DALLAS -- Gerry Fraley, a longtime baseball writer who spent most of his career with The Dallas Morning News, has died. He was 64.

Fraley died early Saturday after a two-year battle with cancer, the newspaper reported.

After covering the Braves for the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Fraley joined the Dallas paper in 1989 to cover the Texas Rangers. Fraley also wrote about football, basketball and NASCAR among other assignments for the Morning News.

Assistant managing editor for sports Garry Leavell said Fraley's versatility "is what separated him from his peers."

Former President George W. Bush, who was part of the ownership group of the Rangers before going into politics, said, "It always seemed to me that baseball was his real passion, thereby establishing a kinship and a lasting friendship."

Former baseball commissioner Bud Selig also was among those who respected Fraley's no-nonsense approach to reporting, saying, "He was fair, honest, a great reporter."

The Oakland Athletics have designated relief pitcher Fernando Rodney for assignment, the team announced Saturday.

Rodney, 42, has seen his ERA balloon to a career-worst 9.42 this season. He had returned to Oakland for 2019 after the A's exercised a $5.25 million club option.

Rodney has pitched for 10 teams in a 17-year career and ranks 18th in MLB history with 325 saves.

The A's called up left-hander Wei-Chung Wang from Triple-A Las Vegas. He has 22 games of major league experience, all with the Milwaukee Brewers.

Astros right fielder George Springer has been placed on the 10-day injured list with a left hamstring strain after he hurt himself chasing a pop foul during Friday's game.

Springer exited the 4-3 win over the Red Sox when he sprinted in from right field while trying to catch Xander Bogaerts' pop foul in the top of the eighth inning. He clutched at his left leg as he dived feet first for the ball, which bounced in front of him, and limped off the field.

Springer, who leads the American League with 17 home runs and 43 RBIs, was playing in his first game in five days after dealing with lower back tightness.

The Astros have called up outfielder Derek Fisher from Triple-A Round Rock to fill the open roster spot. He has hit .195 for Houston over the past three seasons, appearing in two games in 2019.

After more than six years in the minor leagues, Mike Yastrzemski -- the grandson of Hall of Famer Carl Yastrzemski -- made his major league debut Saturday after being called up for the first time.

Yastrzemski started in left field for the San Francisco Giants and is batting seventh against the Arizona Diamondbacks.

Yastrzemski, 28, was traded to the Giants in March by the Baltimore Orioles, with whom he made his first big league spring training this year.

Drafted by Orioles in 2013, Yastrzemski rose quickly in the organization before his career stalled. Three years after he was drafted, he was playing for Triple-A Norfolk but then split time between Norfolk and Double-A Bowie, never making the leap to the majors.

"It's all a learning experience," Yastrzemski said in March, prior to the trade. "Everybody's got their own path to get where they want to go; whatever path that is for me, I'm fine with it. As long as you see some light at the end of the tunnel and you put everything into it, it's rewarding in that sense."

In seven minor league seasons, Yastrzemski has a .263 average but has never hit more than 15 home runs or had more than 75 RBIs. He was hitting .316 with 12 home runs and 25 RBIs for Triple-A Sacramento this season.

His grandfather, 79-year-old Carl Yastrzemski, spent all 23 years of his major league career with the Boston Red Sox and retired having played the most games (3,308) of any player in major league history to that point. He was an 18-time All-Star, seven-time Gold Glove winner and won the Triple Crown in 1967, when he helped lead the "Impossible Dream" Red Sox to a World Series appearance.

To make room on the roster, the Giants designated outfielder Mac Williamson for assignment. Williamson was hitting .118 in 15 games this season.

The Giants have also placed right-hander Trevor Gott on the 10-day injured list with a right forearm strain and recalled righty Dereck Rodriguez from Sacramento.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

BALTIMORE -- As he angrily picked himself up off his belly in the ninth inning Thursday, Aaron Hicks put a scowl on his face and took his mind to one place: over the fence.

"I wanted to get up and hit a homer," the New York Yankees center fielder said.

About 100 feet away in his dugout, other Bronx Bombers shared that mindset, hoping after the 94-mph brushback fastball that miraculously missed hitting him -- thanks to some last-second, body-bending bailing -- Hicks might crush a ball into oblivion.

They were all looking for him to hit yet another Yankees big fly. What many of them might not have known was that a grand slam there would have been the team's 81st homer of the year, putting it practically homer-for-homer on the same pace of their torrid record-setting campaign of a year ago.

Remember the 267 home runs the Yankees hit in 2018, with the likes of Aaron Judge, a healthy Giancarlo Stanton, Didi Gregorius, Miguel Andujar and Hicks? Believe it or not, this year's B-team Bombers are not far off that pace.

If this year's team -- which will eventually get Judge, Stanton and Gregorius back from stints on an injured list currently populated by 14 Yankees -- keeps homering at this current clip, it will go yard 264 times by season's end. That would put the 2019 Yankees in a tie for second on the all-time single-season team homer list with the 1997 Seattle Mariners. Only last year's Yankees have hit more.

