The concerns about the Detroit Tigers’ bullpen figure to be amplified following another late-inning setback.

Detroit has lost three of its last four games heading into Saturday night’s matchup against the visiting Texas Rangers, who opened the three-game series with a 5-4 win on Friday.

Detroit rallied from an early 4-0 deficit to tie the game in the fifth inning, but Texas moved ahead on back-to-back doubles by Jake Burger and Alejandro Osuna in the eighth against Burch Smith.

The Tigers’ bullpen entered Friday ranked 21st in the majors with a 4.39 ERA, and closer Kenley Jansen has blown two straight saves. The team also is monitoring the status of setup man Will Vest, who has not pitched since Sunday.

Detroit manager A.J. Hinch said Vest “is not 100%” but declined to say whether the reliever is injured.

“We’re going through a few things,” Hinch said. “Obviously, the bullpen has been leaned on quite a bit. There are guys that are not feeling at their best. That’s what we’re working through. We’re going day-by-day.”

Saturday’s pitching matchup will feature a pair of right-handers as Detroit’s Keider Montero (1-2, 4.00 ERA) will oppose Texas’ Kumar Rocker (1-2, 3.38).

Montero, 25, has pitched well while filling in for Justin Verlander, who has been out for the last four weeks with hip inflammation. There remains no timeline for when Verlander will begin a rehab assignment.

“He’s still fighting through it,” Hinch said Friday, “which doesn’t mean he should be shut down or changed. It just means it’s slow.”

Montero allowed three runs over five innings in a no-decision in his team’s 8-3 victory over the Cincinnati Reds on Sunday. He owns a 23-to-5 strikeout-to-walk ratio in five starts covering 27 innings.

Texas’ Andrew McCutchen has two homers in four at-bats against Montero, who is 0-1 with an 8.31 ERA in one previous start vs. the Rangers.

The Rangers will counter with Rocker, who gave up two runs over six innings in a 2-1 home loss to the Athletics on Sunday.

Rocker, 26, threw five scoreless innings after giving up a two-run triple to Carlos Cortes in the first inning.

“Rocker was great,” said Texas manager Skip Schumaker. “He walked those two guys in the first inning, and after that really settled in. He gave us a chance to win. Six innings, two runs, you’d sign up for that all day long. He was fantastic. We just couldn’t get that big hit.”

Rocker made his only career start against Detroit on July 19, 2025, when he allowed one hit over 6 1/3 scoreless innings in a 4-1 home victory.

Texas third baseman Josh Jung continued his hot stretch on Friday with two singles and two RBIs. Jung is batting .378 with two homers and 11 RBIs during a 10-game hitting streak.

Rangers right fielder Brandon Nimmo exited Friday’s game with right hamstring tightness and is listed as day-to-day.

“He felt it a little bit in the at-bat,” Schumaker said. “I saw him shaking his leg. I ran out there, asked what the deal was, he said ‘I could play,” shocker, like I thought he would, but I didn’t really … feel like it was worth it. I didn’t really want to push him.”

–Field Level Media

Walt Weiss had a successful return to Coors Field on Friday, and the Atlanta manager hopes to make it two straight wins there when the Braves play the second of three games against the Colorado Rockies in Denver on Saturday night.

Atlanta will send left-hander Chris Sale (5-1, 2.31 ERA) to the mound, while Colorado has not named a starter.

The Braves rallied from a 6-0 deficit to win the opener 8-6 on Friday night.

Weiss, who took over as Atlanta’s manager when Brian Snitker retired in the offseason, led the Rockies for four seasons (2013-16) before the organization replaced him with Bud Black.

Weiss spent 15 years in the Colorado organization as a player (1994-97), special assistant to the GM (2002-08) and manager, compiling a 283-365 record in the latter position.

“I’ve seen a lot of games in this park, and I’m not going to sit here and say I got the secret sauce, but we all know the game is a little different here,” Weiss said before Friday’s game. “But at the same time, I don’t think you can make too much of it. You got to go out and play the game.

“But obviously, big outfield, a lot of first-to-thirds, a lot of balls drop in. And there’s a lot of traffic throughout a game on the bases. You have to take care of the ball.”

