Worldwide Sports News

Wade will wear number 31 and is active for tonight’s game.

The Houston Astros announced that they have signed OF LaMonte Wade Jr. to a Major League contract. Wade will be active for tonight’s series finale against the Pittsburgh Pirates.

Wade, 32, was most recently in the Chicago White Sox system, playing at their Triple-A affiliate, the Charlotte Knights. In Charlotte, Wade was batting .250 with a .420 OBP and .861 OPS. The left-handed hitter has experience playing both corner outfield spots as well as 1B.

Across 7 major league seasons, Wade Jr. is a lifetime .236 hitter, with a .341 OBP and .731 OPS across 1,617 AB. He last played in the majors in 2025, splitting time between the San Francisco Giants and Los Angeles Angels.

Wade exercised an opt-out clause on Monday to secure his release with the White Sox in hopes of catching on with another team with a better path to the majors.

Astros Add Price, DFA Salazar

The team announced it was recalling C Collin Price from Triple-A Sugar Land. Price, 26, is a righthanded hitting C/1B. Price was hitting .235 with a .360 OBP and an .836 OPS for the Space Cowboys this season, with 10 HR and 26 RBI over 166 AB.

Last season, Price batted .235 with a .323 OBP and .757 OPS, with 18 HR and 60 RBI over 392 AB.

Price will replace Cesar Salazar on the active roster. Salazar was designated for assignment.

Astros Make OF Moves

Houston announced it was reinstating OF Joey Loperfido from the IL and optioned him to Triple-A Sugar Land.

The Astros also optioned OF Zach Cole to Triple-A Sugar Land.

OF Rhylan Thomas was designated for assignment.

Braves shortstop Ha-Seong Kim is back out of the lineup for Thursday night’s series finale against the Toronto Blue Jays after a one-hit, one-RBI performance in Wednesday’s 7-3 win.

It’ll be the fifth time in the last seven games Kim has been out of the lineup. While Atlanta has largely ridden Jorge Mateo’s heat wave as Kim continues to struggle to generate momentum after his delayed start to the season, it’ll be Mauricio Dubon this time, starting at short and hitting second in the lineup.

While Toronto is using a left-handed opener in Mason Fluharty (3-0, 3.97 ERA), it’s expected that righty Chad Dallas (4.50 ERA over 36 innings at Triple-A Buffalo this season), called up ahead of Thursday’s game, will be the bulk pitcher for his major league debut.

Due to this expectation, the Braves aren’t taking the opener bait and will start Dominic Smith as designated hitter (sixth in lineup) and Mike Yastrzemski in left (eighth).

Ronald Acuña Jr. is back in right after a DH day and Sandy León is catching and will hit ninth, preventing new addition Austin Wynns from starting after he was acquired via trade and selected to the major league roster earlier in the day.

Chris Sale, who spent time in the same division as Toronto when with the Red Sox, is 8-5 with a 2.71 ERA in 18 career games (15 starts) against the Blue Jays. He’s faced them just twice since 2019, though, meaning a number of current Toronto players haven’t faced him.

George Springer (.267 with one double, one homer and four RBIs) accounts for 30 of the current Blue Jays’ 48 career at-bats against him. Vladimir Guerrero Jr. (2-for-11, one homer, three RBIs) is the only other Blue Jay who has faced him more than three times.

Speaking of Springer, he’s back atop the lineup after getting an off day against a righty starter Wednesday night. Nathan Lukes and Yohendrick Piñango, who were in the top two spots of the lineup against Grant Holmes, fall into the sixth and ninth spots respectively against Sale.

Myles Straw also gets his first start of the series in Toronto (seventh) while Tyler Heineman gets his first start behind the dish (eighth).

I ju— I just don’t understand…

Brayan Bello made his return to the starting rotation on Thursday. If you know anything about how this season has gone for the right-hander, you won’t be surprised to learn that it led to an atrocious first inning in which the Baltimore Orioles scored six runs in what would eventually become a 8-2 victory over the Boston Red Sox.

STUDS

Don’t piss me off.

DUDS

Brayan Bello: It’s quite literally impossible to explain what is happening with this guy — who was the last guy to have a 0.71 ERA as a reliever and a 10.35 ERA as a starter?

