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Continued success raises the bar in a way that leads you to acknowledge Shohei Ohtani is in the middle of his most difficult run of form on the mound this season, when he has still averaged the equivalent of a quality start across his latest three outings—allowing a combined six earned runs in 18.2 innings of work. Always thinking about the big picture with their most prized asset, the Dodgers—currently in the middle of a run with 13 straight games without an off day—decided to push back Ohtani a couple of days, giving him more time to recover in between starts.

In the short term, that decision has already seen the negative impact of a blowout loss in a bullpen game preventing a sweep of the A’s in West Sacramento. Now, we’ll see how Ohtani does, particularly how he does with Dalton Rushing behind the plate and not the currently injured Will Smith, a change that has caused some disruption, to say the least. Chuckie Robinson has started two of the last five games behind the plate, and given the recent problems, it would not be a shock had the Dodgers chosen to give Robinson an opportunity with Ohtani starting. Instead, they opted to keep their young lefty bat in the lineup while trying to work through some of these defensive issues.

For the Padres and Michael King, it’s time to try and stop the bleeding on a team that has been hemorrhaging runs as of late. Across their last two games alone, the Padres have allowed an absurd 35 runs, a dozen to the Dodgers on Thursday after 23 to the Cubs. Just to put it into context, even though they have allowed seven runs in each of their previous two games, you’d have to accumulate the Dodgers’ last eight appearances to reach a figure that San Diego has let across in just 18 innings of baseball.

Friday’s game info

• Teams: Dodgers vs. Padres
• Ballpark: Dodger Stadium
• Start time: 7:10 p.m. PT
• TV: SportsNet LA
• Radio: AM 570 (English), KTNQ 1020 AM (Spanish)

The San Diego Padres suffered several scares regarding starting pitcher Randy Vasquez after their 12–7 road defeat to the Los Angeles Dodgers on July 2, with the most frightening one happening after the game.

News broke postgame that Vasquez had fainted while he was escorted to the X-ray room to get his right ankle checked.

Vasquez started for San Diego Thursday, giving up four earned runs in three innings pitched after staying in the game despite Mookie Betts hitting him in the ankle with a comeback in the first inning.

He reportedly lost consciousness while walking to the X-ray room, and was thankfully caught by a team trainer before falling to the ground. He was then taken to a local hospital for precautionary testing.

The 27-year-old Vasquez was said to be in stable condition and responsive at the hospital. And Padres manager Craig Stammen provided a positive update regarding his status Friday morning.

“The only thing I got [on Vasquez] this morning was that he’s all clear, and that they were heading back to the hotel. So that’s great news in what could’ve been a really scary situation,” Stammen said, per a July 3 X post from MLB Network Radio.

“But glad Randy is doing well, and X-rays were negative, and all tests came back pretty clean. So we’re in good shape,” Stammen added.

It’s great to hear that Vasquez is doing well after having fainted. And while there’s no definitive update on his ankle, the fact that he remains in the game for several more innings after the comeback hit him and that the X-rays came back negative is a good sign.

Vasquez has a 6–6 record with a 4.71 ERA through 16 starts (of 17 appearances) this season. The Padres will hope he’s available and healthy to make his next start.

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The Yankees made a flurry of roster moves on Friday, most notably, placing star LHP Carlos Rodon on the 15-day injured list with left elbow inflammation. 

The move is retroactive to June 30, two days after he last pitched against the Boston Red Sox on June 28. Rodon allowed just one hit in the outing, striking out six and walking four over 5.0 IP.

Over nine starts this season, Rodon has gone 4-2 with a 3.30 ERA and 52 strikeouts through 46.1 IP.

Prior to Friday's game, Rodon said that his UCL is intact and he's dealing with heavy inflammation in the elbow, according to The Athletic's Chris Kirschner.

Additionally, New York reinstated both Trent Grisham and Ryan McMahon from the 10-day injured list. Grisham has been out since June 12 with a right hamstring strain, while McMahon was out since June 21 due to a throat infection.

The team also optioned Oswaldo Cabrera to Triple-A Scranton/Wilkes-Barre after bringing him up with McMahon sidelined. He went hitless with four strikeouts in nine at-bats over three games.

