Never can say goodbye: Chavez back with the Braves for the 5th time since 2021 and 6th overall

LOS ANGELES (AP) — Jesse Chavez and the Atlanta Braves never seem to part ways for long.

The team purchased the 41-year-old right-hander's contract from Triple-A Gwinnett on Monday, bringing him back for his fifth stint with the Braves since 2021 and sixth overall.

He first joined the team in December 2009 in a trade with Tampa Bay for reliever Rafael Soriano. In 2021, Chavez signed a minor league deal with Atlanta and later joined the Braves’ staff, helping them win the World Series.

Chavez has pitched for nine teams during his long career, including multiple stints with Toronto, the Los Angeles Angels, Texas and the Chicago Cubs.

“We need as much positive as we can have right now, and Jesse definitely brings that,” Braves manager Brian Snitker said. “He’s part of the family, and it’s always good when you see Jesse walk through that door.”

Chavez returned on the same day the winless Braves learned outfielder Jurickson Profar was suspended for 80 games by Major League Baseball after testing positive for a performance-enhancing drug.

Chavez gave up one run and two hits over two innings of relief in Atlanta's 6-1 loss Monday night to the unbeaten Los Angeles Dodgers. He struck out one, walked two and allowed a home run to Kiké Hernández in the sixth as the Braves dropped to 0-5 for the first time since starting 0-9 in 2016.

Chavez entered with a 2.53 ERA in 158 appearances for Atlanta since 2021.

Also on Monday, the Braves designated right-hander Héctor Neris for assignment.

AP MLB: https://apnews.com/hub/mlb

Tornadoes and violent storms struck parts of the South and Midwest on Wednesday, knocking down power lines and trees, ripping roofs off homes and shooting debris thousands of feet into the air.

A tornado emergency was briefly issued in northeast Arkansas, with the National Weather Service telling residents on social media: “This is a life threatening situation. Seek shelter now.”

Dozens of tornado and severe thunderstorm warnings were issued in parts of Arkansas, Illinois, Indiana, Missouri and Mississippi as storms hit those and other states in the evening. Forecasters attributed the violent weather to daytime heating combining with an unstable atmosphere, strong wind shear and abundant moisture streaming into the nation's midsection from the Gulf.

The coming days were also forecast to bring the risk of potentially deadly flash flooding to the South and Midwest as severe thunderstorms blowing eastward become supercharged. The potent storm system will bring “significant, life-threatening flash flooding” each day through Saturday, the National Weather Service said.

With more than a foot (30 centimeters) of rain possible over the next four days, the prolonged deluge “is an event that happens once in a generation to once in a lifetime,” the weather service said. “Historic rainfall totals and impacts are possible.”

More than 90 million people were at some risk of severe weather in a huge part of the nation stretching from Texas to Minnesota and Maine, according to the Oklahoma-based Storm Prediction Center.

A tornado emergency was briefly declared around Blytheville, Arkansas, Wednesday evening, with debris lofted at least 25,000 feet (7.6 kilometers), according to Chelly Amin, a meteorologist with the weather service. That was the weather service’s highest alert, and rare. It was not immediately clear whether there were any injuries.

“It's definitely going to be a really horrible situation here come sunrise in the morning in those areas, coming out of Arkansas,” Amin said.

More than 2 miles (3 kilometers) of Highway 18 in the area was temporarily shut down due to a downed power line.

A tornado was also reported on the ground near Harrisburg, Arkansas, in the evening.

In Pilot Grove, Missouri, several structures were damaged, cars flipped over and power poles were snapped, the state emergency management agency said. Minor injuries were reported, according to the Missouri State Highway Patrol. Meanwhile roads were closed because of storm debris and downed utility lines near the town of Potosi, southwest of St. Louis, according to the state transportation department.

Authorities in eastern Missouri were trying to determine whether it was a tornado that damaged buildings, overturned vehicles and tore down utility poles, tree limbs and business signs in the morning in and around the city of Nevada.

Another tornado touched down in the northeastern Oklahoma city of Owasso about 6:40 a.m., according to the weather service office in Tulsa. There were no immediate reports of injuries, but the twister heavily damaged the roofs of homes and knocked down power lines, trees, fences and sheds.

Forecasters at the National Weather Service office in the area of Paducah, Kentucky, took cover during a warning at night.

“We’re all good here at the office, the circulation JUST missed us to the south,” the agency said on social media.

Power was knocked out to nearly 90,000 customers in Arkansas, Mississippi, Missouri, Illinois, Kentucky and Tennessee, according to PowerOutage.us, which tracks outages nationwide. As storms moved through Indiana on Wednesday night, nearly 140,000 customers lost power.

News outlets reported part of a warehouse collapsed in Brownsburg, Indiana, while five semitrucks were blown over on Interstate 65 near Lowell, Indiana, state police reported.

The dangerous weather came nearly two years to the day after an EF-3 tornado struck Little Rock, Arkansas. No one was killed, but there was major destruction to neighborhoods and businesses that are still being rebuilt today.

About 2.5 million people were in a rarely called “high-risk” zone, covering parts of west Tennessee including Memphis; northeast Arkansas; the southeast corner of Missouri; and parts of western Kentucky and southern Illinois.

The Storm Prediction Center said “multiple long-track EF3+ tornadoes" were likely. Tornadoes of that magnitude are among the strongest on the Enhanced Fujita scale, used to rate their intensity.

At a slightly lower risk for severe weather was an area that included Chicago, Indianapolis, St. Louis and Louisville, Kentucky. Dallas, Detroit, Milwaukee and Nashville, Tennessee, were also at risk.

Thunderstorms with multiple rounds of heavy rain were expected in parts of Texas, the lower Mississippi Valley and the Ohio Valley from midweek through Saturday. Forecasters warned that they could track over the same areas repeatedly, producing dangerous flash floods capable of sweeping cars away.

Middle Tennessee was looking at severe storms followed by four days of heavy rains as the front stalls out and sticks around through the weekend, according to NWS meteorologist Mark Rose.

“I don’t recall ever seeing one like this, and I’ve been here 30 years,” Rose said. “It’s not moving.”

Rain totaling up to 15 inches (38 centimeters) was forecast over the next seven days in northeastern Arkansas, the southeast corner of Missouri, western Kentucky and southern parts of Illinois and Indiana, the weather service warned, with some areas in Kentucky and Indiana at an especially high risk for flooding.

In Michigan, crews worked to restore power after a weekend ice storm. More than 122,000 customers were still without electricity on Wednesday, according to PowerOutage.us.

The Mackinac Bridge connecting Michigan’s Lower and Upper Peninsulas was shut down because large chunks of ice were falling from cables and towers. It was the third consecutive day of bridge interruptions from the ice storm.

Associated Press writers Andrew DeMillo in Little Rock, Arkansas; Adrian Sainz in Memphis, Tennessee; Seth Borenstein in Washington; Isabella O'Malley in Philadelphia; Ed White in Detroit; and Hallie Golden in Seattle contributed.