Weiss is leading the top team in the majors after a losing 2025 season. Atlanta has won 13 of its last 16 games and embarked on a tough road trip that will continue in Seattle and Los Angeles against the Dodgers.

Sale has faced Colorado five times in his career — three starts — and is 1-1 with a 1.48 ERA in those outings. His last start against the Rockies was a 2-1 loss on April 30, 2025, when he allowed just two runs and fanned 10 over seven innings.

Colorado has dropped three of its last four games after sweeping a road series from the New York Mets last weekend. Friday’s loss came when the usually reliable bullpen allowed seven runs over the last three innings to turn a 6-1 lead into a loss.

Even with the disappointment, the Rockies had more bright spots in the game. Mickey Moniak, who missed the first six games of the season, had two hits, including his ninth homer of the season, and catcher Hunter Goodman continues to be impressive.

Goodman, Colorado’s lone representative at the 2025 All-Star Game, is tied with Moniak for the team lead in home runs with nine.

Goodman was 0-for-5 in a 6-4 loss at the Cincinnati Reds on Thursday to wrap up a 4-2 road trip, which came after a two-homer performance in Wednesday night’s 13-2 victory over Cincinnati. He has worked at not chasing pitches out of the strike zone to improve his at-bats.

“It’s just some things with my approach, thinking a little bit differently and trying not to be so focused on the internal,” Goodman said. “Be more focused on the external stuff.”

–Field Level Media

With a proven veteran ready to return to the Los Angeles Dodgers’ pitching staff, every start counts for the existing members of the rotation.

All eyes will be on right-hander Roki Sasaki when he starts for the Dodgers on Saturday in a road game against the St. Louis Cardinals.

Los Angeles left-hander Blake Snell is close to making his season debut and one of the current six starters will have to step aside. The Dodgers have remained committed to Sasaki as a starter, even as he went through a rocky spring training.

When the season started, left-hander Justin Wrobleski was a swing man until a sixth starter was needed. Now that he is in the rotation, Wrobleski has been one of the team’s steadiest pitchers.

Sasaki (1-2, 6.35 ERA), who has never faced the Cardinals, is coming off his first win of the season last Saturday against the Chicago Cubs. But he gave up four runs in the outing, his second most in a start this year, on seven hits. He did have a season-low one walk.

“I don’t think the (pitching) line does it justice,” said Dodgers manager Dave Roberts, who considered the performance Sasaki’s best outing of the season.

“I think him and (pitching coaches) Connor (McGuiness) and Mark (Prior) were working on some things and wanted to add a little bit more velocity to it. It simulates a fastball more versus some type of off-speed pitch. Good stuff to build off of.”

And yet the Dodgers’ biggest issue of late is with an offense that was not able to put up much of a fight in a 7-2 loss to the Cardinals in Friday’s series opener. Los Angeles is 5-8 in its last 13 games and has lost three in a row.

St. Louis received home runs from Nolan Gorman and Alec Burleson on Friday, while Jordan Walker had four hits and drove in a pair of runs to extend the team’s winning streak to five games.

The Cardinals delivered 12 hits in the victory after they had 14 in a win at Pittsburgh on Thursday.

St. Louis will send right-hander Michael McGreevy (1-2, 2.97) to the mound Saturday. In a no-decision against the Seattle Mariners on Sunday, McGreevy allowed just one run on five hits over six innings with no walks and six strikeouts.

McGreevy matched his season high in innings on a day when the bullpen had been taxed from prior usage.

“It’s that extra thing where you get to think about helping the team even more than just performing well,” McGreevy said. “You don’t go into it thinking, ‘I need to go deep here,’ because you don’t want to make the game bigger than it is. But to be able to do that with the bullpen being short-handed is awesome.”

McGreevy’s lone start against the Dodgers came June 8, 2025, when he gave up four runs over six innings, while taking the loss in a 7-3 game. The outing was just his fourth career start and his first one of 2025. He has three starts of one run or less this season.

With 11 wins in their past 16 games, the Cardinals have distanced themselves from an 8-8 start to the season.

–Field Level Media