The Yanks will look to snap their seven-game losing streak on Friday night in the Bronx when they open a three-game series against the Minnesota Twins.

On what was supposed to be a day of injury relief around the Yankees, yet another concern emerged for a club struggling both with health and performance.

The Yankees officially activated Trent Grisham and Ryan McMahon on Friday but placed Carlos Rodón on the 15-day injured list with what the lefty called “heavy inflammation” — but nothing worse — in his pitching elbow.

Rodón had been bothered by the elbow “on and off” for “the last couple weeks,” he said, and was having issues with recovery that escalated this week.

He underwent an MRI exam on Thursday that found the inflammation and, most notably, found a UCL that was still intact.

“I think it’s a pretty big exhale,” Rodón said before the Yankees opened a series against the Twins in The Bronx.

Rodón will receive a platelet-rich plasma injection and be shut down for a time — “at least a few days, maybe a week,” manager Aaron Boone said — before building up again.

Neither team nor player offered a timetable, but it is possible he returns within the month if the inflammation clears and recovery goes as planned.

At least at the moment, there is no long-term concern regarding Rodón’s elbow, which underwent a procedure in the offseason to remove loose bodies and shave down a bone spur.

Still, the Yankees will be without another capable starting pitcher — the 2025 All-Star has pitched to a 3.30 ERA in nine starts this season — at a time when they lugged a season-high, seven-game losing streak into play.

Even with an elbow that became increasingly tricky to handle, Rodón allowed two unearned runs on one hit in five innings on Sunday in Boston.

“I really feel like Carlos was throwing the ball well and doing some really good things,” Boone said. “Hopefully this is something that gets cleaned up and gets him in a better place so that he can return for the stretch drive and be even more of a factor for us.”

Also available for the stretch drive, the Yankees hope, will be Max Fried, who has been building up from a bone bruise in his elbow and is now facing hitters again.

• CHECK OUT THE LATEST MLB STANDINGS AND YANKEES STATS

But as the Yankees stand today, the club’s rotation has hit its first adversity with Cam Schlittler coming off his worst major league start, Gerrit Cole proving human, Ryan Weathers’ ERA spiking from 3.14 to 4.08 in his past six starts and Will Warren letting up 13 runs in his past 16 ²/₃ innings.

They lack a true fifth starter and plan to summon Brendan Beck from Triple-A Scranton/Wilkes-Barre to either start or pitch several innings out of the bullpen on Saturday.

In his major league debut on May 7, the righty prospect allowed two runs in three innings during a win over the Rangers.

The higher-ranked Elmer Rodríguez was not an option after pitching Thursday, and Luis Gil (shoulder inflammation) has yet to begin a rehab assignment.

Hitting has loomed as the team’s biggest issue — the Yankees have badly missed Aaron Judge, who still does not know when he will receive further imaging much less when he can return, and the absence of Giancarlo Stanton has grown more significant.

The club hoped Grisham and even McMahon could provide a spark in the lineup and in the field.

But the rotation, which had been the Yankees’ greatest strength until just a couple weeks ago, added a bit more uncertainty Friday.

“I want to be back as soon as I can, whenever I’m ready,” Rodón said.

The month of June did not wrap up the way the Yankees had envisioned, dropping nearly a game per day to wrap up the calendar page. Despite some adversity, no month goes by without a highlight with the bat or some leather. June was no different, as multiple Yankees did their part in preventing runs around the field. With plenty of disappointment abound, why not take a look at some high point with the glove over the past month.

June 10th: Grisham survives the contact

Already trailing by a run, the Yankees were on the ropes in a June 10th game against Cleveland. With a couple of runners on base, Stuart Fairchild threatened to make it a lot worse when he lofted a ball deep into right-center field. But, Trent Grisham swooped in to save the day, not with a particularly challenging grab by his standards, but an impressive one, given the fact that he maintained the catch after some rather significant contact with right fielder Jose Caballero. Clearly shaken up by the collision, Grisham held onto the ball, and put an end to the inning, one that could have a lot worse had things fallen a bit different.

