Texas Rangers linked to trade for Braves slugger Marcell Ozuna by Jeff Passan, is he worth the cost?

Texas Rangers linked to trade for Braves slugger Marcell Ozuna by Jeff Passan, is he worth the cost?

The Rangers keep winning series in the second half. They might be the best team in baseball in July, making themselves buyers at the trade deadline, but the best insider in the sport has the Rangers linked to a bat that has me saying absolutely no thank you. We’re talk about all that and more this episode of Lock on Rangers. Let’s get into it. You are Locked On Rangers, your daily Texas Rangers podcast, part of the Locked On podcast network. Your team every day. You are locked onto the Texas Rangers, the first and best daily Rangers podcast. I’m Bryce Patrick, a grippingly addicted Texas Rangers fan, covering this team for 12 seasons, including all seven as the founder and host of this podcast. Thank you all so much for making Lock Rangers your first listen every single day. If not, you can follow me on Twitter, Brycepatrick. can follow the show at lockdown rangers. Hit subscribe on your favorite podcasting platform and on YouTube where the best way you can help grow the show is to comment nearly any single thing below. Now, on today’s show, we’re talking about the Rangers winning yet another series, maybe Jacob Gro’s best start this season, the offense finding its footing, and the Rangers being linked to a trade target by Jeff Passen that has me saying absolutely no thank you. Before we get into all that, this episode is brought to you by Monarch Money. Take control of your finances with Monarch Money. Use code lockdown mob at monarchmoney.com for 50% off your first year. Now, the Rangers won the first two games of this series against the Oakland no longer Oakland A’s thanks to the likes of Jacob Deg Grom getting his 10th win of the season. He is now 10 and two with a 22A erra after giving up a leadoff home run to Lawrence Butler on a pitch that was, you know, not terrible. A slider and a two- strike count that just caught a little bit too much of the zone. Lawrence Butler hits that one into the seats. Jagg is pissed and he goes to work. He retires the next 10 batters in a row. He finishes the day with three hits allowed, one walk, nine strikeouts, and he was just mowing down these A’s hitters. The swings and misses were off the charts in this one. 28 whiffs in this game, including 10 on the forcing fast ball, 11 on the slider. Seven out of 10 swings resulted in whiffs on the change up, which was downright diabolical in this one. And oh, by the way, he had those 28 whiffs on just 86 pitches. Ends up going just six innings. Think that’s about the limit of what we’re going to see for Jacob Deg Grom from now until the end of the season or at least until the postseason. This is limited pitch count is just kind of where we’re at with Deg Grom who at this point in the season has pitched more than I thought he would pitch for the entire year. He has made 20 starts. His 20 starts lead the Texas Rangers. He also leads them in innings with 118 in a third innings. 122 strikeouts on the year. He has now has more strikeouts than innings pitched on the season. And he has just been special. Just so incredibly special to watch and watch him just honestly bully bully opposing hitter. It has been just brutal for anybody trying to stand up to Jacob Grom. His last 15 starts he has a 197 RA 96 Ks in 91 and a third innings. just overall on the year making 20 starts in general. I wasn’t sure he was going to quite get there. And if he did, I thought there would be at least one or two, you know, two week, three week stints on the IIL with a oh, his his uh knee or something is acting up. Not a phantom IIL stint, but but kind of a injury load management kind of I stent for Jake Deg Grom. with the Rangers having so many good starting pitchers this year, even with, you know, the entire season missed from Cody Bradford and what Patrick Corbin has been able to give them, who will end up starting this final game of the series against the A’s. Uh, and Jacob Latz coming in with some spot spot starts. And now John Gray coming back and possibly getting some spot starts and overall a pretty solid season for the two rookies out of Vanderbilt in Jack Lighter and Kamar Rocker. And also what the Raiders got from Tyler Mi and Nathan Ealdi being the best, one of the best pitchers in baseball this year, if not the best per inning. We’ll see Nathan Evaldi a little bit later this week, but he has not been able to match the durability of Jacob Deg Grom who, you know, was thought to be just a broken man, a man that was erist. He was just flew too close to the side. He threw too perfectly to be able to stay healthy. I mean, this was a guy who had the best season I’ve ever seen by any pitcher ever. And it was only 15 starts in 2021. The man was unhitable. And if not for his last two starts where I believe he gave up two and maybe three earned runs, his RA jumped up to 115. It was below one on the year because this guy at his peak is just unreal. Excuse me. It was a 108 RA in 15 starts in 92 innings with 146 strikeouts in 2021. 146 strikeouts in 92 innings and a erra barely above one. That’s a half season worth of starts that I still think he should have won the Sai Young for how incredible he was even though he only pitched in 15 games that year. But since then, that’s the most he’s pitched since the 2020 shortened season. Every year before that though, he was relatively pretty healthy. He only made 24 starts in 2016. But outside of that, he made basically every start from the time he was called up in 2014 as a rookie. 