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Go Rays!

After finally snapping a six-game losing streak in last night’s 2-1 victory over the Toronto Blue Jays, the Brewers have a chance to build a bit of momentum and end the homestand on a high note.

Brandon Sproat gets the ball today as he looks for his first win as a Brewer. The right-hander has a 10.45 ERA through three appearances this season, though his last outing (3 2/3 IP, 3 H, 1 ER, 3 K, 3 BB in relief) was a significant improvement over the first two. Hopefully he can limit the walks and keep showing signs of improvement against a Blue Jays offense missing George Springer and Alejandro Kirk.

On the mound for Toronto is Patrick Corbin. The veteran lefty had a 4.40 ERA last year, his best mark since the 2019 season. Corbin struggled in his season debut on Saturday, giving up six hits and four earned runs over four innings against the Twins.

Lineup regulars Brandon Lockridge, Brice Turang, and William Contreras make up the top of today’s order. Gary Sánchez, who’s already hit five home runs this season, hits cleanup.

With injuries mounting for the Brewers, the rest of the lineup is pretty thin. Despite snapping the losing streak, Milwaukee still holds the fourth-worst OPS in baseball over the last seven games. Luis Rengifo, Luis Matos, David Hamilton, and Joey Ortiz — hitting fifth, sixth, eighth, and ninth respectively  — all have an OPS under .600.

Hitting seventh and making his debut as a Milwaukee Brewer is left fielder Greg Jones. Jones is 1-for-7 in his major league career, although his one hit was a 419-foot home run.

First pitch is slated for 12:40 p.m. You can catch the television broadcast on Brewers.TV or listen to the game on WTMJ 620 and the Brewers Radio Network.

Homestand finale

📺: https://t.co/eycfmE2vgm
📻: WTMJ

→ https://t.co/mvGXoRMTFSpic.twitter.com/QFC2D63Lqo

— Milwaukee Brewers (@Brewers) April 16, 2026

Going for the series win! #BlueJays50pic.twitter.com/0LEEsRbkng

— Toronto Blue Jays (@BlueJays) April 16, 2026

Game three of three with the Brewers. This will take them through their sixth series of the season. So will be starting to see what the Jays are by now. Of course, I’m writing this before the season starts.

Let’s see….I’ve said everything I need to about Milwaukee in the first two GameThreads. And, as you read this, I’m still somewhere in Japan. Hopefully seeing a baseball game. My wife has us going to watch sumo wrestling. I’m totally not interested in it, but she does a lot of things that I like and she’s not interested in.

I’m looking forward to the food though. Tasting different things than I have at home is one of the appeals of travel. I’m not a big fan of sake, but we are going to a tasting and I’m interesting in tasting different types. There are a number of good Japanese Whiskeys and I’m hoping to taste some of those too.

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Go Jays Go.

After Monday night’s heavyweight fight, Tuesday’s dud, and Wednesday’s pull-a-“W”-out-of-the-hat magic trick, this wacky and often less-than-fun series with the Angels wraps up this afternoon. The Yankees get to hand the ball to their ace, Max Fried, while the Angels appear ready to take the opener approach in this getaway game.

Both of New York’s victories in this series have felt more exhausting than celebratory. They have been the kind of games that leave the dugout, and the fanbase, relieved more than triumphant. Between swings in momentum, defensive miscues, and the emotional whiplash of close finishes, the Yankees have still managed to take two of the first three despite Mike Trout going full 2019, blasting four home runs and driving in eight runs through the opening three games.

The good news for the Yankees is that the ball is in the exact hands they want for a game like this. Ace Max Fried will try to reel Trout back in and keep the rest of the Halos in the clouds long enough for New York to take the series and finally exhale.

Fried enters at 2-0 with a 1.93 ERA and 20 strikeouts, giving the Yankees their most stabilizing presence on a day when the bullpen could certainly use a cleaner path to the late innings. After three consecutive games that have forced the Yankees to grind through relief arms—including a couple who aren’teven on the active roster anymore—and with this being the club’s 10th straight day of games, Fried’s ability to provide length may matter almost as much as the result itself. A deep outing would not only help secure the series, but also better position the Yankees for the Royals, who arrive in the Bronx this weekend for a three-game set.

