CINCINNATI -- The playoff-contending Oakland Athletics have acquired starter Tanner Roark from the Reds, filling out a rotation that also could have left-hander Sean Manaea back soon.

Oakland dealt outfield prospect Jameson Hannah to Cincinnati. The Reds are sending Oakland $2.1 million to offset much of the $3,225,806 remaining in Roark's $10 million salary.

The trade was announced Wednesday, about an hour before the deadline for making deals. The A's began the day a half-game out of the second AL wild-card spot.

Roark lasted a season-low 3 1/3 innings during Cincinnati's 11-4 loss to the Pirates on Tuesday. He is 6-7 in 21 starts with a 4.24 ERA and can become a free agent after the season.

The Reds traded Roark a few hours after getting Trevor Bauer from the Indians for right fielder Yaisel Puig in a three-team swap that included San Diego.

Manaea struck out eight in six innings of a rehab start at Triple-A this week. He's likely to get one more rehab start before being activated. He had shoulder surgery last September.

Hannah, a 21-year-old center fielder, is hitting .283 with 31 RBIs and a .723 OPS in 92 games for Class-A Stockton in the California League. He was a second-round pick by the A's in the 2018 MLB draft.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

The Atlanta Braves added two more relievers before the trade deadline, acquiring All-Star closer Shane Greene from the Detroit Tigers, and San Francisco Giants right-hander Mark Melancon on Wednesday.

The Braves gave up two minor-leaguers -- left-hander Joey Wentz and infielder Travis Demeritte -- for Greene. They sent right-handed pitchers Dan Winkler and Tristan Beck to the Giants.

The Braves also acquired catcher John Ryan Murphy from the Arizona Diamondbacks on Wednesday for cash considerations.

Greene, 30, has a 1.18 ERA and 22 saves this season. The right-hander recorded 32 saves last season in his first full year as a closer.

Melancon, 34, is a three-time All-Star who has a 3.50 ERA in 43 games with the Giants this season.

Greene and Melancon are both under contract through the 2020 season. Greene is eligible for arbitration, and Melancon has a base salary of $14 million.

The Braves already bolstered their bullpen Tuesday night with their acquisition of right-hander Chris Martin from the Texas Rangers.

Luke Jackson has served as Atlanta's closer this season, recording 17 saves. However, he has struggled lately, posting a 13.50 ERA with two blown saves in seven appearances since the All-Star break. He blew a save chance on Wednesday against the Washington Nationals, but the Braves won 5-4 in 10 innings.

For the Tigers, the trade of Greene likely clears the closer role for Joe Jimenez, who has been the team's closer of the future for some time. Buck Farmer, who has nine consecutive scoreless appearances to begin the second half, could force himself into the mix if Jimenez initially struggles.

The Chicago Cubs have acquired outfielder Nicholas Castellanos from the Detroit Tigers.

The Tigers received right-handed pitching prospects Alex Lange and Paul Richan in the deal.

Castellanos is hitting .273 with 11 home runs and 37 RBIs this season. His best year came in 2017, when he hit 26 home runs and drove in 101 runs with a .272 average.

The 27-year-old should provide a big boost offensively to a Chicago team that entered Wednesday's action a game behind the first-place Cardinals in the NL Central and atop the wild-card standings. His 119 doubles over the last three seasons trail only Red Sox star Mookie Betts in that span. And Castellanos' 37 doubles this season are tied with Boston's Rafael Devers for the most in the majors.

He also will greatly improve their chances against left-handed pitching. The Cubs have the third-worst batting average against lefties this season at .235, while Castellanos has mashed lefties throughout his career, especially this season in which he is hitting .347 against southpaws.

Castellanos has a .790 OPS in 2019, and his OBP while batting second is .357.

The move was completed just ahead of Wednesday's 4 p.m. trade deadline.

Richan, 22, is 10-5 with a 3.97 ERA in 17 starts and Lange, 23, is 1-9 with a 7.36 ERA in 11 starts at the Class A level this season.

The Cubs also agreed to two other trades on Wednesday. Chicago sent catcher Martin Maldonado to the Houston Astros for utility man Tony Kemp and traded right-handed reliever Carl Edwards Jr. to the San Diego Padres for left-hander Brad Wieck.

It's also the Tigers' second major trade as Detroit agreed to trade closer Shane Greene to the Atlanta Braves on Wednesday.

The Houston Astros made the biggest move of Wednesday's trade deadline, acquiring right-hander Zack Greinke from the Arizona Diamondbacks for four prospects.

Greinke joins a fearsome rotation that includes Justin Verlander and Gerrit Cole.

Houston sent right-hander Corbin Martin, right-hander J.B. Bukauskas, first baseman Seth Beer and infielder Josh Rojas to Arizona to complete the deal.

