Jarrod Parker makes first rehab start since Tommy John surgery - MLB

Thursday night A’s right-hander Jarrod Parker saw his first game action since undergoing Tommy John elbow surgery last March, making a minor-league rehab start at Single-A.

Parker threw 3.2 innings, allowing allowing three runs on four hits while striking out one and walking zero. And then afterward he tweeted this:

Wow that was fun! @stocktonports (despite loss) Haven’t smiled that much in awhile 😁

— Jarrod Parker (@JarrodBParker) April 24, 2015

Parker has been aiming at an early June return to the A’s, lengthening the usual 12-month recovery timetable because this is the 26-year-old’s second career Tommy John surgery. Prior to being shut down the former top-10 draft pick started 61 games for the A’s, going 25-16 with a 3.73 ERA.

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FORT WORTH, Texas — A former Angels employee has been charged with conspiracy to distribute fentanyl in connection with last year’s overdose death of Angels pitcher Tyler Skaggs, prosecutors in Texas announced Friday.

Eric Prescott Kay was arrested in Fort Worth, Texas, and made his first appearance Friday in federal court, according to Erin Nealy Cox, the U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of Texas. Kay was communications director for the Angels.

Skaggs was found dead in his hotel room in the Dallas area July 1, 2019, before the start of what was supposed to be a four-game series against the Texas Rangers. The first game was postponed before the teams played the final three games.

Skaggs died after choking on his vomit with a toxic mix of alcohol and the powerful painkillers fentanyl and oxycodone in his system, a coroner’s report said. Prosecutors accused Kay of providing the fentanyl to Skaggs and others, who were not named.

“Tyler Skaggs’s overdose – coming, as it did, in the midst of an ascendant baseball career – should be a wake-up call: No one is immune from this deadly drug, whether sold as a powder or hidden inside an innocuous-looking tablet,” Nealy Cox said.

If convicted, Kay faces up to 20 years in prison. Federal court records do not list an attorney representing him, and an attorney who previously spoke on his behalf did not immediately return a message seeking comment.