Rangers designate struggling HR king Davis for assignment
Former A’s slugger Khris Davis was designated for assignment Tuesday by the slumping Texas Rangers, a move more about the young team’s standing than the struggles of the veteran slugger.
Davis missed the first 34 games of the season because of a left quad strain, then hit .157 with two home runs and five RBIs in his 22 games. Texas got the 33-year-old Davis, who has a $16.75 million salary this season, when longtime starting shortstop Elvis Andrus was traded to the Athletics in February.
The Rangers recalled infielder/outfielder Eli White from Triple-A Round Rock. They have seven days to trade, release, or outright Davis to the minor leagues.
General manager Chris Young and manager Chris Woodward both said the team needs to find out about its young players, and there will now be more opportunities to do that.
Davis, 33, led the majors with 48 home runs in 2018 and has 220 career home runs and 585 RBIs over nine seasons.
NATIONALS’ VOTH ON IL WITH FRACTURED NOSE >> The Washington Nationals put pitcher Austin Voth on the 10-day injured list with a fractured nose on Tuesday.
Voth was sent to a Philadelphia hospital Sunday to get his nose reset after it was broken when he was hit by a pitch while squaring around to bunt against Philadelphia’s Vince Velasquez.
YANKEES’ COLE SAYS SPIN RATE DROP A MECHANICAL ISSUE >> The pitches Gerrit Cole threw in his last start weren’t rotating as much, and the New York Yankees ace said the spin rate dropoff was due to mechanical flaws — sidestepping a recent accusation that he cut back on tacky substances amid a Major League Baseball crackdown.
“I attribute it to just not being as good or as sharp as I wanted to be. It’s as simple as that,” Cole said Tuesday.
According to MLB Statcast data on the website Baseball Savant, Cole had a 125 rotations per minute decrease in his four-seam fastball last week when he allowed five runs in five innings in a loss to Tampa Bay. Cole, not quite halfway into the second season of a $324 million, nine-year contract, is third in MLB with 104 strikeouts.