"We are just really shocked and ecstatic,'' Cole said before Houston played at Cleveland on Wednesday, adding, "I'm really proud to be an Astro right now.''

Cole said when the players learned of the deal there was "a lot of hooting and hollering at 4:07. We are ecstatic. We're getting a Hall of Fame pitcher, a craftsman.''

The Astros also acquired right-handers Aaron Sanchez and Joe Biagini and minor league outfielder Cal Stevenson from the Blue Jays, sending outfielder Derek Fisher to Toronto.

The Diamondbacks moved to replace Greinke in the rotation by acquiring right-handed starter Mike Leake from the Seattle Mariners.

Leake is 9-8 with a 4.40 ERA this season for Seattle. He is in the fourth year of a five-year, $80 million contract.

Greinke is 10-4 with a 2.90 ERA in 23 starts this season. Entering Wednesday, the right-hander, who won a Cy Young Award with the Kansas City Royals in 2009, was 197-122 with a 3.36 ERA in 16 major league seasons.

He pitched against the New York Yankees on Wednesday, striking out seven batters in five innings. Greinke left the ballpark without commenting to reporters.

For Houston's rotation, it's a case of the rich getting richer.

Before the Greinke trade, Astros starters ranked first in the majors in both strikeouts per nine innings (10.5) and opponents' batting average (.213). Their ERA ranked fourth (3.68). Verlander leads the AL in wins (14) and ERA (2.73), and Cole tops with the majors with 212 strikeouts.

With Verlander and Greinke, Houston now is one of two teams with two active Cy Young winners on its roster (the other pair being Rick Porcello and David Price of the Boston Red Sox).

Verlander, who won the Cy Young in 2011 while with Detroit, expressed excitement about the Greinke deal.

Wow... that escalated quickly! ??? @astros

— Justin Verlander (@JustinVerlander) July 31, 2019

Greinke gives the Astros insurance for after this season in case Cole leaves in free agency. Greinke is in the fourth year of a six-year, $206.5 million deal that he signed with Arizona prior to the 2016 season.

As part of the deal, the D-backs are sending $24 million to the Astros, who then will be responsible for the remaining $53 million on the deal, sources confirmed to ESPN's Jeff Passan.

STATESVILLE, N.C. — GMS Racing announced Wednesday that Manpower U.S. will sponsor 16-year-old Sam Mayer for his NASCAR Gander Outdoors Truck Series debut at Bristol (Tenn.) Motor Speedway on Aug. 15.

Mayer will also pilot the No. 21 ManpowerGroup Chevrolet Silverado at Martinsville (Va.) Speedway on Oct. 26 and ISM Raceway near Phoenix, Ariz., on Nov. 8.

ManpowerGroup®, the parent company of Manpower and headquartered in Milwaukee, Wis., is the leading global workforce solutions company which helps organizations transform in a fast-changing world of work by sourcing, assessing, developing and managing talent that enables them to succeed.

Mayer, from Franklin, Wis., is currently competing for the NASCAR K&N Pro Series East championship. In seven starts this season, he has two wins, six top-five and six top-10 finishes, two poles and has led 333 laps. He has also run six ARCA Racing Series events in 2019 earning five top-five finishes.

“I can’t believe I’m going to be making my first Truck Series start at Bristol next month, and I’m really excited ManpowerGroup will be on board with me for my three races this year,” Mayer said. “To have a worldwide company support me this early in my career is pretty incredible. I led every lap and won the K&N race at Bristol in April, so I’m hoping we can have a really solid performance for them in the truck race next month, as well as at Martinsville and Phoenix.”

“ManpowerGroup has called Milwaukee home for over 70 years and we’re passionate about helping people achieve their potential and develop in their career, so that’s why we’re excited to support Wisconsin native Sam Mayer in his career journey,” said Michael Stull, Vice President of Manpower North America

ROSSBURG, Ohio – Christian Eckes will tackle a different surface when he straps back into the No. 51 Toyota Tundra for Kyle Busch Motorsports this week in the NASCAR Gander Outdoors Truck Series.

Eckes will take to the dirt for a rare appearance, tackling the half-mile Eldora Speedway during the seventh annual Eldora Dirt Derby, the only dirt race for any of NASCAR’s top three divisions all year long.

Thursday night’s event will mark the 18-year-old’s dirt debut in Truck Series machinery, as he fills the seat that was occupied last year by NOS Energy Drink USAC National Midget Series star Logan Seavey.

Seavey was originally expected to return to Eldora and chase a Truck Series win this week, but when USAC’s Pennsylvania Midget Week landed on the same week as the Dirt Derby and left Seavey unable to make the trip west to Ohio, Eckes got the call to fill the void.

Eckes does have experience racing on the dirt in the ARCA Menards Series, with one career dirt victory at the Illinois State Fairgrounds in August of last year.