June 13th: Jazz lays out to save multiple runs

In a tied game this time, the Blue Jays were in prime position, with a pair of runners on second and third with just one out. Charles McAdoo seemingly did his job when he rifled a line drive up the middle, just right of the second base bag. Destined for a two-RBI knock, Jazz Chisholm stepped in and went horizontal to snare the line drive. With a the multi-run saving play, Chisholm helped to keep the threat subsided, and the Yankees went on to claim a tight victory north of the border.

June 17th: Caballero snares a liner just above the grass

With two outs in the seventh and a healthy lead in tow, Caballero did his part in moving the game into its late stages. Chicago’s Randal Grichuk hit a top-spinning line drive into left field. Moving in and to his right, the Yankees’ left fielder got a great jump and fully extended to make the grab. With Caballero low to the ground, his skillful grab put a close to the inning and helped the Yankees grab an easy win at home.

June 20th: Cabby goes basket style

Back-to-back highlights from the Yankee utility man. This time trailing in the sixth inning, JJ Bleday’s fly ball into left-center threatened to make this game a blow out. But, running straight back to the track upon contact, Caballero made a full speed grab over the shoulder. With a full extended arm toward the wall, Cabby’s impressive catch ended the inning and thwarted the threat, while giving credence to his skill at multiple positions around the diamond.

June 22nd: Ryan Yarbrough gives his all

In a tight game against the Tigers, Detroit’s Hao-Yu Lee tried to add to the damage with a push bunt against Ryan Yarbrough. The veteran lefty hopped off the mound to back-hand the ball, before jetting toward the first base bag. With no one over to cover the base, Yarbrough took matters into his own hands and ran to the base before laying out to place the tag on Lee and secure the much-needed out. He was initially called safe, but upon review, the lefty’s hard work paid off and the call was reversed to an out.

The Rockies rolled into May with a surprising record of 14-18, but since then they’ve gone a much more familiar 21-35 to really dig into last place of the NL West. Of course, all season long, the Giants have been burrowing at the edges trying to breach their trench. The teams are separated by 2 games for last place in the division. So, this 3-game series could be pivotal from an embarrassment standpoint.

Sure, the Rockies are inured to win-loss embarrassment by now, but if the Giants came into town and delivered a whoopin’, they might smart a little bit because the Giants have already lost a series in Coors and have been the Diamondbacks’ doormats this season. Meanwhile, the Giants could fall to last place! The last time they were last place on July 5th was… okay, well, not that long ago. In 2019, they were 39-48 on July 5th. But still! Not where the team expected to be this season!

The Rockies might be right on schedule for a 2030 renaissance, though. Hunter Goodman has carried his All-Star 2025 into this season (27 HR, 1.7 fWAR in 340 PA), while prospect Kyle Karros has developed quite nicely in his first full season amassing 1.4 fWAR in 279 PA and a season wRC+ of 96. But in June (81 PA), he led the team with a line of .357/.444/.586 (167 wRC+). He’s performing well alongside trade pickups like T.J. Rumfield (125 wRC+) and Jake McCarthy (112 wRC+). They didn’t add a lot from the outside but have simply managed to improve some of the players on the roster.

Yes, for the Rockies it will always come down to the pitching. That’s still bad. But this Fourth of July weekend, they welcome a team that was as bad as they were in June. For the month, the Rockies had a team fWAR of 4.9 (23rd) while the Giants were 21st with 5.0 fWAR. Now, that team performance for the Giants is buoyed by Logan Webb & Robbie Ray’s dominance (1.4 fWAR & 0.7 fWAR, respectively). But here’s where the comparison gets wacky:

The Giants had a great starting pitching performance throughout the month while the Rockies were stellar in the bullpen. The Giants’ -0.4 fWAR (4.36 ERA in 295.1 IP) was the fifth-worst value in relief pitching for the month. Colorado’s +2.1 fWAR in 375.2 IP was squarely in the middle of the pack (15th). The teams had virtually identical bullpen FIPs (4.45 for SF, 4.46 for COL) but the key difference between the two was that the quality of contact against the Rockies relievers was slightly worse than what hitters could do against the Giants’ silly relief corps.

So, we have our eyes to tell us that the Giants’ bullpen has been bad, but just comparing to the Rockies’ ‘pen really adds an extra layer of despair. A lot of us will be seeing fireworks this weekend, but before the season began you might’ve expected that because of the Fourth of July holiday and not because of an explosively bad reliever group.

