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Boston Red Sox slugger David Ortiz may be headed for retirement after the 2016 season, but his thoughts about the future of the team’s roster could land him in hot water with MLB. 

On Friday, ESPN.com’s Scott Lauber reported MLB is “looking into” whether Ortiz violated the league’s tampering policy when he made comments regarding Miami Marlins ace Jose Fernandez and Toronto Blue Jays designated hitter Edwin Encarnacion during the All-Star break. 

“The Red Sox know, also, that they need to bring force into the middle of the lineup,” Ortiz said, per Thomas Kane of Boston.com. “And, sorry Blue Jays, but who better to do that than Encarnacion?”

Ortiz had this to say about Fernandez, according to the Boston Herald‘s Evan Drellich: “He has incredible stuff. I thought he was going to end up playing with me this year. I mean, you never know. I want him in my starting rotation. I mean, we need a little bit of help and hopefully that happens at some point, who knows?”

“There aren’t any indications that MLB will take disciplinary action in the form of a fine or suspension, but it’s possible Ortiz could receive a warning letter from the league office,” Lauber reported.

Ortiz brushed off the suggestion Friday.

“Tampering? I don’t write no paycheck,” he said, per Lauber. “I can say whatever I want. I’m not a GM or a team owner or whatever. I mean, if I say tomorrow that I want to play with LeBron James, is that tampering, too?”

Boston may not be able to nab Fernandez before the Aug. 1 trade deadline, but the team has been active on the trade market over the last week.

After acquiring closer Brad Ziegler on Saturday in a trade with the Arizona Diamondbacks, the Red Sox flipped prized pitching prospect Anderson Espinoza to the San Diego Padres in exchange for All-Star southpaw Drew Pomeranz on Thursday, according to the San Diego Union-Tribune‘s Dennis Lin. 

When it comes to finding Ortiz’s replacement, it is worth noting Encarnacion will become an unrestricted free agent when his contract expires following the 2016 season.

Contract information courtesy of Spotrac.

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The New York Yankees (44-44) have not enjoyed much success against the Boston Red Sox (49-38) so far this season but will try to move one step closer to evening the score when they host their American League East rivals in the opener of a three-game series Friday.

The Yankees have dropped four of the first six meetings this year, although they are listed as solid -140 favorites (bet $140 to win $100) at sportsbooks monitored by Odds Shark with Michael Pineda (3-8, 5.38 ERA) on the mound for Friday.

Pineda had been pitching better recently until he suffered his eighth loss on the road against the Chicago White Sox last Wednesday. The big righty gave up five runs and five hits in six innings of a 5-0 loss at Chicago with three walks and five strikeouts.

New York had won in each of his previous three starts, as he allowed five earned runs in 17.1 innings with four walks and 29 strikeouts. He is 0-1 in two starts versus the Red Sox in 2016 with a 3.27 ERA, walking four and striking out seven in 11 innings.

Opposing Pineda for Boston will be Steven Wright (10-5, 2.68 ERA), who has struggled of late but has still seen his team emerge victorious. The 31-year-old knuckleballer has given up 10 runs and 17 hits in 11 innings over his past two starts, with the Red Sox winning both times.

Wright has pitched much better on the road this season with a 4-4 mark and 1.88 ERA, as opposing batters have hit only .193 against him on the road.

Based on how each pitcher has performed lately, this pitching matchup would seem to have high-scoring affair written all over it, although the recent series history between the teams says otherwise. The under is 4-2-1 in the past seven meetings dating back to last season.

Wright turned in a dominant outing in his lone start versus the Yankees on the road back on May 8, allowing one run and three hits in earning a complete-game victory with one walk and seven strikeouts. That game finished under in a 5-1 win for Boston, a team that enters the second half of the season at +1400 on the odds to win the World Series.

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For the second time in less than a year, the Boston Red Sox have paid a heavy price for a left-handed starter they hope can take them over the top. Actually, better make that a very heavy price.

But just like the first time, you can see where they’re coming from.

