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In an interview with ESPN for an upcoming “Outside the Lines” segment, longtime major leaguer Bernie Carbo revealed that he tried to pay someone to break Keith Hernandez’s arms in 1985 after Hernandez testified that Carbo introduced him to cocaine when they were teammates on the Cardinals. I knew some people, and I had $2,000,…

Orioles reliever Jim Johnson was examined today by Dr. James Andrews and has been diagnosed with “a small tear in his right elbow.” Andrews advised Johnson to rest for at least 8-10 weeks, but Jeff Zrebiec of the Baltimore Sun reports that “if things don’t improve in four weeks he could be facing season-ending Tommy…

One of the hottest hitters in baseball before landing on the disabled list with a hamstring injury late last month, Nelson Cruz avoided a setback during a brief rehab assignment at Triple-A and is expected to rejoin the Rangers’ lineup tomorrow. Cruz told Richard Durrett of ESPNDallas.com that his time on the DL was “tough”…

Freddy Sanchez finally looks close to rejoining the Giants following knee and shoulder surgeries, going 3-for-5 with three doubles in the first two games of his rehab assignment at Single-A. Bruce Bochy said Sanchez could be cleared to come off the disabled list as soon as next Wednesday if he avoids a setback while moving…

Derek Holland went 8-13 with a 6.12 ERA in 138.1 innings as a rookie last season, but the 23-year-old southpaw resumed dominating at Triple-A to begin this season and shut out the Mariners for six innings Wednesday night after replacing the injured Matt Harrison in the rotation. For the long term Texas’ hitter-friendly ballpark is…

Nolan Reimold has struggled to come back from the Achilles’ tendon injury that cut his impressive rookie campaign short and required surgery in September, and now Dan Connolly of the Baltimore Sun reports that the Orioles are sending him back to Triple-A. As if a return to the minors wasn’t bad enough for a 26-year-old…

Released by the Royals last week, Juan Cruz won’t be finding a new home this season because he’s undergoing surgery today to remove a cyst from his shoulder. Kansas City gave up a second-round pick and $6 million to sign Cruz to a two-year deal last winter, which looked like a sound move considering his…

With closer Bobby Jenks struggling Ozzie Guillen said before last night’s game that he’d go with matchups in the ninth inning, but Jenks ended up getting the save anyway after Guillen used southpaw Matt Thornton in the eighth inning versus left-handed hitters Joe Mauer and Justin Morneau. Thornton may have gotten the save chance had…

As if Mike Sweeney accusing a reporter of lying and challenging teammates to fight him didn’t add enough drama to the ongoing Ken Griffey Jr. saga, after last night’s game Cliff Lee refused to speak to the media until Larry LaRue of the Tacoma News Tribune left the room. LaRue has covered the Mariners for…

After years of bouncing back and forth between Triple-A and the majors Tim Stauffer looked to be grabbing a permanent spot on the Padres’ pitching staff by posting a 0.39 ERA and 19/4 K/BB ratio in 23.1 innings. And now he’s out for a month following an emergency appendectomy. Stauffer was sleeping in a hotel…

After struggling in his first two outings following a season-opening stay on the disabled list, Daisuke Matsuzaka tossed seven innings of one-run ball last night for his best start since way back in 2008. He held the Blue Jays to just three hits, racked up nine strikeouts for his highest total since April of 2008,…

J.J. Hardy injured his left wrist sliding into third base on a triple that proved to be the game-winning run last Tuesday and this afternoon the Twins put him on the disabled list. Rather than replace him with legitimate prospect like Luke Hughes, Danny Valencia, or Trevor Plouffe the Twins have added to their amazing…

Sam Mellinger of the Kansas City Star writes that Trey Hillman is basically a dead manager walking, with the only question being whether the Royals will fire him during the season or simply let his contract run out. I’m of the opinion that general manager Dayton Moore deserves a bigger share of the blame than…

MLB has suspended Astros center fielder Michael Bourn two games for “aggressive actions” that included making physical contact with umpire Alfonso Marquez during the ninth inning of Saturday’s game. Bourn angrily protested a close call at first base and in the process made what he described as “accidental” contact with Marquez, who immediately ejected him.…

Mark DeRosa is batting just .194 following offseason wrist surgery and hasn’t been himself since first suffering the injury in the middle of last season, hitting .224 with a .293 on-base percentage and .374 slugging percentage in 83 games. DeRosa is scheduled to be examined by a wrist specialist today after expressing his frustration with…

Brad Lidge moved back into the closer role Sunday and picked up his first save of the season with a scoreless ninth inning, but was unavailable last night because of soreness in his surgically repaired elbow. Jose Contreras was warming up to attempt a one-run save in Lidge’s place before Ross Gload’s ninth-inning homer extended…

Carlos Gomez has been out since injuring his shoulder last Wednesday and he finally landed on the disabled list Monday, leaving Jim Edmonds as the Brewers’ primary center fielder and giving Jody Gerut some extra playing time too. Gomez had his usual awful strikeout-to-walk ratio before going down, but was hitting .276 with good power…

Yesterday afternoon the Red Sox announced that they were pushing Josh Beckett’s next start back from Wednesday versus the Blue Jays to Friday versus the Tigers, which also put him in line to miss the Yankees next week after giving up nine runs against them in his last outing. At the time the move was…

As part of his “Media Power Rankings” column at SI.com Richard Deitsch followed up on the Twitter/MLB story from last month: NBCSports.com baseball blogger Aaron Gleeman reported that Major League Baseball had cracked down on the Twitter usage of its MLB.com writers, ordering them to stop tweeting non-baseball topics. … SI.com confirmed independently that MLB.com…

Baseball America executive editor Jim Callis has an interesting article today ranking the 20 best draft prospects since he joined the magazine in 1989. He has Stephen Strasburg as the best at-the-time-of-the-draft prospect during that span, with previous “best college pitcher of all time” Mark Prior at No. 2 and “the Strasburg of the pre-internet…

When the Royals called up Kila Ka’aihue from Triple-A last week I wondered if they’d actually play him, guessing that the answer would be no because … well, they are the Royals after all. Sure enough, Ka’aihue has started just once in five games since the call-up. Now, in fairness to the Royals they have…

Now that the Cubs’ starters are struggling as much as their relievers Lou Piniella was asked yesterday whether he’s considered moving Carlos Zambrano back into the rotation: No, right now we need Carlos right where he’s at. We asked Carlos to do something that would help this team, and it’s helped this team. If you…

After being dragged into the story about Dallas Braden’s perfect game yesterday afternoon, Alex Rodriguez also homered against the Red Sox last night to tie Frank Robinson for seventh place on the all-time list with 586. It was Rodriguez’s first homer in 61 at-bats and just his third of the season, but his next long…

Bobby Jenks’ blown save Sunday afternoon was his first of the year, but the ugly outing raised his ERA to 6.75 ERA and afterward Ozzie Guillen talked as if switching closers was on his mind. Matt Thornton is among the league’s top setup men and Jenks’ declining raw stuff made him one of my “bust”…

Dallas Braden’s perfect game obviously overshadowed every other pitching performance Sunday, but Ubaldo Jimenez and Clayton Kershaw hooked up for a great matchup of young flamethrowers. Jimenez allowed just two hits over seven innings of one-run ball, but took his first loss of the season as Kershaw shut out the Rockies for eight innings. Kershaw…