Chad Tracy/Mike Brenly: Tracy had an opportunity to at least try to stop the bleeding in the first inning, as Wilyer Abreu made an impressive would-be-inning-ending throw to Caleb Durbin. The Red Sox passed up on the chance to challenge the close play at third base, with the score eventually ballooning from 2-0 to 6-0. NESN’s broadcast claims they wanted to challenge, but couldn’t make a decision in time.

“OH, HE HASN’T FIXED A THING” MOMENT OF THE GAME

One pitch.

The Orioles immediately started with a man on second base, as Taylor Ward smoked a ball over the head of Ceddanne Rafaela.

For the first time since May 17, the Philadelphia Phillies scored six runs in a game. It last came when Paul Skenes faced Zack Wheeler on a Sunday afternoon in Pittsburgh as the Phillies looked to sweep the Pirates.

As the Phillies look to sweep another mediocre National League team, Wheeler once again takes the mound during a day game with an offense looking for answers.

Wheeler looked fully back, sitting 95.8 mph on his four-seam fastball over 104 pitches in his seven-inning start. Of the nine pitches he threw in the first inning, seven of them were four-seams including three that Manny Machado stared at to end the frame.

In the bottom of the first, Kyle Schwarber hit his 18th single of the year (update the Bluesky thread, Joe) and Trea Turner grounded into a fielder’s choice right after. Bryce Harper then took a changeup to shallow right field but Turner made up his mind, rounding second base as the ball was already caught and was doubled up.

Skipping to the fourth, Wheeler once again met Machado at the plate and once again offered a three-fastball sequence. Machado once again looked at the first one for a strike, looking like a hitter who wants to get a sweeper instead. He was late on the second fastball and looked at a third one right down the middle for strike three.

In the bottom half of the inning, the offense finally scratched and clawed. Bryce Harper worked a leadoff walk to start the inning, followed by Brandon Marsh taking a fastball to right field to put runners on first and second. Alec Bohm struck out looking and took a challenge with him to the dugout. Bryson Stott then beat the shift with about as soft of a RBI single that went into the outfield grass as there can be.

The offense kept it going in the following inning with Adolis García, who entered today 8 for his last 75 but has hit a few balls hard in the prior two games. He got a hanging get-me-over breaking ball and did not miss it.

After a Justin Crawford double, Schwarber walk, and Turner forceout, Padres left handed reliever Yuki Matsui made a pickoff throw to first base that wasn’t particularly close, allowing Crawford to walk home and Turner to go to third base.

After a Gavin Sheets walk to open the seventh, Wheeler and Machado met for their third and final time of the day. Once again, Wheeler started him off with a fastball for a strike that Machado didn’t look very interested in swinging at. He once again swung through a second one and the sequence was matching exactly as it did in the fourth.

Unlike the fourth inning, Machado geared up for a fastball and Wheeler threw one right down Broad Street.

In the bottom half of the seventh, the Phillies must’ve morphed into a different team during the stretch. Adrian Morejon entered the inning to try and keep the game at one. He threw two pitches in the strike zone to fall behind 2-0 and then eventually walked Crawford on five pitches. Crawford then stole second base and took third on a bad Freddy Fermin throw that went into the outfield.

After a Schwarber ground ball that forced Crawford to stay put, Trea Turner got a 2-2 fastball that he laced into right field for their fourth run of the game. He took second base and went to third after Harper hit a line drive right at Morejon’s ankle. With first and third with one out, Brandon Marsh grounded a ball to Ty France but Turner’s excellent slide beat the throw home that made it 5-2. Alec Bohm capped the inning off with a single to center field for their sixth run of the game as everyone was still wondering if they were really watching the 2026 Phillies on that diamond.

José Alvarado entered the ninth to try and protect their four-run lead but things got a little hairy quickly. He walked France and then allowed a two run homer off a two-strike sinker that caught too much of the plate.

After a Xander Bogaerts groundout to short and a Miguel Andujar flyout to center, Jase Bowen replaced Freddy Fermin to try and give the Padres one more base runner to put the tying run at the plate. With a 2-2 count and the game on the line, Bowen chased a cutter for strike three.

