News and notes: Giancarlo Stanton activated; Brandon Barnes called up

Giancarlo Stanton returns to the Marlins, and Brandon Barnes is being called up by the Astros.

Some news and notes from around the league on Tuesday afternoon:

• The Marlins have activated Giancarlo Stanton from the disabled list and placed Donnie Murphy on the 15-day DL with a strained left hamstring, tweeted MLB.com's Joe Frisaro.

• The Astros are calling up outfielder Brandon Barnes to the major leagues, wrote the Houston Chronicle's Zachary Levine. A corresponding roster move hasn't yet been announced, but will be made before Tuesday night's game. 

• Barnes was drafted by the Astros way back in June 2005, and has been in the Houston system ever since. This season, in 106 games split betwen Double-A and Triple-A, Barnes is batting .321/.381/.514 with 12 home runs and 69 RBI. He has stolen 21 bases in 27 opportunities. 

• Finally, oft-injured Blue Jays pitcher Dustin McGowan needs arthroscopic shoulder surgery, and is headed to Dr. James Andrews' office with Drew Hutchison. Nobody knows when McGowan might pitch again. 

For more up-to-the-minute news and analysis on the latest rumors from bloggers Chris Cwik, Jack Moore and Navin Vaswani, follow @MLBRumorsCBS.