“This race is going to be extremely different for me,” noted Eckes. “I don’t have a lot of experience on dirt, and what little dirt experience I do have is on a mile (track). It’s definitely going to be a change, but it looks like Eldora is a cool place to race dirt. Logan certainly did a great job for this team last year.

“Like I said, this is going to be a bit of an adjustment for me, but I’m really excited to get in the No. 51 Mobil 1 Tundra and see what we’ve got.”

Eckes is coming off his first-career top-five finish in the Truck Series, finishing fourth last week at Pocono Raceway, and feels that he and his squad are knocking on the door of his maiden Truck Series victory.

“I feel like we’re really close to a win,” said Eckes. “At Pocono last week, we were just missing it by a little bit to be able to go and run the leaders down. Obviously at Gateway, I felt like we had a race-winning truck, and we just had that issue on the last lap. Hopefully we have speed at Eldora this week.

“This team deserves another win; they’ve been close and hopefully we can give them one on Thursday night.”

CONCORD, N.C. — Brad Sweet remained at the top of the National Sprint Car Rankings this week, but Donny Schatz and Danny Dietrich, who became the first driver to reach the 50-start plateau, each closed the gap.

Sweet, who won the $175,000 Kings Royal sprint car race at Ohio’s Eldora Speedway on July 20, has an average finish of 4.957 in 46 starts.

Schatz, who won Saturday’s Summer Nationals at Pennsylvania’s Williams Grove Speedway, is second in the standings with a 5.109 average finish in 46 starts.

With 53 starts, Dietrich was able to toss out his three worst finishes of the season and he jumped to third in the rankings with a 5.220 average finish.

Central Pennsylvania regulars Lance Dewease and Logan Wagner round out the top five.

Dietrich leads the Eastern region on the strength of 12 victories, while other regional leaders are Buddy Kofoid (Great Lakes), Billy Balog (Great Plains), Dominic Scelzi (West), Jacob Patton (Mid-America) and Carl Bowser. (Ohio-PA).

Ninety-eight drivers have combined to win 232 features run through July 28.

To see the National and Regional rankings, advance to the next page.

The 85th anniversary of SPEED SPORT is an unparalleled milestone in this industry. The brand pre-dates, and therefore has documented the history of nearly every national sanctioning body in motorsports.

NASCAR (1947), NHRA (1951), USAC (1955) and the World of Outlaws (1978) — from infancy to their greatest moments — are completely chronicled in the pages of SPEED SPORT.  From the board tracks of the early ’30s to IndyCar, which ran its first race as the Indy Racing League in 1996, SPEED SPORT has been there and brought its readers along for the ride.

Our longevity is definitely worth celebrating and we revel in the history, events and characters that make it so interesting. Ultimately, it’s those events that shape us and fuel the passion that propels us forward.  But we are humbled as well — this business is every bit if not more daunting as it was for William Kay back in 1934.

Back then, the very idea of an enterprise devoted to covering the then-fledgling sport of auto racing was not mainstream — and risky. But the publishers saw the opportunity and ultimately created something special. We owe a lot to those gentlemen for laying the foundation blocks of motorsports journalism.

Just as in 1934, our success or failure is predicated on the support of our readers (and viewers) and the motorsports industry. Earning and maintaining that support requires listening to our constituents and constantly evolving to adapt to their changing needs. In 2009, then owner and publisher Corinne Economaki (Chris’ daughter) asked me to advise the company on how to adapt. The readers and industry had evolved, but SPEED SPORT was at that time essentially the same business as it was in 1934 — a weekly newspaper.

Just a few years later, Ralph Sheheen and I found ourselves the new shepherds of the SPEED SPORT name — entrusted by the Economakis to keep it relevant and valuable to readers and the industry while also remaining true to its past and principles.  We took our charge seriously and have been on the run ever since.

SPEED SPORT has evolved and grown tremendously in the last 10 years — arguably more than the previous 75 years combined. We are now quite literally everywhere, on every type of device or format. Print, email, social media, web, mobile and even award-winning television shows are all part of the makeup of a brand that continues to evolve and adapt. SPEED SPORT’s amazing team of contributors, columnists and editors, led by Sheheen, is the best and biggest it’s ever been, and collectively they produce more content at a higher frequency than ever before.

Compared to 1934, everything has changed. We now live in a hyper-connected world of 24/7 news channels, apps, feeds, and live-streams where the very idea of waiting a week for your racing news seems, well, antique.

But as I read SPEED SPORT editor Kay’s column from 85 years ago (available tomorrow on SPEEDSPORT.com), I was struck by how much of it fits today. Our core mission has not changed. We continue to adapt to serve you — our subscribers, advertisers and the sport as a whole. And just as back then, SPEED SPORT cannot operate, yet alone succeed, without the reciprocity of subscriptions, advertising dollars and the support of the industry. That support is the fuel that prints and ships magazines, hosts websites, pays our editors, producers, journalists and photographers, and keeps the lights and phones on at the office.