The Phillies played the Padres six times in less than two weeks and won all of them. They did not see Michael King or Nick Pivetta but they also never allowed the Padres to use Mason Miller. Every advantage counts when these teams cannot muster consistent offense.

It’s very hard to go from relying on the consistent presence of a three-time MVP in your lineup every day to going cold turkey without him, but with Aaron Judge sidelined for the time being with some sort of rib issue, the Yankees’ offense has had to make do without him.

They didn’t get the starts they hoped for out of Cam Schlittler or Gerrit Cole to start the series, and that put them behind the eight-ball as the offense struggled for the most part. They needed somebody to step up and get the big hit as the game entered the late innings tied on Thursday, not wanting to suffer a home sweep against the AL Central-leading Guardians.

Well, sometimes that big hit comes from an unlikely source. Ryan McMahon came through late, as he’s done a couple times already this season, plating Jazz Chisholm Jr. on a single through the right side in the seventh to give the Yankees a lead they wouldn’t relinquish in a 2-1 win. Carlos Rodón tossed a quality start, and the bullpen held things down from there.

Rodón started things off with a pair of quick, efficient strikeouts of David Fry and José Ramírez before falling behind 3-0 on Rhys Hoskins. After homering last night, Hoskins got a bit aggressive and got under a 3-0 fastball for an inning-ending flyout. Trent Grisham led off the bottom half with a bloop single, but was stranded on second base.

Cleveland got its first baserunner with two outs in the second on a walk to Stuart Fairchild, but Rodón worked around it before tossing another 1-2-3 inning in the third. Cecconi retired eight in a row after Grisham’s leadoff single before the Yankees’ center fielder ripped a double to left field with two out in the third, but Ben Rice flied out to end the inning.

J-Ram continued to kill the Yankees in the fourth with a leadoff single and stolen base, jumpstarting a rally that would open the scoring. It could’ve been worse, as Rodón was one pitch from walking the bases loaded after walking Hoskins and getting to 3-2 on Travis Bazzana, but he still did surrender a run on a seeing-eye RBI single by Fairchild with two out.

The Yanks punched back in the bottom half, but left meat on the bone. Paul Goldschmidt and Cody Bellinger led off the inning with a pair of singles before an expertly timed double steal put two in scoring position with nobody out. A long sac fly by Jazz Chisholm Jr. tied the game, but Bellinger badly overslid third base trying to tag and go to third and get around an off-line throw by Steven Kwan.

Both Cecconi and Rodón threw perfect fifth innings and mirrored each other in the sixth. Rodón once again walked Hoskins, but worked through it. Cecconi walked Rice and erased him with a 5-4-3 double play. That did it for Rodón, who had his third consecutive strong outing with six one-run innings while displaying better command for the most part. After subpar outings by Cole and Schlittler this series, it was good to see a winning effort from him.

Brent Headrick came on for his 30th appearance of the season, making him the seventh reliever in baseball to hit that mark. Who would’ve thought? After getting two quick outs, he inexplicably walked Austin Hedges on five pitches. In his career, Hedges has walked 10 times in 57 plate appearances against the Yankees, a walk rate nearly three times higher than his career average of 6.4 percent. With the inning extended, Brayan Rocchio nearly snuck one out over the porch, but Max Schuemann made the grab at the wall to send us to the seventh-inning stretch.

Codi Heuer replaced Cecconi and got into trouble after walking Chisholm with one out. Despite plenty of chances to steal, Chisholm waited to run until Caballero flew out, leaving it up to Ryan McMahon. A stolen base and wild pitch put the go-ahead run on third, and McMahon finally found a hole with a grounder through the right side for an RBI single to make it 2-1 Yankees.

Fernando Cruz, who also made his 30th appearance, got the eighth against the top of the Guardians’ order. Facing a trio of Yankee tormentors, he bounced back after falling behind the pinch-hitting Kyle Manzardo before getting weak pop-outs out of Ramírez and Hoskins for another strong inning.

