Before reinstating pitchers Ronel Blanco and Bennett Sousa from the 60-day injured list, the Houston Astros executed a surprising roster move by demoting reliever Bryan King to Triple-A Sugar Land following their loss to the Baltimore Orioles on Sunday.

Blanco made his season debut in the Astros’ 8-5 interleague victory over the Miami Marlins on Monday. Sousa, a left-handed reliever like King, got loose in the bullpen during the fifth inning but did not enter the game. It would have marked the first appearance for Sousa since May 4.

Sousa could be called on Tuesday night in Houston, when the Astros will look to secure a series victory over the Marlins.

King allowed one run during a sterling stretch of 17 appearances between May 29 and July 7, finishing 2-0 with a 0.55 ERA. His last four outings were ineffective, with King going 0-2 with a 14.40 ERA and a blown save. He allowed five homers across five innings before his demotion.

“Just go work on some stuff,” Astros manager Joe Espada said of the directive for King. “He has that invisible fastball, especially against righties. Trying to get it to not be so much general in the plate, kind of look for certain areas that he can get some swing and miss.

“Huge improvement with his slider, especially against lefties. But we gave him a plan, an objective to go down there and work on some stuff.”

Right-hander Tatsuya Imai (5-4, 6.06 ERA) is scheduled to start for the Astros on Tuesday.

Imai had a rough close to the first half of his first season in the majors, going 0-1 with a 12.60 ERA while logging only five innings over his final two starts before the All-Star break. He was 3-0 with a 5.09 ERA in four starts last month with 30 strikeouts and just five walks in 17 2/3 innings.

Imai will make his first career appearance against the Marlins. In two interleague starts this season, he is 0-1 with a 3.72 ERA.

Right-hander Tyler Phillips (2-4, 3.48) has the starting assignment for the Marlins. It will mark the 10th start and 26th appearance of the season for Phillips, with his nine previous starts coming in his past 10 appearances.

Phillips is 2-4 with a 4.91 ERA as a starter this season, including a 5-2 loss to the Cleveland Guardians on July 12 when he allowed two runs on two hits and one walk with one strikeout in one inning.

He will make his first career start against the Astros. He is 4-2 with a 5.15 ERA in 28 career interleague appearances (eight starts).

The Marlins entered the series with Houston locked in a three-way tie with the St. Louis Cardinals and Pittsburgh Pirates for the third wild card in the National League, despite carrying a six-game skid into Monday.

After roaring into contention by winning 26 of 34 games from June 1 through July 9, the Marlins are laboring to find the form that left them a season-high 10 games over .500 just 11 days ago. They are now 52-49.

“I look at it like this stretch of games and losing, over the course of an entire season, unfortunately it happens on multiple occasions,” Marlins manager Clayton McCullough said. “Right now we’re going through it, and I think myself and our coaches are just much more concerned with getting our guys back to playing a better brand of baseball, at least to give us a chance to win.”

–Field Level Media

Miles Mikolas and the rest of the Washington Nationals pitching staff have benefited this season from the run-scoring prowess displayed by their team.

After all, how many starters can give up seven runs in an outing and still earn the victory?

Mikolas (3-7, 5.53 ERA) did on July 6 in Houston, when he got the credit for the 12-11 win against the Astros despite giving up seven earned runs in six innings. And he’ll be counting on the dynamic Washington offense again Tuesday night when he faces the Colorado Rockies in the second game of a three-game series in Denver.

The Nationals took the opener, 7-3, on Monday night.

The 12 runs in that Mikolas start against the Astros weren’t an anomaly for Washington. The Nationals scored 23 runs in their first game out of the All-Star break and are averaging 11.7 runs in their three victories since play resumed.

Washington leads the majors with 147 home runs after hitting three more on Monday to have the highest-scoring offense in baseball with 552 runs.

“They do such a good job of having a plan when they go up to bat every time, and they execute that plan,” manager Blake Butera said. “And then, pretty good idea of how each pitcher’s going to attack them and where they need to look and what they need to look for to have success, and they stick to that.”

Mikolas could use the support in his 10th career game against the Rockies. In the first nine — seven starts — he is 1-1 with a 7.91 ERA.

Colorado right-hander Michael Lorenzen (3-9, 6.22) hopes the Rockies’ bats will be awake in his team-leading 21st start of the season. Lorenzen struggled early in the season but has been steady in his last seven starts, going 1-1 with a 3.24 ERA, and he has allowed just one home run in his past four outings.

He is making his 17th appearance — sixth start — against the Nationals in his career. His career record against Washington is 1-2 with a 5.02 ERA.