22 starts that year, 30 the next year, 31 in 2017, 32 in 2018 when he won his first Sai Young, 32 in 2019 when he won his second Sai Young, 12 in the COVID shorten season in 2020 where he should have won his third Sai Young because I still think he was the best pitcher in the National League that year. better than Udarvish with the Cubs and better than Trevor Bower who ended up winning the Sai Young in that shortened season. Should have been his third Sai Young and that should have locked him up as a surefire Hall of Famer, which I still think he will be, especially if he continues pitching like this into his late 30s. I mean, we’re already there at his late 30s. He is now 37 years old and he is still the best pitcher on earth. Maybe Terrick school has a little bit of a case more than him right now. Maybe you feel more inclined towards Paul skins or or maybe you just really love Garrett Crochet, but this guy is definitely in the conversation. You cannot have that conversation without him because he is so important to this Rangers team. And I thought that we’d maybe get 15 to 20 starts in the regular season and this offense would a be able to carry this pitching staff all the way through this regular season. And that hasn’t been the case. The pitching staff has absolutely been carrying this offense. And now as the pitching staff starts to kind of fall back down to earth a little bit, which I think is only natural. I mean, they’ve been without Tyler Mi for about a month and a half at this point. Jack Lighter and Kamar Rocker are kind of settling in a little bit more. Lighter is they’re both due for occasional blowup starts, but for the most part, they’ve been pretty solid. They’re also due for the occasional just gem of a start. and Patrick Corbin as your number four or number five starter giving you a sub4 RA in 18 games and 99 innings at this point. That’s more than you could have ever have possibly asked. And oh, by the way, Nathan Evolved in his 16 starts has a 1 and a half erra. A one and a half erra, which is somehow better than Jacob Der’s exceptional 228. I mean, this guy has seen the A’s so many times this season as well, and there is nothing they are learning from those starts. There is nothing no edge they are gaining on Jacob Deg Grom. He still got basically three pitches. He threw one whole curveball in this one just just because he could. But his first start of the year against the A’s, I mean, Rangers ended up blowing that start. That was in Sutter Health Park in Yolo County. Five of third innings, two runs, six strikeouts. Okay, that was his worst start of the year against the A’s. In this one, he just absolutely dominated them with six innings and the only blemish being that solo homer. He also had that start against them the very next outing where he went six shutout innings on just 65 pitches with seven strikeouts because that was the game that the Rangers offense opened up a can of whoop you know what on April 29th. And we thought, okay, maybe this Rangers offense is fixed. And then the range ended up firing Donnie Eker about a week, not even a week after that. I I think it was within like five days or so of that breakout game. But Deg Grom in the third time he’s faced this team, still absolutely nothing they learned. Maybe even his best start against them. May maybe not quite as good as the six shut out innings with incredibly economical pitch count and a 12 run lead. But in a game that was close, this offense really needed to rally late. Something they have not been doing this season, they did. And the best three hitters in this Rangers lineup, or at least the three biggest bats in this Rangers lineup, did something they hadn’t done since 2023. Talk about all that and more right after this. This show is brought to you by Monarch Money. Ever wish managing your money felt easier? With Monarch Money, it can be. Whether you’re growing your savings or you’re planning a big purchase, Monarch puts you in the driver’s seat. It’s like having your own personal CFO give you full visibility and control over your finances. Monarch Money is more than just a budgeting app. It’s a complete financial command center. You can track all your accounts, investments, and spending in one place. So, just in addition to managing your money, you’re not just managing it, you’re also building your wealth. And with Monarch Money, I started using it and I saw how much money I was spending on delivery, food delivery. 