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Somewhere in another baseball universe, the Arizona Diamondbacks challenge a called ball, and it gets overturned as strike three. Junior Caminero walks back to the dugout, shaking his head, and Friday night’s game unfolds a little differently.

That is not the universe the Tampa Bay Rays played in on Friday night.

Instead of Diamondbacks catcher Gabriel Moreno challenging the pitch with two runners aboard in the first inning, Caminero got one more pitch, and he launched it over the centerfield wall for a three-run homer that immediately flipped the game in Tampa Bay’s favor.

Zac Gallen perfectly executed a 1-2 slider on the lower outside corner to Junior Caminero.

It was mistakenly called a ball, Gabriel Moreno did not challenge and Caminero delivered a three-run homer on the next pitch. Brutal. pic.twitter.com/DitZ0J7UYy

— Jesse Friedman (@JesseNFriedman) June 26, 2026

No challenge. No strikeout. Three runs.

That is not the whole story of the Rays’ 6-1 win, but it is awfully hard to tell the story without starting there.

The Diamondbacks looked like they might be the ones setting the tone early. Nick Martinez got Ketel Marte to fly out in foul territory to start the game, with Jonny DeLuca making a running catch near the seats. A nice play, but also a bit of foreshadowing for the defense to come in the game.

Then Geraldo Perdomo homered to right center to put Arizona up 1-0. Corbin Carroll followed with a triple to center after the ball deflected away from DeLuca, and suddenly Martinez was trying to keep the first inning from getting away from him.

Geraldo Perdomo smokes this baseball and gets the @Dbacks on the board early 💪 pic.twitter.com/992nw3dkl5

— MLB (@MLB) June 26, 2026

He did. Moreno popped out. Nolan Arenado popped out. Arizona had landed the first punch, but the Rays kept it to one run.

That mattered almost immediately.

Yandy Díaz opened the bottom of the first with a walk, because Yandy getting on base to start chaos is basically tradition at this point. Jonathan Aranda was hit by a pitch, bringing up Caminero with two on and nobody out.

His 20th homer of the season did not just flip the score. It flipped the whole feel of the night. The Rays went from trailing 1-0 to leading 3-1 in one swing.

Junior Caminero picks up right where he left off yesterday, a three-run shot to put the #Rays up 3-1! Junior has five home runs this homestand! pic.twitter.com/ByKn1UbjzF

— Rays Radio (@RaysRadio) June 26, 2026

From there, the game became less about constant offense and more about the Rays refusing to give the Diamondbacks a clean inning to get back into it. The Rays did not strikeout once, the first time they went a full game without a strikeout since June 15, 2013, against the Kansas City Royals.

They did not crush everything. They did not turn every ball in play into a rally. But they forced Arizona to defend every at-bat, and eventually that pressure helped extend the lead.

The bigger separator, though, was Tampa Bay’s defense. Arizona finished with eight hits, so this was not Martinez and the bullpen simply mowing everybody down. The Diamondbacks had opportunities, but the Rays had gloves that did not come from a two-day online sale.

In the fourth inning, Carroll singled, Moreno followed with another hit, and Arizona had runners on the corners with nobody out. This was a spot where a two-run lead can start feeling very flimsy, very quickly.

Instead, the Rays handled it. Arenado popped out in foul territory. Max Kepler then lined a ball toward third, and Caminero went up for a leaping grab that took away a RBI-swing and helped Martinez breathe. Lourdes Gurriel Jr. followed with a force out, and the threat was gone.

DeLuca added another strong defensive play in right in the fifth, running down a ball near the angled wall in the right field corner.

Tampa Bay missed a chance to add on in the sixth when Díaz doubled, and Caminero was intentionally walked. Arizona wanted no part of another big swing from Junior, which was understandable. Richie Palacios popped up, DeLuca flew out, and the Rays left two aboard.

A 3-1 lead was fine. It was also not enough to relax.

Mullins helped with that in the seventh. Leading off the inning, he drove a solo homer to right center, pushing the lead to 4-1 and giving the Rays the breathing room they had been chasing. Mullins had been quiet at the plate earlier, but all it takes is one swing for the rest to be forgotten.