"It's crazy how guys come up [from Triple-A], hit a lot of homers. It's crazy, man," said outfielder Clint Frazier, who has nine home runs in an injury-shortened season, including his fifth-inning drive to left Thursday. "I don't think the league has really adjusted to some of the players yet, so you've got a ton of guys with a lot of talent, and they are making adjustments if they were pitched different than they were before.

"And, dude, we're good."

When it comes to the long ball so far this season, the Yankees certainly are. They currently have only three fewer homers than they did at this exact point last season. If they homer three times at Kansas City on Friday, they'll be step-for-step with last year's Bombers.

Four teams are currently outpacing the Yankees' 80 homers, including Minnesota, which is leading the way with 98. Still, New York this year has made it a habit of hammering pitches.

"We just put our concentration and our focus to do damage, like we did [against Baltimore]," shortstop Gleyber Torres said.

With their injured list now overflowing with pitchers, including CC Sabathia's addition early Thursday, the Yankees could stand to get several more offensive explosions. Until Sabathia returns from an anticipated week and a half of rest to let a cortisone shot settle, the Yankees will be bullpenning possibly their next two times through the rotation. All of that could heavily tax their pitching staff.

So it will be up to the position players to pick up the slack, which is exactly what they did these past four days.

All week, Camden Yards was a veritable Yankees launching pad. In all, 13 home runs left Bombers bats in the four-game series. Had three more been struck off Orioles pitching, New York would have set a record for home runs hit in a single series in franchise history. At home against the White Sox in 2007, the Yankees hit 15 bombs in a three-game set.

Still, this marked just the fifth time in Yankees history that they hit at least 13 homers in a road series.

All of this week's homers versus the O's led the Yankees to a key early-season sweep as they tried to stretch out their recently acquired division lead. Since returning home from a three-city West Coast road trip at the start of this month, the Yankees have won 15 of 19 and overtaken the Tampa Bay Rays for first place in the American League East.

"These guys, the focus each and every day is on the game and playing winning baseball, and everyone kind of pulling their weight, and the mantra of come in and do your job," Yankees manager Aaron Boone said. "They've really taken to that, and a lot of them really well."

The star of the past week was Torres, who had multihomer games Monday and Wednesday before being kept out of the starting lineup Thursday. He didn't have much of a rest day, though. With two outs in the ninth, Torres and fellow O's killer Gary Sanchez came up to pinch hit.

Orioles reliever Mychal Givens kept both in the ballpark this time, though, allowing Torres to draw a clutch tie-game walk before giving up a single to Sanchez. By the time Hicks came up two batters later with a chance to blow the game wide open, Torres and Sanchez were in scoring position after starting a two-out bases-loaded rally.

"You always like when they're in the lineup, but to have them sitting over there in that spot was nice," Boone said of both young hitters. "And the fact that they were ready. It's not always easy for guys that are regulars like that, that have been sitting over there all day."

"It's crazy how guys come up [from Triple-A], hit a lot of homers. It's crazy, man. I don't think the league has really adjusted to some of the players yet, so you've got a ton of guys with a lot of talent, and they are making adjustments if they were pitched different than they were before. And, dude, we're good."

Clint Frazier

Combined, Torres and Sanchez have hit 19 home runs off the Orioles this season. That's only 11 fewer than the entire Miami Marlins team has hit against every opponent it has faced this year. Of the 12 homers Torres has hit this season, 10 have come against the Orioles. Of those 10, five came in the three games he started this week in Baltimore.

After hitting his 12th homer of the season Thursday, first baseman Luke Voit joked about Torres being given an off day, saying, "Gleyber's letting us hit -- or maybe Aaron's letting the rest of us hit home runs."

While Sanchez's 15 homers in an IL-affected season lead the team, Torres and Voit each have 12. Frazier has nine, and Brett Gardner -- who had 12 homers all of last season -- is next on the list, with seven. DJ LeMahieu and Mike Tauchman have four homers apiece. Thairo Estrada and Gio Urshela, two players who began the season at Triple-A, have three and two homers, respectively.

"I'm happy for all these guys that are getting these chances, because sometimes, a lot of these guys don't get chances," Voit said.

Voit was one of those unknown players who was looking for a break last season. After a brief stay in the minors following his trade-deadline arrival in the Bronx last summer, Voit went on to homer 14 times in the final month and a half last season. Only Milwaukee's Christian Yelich had more home runs (15) within that stretch.

When spring training started, it wasn't a given that Voit would be the Yankees' Opening Day starter at first base. But he earned the job after a competition with Greg Bird, who later got sidelined with a bout of plantar fasciitis.

Before the wave of injuries set in, LeMahieu was viewed as a complementary piece, playing a rover type role to help give some of his fellow infielders occasional relief. Like Estrada and Urshela, Frazier began the year in the minors.

"Even though we have some guys that aren't the main starters, they're still able to come up here and do damage, too," Hicks said. "The guys that we have are the same as the starters we're missing, guys that hit homers. They like to drive the ball a lot.

"It also helps to have guys that are extremely hot."