The Red Sox reportedly acquired All-Star southpaw Drew Pomeranz from the San Diego Padres on Thursday evening. Dennis Lin of the San Diego Union-Tribune had the news first and was among the first to confirm the parameters. It’s a one-for-one deal involving one of Boston’s top prospects:

This isn’t quite the Red Sox paying $217 million to sign David Price. However, the blow to Boston’s farm system is just as bad, if not worse, than the one it took in the club’s last trade with the Padres.

When the Red Sox parted with center fielder Manuel Margot and shortstop Javier Guerra in a four-player package to acquire closer Craig Kimbrel last November, they gave up two prospects who were talented but not needed in Boston. At the major league level, Xander Bogaerts blocked Guerra, while Mookie Betts and Jackie Bradley Jr. blocked Margot.

Anderson Espinoza, however, is a different story.

Baseball America just ranked him the No. 15 prospect in the sport. He made it into the top 10 in Bleacher Report’s future 50, in which I raved about a fastball-curveball-changeup combination that’s advanced for a dude who’s still only 18.

He’s an ace in the making.

The Red Sox’s future sure looked good with Espinoza in it. With Yoan Moncada, Andrew Benintendi and Rafael Devers positioned to one day join Bogaerts, Betts and Bradley, Boston’s future lineup is loaded with homegrown talent. Espinoza could have been the homegrown ace to go with them.

But the thing about the future is it’s not here yet. And in the case of the Red Sox, they shouldn’t prioritize a promising future over a promising present.

It hasn’t all been pretty, but the Red Sox’s 49-38 record would make them one of the American League‘s two wild-card teams if the season ended today. It also puts them just two games behind the Baltimore Orioles in the AL East race.

This is a good team—minus one missing link, of course, and everyone knows what that is.

The Red Sox’s starting pitching ranks 19th in the league with a 4.72 ERA. That figure would look worse without All-Star knuckleballer Steven Wright (2.68 ERA) and steady sinkerballer Rick Porcello (3.66 ERA). Price has been disappointing, and the back of the rotation has been nothing short of a dumpster fire.

It feels weird to have to reassure anyone about an All-Star pitcher, but Pomeranz can help. Although his career traveled a rocky road, he hasn’t put up a 2.47 ERA in his 17 starts by accident. His 10.1 strikeouts per nine innings underscore his dominance. At the heart of that is excellent stuff.

The 27-year-old doesn’t pop any eyes with his fastball velocity, but he’s averaging a solid 90 mph with decent vertical rise, per Baseball Prospectus. It works to set up his curveball, which Brooks Baseball reveals he throws about as often as his four-seamer.

And my, what a curveball it is. Here he is using it to finish off eight of 10 strikeouts in an April 20 start against the Pittsburgh Pirates:

“His curveball is as good as a left-handed curveball there is in the game right now,” said Padres skipper Andy Green after that game, per AJ Cassavell of MLB.com. “It’s playing very well. Ten punchouts were the product of that curveball.”

If you’re thinking Clayton Kershaw might take offense to Green’s opinion of Pomeranz’s hook, well, maybe not. It’s in the same ballpark as Kershaw’s curve in one respect: The three-time Cy Young Award winner is the only lefty starter who is getting more downward break on his curve than Pomeranz in 2016, per Baseball Prospectus.

Pomeranz has also put more trust in his changeup and a new cutter in this year. Pros best use such pitches to combat opposite-handed batters, so we shouldn’t be surprised Pomeranz has squashed a nagging platoon split against right-handed batters:

• vs. RHB, 2011-2015: .775 OPS
• vs. RHB, 2016: .546 OPS

Way back in 2011 and 2012, Pomeranz was a top-100 prospect on the basis of his fastball-curveball combination. Now he’s a four-pitch pitcher, and each offering is a good one. To wit, hitters are batting under .200 against all of his primary pitches, per Brooks Baseball.

Of course, he’s not perfect. Pomeranz is walking 3.6 batters per nine innings. This makes him a Rich Hill-type pitcher: a lefty who gets by more on the sheer quality of his stuff than on where he puts it.

But that’s OK. The Red Sox don’t need Pomeranz to be their best starter. Price is supposed to be that guy, and his solid 3.14 ERA since mid-May is an indication that he may still be just that. With Wright and Porcello also doing solid work, the Red Sox don’t even need Pomeranz to be their No. 2. They just need him to be a much-needed stabilizing force.