So thank you for your patronage. If you haven’t done so already, please subscribe or renew.  Tell your friends about SPEED SPORT and please support the companies that advertise in these pages, on our website and on our TV programs. Help us continue to be the leader in accurate, insightful motorsports journalism for many years to come!

Thanks and see you at the race track!

Editor’s Note: Joe Tripp is Co-Founder & CEO of Turn 3 Media, which owns and operates SPEED SPORT and Sprint Car & Midget.

DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. – As if Mazda Team Joest needed further incentive to keep its torrid streak in the DPi class going in the IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship, there’s a looming tidbit from John Doonan.

The director of motorsports for Mazda North American Operations has overseen the development of the brand’s sports car program that has culminated in victories in each of the past two races.

First there was a win by the No. 55 entry at Watkins Glen Int’l on June 30, and then there was another by the No. 77 a week later at Canadian Tire Motorsport Park.

In each of those events, Mazda posted a 1-2 finish.

As monumental and gratifying as those triumphs were, Doonan is keen on making it three in a row in Sunday’s IMSA Road Race Challenge at Road America. The Wisconsin circuit holds a special place in his heart.

“I certainly don’t want to make it about me,” Doonan said, “but I want this one pretty bad. This is a place where I grew up with my family, coming here with my dad when he was racing in the ‘70s and ‘80s. I was here when I was six weeks old.

“Out of all the races, you want to win the big ones – Daytona and Sebring – but I told the guys at Multimatic when we were testing here a while ago that I’d love to get one here. We’ll see what happens.”

With three weeks off following the back-to-back wins, those involved with the Mazda Team Joest program have had the chance to take in the achievement.

That includes Tristan Nunez, co-driver of the No. 77 with Oliver Jarvis that captured the most recent triumph at CTMP.

“With a couple weeks off to let it all set in, it’s pretty special,” said the 23-year-old Nunez, part of the Mazda program since 2013. “It’s something we’ve been trying for the past six years, so to complete it in that style, there’s no words to describe it.

“We’re here at Road America now, so we’ve just got to keep the momentum going and get some more results, and maybe we’ll be in the championship fight.”

As one of the long-tenured members of the Mazda program, Nunez has taken extra satisfaction in the recent results after years of hard work.

“I’ve been through it all – all the highs and lows – but I never gave up on it,” he said. “I know how special this brand is and it’s a great brand to be a part of. I love everything that they stand for.”

Nunez believes that his car and the No. 55 co-driven by Jonathan Bomarito and Harry Tincknell will continue to be a threat at Road America and beyond, despite recent Balance of Performance adjustments from IMSA.

“I don’t think the momentum’s going to stop now,” Nunez said. “I’m really excited to get this weekend started and see where we stack up. The new BoP did come out and we did get hit pretty hard, but I really don’t think it’s going to make that big of a difference. I trust the IMSA system.

“The track is amazing; it’s a true driver’s track and it’s just a beautiful course. I’m really excited.”

Doonan also believes Mazda teams are still in the hunt for the championship with four races remaining. The No. 77 is tied for fifth in the standings, 19 points behind the first-place No. 6 Acura Team Penske. Meanwhile, the No. 55 is just 20 points out of the lead.

Doonan credited Multimatic’s influences for making the car so solid on permanent circuits.

“They have made this race car love natural terrain road courses,” Doonan said. “We’ll be quick at a lot of places, but surely seeing how the car came alive at The Glen and Canadian Tire Motorsport Park (was impressive), and now the last three races of the season are all on those types of circuits.

“God willing, we could be in the championship hunt heading into Petit (the Motul Petit Le Mans at Michelin Raceway Road Atlanta), I hope.”

The New Jersey Devils continued their busy offseason by reaching agreement on a deal with promising young defenseman Will Butcher.

The two sides avoided arbitration with a three-year, $11.2 million contract, according to the team.

The Devils have traded for All-Star defenseman P.K. Subban and former KHL star Nikita Gusev after drafting center Jack Hughes No. 1 overall.

The Devils won the Butcher sweepstakes when they signed the defenseman to a two-year entry-level contract out of Denver in 2017. With that contract up, New Jersey had to decide just how he fit with the rebuild that has taken some big steps.

Butcher, 24, had five goals and 44 points for the Devils in 2017-18, when they snapped a five-year playoff drought. But New Jersey took a step back last season -- missing the playoffs -- and Butcher's numbers also dropped to four goals and 26 assists. He was also a minus-17.

Butcher was a solid contributor on the Devils' power play this past season, however.