overall ball-strike accuracy in 2025 is the highest it has ever been through this point in the season."

Per Baseball Savant, the 12.8 percent rate of pitches in the zone that were called balls during the first month of the 2025 season was the highest rate for the first month of any season since 2017.

Despite MLB's official's insistence that all 30 clubs were informed of the buffer-zone change, The Athletic noted more than two dozen people, including managers, front-office executives and sources with ties to the MLBPA, said they had "no recollection" of any briefing from the league.

All of this is happening as MLB is looking to potentially implement the automated ball-strike system in the 2026 season. The system utilizes a challenge system with a fixed zone.

It was used in 13 ballparks during spring training this year, with a 52.2 percent success rate on the 1,182 calls that were challenged.

Just over one month into the 2025 MLB season, the San Francisco Giants and Baltimore Orioles are on opposite ends of the vibes spectrum, and people within the league have taken notice.

In a poll of 20 front-office executives conducted by MLB.com's Mark Feinsand, the Giants were voted as the biggest surprise so far this season and the Orioles were deemed to be the biggest disappointment.

San Francisco received eight votes, finishing ahead of the Athletics (five), Chicago Cubs (three) and San Diego Padres (three). The New York Yankees were the only other team to receive a vote.

The Giants, who won between 79 and 81 games in each of the past three seasons, are currently tied with the Cubs for the fourth-best record in the NL (19-13).

"They’re playing really well in a tough division," one American League executive told Feinsand. "The pitching has exceeded expectations, and Jung Hoo Lee has been a catalyst."

Interestingly, the Giants have done this despite their big free-agent acquisition, Willy Adames, being voted the biggest disappointment among players so far. He is hitting .218/.298/.306 and is tied for 151st out of 164 qualified position players in FanGraphs' wins above replacement (minus-0.4) after signing a seven-year, $182 million contract in December.

The driving force of San Francisco's success thus far has been pitching. The staff ranks fourth in the NL in ERA (3.64) and fWAR (3.9).

Pitching is also a big reason the Orioles are atop the most disappointing list and at the bottom of the AL East with a 12-18 record. Their 5.47 team ERA ranks ahead of only the Miami Marlins (5.89).

The Orioles were overwhelmingly the top choice in the most disappointing category. They received 12 votes, nine more than any other team.

One NL executive explained voting for the Orioles:

"I thought the lineup would carry them, even if the rotation was just OK. But injuries to the rotation and underperformance by most of the remaining starters have been too much to overcome, especially given that a number of their position players—[Gunnar] Henderson, [Heston] Kjerstad, [Tyler] O’Neill and [Adley] Rutschman have struggled as well."

Baltimore is one of three teams with a starting staff that has a collective ERA over 6.00, along with the Marlins and Colorado Rockies. The Rockies (6-25) are on pace to be worse than the 2024 Chicago White Sox.

Compounding the pitching issues is that Gunnar Henderson, Tyler O'Neill and Heston Kjerstad have all been below-average hitters by OPS+ so far. Adley Rutschman and Jackson Holliday are over the average threshold, but just barely.

The Orioles were widely criticized for not being aggressive to add pitching in the offseason, especially after losing key contributors like Corbin Burnes and Anthony Santander.

Baltimore's biggest pitching expenditure was a one-year, $15 million deal for 41-year-old Charlie Morton. He has more earned runs allowed (28) than innings pitched (26.2) so far this season.

One benefit of the MLB season being 162 games is that the standings now don't necessarily indicate what they will be in September.

On this date last year, for instance, only three of the six eventual division winners were in first place. The Houston Astros were tied for the second-worst record in the AL, ahead of only the White Sox. They went 77-53 the rest of the way to win the division.