If he can be that, this Red Sox team has the potential to be pretty good.

It’s gotten this far mainly on the strength of MLB’s top run-scoring offense. That offense plus a stable rotation is a combination that could do a lot of damage. And then there’s the potential for the newly acquired Brad Ziegler to combine with a healthy Kimbrel—who’s on the 15-day disabled list due to a knee injury—to form a shutdown bullpen.

If it all comes together, the 2016 Red Sox could go far.

If not, that’s not the end of the road. The Red Sox control Pomeranz through 2018. And though the idea of having him through 2018 may not be as appealing as the thought of having Espinoza for much longer, Jason Mastrodonato of the Boston Herald raised a good point:

Prospects are great until they’re not, and they’re often not. And as tantalizing as Espinoza is, it is indeed much too soon to assume that an 18-year-old at Single-A is going to be a major league ace.

There’s no need to tell that to Red Sox president of baseball operations Dave Dombrowski. He’s never been afraid to deal star minor league talent for star major league talent, and he has enough hits on his track record (Miguel Cabrera, Max Scherzer, Doug Fister, etc.) to get the benefit of the doubt. 

The Pomeranz trade could be another hit on that track record. If it is, a price that feels heavy now won’t feel so cumbersome later.

Stats courtesy of Baseball-Reference.com and FanGraphs unless otherwise noted/linked.

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There are some skills Alex Rodriguez will never lose. He’ll always be able to tell us how good he is, how hard he works, how great he can be.

“I’ve been working really hard, tweaking, running and training,” he told reporters, including Mark Feinsand of the New York Daily News. “My time will come.”

Sorry, Alex. Your time has come…and gone.

I know, it’s dangerous to call time on fading stars. David Ortiz was done in April and May 2009, except that he’s made five more All-Star teams since then, was a World Series MVP in 2013 and is now a 40-year-old marvel. Ichiro Suzuki was on the slow road to 3,000 hits until this year’s revival at age 42.

A-Rod himself was done three years ago because of injuries and issues, body parts that wouldn’t work and a baseball legal system that did. Then came last year, with 33 home runs and even a mention on one MVP ballot.

I try never to forget the words of Sparky Anderson, who liked to say “quality can always return, but mediocracy [his word!] never was.”

Rodriguez was quality, even if it was medically enhanced quality. He can always return, and a contract that guarantees him another $21 million next year suggests he will return, at least in body.

But why? To chase home run numbers that will forever be tainted? To prove he can still be a difference-maker for a team that wants to move past him?

He’ll be 41 later this month, and he looks every day of it.

“Me being productive in the middle of the lineup is going to help us get to the postseason,” Rodriguez told Feinsand in one of a few “exclusive” interviews during his midsummer media campaign.

It’s nice he still believes that (if he really does). Yankees management obviously isn’t buying in, at least not to the part about him being productive.

The Yankees have played 10 games this month, and Rodriguez started just one of them. Three were in San Diego, where the Yankees had no need for a designated hitter, but that leaves seven other games he could have played.

It’s true that part of the reason was Carlos Beltran’s sore hamstring, which pushed Beltran to the DH spot. But as Yankees general manager Brian Cashman admitted when the month began, the bigger issue was A-Rod’s OPS against right-handed pitchers.

“We’ve got to get this 2016 going,” Cashman told reporters, including Anthony Rieber of Newsday. “We’re struggling. It’s almost July. So we had a meeting the other day, and one of the things we came up with was obviously Alex, I think, is a .580 OPS against right-handed pitching this year.”

It was actually .584 at the time, and it’s .570 now, and while that’s not the worst in the major leagues, it’s down there in Erick Aybar country. It’s lower than the .598 Omar Infante had when the Kansas City Royals released him on June 21.

Infante is a light-hitting second baseman. A-Rod is a full-time designated hitter (or designated sitter), a guy who doesn’t even carry a glove.

But wait! Feinsand reported in the Daily News that A-Rod took a first baseman’s glove with him when he left for the All-Star break.

