HOUSTON — Houston Astros veteran catcher Brian McCann pledged on Friday that he will return before the regular season concludes despite undergoing surgery to repair a torn meniscus in his right knee earlier in the week.
McCann was placed on the 10-day disabled list on Tuesday. There is no timetable for his return.
McCann had dealt with recurring knee pain since last year. After posting a 108 OPS in his first campaign with the Astros in 2017 http://www.officiallightningprostore.com/authentic-adidas-mikhail-sergachev-jersey , McCann was down to a 73 OPS this season, slashing .206/.283/.323 with five home runs and 17 RBIs over 50 games. McCann has played in 1,657 games since making his debut on June 10, 2005, catching 12,733 innings with the Atlanta Braves, New York Yankees, and Astros during the regular season.
“He’s got a little bit of mileage on him when it comes to catching games,” said Astros manager A.J. Hinch, a former catcher. “His knees have held up fine and he can play through a lot of pain. I think that’s what I appreciate the most in learning and knowing how much pain he played through. He tried, and he did a lot of things to post for our pitching staff. I think that’s one of the reasons he’s one of the most respected guys in there is what he’s willing to do to contribute.
“As his play declined Leon Draisaitl Jersey , his comfort declined and what it took for him to play every day, we needed to get it taken care of.”
Right-hander Charlie Morton (10-2, 2.55 ERA) will get the start for the Astros on Saturday. Morton has faced the White Sox once previously, working seven shutout innings while allowing four hits and one walk with three strikeouts in a 3-0 victory with the Pirates on June 16, 2015.
Morton is 24-9 with a 3.18 ERA and 296 strikeouts over 249 innings with the Astros.
In his past two starts, Morton has dominated in a win against Toronto and a loss to Tampa. In a 7-0 win against the Blue Jays he struck out 13 in seven innings. The Rays touched him up for two runs, but that was enough for a 3-2 Tampa Bay win. Morton struck out 11 in 6 2/3 innings.
Right-hander James Shields (3-9, 4.12 ERA) will start for the White Sox (30-58) on Saturday. He is 1-4 with a 5.17 ERA on the road this season and 2-3 with a 3.19 ERA over seven career starts against the Astros. In his only start against Houston this season, Shields gave up seven runs in 5 1/3 innings and took the loss in a 10-0 defeat on April 20.
In 76 games (75 starts) against the American League West, Shields is 26-26 with a 3.83 ERA.
With right-hander Reynaldo Lopez working just 4 2/3 innings, the Chicago bullpen was forced to shoulder a heavy load again on Friday. Right-hander Chris Volstad Bobby Orr Jersey , and lefties Luis Avilan and Hector Santiago combined to allow eight runs on seven hits and one walk over 3 1/3 innings in Chicago’s 11-4 loss, marking the 10th consecutive game the White Sox bullpen has surrendered a run.
Chicago relievers have pitched 303 2/3 innings this season, eighth-most in the American League.
“Obviously, (Lopez) didn’t give us the outing we were looking for,” White Sox manager Rick Renteria said. “Worked through quite a bit of traffic, some deep counts, pitch count ran up there a bit. Had to give it to the relief corps again, which is strained.”
Long after the final joint practice between the New York Jets and Washington Redskins wrapped up, the quarterbacks kept chatting.
Apart from the on-field workouts, those moments gave Alex Smith a chance to get to know Jets rookie Sam Darnold a little bit. But rather than dole out advice from one high draft pick to another after 12 NFL seasons, Washington’s veteran starter wants Darnold to chart his own path as a rookie.
“All these situations are different Womens Charlie McAvoy Jersey ,” Smith said. “He’s got some good guys in his QB room to lean on that have played a lot of ball, so he certainly didn’t need to hear me tell him anything. I think my rookie year’s probably more of an example of what not to do as opposed to what to do.”
Before he can potentially earn the Jets’ starting job, Darnold could get the nod against Smith in the teams’ next preseason game Thursday night. Coach Todd Bowles would only say, “All of our quarterbacks need to be ready to play,” but Darnold took the majority of first-team snaps this week and impressed the Redskins.
Cornerback Josh Norman compared Darnold’s decision-making skills to Philadelphia’s Carson Wentz and Dallas’ Dak Prescott and found out firsthand that Darnold doesn’t throw like a rookie.
“This little kid is not mistakes and he’s really accurate,” Norman said. “It’s kind of like, dang. You get rookies in here, you’re trying to like mess with them and bait them a little bit into thinking that he was going to throw a route that you know you could make a play on, and he’s not having it. And it’s so crazy to see that at an early age.”
Fully aware of his early age, Darnold wants to be faster at calling plays and breaking the huddle. Bowles wants to see the USC product catch up on the playbook and knows the best experience comes from game action.
“He studies his playbook and he goes out and tries to execute on the field and he tries to learn, which is great Radek Faksa Jersey ,” Bowles said. “You can’t see growth until years pass by, to a degree. I’m not going to measure him day-by-day from a growth standpoint in three weeks.”
Smith doesn’t feel qualified to judge Darnold’s game cover to cover but liked what he saw at workouts this week.
“Just from afar, I thought he looked good,” Smith said. “He has a great skillset, can really throw it. He moves around well. I think he has good eyes.”
Darnold, the third overall pick, actually looks a lot like Smith after the 49ers took him first in the 2005 draft. But it’s not on Smith to tutor Darnold; that’s up to veteran Jets Josh McCown and Teddy Bridgewater.
The 39-year-old McCown is competing with Darnold for the starting job but has nothing but nothing but positive early impressions.
“More than anything (he) does a good job of taking the classroom to the grass pretty efficiently. It doesn’t take him multiple meetings and walkthroughs and different things,” McCown said. “So far everything you look for to play the position, whether it’s just the desire and the want to and all that, all of those things are there and you have to have that in order to have a chance in this league.”
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