The Angels will hope the opener allows them to fly home with a split, as they have chosen veteran lefty Brent Suter to take the ball first. Suter started his career with the Brewers before short stints in Colorado and Cincinnati, eventually landing with the Angels this past offseason. In the early going, he has appeared in six games and allowed three earned runs across 13 innings, with his last outing coming on April 11th when he worked 3.2 scoreless innings against the Reds in Cincinnati.

So far this season, Suter has not allowed an earned run against any team other than the Mariners, which is exactly the kind of oddly specific baseball note that should make Yankees fans a little nervous. Make no mistake about it, the Angels waiting until the last minute to announce their starter did little to inspire confidence in a Yankees offense that has spent much of this series making mystery arms look more dangerous than they are.

Yes, Ben Rice has been excellent, yet the Yankees keep sitting him. Aaron Judge has been good, but not yet Judge good (albeit nearly matching Trout with three homers of his own in this series), while Giancarlo Stanton has drifted into single-merchant territory and Cody Bellinger currently looks like he is swinging a pool noodle at the plate.

I could keep going and pile on, but the rest of the regulars will not get any extra baggage from me until they are hitting above .200. For the record, five regulars currently sit below that mark, at .119, .164, .185, .186, and .191. For a lineup with this much talent, today would be a nice day for the bottom of the order to stop letting opposing pitchers look and post numbers like prime Randy Johnson.

Speaking of the lineup, after last night’s sprint home to score the winning run, Austin Wells gets the day off, and the second-hottest hitter on the Yankees right now, Amed Rosario, gets the start at third. Rosario will bat sixth behind Rice, and the lineup as a whole makes a lot more sense than some of the previous configurations, even if one still has to wonder if Rice and Bellinger will eventually be flipped to better protect Judge in the three-hole.

The Yankees have already proven they can survive messy baseball against the Halos. Cleaning it up and taking the series behind their ace, though, would allow them to sleep a little easier in their own beds tonight before a makeshift offday—or at least a true night off—arrives after the final out. In a long season, getaway games often reveal how good teams convert survival into momentum, and this feels like one of those afternoons. Taking a series after surviving Trout in full shark mode, with two walk-off wins and a gem from your ace, might be exactly what this team needs to start playing better baseball.

Here’s to hoping for a less wild ride this afternoon. If nothing else, let’s all enjoy getting to watch a little Yankees matinee baseball on a beautiful spring day in the best city in the country.

How to watch

Location: Yankee Stadium — Bronx, NY

First pitch: 1:35 pm ET

TV broadcast: Yankees – YES | FanDuel Sports Network West

Radio broadcast: WFAN 660/101.9 FM, WADO 1280, KLAA 830

For updates, follow us on BlueSky, Twitter, and Instagram, and like us on Facebook.

Thursday Matinee 🔥#RepBXpic.twitter.com/z6XQ75kbfo

— New York Yankees (@Yankees) April 16, 2026

wrapping up the road trip 🚗

📺: FanDuel Sports Network West
📻: @AngelsRadioKLAA#RepTheHalo x @FBMSupplypic.twitter.com/FBxaj9wS1m

— Los Angeles Angels (@Angels) April 16, 2026

It’s been an up and down season so far for the St. Louis Cardinals. It’s entirely reasonable to expect that it will be an up and down season from here on out. We’re all hoping for an outcome that’s special and unexpected, but the likelihood is that we’ll have to live through growing pains. In some ways, JJ Wetherholt’s (very, very) early season results are a microcosm for the roller coaster nature of this team as a whole. This is fitting in a lot of ways, as we all hope JJ Wetherholt will be in St. Louis for a very long time. (Unless you’re somehow anti-Wetherholt?! Please, go ahead and identify yourself so we can turn up our noses at you and cross the street to the other side. Thanks!)