Asked by George A. King III of the New York Post whether Rodriguez will ever actually play first base, Cashman responded, “I don’t think anybody knows.”

The Yankees don’t need an aging, slow first baseman with a .570 OPS against right-handers any more than they need a DH with a .570 OPS against right-handers.

“Everybody slows down with age,” said one American League scout who saw the Yankees recently. “And he’s slowed down. Is there hope? I think there’s a chance. It’s a slim chance, but I don’t think anybody expected him to do what he did last year.”

The $21 million he’s due next year probably guarantees Rodriguez won’t leave on his own, no matter how bad it gets. He no doubt dreams of a revival that will see him go out next year the way his rival (and onetime friend) Ortiz is going out this season, or at least the way his other rival (and perhaps onetime friend) Derek Jeter did in 2014.

The tougher question is whether it could get bad enough that the Yankees swallow that sunk money and release A-Rod before his contract runs out. He probably would be done then, because even with the Yankees paying the freight, it’s hard to see another team taking him.

Even the chase for some kind of home run history—he’s stuck on 695 home runs, with none in his last 41 plate appearances—hardly seems to matter.

Rodriguez remains in pinstripes for now, battling for at-bats with Aaron Hicks and Rob Refsnyder, two guys with just a small fraction of the ability A-Rod once displayed.

Even Hicks, a career .220 hitter with a lower OPS (.562) than Rodriguez has this season, has seemed like a better option to the Yankees.

As the scout said, everybody slows down with age. In the case of Alex Rodriguez, his time has come.

Danny Knobler covers Major League Baseball as a national columnist for Bleacher Report.

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Toronto Blue Jays designated hitter and first baseman Edwin Encarnacion will play out the rest of the 2016 season without negotiating any further on a new contract.

Continue for updates.

Encarnacion’s Agent Comments on Contract Talks

Wednesday, July 13

Jon Heyman of Today’s Knuckleball reported Wednesday what Encarnacion’s agent, Paul Kinzer, had to say on his client’s status:

Once the season started, we were not going to negotiate. He thought it was a distraction last time. He’s the most relaxed I’ve ever seen him. Why mess with the guy? He’s content. He’s happy. […] This doesn’t mean Toronto’s out. This was the plan all along. We were going to play this thing out.

Encarnacion has a slash line of .267/.358 /.541 to go with an MLB-leading 80 RBI and 23 homers. He earned his third All-Star bid this year and will be a free agent once the season ends.

This news has to come as relief to Toronto fans and especially the Blue Jays front office, which won’t have to worry about strong-arming Encarnacion in potentially pernicious negotiations after the All-Star break.

The Jays are neck-and-neck with the Boston Red Sox in the American League wild-card race, only two games up on the Houston Astros at the moment. They’re also just two games behind the Baltimore Orioles in the AL East.

As long as Encarnacion keeps up his level of play, he’s going to get a big payday this winter.

With a load of high-level talent around him and even a realistic chance of winning the AL pennant, Encarnacion is in a great situation and won’t be putting himself above the team.

Encarnacion seems to recognize how trying to get a deal done now would complicate matters amid high stakes and expectations as Toronto tries to secure a postseason berth. He needs to be fully locked in with slugger Jose Bautista on the disabled list.

If Josh Donaldson can maintain his own exceptional form (.304 average, 23 HR, 63 RBI) and Troy Tulowitzki keeps up his hot start to July (.357 average), the Blue Jays should be a tough to beat as the regular season winds down.

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The rich get richer. If there’s one hot takeaway from the 2016 MLB All-Star Futures Game, that’s it.

We’re talking, of course, about the Boston Red Sox, a club already loaded with young position-player talent.

Boston fans got a preview of another blockbuster coming attraction on Sunday in San Diego, and they had to be elated with what they saw.

Infielder Yoan Moncada launched a go-ahead, two-run home run in the eighth inning before the World team poured on seven runs in the ninth en route to an 11-3, come-from-behind win over the U.S. 

In case you missed it, here’s the homer in question, courtesy of MLB Network:

Overall, the 21-year-old Cuban phenom went 2-for-5 with two RBI and a stolen base and took home MVP honors. Suffice it to say, it shouldn’t be long before he’s plying his trade in Beantown.