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Shout out to every picking lockdown rangers your first listen every single day on tomorrow’s show I’ll be talking about the final game of this a series a little bit more of a look at what the Rangers might could should would do at this trade deadline as well all that on tomorrow’s episode of locked on Rangers but this offense came to life this offense specifically the three biggest bats in this Rangers lineup now Josh Smith I think has been one of the two or three best hitters in this Rangers lineup, but I wouldn’t describe his bat as big, mainly just because of the home run ball, which the Rangers had three of in this one. One from Marcus Simeon, one from Adulles Garcia, and a massive one from Cory Seager. A three-run bomb by Seager that really put this game completely out of reach. Adulles Garcia hit his home run to tie the game in the fourth inning. Marcus Seaman hit his home run in the sixth inning, which I did not see until replay review because uh Victory Plus was having some issues. Honestly, a little surprising that it’s taken this long into the season, game what, 102, for Victory Plus to just have a straightup outage in the middle of a game. Pretty impressive for a service that’s really only existed since fall of last year. still incredibly frustrating, but I honestly got to give props to them for, you know, working out most of the bugs during that Star season. But anyway, on replay review, even with all the replay reviews of Marcus Simmons home run that he hit off the foul pool, it gave the Rangers that 2-1 lead, that wouldn’t quite be enough for the Rangers to finish off this run because they did give up another run in the eighth inning when Robert Garcia gave up an RBI single. But the quality of the played appearances early on in this game were just not great. They they were not great by JT against JT Gin Jyn. One of those two I swear at one point I might finally get it. But they only got the one run off of JT who had a 4 and a half erra an RA north of four and a half heading into this game. He was not even a starter. He only threw 58 pitches to get through those five innings. It was just incredibly frustrating to watch because he didn’t really have a great grip of the strike zone early on. These Rangers hitters were expanding the zone and after a leadoff walk, Cory Seager hits into a double play and then Marcus Simeon grounds out a after just an inning where he did not have command of the strike zone. The Rangers were swinging first pitch early on in counts and giving him easy outs. very very quick manageable innings for JT Gin who had a lead over Jacob Deg Grom for way too long. Way too long in this game. Multiple different double plays after leadoff base runners. Just incredibly frustrating and just some really frustrating at bats and played appearances by White Langford. He did have an uh infield single in this one, but a couple of strikeouts including one on a change up. three pitches that he saw that were all strikes that he did not excuse me five pitches that he saw did not take the bat off his shoulder. The final pitch it called strike three a change up could not be more center cut and early on in this game against JT the three pitches that he swung at that were all out of the zone that were nowhere close to being strikes that he just had been swinging out of his shoes. His strikeout rate has jumped up astronomically from last year to near 30% where last year he was around 20%. He was below league average with the strikeout rate. I really think that the firing of Donnie Eker has really impacted Wyatt Langford the most. I mean, he was absolutely on fire for the first month of this season. Just truly a flame. The only Rangers hitter that I could say was hitting incredibly well for the whole first month of the season. But he’s really taken a couple of steps back since Donnie Eker has been no longer with the team. He’s still an incredibly talented hitter. I still think he’s going to figure it out. It’s just been a little frustrating to watch after an incredible final month of his rookie season in 2024 and an incredible first month of the season in 2025 that he has been just taking a little bit more of a step back as of late. But this offense, the big three bats homering of Cory Seager, Marcus Simeon, and Adidas Garcia, they had not all homerred in the same game since September 24th of 2023. Somehow they didn’t do it in that postseason run. There were a couple of games. You may remember one very famous one where Dolles and Corey homerred in the same game. I can’t remember exactly where it was. I think it was, you know, game one of that World Series. There was also game four where Marcus and Cory both homered against the Diamondbacks and Cory homered in a lot of those games against those Diamondbacks. And even in game seven where Adulles and of the ALCS where Adulas and Cory Seager both homered in that game. Both incredibly big homers. Excuse me. Adulles Garcia homered twice in that game. So those three did combine for three home runs in that game seven of the ALCS. But this offense being back, truly back for basically a month at this point is an incredibly big storyline to watch, especially as we flip it ahead to what this team is going to do at the deadline. They have been linked to a couple of bats. We’ll talk about that a little bit later on, but in the month of July, this team has the best run differential in baseball. They are at plus 48 in 17 games. They are 11-6 in the month of July. They have scored 99 runs, which is the most in baseball. They’ve allowed just 51 runs, which I believe is the fewest in baseball. So, the best team, they should be the best team in baseball. And still, they are only I say only 11 and six. They should be a lot better at this point. They should have a lot better record in this month. But this is the team that is really starting to put it together. If the offense can, you know, stay consistent, stay good, stay dominant, then I’m not sure what they do at this deadline. The main priority is just keeping themselves from being sellers at