Wetherholt, of course, is an uber prospect. Everybody who ranks prospects (including your pet dog), had Wetherholt as a consensus top prospect in all of the minor leagues. This designation is a bit of a catch-22 for Cardinals prospects. Wetherholt descends from a shaky Cardinals prospect tree that includes names like Carlson, Reyes, Taveras (RIP – a true sliding doors moment for the franchise), and Walker (WOW JORDAN WALKER SO FAR). I’m fine staking my non-existent Cardinals reputation on the fact that Wetherholt is absolutely not going to be a failure. While I’m here giving takes, let me just bring up the spice level. I’d happily bet money that Wetherholt will be in a red jacket someday. How’s that for confidence?

In our last episode of Redbird Rundown, we ranked the top three most untradeable major leaguers on the Cardinals roster and despite Jordan Walker’s thermonuclear start (let’s do it again – WOW JORDAN WALKER SO FAR), Wetherholt remains the top of the heap for me. You may disagree, and that’s part of being an observer! Check out that list and so much more if you’re into audio content – Apple and Spotify!

If you’ve watched any of the games thus far, you’ve seen why I have such confidence in Wetherholt. The guy is a quintessential high-floor player. His approach is elite – maybe even beyond elite? Wetherholt is a one man wrecking crew for opposing hurler’s pitch counts. As such, he’s running a walk rate that is in the 76th percentile. While spitting on balls outside the zone, Wetherholt is hacking at pitches in the zone. In the very early going (Yes, I’m still aware it’s early. Thanks for checking.), Wetherholt is displaying an aggressiveness that he’s never shown as a professional. As of this writing, he’s swinging at 5% more pitches in the zone and 3% more pitches outside the zone. 

This newfound aggressiveness, while probably explained by a little rookie pressing to produce at the big league level, does not appear to be serving him well. His bat speed is exactly league average, so to leverage the surprising power he showed last year at Memphis, he’s going to have to swing at exactly the right pitches. Naturally, Wetherholt just had a two homer game two days ago, so there’s all the proof any of us need. 

For the season though, his batted ball data is strikingly average. He’s the Michael McGreevy of batted balls so far? Not sure. May need to workshop that. He’s almost exactly 50th percentile in barrel %, hard hit %, average exit velo, and squared up %. All of these numbers last year were much closer to the top of the MiLB system. Obviously, MLB hitters on average are better than MiLB hitters, but this suggests to me that Wetherholt is making contact with pitches he just can’t do as much with. In short, he’s swinging too much right now.

The biggest plague on Wetherholt’s offensive production so far is the sharply hit ball to second base. Now, before you get visions of Victor Scott II dancing in your head, don’t. In general, just don’t do that to yourself. But, Wetherholt is pulling so many more balls than last year. It’s shocking really. Last year he pulled 42.5% of his batted ball events in the minors, this year it’s up to 53.8%. What gives? His opposite field contact has fallen a full 14%. The best version of Wetherholt anyone has ever seen in his very short career (Wetherholt himself is a bit of a short king, no?) has a spray chart that looks like a shotgun blast. It’s all over the field. Right now, he’s pulling far more pitches and suffering from a .245 BABIP. Many of these hard grounders are right at the first and second basemen.

What’s the upshot? JJ Wetherholt is running a 109 wRC+ being a substandard version of his best offensive self. I’m going to chalk it up to rookie pressing. He also has an interesting habit of going through an adjustment period at each new level and then his baseball AI brain recalibrates and he dominates. I’m not sure we’ll see the lofty 154 wRC+ he ran last year in the minors, but I expect him to improve. It’s been an impressive start, even as it’s substandard for him. If that even makes sense.

As you watch him in the coming weeks, pay attention to how aggressive he is in the box. My hope is that he edges down towards his college and minor league seasons when it comes to swing rates. The track record of this more patient player is beyond impressive. I suspect that the Cardinals have a top of the order hitter that will be there for a long time just starting his adjustment period to major league pitching. We’ll see what the future brings.

As always, thanks for reading! It’s been a great experience at VEB so far. Thanks for that! You can usually find me during games hanging out on twitter @mksmith86. I honestly tweet more from our podcast handle @redbirdrundown2. Drop by and say hey!