{"id":16059,"date":"2025-07-22T18:29:09","date_gmt":"2025-07-22T18:29:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/16059\/"},"modified":"2025-07-22T18:29:09","modified_gmt":"2025-07-22T18:29:09","slug":"rays-acquire-stuart-fairchild-place-brandon-lowe-on-injured-list","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/16059\/","title":{"rendered":"Rays Acquire Stuart Fairchild, Place Brandon Lowe On Injured List"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Rays announced Tuesday that they\u2019ve acquired outfielder Stuart Fairchild<\/a> from the Braves in exchange for cash. Tampa Bay also placed infielder Brandon Lowe<\/a> on the 10-day injured list with tendinitis in his left ankle. Right-hander Manuel Rodriguez<\/a> goes from the 15-day IL to the 60-day IL to open a spot for Fairchild on the 40-man roster.<\/p>\n

Atlanta designated the 29-year-old Fairchild for assignment just yesterday morning. He\u2019s primarily been a pinch-runner and late-inning defensive replacement in the Braves\u2019 outfield. Fairchild has played in 28 games but only come to the plate 55 times this year. He\u2019s hit .216\/.273\/.333 in that tiny sample and is a career .223\/.305\/.384 hitter in 670 major league plate appearances overall.<\/p>\n

Fairchild, a former second-round pick, has totaled 277 major league games split between the Diamondbacks, Reds, Giants, Mariners and Braves. He has well above-average speed (87th percentile, per Statcast) and can handle all three outfield spots, which has led to him carving out a frequent role as a fourth outfielder. He\u2019s a right-handed bat who offers slightly above-average production against lefties but has struggled considerably in right-on-right matchups. Fairchild is out of options, so the Rays will have to carry him on the big league roster or else designate him for assignment once again.<\/p>\n

Lowe exited the Rays\u2019 game on Saturday with what was described at the time as plantar fasciitis. He hasn\u2019t appeared in a game since. As such, the move can be backdated to July 20. That leaves the veteran second baseman time to be reinstated prior to the July 31 trade deadline.<\/p>\n

In 350 plate appearances this season, Lowe is hitting .269\/.320\/.480 with 19 home runs, 11 doubles, three stolen bases, a 6.9% walk rate and a 25.4% strikeout rate. He\u2019s in the final guaranteed season of his contract, though Tampa Bay holds an $11.5MM club option (with a $500K buyout) that seems overwhelmingly likely to be exercised.<\/p>\n

The Rays aren\u2019t clear-cut sellers, but there\u2019s always a possibility of them moving some veteran pieces whose club control is dwindling. In that sense, Lowe is a speculative trade candidate who\u2019d presumably appeal to clubs with second base needs (e.g. Giants, Astros). He can be traded even if he\u2019s on the injured list, and as already mentioned, there\u2019s a chance he\u2019s back before the deadline has passed. There\u2019s no guarantee Rays brass will even make Lowe available, but they do have several infield alternatives on the roster (e.g. Jose Caballero<\/a>, Ha-Seong Kim<\/a>, Curtis Mead<\/a>, Taylor Walls<\/a>).<\/p>\n

Rodriguez, 28, has been a key setup arm for Tampa Bay when healthy, tallying 11 holds and a 2.08 ERA in 30 1\/3 innings this season. He landed on the injured list due to a forearm strain in early June, and president of baseball operations Erik Neander indicated last week (via Marc Topkin of the Tampa Bay Times<\/a>) that Rodriguez isn\u2019t expected back anytime soon. It\u2019s still not entirely clear what his prognosis is, but the shift to the 60-day IL leaves him shelved into at least mid-August. Based on Neander\u2019s comments and the fact that Rodriguez isn\u2019t yet throwing, it\u2019s fair to presume it\u2019ll be a good bit longer than that.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Rays announced Tuesday that they\u2019ve acquired outfielder Stuart Fairchild from the Braves in exchange for cash. Tampa…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":16060,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[435],"tags":[14098,49,48,14099,462,82,14100],"class_list":["post-16059","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mlb","tag-brandon-lowe","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-manuel-rodriguez","tag-mlb","tag-sports","tag-stuart-fairchild"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16059","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=16059"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16059\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/16060"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16059"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16059"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16059"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}