the deadline. And you know, while while most of the damage was done with those three home runs with the Adollas, with the Marcus, and with the Cory Seager home run, I really got to give some love to what is was an incredible played appearance by Josh Smith in a close close game with runners on first and second, and some two out hitting, some two out run scoring that this offense hadn’t done for the early first three months of this season. It was just a great at bat by Josh Smith against a lefty. Comes in to face him with runners on first and second with two outs. The Rangers were able to start a rally with two outs and hand it over to the top of this lineup. That did their job. I mean, a great played appearance by Josh Smith, working a five pitch at bat and then singling a ball, a fast ball at the top of the zone, 94 and a half miles an hour by Hogan Harris all the way to the opposite field, scoring a run, giving the Rangers one run of cushion and then turning it over to Cory Seager, who did what he does best. He took a swinging strike on a forseam fast that was, you know, right in his wheelhouse. I didn’t expect him to miss that swing by Hogan Harris who then tries to back door or front door a sweeper to him. Lefty on lefty. And instead of it just catching the very tip of the plate, it hits the heart of the plate. And Cory Zigger says, “Thank you. I’ll take that three-run homer all the way to the bank. A 61 game.” The Rangers would not relinquish that lead because the bullpen came in and did their jobs. Luke Jackson who got himself into a little bit of a pickle based on uh a little bit of bloop luck. When you’re not striking out a whole lot of guys, you can be more the recipient of bad luck with batted ball data. But hey, once he got himself with those two runners on base, he hunkered down and did not allow a run. Robert Garcia does end up allowing a run on an unearned run on his own error, a throwing error on a a just weakly hit ground ball right in front of him. He does end up getting a strikeout and lowers his erra to 279. And then Shawn Armstrong comes in, works around a single and strikes out three. This bullpen is just so darn nasty. But could it be nastier? Could this offense that has been one of the best in baseball in the month of July be getting even better? We’re going to talk about a couple ways that that could happen and one way I’d really rather it didn’t happen. All that and more right after this. This show is brought to you by Open Phone. If you’re running a business, you know that every missed call is money left on the table. 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No missed calls, no missed customers. Shout out to everyday making locked on range your first listen every single day after every single game. Jeff Biggs is with you for the Locked On Rangers postcast, reacting live to every single game right after it’s happening live on YouTube on in your podcast feeds wherever you get your Locked On Rangers podcast. Now, the Rangers are probably going to be buyers at the trade deadline. It seems like at this point they have won three four out of their first five games since the second half started. Hopefully they will make that a five out of six and then uh may maybe they just make this an eight out of nine win home stand to start this second half. That would be ideal because right now this Rangers team is firmly in the mix. Firmly, very firmly, not softly in the mix. They are absolutely right in the thick of it. Now, they’re still a little ways out in the division because the stinky Houston Astros have uh just cobbled together three wins in a row, including one in very frustrating fashion against the Arizona Diamondbacks, who rudely will not help out the Texas Rangers who beat them in the World Series. That that would have been nice of them to help the Rangers out. But the Rangers are still seven and a half back in the division, but they are right in the hunt in that wildcard race. The Rangers are just one and a half games back of the Boston Red Sox who have lost two straight. Rangers have won two straight. They are just six and four in their last 10 games after that 10-game winning streak that propelled the Red Sox ahead of the Rangers. The only team in between the Rangers and the Red Sox is the Tampa Bay Rays who are just one game ahead of the Rangers. Then you look at the top two wild card spots ahead of that. I mean, the Mariners are just one game ahead of the Boston Red Sox. The Rangers are two and a half back of the second wild card and they’re well four and a half back of the first wild card which is the New York Yankees at this point. So this team is very much in the hunt. There’s a couple of teams that are right there behind them. The Guardians are just one game behind the Rangers. The Angels are a a game and a half behind the Rangers, excuse me, two and a half games behind the Rangers. Same with the Twins. The Royals are three games back and they’re the Royals. I don’t know if they’re going to end up being buyers at the deadline. The Angels might think of themselves as buyers. I I don’t see why that would make any logical sense for the Angels to be buyers at the deadline, especially the Rangers can go in there and take two out of three or Lord willing all three in Anaheim next week to make up for what should have been a mop in Anaheim before the second half before the first half ended. But at this