AROUND THE HORN
Padres:
Padres slugger Manny Machado has a small fracture in his left hand and the team isn’t sure if he will require a stint on the injured list. Machado was hurt when he was hit by a pitch in Monday night’s 4-0 win against the Royals. Padres manager Bob Melvin said X-rays that night didn’t show a fracture, but Machado had a CT scan and MRI on Tuesday that revealed a fractured metacarpal. After a 4-3 loss to the Royals on Wednesday, the star third baseman was asked if going on the injured list is a possibility. “I don’t know. We’ll see,” Machado said. The slumping Padres lost two of three to the last-place Royals and have dropped nine of 11 overall. “It’s definitely a tough stretch for us,” said Machado, who’s hitting .231 with five homers and 19 RBIs. “We definitely want to be out there and help this team win in whatever way. It’s just a bummer. It’s not ideal for us right now.” The Padres were off Thursday before opening a weekend series against the Red Sox. “The swelling’s gone down tremendously. I definitely have more range of motion today. It’s just a matter of dealing with the pain,” said Machado, an All-Star each of the last two seasons who was runner-up in NL MVP voting last year. He said he hasn’t tried gripping a bit since he got hurt. “We’re kind of giving it a couple of days to let the bone heal for a little bit before we move on to something else,” Machado said.
Marlins: Eury Perez pitched five solid innings for his first major league win, Bryan De La Cruz extended his hitting streak to a career-high 12 games, and the Marlins swept the visiting Nationals with a 5-3 win Thursday.
The victory stretched the Marlins’ winning streak to four games. With the Mets struggling, the Marlins (23-21) are second in the NL East behind the defending division champion Braves (27-16). Although it’s early, it’s a welcomed sign for a team that has had one winning season — the pandemic-shortened 2020 season — in 14 years. Perez made his MLB debut last Friday at 20 years and 27 days, becoming the youngest pitcher in team history. He allowed three hits, walked one and struck out six on Thursday. His fastball reached 98.3 mph. Perez is on an inning and pitch limit and was replaced by Matt Barnes in the sixth. Jeimer Candelario tagged Perez (1-0) in the fourth with a solo shot that went 443 feet to center for his fifth HR of the season.
Angels: Shohei Ohtani homered in the first and hit a tiebreaking infield single in the eighth, and Hunter Renfroe’s terrific defensive play in the ninth helped the Angels hold on for a 6-5 victory over the host Orioles. Mike Trout also went deep for the Angels, and Anthony Santander and Adley Rutschman homered for the Orioles. Rutschman’s two-run shot in the seventh gave the Orioles a 5-4 lead, but it was short-lived. Bryan Baker (3-1) allowed a single and a walk with one out in the eighth, and then Austin Voth came on and yielded an RBI single to pinch-hitter Gio Urshela. After a strikeout, Voth hit Trout with a pitch to load the bases. Lefthander Danny Coulombe came in to face Ohtani, who ripped a grounder to the right side. 1B Ryan Mountcastle made a diving stop, but Ohtani easily beat Coulombe to the bag and the go-ahead run came home.