IT'S CEDRIC MULLINS! pic.twitter.com/9AS5yyVc9P

— Tampa Bay Rays (@RaysBaseball) June 27, 2026

Then the Rays kept going. Hunter Feduccia doubled with two outs, Díaz singled him home, and Aranda doubled in Díaz. A tight 3-1 game had become a 6-1 game, and suddenly the Diamondbacks were running out of innings.

Mullins added the defensive punctuation in the eighth. Perdomo reached to start the inning, and Carroll lined a ball to center that looked like it might start something. Mullins charged in, dove, and made the catch. One batter later, Moreno grounded into a double play started by Caminero and turned through Palacios to Aranda.

SuperCed: Now in Theaters pic.twitter.com/A87rPZ4yvu

— Tampa Bay Rays (@RaysBaseball) June 27, 2026

Caminero had the swing everyone will remember, the leaping grab that helped save the fourth, and a hand in the double play that helped erase Arizona’s last real push. If I weren’t out of tin foil, I’d make a hat and say that it feels scripted on the night the Rays celebrated Dominican Heritage Night.

Craig Kimbrel was doing 2026 Craig Kimbrel things and made the ninth a little wobbly with a walk and a wild pitch, because even a five-run lead needs a small stress test. But he got Gurriel on a foul tip strikeout and ended it when Pavin Smith lined out to Palacios.

An impressive win with big hits, no strikeouts, and incredible defense. The Rays will look to clinch the series when these two teams meet again tomorrow night, with first pitch scheduled for 7:10 pm.

"THE RAYS BEAT THE DIAMONBACKS IN THE FIRST GAME OF THE SERIES AND HAVE WON THEIR THIRD CONSECUTIVE GAME!"@andybfreed with the call as the #Rays beat the D-Backs 6-1! pic.twitter.com/NuUNffAUjz

— Rays Radio (@RaysRadio) June 27, 2026

Despite the Mariners winning this afternoon’s game against the Guardians, the big story was a standout performance from Cleveland’s starter, Joey Cantillo, and his newfound love of the curveball. The curveball’s fallen out of fashion in MLB lately. Just 8.2% of the pitches this season have been big benders, the second-lowest since 2008, despite the general rise of the secondary pitch and fade of the fastball. But there are exceptions to every trend, and Cantillo has decided to zig where the league has zagged, and all that movement left the Mariners flummoxed.

Here’s a little chart of Cantillo’s curveball usage leading up to today’s game:

Notice that big spike? That was Saturday’s game against the Astros, when he went eight innings, striking out nine against just one walk and one run allowed, on the back of a 45% curveball rate. Now here’s today’s game on that chart:

So on the one hand, you can forgive the Mariners for getting caught off guard. Prior to Saturday, Cantillo’s career high on the curveball was 33%, and he’d only pitched four games in which he used Uncle Charlie more than 30% of the time. The fact that the Mariners whiffed on the pitch more than half the time owes a lot to how dramatically Cantillo changed his game. I genuinely can’t remember the last time I saw a starting pitcher use his curve literally 50% of the time.

More troubling, though, was the Mariners’ inability to adjust. Even the second and third time through, they were still getting hammered by the 59-inch break. Take Dominic Canzone’s second at-bat. Cantillo threw five curveballs in a row, with Canzone whiffing twice and barely getting a piece of a third before finally giving Cantillo a sword on a fastball that Canzone obviously thought would be a curve. Seattle struck out on the curveball five times, with another four punchouts set up by it one way or another. The team only managed one hard hit off Cantillo’s curve, a 103-mph groundball off the bat of Julio Rodríguez, which ended the sixth and ended up being the final pitch Cantillo threw.

The Mariners did get to Cantillo once, a homecoming home run for Colt Emerson. In Colt’s first game in the ballpark he grew up coming to, he smashed a ball out of the park in front of all his friends and family. How did he do it? By laying off two curveballs and getting a changeup.

Colt doesn’t show as much emotion on the field as Cole Young, and the game state made the home run less consequential. But don’t let any of that fool you. This was just as special for him as Cole’s was in Pittsburgh.