This is the kid whom Yahoo Sports’ Jeff Passan reports one scout called “the closest thing to [Mike] Trout I’ve seen.” An athletic specimen who landed a record-smashing $31.5 million signing bonus from the Red Sox in March 2015. A legitimate blue chip who has shot through the minor league ranks and owns a 1.023 OPS with five home runs in 16 games at Double-A Portland.

“I’m not sure we’ve ever had someone quite like him physically in our system,” said general manager Mike Hazen, per Bleacher Report’s Bill Speros. “Bo Jackson was a guy built that way. Of course, he played football, too.”

So, yeah—somewhere on the old Mike Trout/Bo Jackson spectrum. And Moncada just reached legal drinking age on May 27.

When he reaches the big leagues, he’ll join a team that already features a trio of recently minted All-Stars in 23-year-old shortstop Xander Bogaerts (.329 average, 10 home runs, .863 OPS), 23-year-old right fielder Mookie Betts (.304 average, 18 home runs, .869 OPS) and 26-year-old center fielder Jackie Bradley Jr. (.296 average, 14 home runs, .926 OPS).

Drop Moncada into the mix, and you’re talking about four homegrown, cost-controlled talents who could anchor the lineup for years to come.

Moncada is technically blocked at second base by veteran Dustin Pedroia, who is signed through 2021. But the youthful switch-hitter recently said he “will play any position depending on what the team wants me to do,” per ESPN.com’s Scott Lauber. Perhaps he could slide over to third base or find a home in the outfield. 

Take another look at that easy swing and big-boy home run Moncada blasted in the Futures Game. (Seriously, we’ll wait.) You find a home for a hitter like that, period.

Oh, sure, the Red Sox could theoretically dangle Moncada in a deal for an arm to shore up a shaky starting rotation. At this point, though, that seems exceedingly unlikely, even given president of baseball operations Dave Dombrowski’s track record of cashing in prospects. 

Dombrowski himself called Moncada “a finely skilled offensive player,” per Lauber, and added he’d “be surprised if he’s not a really good big leaguer.”

No one is a sure thing until he’s proven himself at the highest level. But after earning the top spot in Baseball America‘s updated prospect rankings on Friday, Moncada chewed up and spit out the hype on Sunday.

The Red Sox, who are locked in a dogfight in the crowded American League East, can’t count on any help from Moncada this year. He didn’t even get an invite to big league camp in the spring.

At some point soon, though, Moncada and 22-year-old outfielder Andrew Benintendi—Baseball America‘s No. 9 prospect—appear destined to crash the party.

The issue will be finding spots on the field for all these burgeoning studs—which is pretty much the textbook definition of a good problem to have.

It’s fitting, in a way, that the rise of Moncada and the big league success of the Bogaerts/Betts/Bradley triumvirate are playing out against the backdrop of David Ortiz’s charmed farewell season in Boston. Out with one beloved franchise swinger, in with a gaggle of new ones.

The torch gets passed. A new leaf is turned.

The rich get richer.

All statistics current as of July 10 and courtesy of Baseball-Reference.com unless otherwise noted.

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Boston Red Sox closer Craig Kimbrel has been placed on the 15-day disabled list and will undergo surgery on his left knee, according to WEEI.com’s Ryan Hannable.

Continue for updates.

Kimbrel Out 3-6 Weeks

Saturday, July 9

Kimbrel was ruled out Friday due to knee soreness, per the Boston Globe‘s Alex Speier. An MRI revealed the right-hander has a torn medial meniscus, according to MLB Roster Moves.

On Friday, the Red Sox announced they had acquired reliever Brad Ziegler from the Arizona Diamondbacks in exchange for two minor-league players.

Ziegler has never been a hard thrower, and at 36 years old, he isn’t going to blow batters away consistently. But he has the repertoire necessary to hold down the fort while Kimbrel is on the shelf.

Not only do right-handed batters hit just .224 off Ziegler, but his changeup is notoriously difficult to make contact with.