Series overview

Who: San Francisco Giants (36-50) at Colorado Rockies (35-53)
Where: Coors Field | Denver, Colorado
When: Friday & Saturday at 5:10pm PT, Sunday at 1pm PT
National broadcasts: Peacock (Sunday)

Projected starters
Friday: TBD vs. Ryan Feltner (RHP 2-2, 4.42 ERA)
Saturday: TBD vs. Tomoyuki Sugano (RHP 8-4, 4.80 ERA)
Sunday: TBD vs. Tanner Gordon (RHP 2-2, 6.69 ERA)

Giants to watch

Bryce Eldridge: His June overall looks really impressive (.295/.385/.474 — 4 HR), but the second half of the month paints a different picture. Since June 15 (55 PA), he’s hitting just .184/.273/.286 (61 wRC+). I’d really like to see him hit some home runs into Nate Schierholtz/Alex Dickerson territory. For reference:

Luis Arraez: He has just a career .274/.319/.323 line at Coors Field (69 PA) and that just seems a little odd for a player like him. Yes, the .274 average makes sense, but that’s a spacious outfield and it seems like he’s so predictable when he hits the ball in the air that the size of the outfield would hardly seem to matter. But Arraez has been on an absolute tear the past two weeks: .415/.457/.707 in his last 11 games (47 PA), so him coming to a cold stop in Coors Field would be a real surprise.

Logan Webb: It was a bit of a headscratcher when he made his return off the IL in Coors Field, but he acquitted himself nicely in just 4.1 innings and he went on to have an absolutely dominant June, so, I’m not nervous to see him pitch there again when last place is on the line.

Prediction time

The Giants salvaged a game in the last Coors series with a 19-6 win, which boosted them to a +6 run differential for the three games despite losing said series. They hit 3 homers in that finale to give them 4 in the series. My prediction: they will hit at least 4 home runs in this series, too.

DENVER — Logan Webb was hardly the worst pitcher in baseball to begin this season, but he had performed far from his own high standards when he hit the injured list in the first week of May.

Now, in his first full month back, the San Francisco Giants ace earned the highest honor available to him.

Webb was named the National League pitcher of the month for June, beating out the Milwaukee Brewers’ electric ace Jacob Misiorowski for the first monthly honor of his career.

In five starts, Webb allowed just three earned runs and walked only four batters while striking out 29. His 0.71 ERA was the sixth-lowest by any Giants starter in a month dating back to 1913, the most dominant month by any San Francisco starting pitcher since Noah Lowry (0.69) in August 2005.

Misiorowski turned in the most dominant start by anybody in the league this season with his 15-strikeout complete game shutout that required only 95 pitches. But Webb made one more start, threw 10 more innings in total and edged out the 24-year-old fireballer’s 0.96 ERA for the month.

Webb, of course, had a memorable outing of his own that set the tone for the rest of the month.

In his second start back from the IL, Webb took a perfect game against Misiorowski’s Brewers into the sixth inning and didn’t allow a hit until the seventh in what would be his first of three starts he didn’t allow an earned run. He followed those seven shutout inning with his first of three straight starts of eight innings — the first Giants starter to complete eight frames thrice in a row since Madison Bumgarner in 2015.

Clearly, Webb was impacted by the bursitis in his right knee that forced him to the IL for the first time since he established himself at the top of the Giants rotation in the second half of 2021.

Getting healthy isn’t the only thing that spurred arguably the best run of Webb’s career.

The Giants’ ace began calling his own pitches — most of them, anyway — in his second start back from the injured list, flirting with a perfect game in seven one-hit innings in Milwaukee.

“I didn’t throw the best until then. I just came back and [thought] I’ve done it before, I haven’t thrown to these guys a lot,” Webb said. “I mean I was with [Patrick Bailey] for a long period of time. There’s a trust factor in those sorts of things.”

It worked out so well that Webb has continued the practice, trusting himself over two new catchers to keep batters guessing. 

He was 2-4 with a 5.06 ERA when he landed on the IL after his May 5 start against the San Diego Padres.

Just two months later, he is 5–5 with a 3.09 ERA and a candidate to make his third All-Star Game.

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