point, the Rangers, it it seems like they’re pretty well established unless they fall off a cliff and start if they lose three straight. They can’t afford to take any steps back. They need to keep winning every single game, which it was a little confusing why Robert Garcia was coming in in a fiveun game. But every win in matters incredibly much right now. Every win is so crucial from this point until July the final game on July 30th because the trade deadline is before the Rangers game on July 31st. So the Rangers do not have very many games to establish themselves to Chris Young as hey we need to be buyers or at the very least not sellers because with some of the players that the Rangers have been linked to I don’t really want them to be buyers. Now today in to morning this morning Jeff Passen of ESPN released his trade deadline bonanza just kind of an overall ultimate trade deadline preview is uh what he called it. Um he listed the Rangers as their status is adding but not allin which I feel like is spoton but he said their biggest needs are DH catcher and first base which I don’t see the Rangers trading for a DH. They already have a DH that they’re paying a lot of money who has been very consistent. And I really think that adding him back to this lineup that is hitting on all cylinders, at least for the most part, most cylinders right now, hitting on significantly more cylinders than they were before. I think that Jo Peterson will be closer to the version of Jock Peterson that we’ve seen in years past or at least for the vast majority of his career than he was as the worst hitter in baseball for the first two months of the season before he broke his hand. Now, we probably won’t see Jock Peterson until the very least August, probably mid August. I don’t think it would take all the way till September for him to come back, but there’s a lot of bones in the hand. And uh that can be a tricky recovery. But with this Rangers lineup clicking a whole lot more, I think Peterson can take a lot of that pressure off of himself. But the player that the Rangers were linked to that I was alluding to earlier is Marcelo, a DH for the Atlanta Braves. He is on an expiring contract and last year he was one of the best hitters in baseball. But this year you may look at his numbers and think, okay, this is a guy who’s a pretty good hitter. It would be a pretty big improvement on the Rangers lineup right now because they keep using one of their catchers as DH and uh while Higgy uh has been hitting a lot better, he might be missing some time, which would be incredibly unfun. Higgy was pulled from the game with hamstring tightness once he got to second base before that three- win homer by Cory Seager. He was feeling some tightness in his hamstring. He didn’t think that he’d be able to score from second on a base hit. He couldn’t get anyone’s attention to get pulled from that game. Um but it ended up coming to light after when he went into the dugout after trotting around the bases after that Cory Seager three-run bomb. He has been on fire as of late and that would be a massive loss for this Rangers team. As for first base, I don’t see them adding at first base. Even though Jake Burgerer is going to be out for another week or two at this point with his quad strain, I don’t see the Rangers, who literally just this off season traded for a first baseman, trading more prospects for a first baseman. I did my top 30 prospects last week, and you can go back and listen to those episodes, and you could hear it the way I’m talking about this farm system. It’s not deep. There are some really good players at the top of this farm system. I really like what Gavin Fiend is going to bring this Rangers team who was listed as the Rangers number four prospect according to Baseball America. Uh the second best position player prospect in on this Rangers team behind just Sebastian Walcott ahead of the Rangers last year selection in the first round. Malcolm Moore who has been uh a little bit inconsistent so far this year after dealing with an injury that took a big chunk out of his season. incredibly frustrating um for them at that point. But Ozuna, who is owed $16 million this year, he’s a free agent at the end of the year. He’s 34 years old. Uh he’s been playing through injury. You look at his numbers and overall they’re pretty positive. I mean, he’s got a 110 ops plus at this point. U excuse me, one uh yeah, 112 ops plus at this point. A 750 OPS, but he’s slugging below 400. He’s got 13 homers, a 361 OBP, but a lot of that’s booied by what he was doing early on this season. He had a really, really good month of April/March, he had a 915 OPS there. The month of May, he had an 850 ops. But in the month of June, he was awful. A 550 OPS because he’s been playing through a hip issue that he should have been on the IIL to get it fixed. But for some reason, the Braves keep trying him out there, even though they have two very good hitting catchers, one of which who should be getting a lot more everyday DH appearances than they are getting right now. And not to mention Marcelo Bazuna’s off the- field issues, not a guy who I feel great rooting for, who was arrested on a DUI charge, pled no contest to that back in 2021. That was after he was arrested and charged with battery and aggravated assault by strangulation. uh not exactly uh the A+ human you want on your team. If the Rangers do win a