It would be David Bednar who would come out for his first save opportunity since Memorial Day, facing 4-5-6 in the Guardians’ order. Bazzana chopped one back to the pitcher for the first out, Angel Martínez rolled over an 0-2 splitter for the second out, and the pinch-hitting Chase DeLauter did the same to end the ballgame, securing Bednar’s 13th save of the season.

The Rivalry is renewed this weekend for the first time since Alex Cora was fired in late April, as the Red Sox come to town for a three-game set, beginning tomorrow at 7:05 pm on YES. It’s Ryan Weathers against former Yankee Sonny Gray.

Box Score

The Royals announce they have called up utility player Josh Rojas, and that pitcher Stephen Kolek has gone on family emergency leave. To make room on the 40-man roster, Jonathan India was officially placed on the 60-day Injured List. India is out for the year, following shoulder surgery.

Rojas is a six-year MLB veteran who has appeared in 638 games with the Diamondbacks, Mariners, and White Sox. His best season came in 2022, when he was a 3.1 rWAR player for Arizona, hitting .269/.349/.391 with nine home runs in 125 games. His numbers fell off last year in Chicago, where he hit.180 in 69 games, worth just -1.5 rWAR. The Royals signed the 31-year-old left-handed hitter to a minor league deal this off-season. He was hitting .246/.309/.433 with six home runs in 48 games for Triple-A Omaha. He is a very versatile player, with MLB experience at every position except center field and catcher.

Kolek started on Wednesday against the Reds, allowing just two runs in seven innings for the win. The move gives the Royals 14 position players and 12 pitchers.

Welcome to today’s Mets Mailbag, where we once again try to determine whether the 2026 Mets can somehow pull themselves back into contention…and what happens if they don’t. Thanks to everyone who submitted questions.

What date (even if approximately) do you expect the Mets to make as their demarcation line for buying/selling? Another month? Month and a half? – @maclgm12345 (and others)

Many people asked a version of this question, which makes sense. David  Stearns even acknowledged last homestand that a moment will come when the Mets will have to make that call. At the time, he emphasized they are not close to that decision point yet.

The insight I can offer is as follows: the Mets are going to wait this out as long as possible. The feeling from the owner’s box to the dugout is that they are where they are because of injuries, not existential roster flaws. So they want to give themselves as much time as possible to let key players like Jorge Polanco, Francisco Alvarez, and Francisco Lindor return from injury – then give themselves enough time to see if those players can make a difference.

Knowing that, my next question (and I’m sure yours, too) is when will everyone be back and how long will they give them to turn things around once they return? The answers are slightly more encouraging than they might feel: Polanco could return as soon as this weekend in San Diego. Alvarez – and one can debate the extent to which he is a meaningful offensive upgrade over Luis Torrens at this point in his development – is already playing in rehab games, too. Let’s say he returns next week at some point (though no one has said so officially).

Luis Robert Jr. has not even begun baseball activities, so write him off for now. That leaves Lindor as the last big piece, and he was running, throwing, and taking ground balls for several days even before this road trip. Considering he will likely need a substantial ramp-up period on a rehab assignment before returning, a conservative estimate for his return would be two-to-three weeks – or mid- to late-June, barring a setback.

In other words, the Mets could have most of their intended starting lineup back and healthy by the last week of June. That gives them five weeks before the trade deadline. I would expect them to give this team as many of those weeks as possible to play their way back into contention. Plus, most teams are completely consumed by draft preparation until the All-Star Break, anyway. I see no reason why they would not take a week or two after that to let the market fully materialize as other teams emerge from draft machinations and take time to decide whether they are buyers and sellers, too.

So, barring a major collapse over the next few weeks that leaves no doubt about their status, I don’t know why the Mets would decide their fate before the week after the All-Star Break. Everyone involved has every incentive to give this team the chance to turn things around.

What happens to Baty when Lindor returns? Would they possibly trade Bo Bichette to keep Brett Baty at 3B if they’re not in good enough position by then? @jjc927_

I am answering this version of the "who stays, who goes" question because most of them were a little, let’s say…critical… of young Mark Vientos, and he probably doesn’t need me piling on. But I do think everyone’s point is a good one: when Lindor returns – particularly if Polanco proves himself healthy enough to play first base now and then in the meantime – the Mets will have a logjam in the infield. So it is fair to wonder who will be pushed out of a spot.