According to FanGraphs’ August Fagerstrom, Ziegler’s changeup “was the hardest pitch in all of baseball to lay off last year” because it spun out of the zone 85 percent of the time. Remarkably, opposing batters swung at those offerings 54 percent of the time.

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The Boston Red Sox announced the acquisition of relief pitcher Brad Ziegler from the Arizona Diamondbacks on Saturday in exchange for minor leaguers Jose Almonte and Luis Alejandro Basabe. 

The move came on the heels of news that Red Sox reliever Craig Kimbrel was unavailable to pitch Friday evening because of what was originally called left knee soreness, as USA Today‘s Bob Nightengale noted at the time. 

Kimbrel was later diagnosed with a torn medial meniscus that will require surgery, putting him on the 15-day disabled list, per the Red Sox. Manager John Farrell told reporters that Ziegler and Koji Uehara will share the closer’s role until Kimbrel returns.

Once Kimbrel recovers, Ziegler will be a strong contingency plan as a closer who can bolster the team’s bullpen as a setup man. 

“From a baseball standpoint you have a team that’s just a couple of games out of first and there’s a lot of opportunity there,” Ziegler said Saturday, according to MLB.com’s Steve Gilbert. 

In 38.1 innings so far this season, Ziegler has notched 18 saves while posting a 2.82 ERA, 1.461 WHIP, 27 strikeouts and 15 walks. 

Those numbers may not be wildly impressive, but Ziegler is known for being one of MLB’s tougher matchups against right-handed hitting. Now in his ninth professional season, he has held right-handed batters to an average of .224. Conversely, lefties have recorded a .273 average working against the 36-year-old. 

With a solid three-pitch arsenal that includes a fastball, slider and changeup, Ziegler should be able to help patch up some of Boston’s bullpen woes. 

Entering Saturday night’s game against the Tampa Bay Rays, Red Sox relievers rank eighth among all American League teams with a shaky 3.92 ERA.  

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A red-hot Troy Tulowitzki fitting into a red-hot lineup is just what the Toronto Blue Jays had in mind when they traded for him last July.

Almost a year later, they’re getting what they wished for.

The Blue Jays entered Thursday’s contest against the Detroit Tigers at the Rogers Centre in search of their sixth straight win. It seemed prepared to elude them, as Detroit was clinging to a 4-3 lead with two outs in the bottom of the eighth. But then Tulo happened, delivering a two-run single to propel the Blue Jays to a 5-4 win.

That single was the second of Tulo’s two hits on the day. With those in the bag, he’s now hitting .328 in 17 games since coming off the disabled list. He also has seven bombs in that span and, if you’re into such things, 20 RBI.

This is what a person who’s bad at being original would call a complete 180.

Tulowitzki’s batting average was under the Mendoza Line as recently as May 19, and he was hitting only .204 when a quad strain sent him to the DL. And over his first 373 (regular-season) plate appearances as a Blue Jay, he was hitting just .221 with a .685 OPS. After hitting .299 with an .885 OPS in parts of 10 seasons with the Colorado Rockies, the writing on the wall said the veteran shortstop was out of gas.

However, something happened while Tulo was out rehabbing his injury.

“I really think that I went down to Florida, it gave me a chance to work on my swing, get back to some good things that I did,” the 31-year-old told Shi Davidi of Sportsnet.ca. “I think I’ve carried that over. When confidence comes, you start having some success. I’m really just trying to be myself. I think this is really who I am.”

Tulowitzki got a big mechanical change out of the way earlier in the season, ditching a leg kick he had experimented with in spring training in favor of his usual toe tap. The difference since his return has more to do with his approach. It’s gotten more aggressive, but without getting out of control:

Based on that first column, it’s fair to say Tulo has come off the DL looking to swing his way out of his slump. Since it hasn’t cost him any contact or walks, it’s also fair to say it’s working.

The most important change, though, is reflected in the way Tulowitzki lined Thursday’s game-winning hit to the opposite field. Whereas his pre-DL Blue Jays self was trying to pull everything, his post-DL self is making an effort not to pull everything:

• Pre-DL: 52.1 Pull%
• Post-DL: 40.4 Pull%

The non-geeky summary: Tulo has snapped out of it and gone back to being a dangerous hitter. The fair warning based on the small sample size is that he probably won’t stay this hot indefinitely. But if he can maintain a role as a productive member of the Blue Jays lineup, they’ll take it.