World Series this year, I’d hope they could do it uh with someone on their team without someone on their team who uh is accused credibly of uh domestic violence. Not exactly what I would want. Let’s let’s see let’s see if it feels better without someone on this team that has that. But overall, the Raiders already have a DH. They already have a hitter who they’re paying a lot of money, not just this year and next year. And just adding this guy for what, two weeks or so, who has already been one of the worst hitters in baseball, the Raiders already have an overpaid DH who has had truly horrific stretches. They do not need to add another one. But you look at the rest of the hitters on this trade block or that could be on the trade block. I think the Rangers will be outbid by whoever they are going for. I I just don’t see that much of an upgrade. Awesome. He’s played 100 games this year. He has 36 home runs and 86 RBI’s for the Diamondbacks. He was an all-star for just the second time in his career this year. He has been one of the most consistent power hitters in all of baseball for basically the last eight years or so. I mean, he had he’s had 20 plus home runs in every full season since 2016. Every season since 2016, and even in the COVID shortened 2020 season, he had 15 moms in 57 games. He also had a career-high 49 back in 2019 with Cincinnati. This year, he is on pace to possibly beat that. This has just been such a consistent hitter. But there are going to be other teams that are more desperate and have deeper farm systems than the Rangers that are going to unload the farm for a rental Aeno Suarez who’s going to be a free agent at the end of this year. I think they might also unload the farm for another Arizona Diamondbacks slugger in Josh Naylor at first base. I don’t see the Rangers making a trade there. They Jeff Pass also has the Rangers biggest need listed as catcher. I don’t see the Rangers making a move for there’s not really a catcher on the market that could really help this Rangers team. And if Higgy just keeps hitting like he’s been hitting the last 15 games for the rest of the season, that’s a whole lot close to the version of Kyle Higasha the Rangers thought they were getting when they signed him to that 2-year deal this off season. And if this offense just continues to be about this good or anywhere close to this good because they’ve been exceptional. 99 runs in 17 games in this month is exceptional offense. Basically doubling their opponent’s runs for the month of July. This is a team that, you know, I don’t know how much help they particularly need outside of their own guys just performing like expected. They might end up being buyers for a reliever at the deadline. Evan Grant says if the Rangers do end up being buyers at this deadline, relief health is probably where they go, but I mean with Chris Martin on the aisle, I think that’s the only reason that this team would end up going and making a move for reliever, but I’m always terrified of trading for reliever cuz usually you end up giving up guys. Those are end up being guys that you give up in the prospect hole for that that end up hurting you the most. It just feels like consistently that’s what happens. And when the Rangers were kind of half buyers at last year’s deadline, they end up giving up Chase Lee who has been fantastic with the Detroit Tigers for two months of Carson Kelly who was truly abysmal with the Rangers and then this year with the Cubs has just been like one of the best hitting catchers in all of baseball. I don’t I don’t know how that happened. There’s also a chance the Rangers might make a move for Jiren Durant, but again, I would think that would necessitate the Rangers moving on from Adolles Garcia because the Rangers outfield is is pretty well spoken for for this year and for the next couple of years to come. Even with Langford struggles as of late, he’s still an incredibly great player. They still have Evan Carter out there in center field for the next few years. And I don’t see the Rangers trying to make a move of a guy that’s so big in the clubhouse like Adoleis Garcia. So I think at this point the Rangers might just their best option might just be to stand pat stand by and let the reinforcements that you have coming back in Josh Bors in John Gray. Then eventually when Chris Martin comes back and when Jack Peterson comes back just let those guys be enough to figure out, hey, we’ve got a decent team. we don’t need to sell off so we can keep competing next year, not deplete this farm, and just keep yourselves in it and see if the guys that brought you here are good enough to take you all the way. That’s going to do it for today’s show. Thank you’all so much for listening and subscribing. And until next time, don’t forget to enjoy baseball.

The Texas Rangers continue to stack up wins with Jacob deGrom dominating the A’s lineup as homers by Adolis Garcia, Marcus Semien and Corey Seager powered the offense.

ESPN insider Jeff Passan linked the Texas Rangers as a possible trade destination for Atlanta Braves slugger Marcell Ozuna. Ozuna is a DH who was one of the best hitters in MLB last season, but is playing through a hip injury and struggling mightily. Ozuna has also been arrested for drinking and driving as well as charged with aggravated assault and strangulation against his wife in 2021.

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