With the two hottest hitters on the team on second and third, Hicks' ninth-inning plate appearance continued after that far-inside pitch. Still hunting his chance to hit a homer, he fouled off a pitch and took another two balls. That final ball led to a bases-loaded walk that brought in Torres from third with what later proved to be the game-winning run. It's the league-leading eighth bases-loaded walk he has drawn since the start of 2017. While that wasn't the ending Hicks had hoped for, it was one he welcomed.

Perhaps that play helps explain why it has seemed so hard to fathom this team being as competitive with the long ball as it was last year. Small ball, drawing walks and using speed to succeed has been the 2019 Yankees' most recognized calling card.

"That's what's making this great," Voit said. "I don't want to say it was like that last year, but we kind of relied on the three-run homer all the time. And now we're getting walks, we're moving guys over when they need to be, hitting sac flies and playing really good defense.

"It's just stepping up and doing your job and not being a selfish player."

British heptathlete enjoys strong start at prestigious Hypomeeting, while Damian Warner runs world decathlon 100m best on impressive first day

Katarina Johnson-Thompson leads the Hypomeeting heptathlon by an impressive 177 points following a strong first day of competition in Götzis.

The Commonwealth champion’s 4034-point tally after the first four events is her second best ever day-one score, behind the 4059 points she achieved on the first day in Götzis in 2017 when she went on to score 6691.

The Briton leads ahead of Americans Kendell Williams (3857 points) and Erica Bougard (3809 points).

Johnson-Thompson had opened with a PB-equalling performance as she clocked 13.29 in the 100m hurdles to match her best run from Götzis two years ago.

She went on to clear 1.95m in the high jump which, like her hurdles mark, matches her best performance in Götzis, also set in 2017. Just three centimetres off her PB and British record set in Rio, the mark was 12 centimetres higher than any of her rivals could manage and put her into the overall lead.

She then threw 12.95m in the shot put before running 23.21 in the 200m on a rainy afternoon.

Behind the top three, Germany’s world silver medallist Carolin Schäfer sits in fourth place with 3765 points, with Hungary’s Xénia Krizsán in fifth with 3741 and Netherlands’ Nadine Broersen in sixth with 3723.

Niamh Emerson claimed European indoor pentathlon silver behind her GB team-mate Johnson-Thompson in Glasgow but will be unable to try to build on that in Götzis after being forced to withdraw from the competition after two events.

After clocking 13.85 in the 100m hurdles, she cleared 1.83m to sit in sixth after two events but could not continue after aggravating a knee injury.

In the decathlon, Canada’s Damian Warner got his bid to win a fifth title in Götzis off to a record-breaking start as he ran a world decathlon 100m best of 10.12 (+0.9m/sec).

He followed that with 7.67m in the long jump, a PB throw of 15.34m in the shot put, a 2.00m high jump clearance and a time of 47.38 in the 400m.

The Olympic and world medallist’s 4596 day-one tally is 31 points better than he achieved last year en route to setting his Canadian record of 8795.

Speaking trackside after his 100m, Warner said: “I never expected to run that fast, but I’ll certainly take it!”

Another impressive day one performance came from Australia’s world under-20 decathlon champion Ashley Moloney, with the 19-year-old ending day one in second place with a score of 4436 points.

Germany’s Kai Kazmirek and Grenada’s Lindon Victor sit in joint third with 4385 points, while Germany’s Manuel Eitel is in fifth with 4342.

Britain’s European indoor silver medallist Tim Duckworth is placed sixth after the first five events, after a 10.61 100m, leading long jump of 7.72m, 12.80m in the shot put, a 2.09m high jump clearance and time of 50.06 in the 400m.

The European Championships fifth-placer set his PB of 8336 points when claiming the NCAA title last year, with that mark putting him third behind Daley Thompson and Dean Macey on the British all-time decathlon list.

Results can be found here.

Chelsea are braced for Real Madrid to step up their pursuit of Eden Hazard after the Europa League final with the player still hopeful of a swift resolution, sources have told ESPN FC.

Hazard wants his move to Madrid finalised before he joins up with the Belgium squad for their Euro 2020 qualifiers on June 4, but the two clubs remain far apart in their valuations of the 28-year-old.

- When does the transfer window close?

Chelsea have told Madrid they want as much as £130 million for Hazard, while the Spanish giants have so far refused to go higher than £88m for a player about to enter the final year of his contract.

Any agreement is likelier to be struck in the region of £100m, though Chelsea director Marina Granovskaia is determined to secure the best deal possible for her club's prized asset.

Chelsea are not expected to significantly lower their asking price even if Hazard inspires his team to victory against Arsenal in the Europa League final, and are hoping that Madrid coach Zinedine Zidane's desire to secure the Belgian will encourage the Spanish giants to raise their offer.

Speaking after Chelsea's final Premier League game of the season against Leicester City earlier this month, Hazard revealed he had informed the club of his desire to join Madrid two weeks earlier and is now waiting for them to act upon his wishes.

Sources told ESPN FC earlier this month that Hazard is in regular contact with Zidane and has looked into housing and school options in Madrid. Personal terms are not expected to be an issue.