After all, it’s not like they need Tulo to carry their offense.

Remember when the Blue Jays offense made all other offenses look like little league chumps last year? That level of dominance had trouble carrying over into 2016. Toronto managed just a .709 OPS and four runs per game in April, hardly numbers befitting a supposed super-duper offense.

It’s been a different story since then, and one that’s getting more impressive by the day. The Blue Jays scored 4.3 runs per game in May, then 5.9 in June. Early in July, they’re at 7.1 runs per game.

Tulo’s role in this shouldn’t be ignored, but neither should Josh Donaldson’s and Edwin Encarnacion’s.

Donaldson entered Thursday with a 1.234 OPS over his last 32 games, and two more hits against the Tigers upped his total OPS to 1.018. Nothing about that is an accident. As Dave Cameron of FanGraphs highlighted, the reigning American League MVP just keeps finding ways to get better.

Encarnacion has been hotter for even longer. He entered Thursday with a 1.110 OPS over 39 games dating back to late May. That’s come complete with 13 home runs.

With the big boppers bopping like it’s nobody’s boppin’ business, all the other guys have had to do is pull their weight. They’ve more than been up to the challenge. Michael Saunders has been hot all year. More recently, Russell Martin, Kevin Pillar and Devon Travis have added warm bats to the pile.

Arguably the scariest tidbit of all is who hasn’t been involved in Toronto’s surging offense. Jose Bautista has been out since June 16 with a bad toe. If he can come back and pick up where he left off (.815 OPS, 12 homers), the Blue Jays will pull off a baseball version of the rich getting richer.

In the immortal words of Dennis Green, these Blue Jays are who we thought they were.

They figured to resemble last year’s team, which was really good at scoring runs and good enough at run prevention. They’re only getting better at the former and just as good at the latter. After allowing 4.14 runs per game last year, this year’s Blue Jays are allowing 4.18 runs per game.

What it means for now is a 49-39 record and quite a bit of momentum. They’re only two games behind the Baltimore Orioles in the AL East, and the lead feels even smaller than that.

May the best birds win.

Stats courtesy of Baseball-Reference.com and FanGraphs unless otherwise noted/linked.

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The Milwaukee Brewers announced Thursday they traded infielder Aaron Hill to the Boston Red Sox in exchange for prospects Wendell Rijo and Aaron Wilkerson. 

Milwaukee also sent cash to the Red Sox as part of the deal.

The Arizona Diamondbacks just traded Hill to the Brewers in January. But he has an expiring contract, so Milwaukee decided to sell high on him. The 34-year-old has a solid slash line of .283/.359/.421 thus far in 2016.

Per Spotrac, Boston is picking up a contract in which Hill is making $12 million this season.

The Brewers did well to land two Red Sox prospects, considering the circumstances surrounding Hill and how fruitful Boston’s farm system has been. 2016 All-Star Game starters Xander Bogaerts, Mookie Betts and Jackie Bradley Jr. were all in-house Red Sox products who are thriving in the big leagues now.

Wilkerson is a pitcher who’s posted a 6-3 mark with a 2.14 ERA in 17 games with 16 starts at the Double- and Triple-A levels this season. Rijo, a second baseman, has struggled in the minors as a hitter (.201 average this year) but is only 20 years old and has plenty of room to grow.

As for Boston’s side of the trade, veteran MLB reporter Peter Gammons weighed in on what Hill’s arrival means for the club:

Hill figures to fill in as a starter on the hot corner in place of Travis Shaw at least for now.

Shaw thankfully had X-rays come back negative on his bruised left foot on Thursday, per ESPN.com’s Scott Lauber. With Shaw sidelined and Pablo Sandoval out for the season because of shoulder surgery, though, Boston needs insurance at third base, which is precisely what Hill provides.

After struggling with the Diamondbacks in the prior two seasons, Hill is showing marked improvement this season and could help Boston to the top of the American League East.

Minor league stats courtesy of MiLB.com.  

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