Lorenzen could be showing his stuff for a prospective Colorado trade partner. The Rockies, who have the worst record in the majors (40-62) entering play on Tuesday, have started dealing well ahead of the Aug. 3 deadline, sending hard-throwing right-hander Seth Halvorsen to the Los Angeles Dodgers for a pair of minor league players.

There are a few Colorado players more than likely to stay, including first baseman TJ Rumfield, who has been one of the best rookies in the NL this season. He is batting .296 with 13 home runs and 51 RBIs and had a career-high four hits in Saturday’s win over Cincinnati.

His batting average leads all rookies on the season, and he is in the NL Rookie of the Year conversation.

“TJ’s making a very strong case for that (award), but he’s got another 60 games to go,” Rockies manager Warren Schaeffer said. “So no let up.”

–Field Level Media

Cal Raleigh had no trouble with the slurve.

After the Cincinnati Reds intentionally walked the bases loaded to get to Raleigh, last year’s home-run champ slammed a first-pitch breaking ball from former batterymate Caleb Ferguson 408 feet off the out-of-town scoreboard in left-center field in the seventh inning, powering the Seattle Mariners to an 8-0 victory Monday night.

The three-game interleague series continues Tuesday in Seattle when Reds phenom Chase Burns takes the mound against Mariners veteran Luis Castillo, who started his career in Cincinnati.

On Monday, George Kirby pitched six scoreless innings and Victor Robles went 4-for-4 and scored twice for the Mariners, who moved above .500 and a half-game past Texas and into first place in the American League West.

The big blow was Raleigh’s slam.

Asked if he was surprised the Reds loaded the bases to face him, Raleigh said, “Ah, yeah.”

What made the move all the more surprising was that Reds manager Terry Francona seemingly brought in Ferguson for a left-versus-left matchup with Dominic Canzone before signaling for the free pass. The Mariners had already scored twice in the inning to take a 3-0 lead.

“It’s not a comfortable situation either way,” Francona said. “Saying that, I’d do that every time. We have to try to keep them from scoring more. Second and third, guy with a .990 OPS against lefties, we have to play the infield in. I know what Raleigh’s hitting and he still worries me. But I thought that was our best chance to have them not score. We could play the infield double-play depth. And the worst possible outcome happened.”

Raleigh, who set MLB records for most homers by a catcher and a switch-hitter when he went deep 60 times last season, hasn’t come close to repeating that output.

After a truncated spring while playing in the World Baseball Classic, Raleigh suffered an right oblique injury in mid-May that sent him to the injured list for the first time in his career and cost him more than a month. He entered Monday’s game hitting .163 with nine homers and 29 RBIs.

“It felt good, right?” Raleigh said. “Anytime you get the job done, it’s big. You feel good about yourself, not just because you got it done, but you’re helping the team out. You’re seeing the smiles and the energy in the dugout and the crowd going crazy – it brings back good memories like last year in the playoffs, and that’s where ultimately where we want to get to.”

The Mariners won despite center fielder Julio Rodríguez leaving after five innings after getting hit in the left hamstring by a throw from Reds shortstop Elly De La Cruz while legging out a run-scoring infield single.

Mariners manager Dan Wilson said taking out Rodriguez was precautionary and that infielder J.P. Crawford was a late scratch because of a sore wrist.

The Mariners might have inadvertently eliminated one of their potential targets before the Aug. 3 trade deadline when reliever Nick Davila hit Reds infielder/outfielder Spencer Steer in the ribs with a pitch in the seventh inning. Steer played right field in the bottom of the inning before being replaced.

“I knew he was hurting but when he tried to swing, it was really bothering him,” Francona said. “So he’s in there getting X-rays now, they don’t see anything which is encouraging … the doctors are still looking at him.”

Tuesday’s pitching matchup will feature a pair of right-handers in Burns (11-1, 2.54 ERA) against Castillo (3-8, 4.93).

Burns, the No. 2 overall pick in the 2024 MLB draft out of Wake Forest, has won 10 straight decisions since his only loss, April 10 against the Los Angeles Angels. He has won his past two starts, including an 11-5 decision against visiting Philadelphia on July 8 when he allowed three runs on three hits over five innings. That outing was cut short as he issued six bases on balls with two strikeouts. This will be Burns’ first time facing the Mariners.

Castillo suffered a 7-2 loss at Tampa Bay in his last start July 10. He gave up four runs on nine hits over five innings, with one walk and four strikeouts. Castillo, who pitched for the Reds from 2017-22, is 0-1 with a 12.46 ERA in one career start against them.

-Field Level Media