I do not see them trading Bichette. I guess if they totally swoon between now and then and are totally, completely, irrevocably out of it, that could maybe be on the table. But with his salary and the fact that he has yet to produce anywhere near where he normally does, that seems highly unlikely.

Assuming he stays, the two sure things in the infield would be Bichette and Lindor. Given the way Baty seems to produce better when playing third regularly, one could argue the Mets should move Bichette to second and keep Baty at third, forcing a decision on Marcus Semien’s big contract. But Semien has hit better and for more power lately, has played better defense than the metrics indicate, and has been one of the Mets’ most crucial hitters with runners in scoring position. 

Plus, Baty certainly has not blown him away in terms of production this year. So any major decision on Semien at this point would seem several steps away, if on the table at all.

So maybe the move then becomes moving Baty to first base, where he looked better defensively than Vientos. If Jared Young continues hitting, he could play there, too, leaving Polanco in the designated hitter spot. Either way, there is no obvious place for Vientos to play regularly, and since he has been so inconsistent at the plate and in the field, and so consistently prone to mental errors, I think his roster spot is more fragile than Baty’s at this point. But the emergence of Young certainly is not helping either of them.

If Kodai Senga doesn’t turn it around when he returns, do you think the Mets are prepared to eat the rest of his contract and DFA him? – davidsheridan.bsky.social

Short answer: yes. Doing so now would cost them whatever is left of the $14 million he is owed this year and the $14 million he is owed next year, so it would not be cheap. But the Mets can afford that financially, while they might not be able to afford to keep him emotionally.

In talking to people around the Mets, as well as Senga himself through his interpreter over the last few months, I have gained a picture of someone who reminds me a lot of Stephen Strasburg.

Strasburg was so hyperaware of things that were off in his body and his mechanics that he struggled to pitch when he knew those things were not in line. He gained a reputation for being soft when I think he was more accurately a perfectionist: he could pitch through pain if he felt his mechanics were in place. If they weren’t, or something didn’t feel right, he could think about little else, which made executing pitches in those situations much more difficult. 

Even Yankees rookie ace Cam Schlittler said something along those lines after his worst start of the year the other day: he knew something was off with his four-seamer, so he spent the whole outing worrying about getting that right and not focused on competing. That never goes well.

So I think Senga is largely an extreme version of that: he seems to struggle when everything is not exactly where he thinks it should be physically, and he has struggled to pitch well with whatever he has while searching for the stuff he wants. And ever since that play on the Pete Alonso throw last year, it seems that something has been off. 

Even when his stuff looked good in spring training, he was not certain he would pitch well as a result. Through his interpreter, Senga said something along the lines of "I hope so." My takeaway was that he has not been comfortable with where he is for quite some time, and that even comfortable stretches have felt fragile for him lately.

I also think that Senga and the Mets have sometimes missed each other in terms of working with and around that perfectionist tendency. But I also think the Mets did everything they could this winter to align themselves with what Senga feels he needs, starting with Justin Willard visiting him at his training facility and opening the lines of communication. The result was a promising spring training in which the power stuff that made him so promising in the first place returned. But that has not translated into the regular season. All that combines to make Senga a frustrating case for the Mets, who could certainly use the best version of him, but no longer seem certain they will ever get it. 

I think it is clear their patience is running out as a result. Carlos Mendoza is often polite but stern when he talks about the righty, and he said recently that the decision to bring Senga back from the minors will soon have to focus less on where he is physically than where his results are. In other words, if he is healthy enough to pitch in the minors, but is not pitching well, then performance will dictate whether he gets another start, not merely whether he is technically well enough to do so.

Senga had another rough outing this week, pushing his ERA on this rehab assignment to 5.25 in 12 innings. Whether he is still figuring things out physically with the back discomfort that sent him to the injured list initially, or whether he is just struggling to find his command and best stuff, he is struggling again. And the Mets cannot afford to have any more starting pitchers figuring things out at the major league level. 

It’s possible the Mets' sheer lack of starting pitching will mean they give Senga one more chance in the big leagues. But I would not expect him to get many chances after that.