And despite getting pretty well manhandled by Cantillo, the Mariners were in a fine position when he left the game because Luis Castillo put up six excellent innings of his own. In one way, it was vintage Castillo, mixing in all his pitches, and even getting four whiffs and several weak ground balls off his formerly premier cambio. In another way, it was hardly the Castillo of old, with just ten whiffs and four strikeouts. Still, I’m happy to celebrate a Castillo that rolls through a lineup on soft contact. No muss and no fuss isn’t as sexy as taking another team’s lunch money, but we could use a little less muss and fuss after Seattle’s last couple weeks. It’s good enough for today’s Sun Hat Award anyway.

The Mariners were able to win the game in the final three innings thanks to taking advantage of Cleveland’s mistakes. As soon as Cantillo left the game, Tim Herrin walked the first two Mariners he saw, Cal Raleigh and Dominic Canzone. And after some bad BABIP luck over the past month or so, the Mariners got a little good luck with Travis Bazzana bobbling J.P. Crawford’s groundball, allowing Cal to score. In the next inning, the Guardians once again let a free baserunner score when Colt Emerson walked and was driven in by Julio.

Those three runs were enough today, despite it being the 12th game in a row that the Mariners have scored three runs or fewer, because unlike Cleveland, Seattle’s bullpen locked down their starter’s good outing. Jose A. Ferrer, Gabe Speier, and Andrés Muñoz retired all nine batters they faced. Connor Donovan points out that over his last two outings, Muñoz has faced six left-handed batters out of six possible batters faced and struck out five of them. And remember that chart of Cantillo’s curveball usage? Let’s look at another one to close this out. It shows Gabe Speier’s fastball velocity over each month of his career.

That spike at the very end is only going to move higher because he averaged 97 mph again today. I’ll have more to say about that next week.

Juan Soto said he was surprised to learn about the Mets' firing of manager Carlos Mendoza on Friday morning.

"It sucks,” Soto said when asked about his emotions when he heard the news. “It’s tough to see for a guy like that. I was really close with him; I talked to him a lot.

“Then to see him go, it’s really tough.”

Soto, who signed with the Mets on a 15-year deal after Mendoza’s first season as skipper, said he was informed of the decision by a call from the team’s front office. Soto said he spoke with Mendoza to express his appreciation for what the former manager did for him in welcoming him to the clubhouse “in the best way.”

Despite the team’s poor start to the season, they fell to 34-48 with a 2-1 defeat to the Philadelphia Phillies in the first game with interim manager Andy Greenon the bench, Soto said he did not expect the club to make a move at manager.

“Not at all, not at all,” Soto said after Friday’s loss.

“It’s moves every day here. You see bullpen guys going up and down, trades, starters getting moved to the bullpen. You're always expecting those moves,” he continued. “But seeing Mendoza, it's just tough."

Soto said he didn’t think the team’s struggles were a result of players pressing in the hopes of rescuing the floundering season and saving the manager’s job.  

“It’s tough, it’s part of baseball,” Soto said of the team’s struggles despite the talent on the roster. “We just haven’t been coming through in big situations. That’s the way the game goes, you gotta come through in the right moment.”

In Friday’s game, Soto came close to a two-run home run in the bottom of the first, but Phillies center fielder Derek Hill made a tremendous leaping grab to bring the ball back from over the fence. 

“I think it was an unbelievable catch,” Soto said. “When you see the replays, you see how impressive it was. He didn’t even have any time; he just went straight to the wall and jumped. That was incredible.”

Soto finished 0-for-4 with a strikeout.

In hindsight, Derek Hill won the game in the first inning, before most fans had settled into their seats at Citi Field Friday.

After a turbulent morning that included the Mets dismissing manager Carlos Mendoza, Juan Soto looked to turn things around in New York. He turned on a 96-mile-per-hour Zack Wheeler fastball and drove it deep to right center. It was 104 mph off the bat and looked like it was going to be a two-run homer.

Hill, however, had other ideas. The center fielder shaded toward the left side of second base and read it early, turned back and ran. Though he never really looked rushed, he flew back and at the track leapt. His elbow cleared the top of the fence and he brought back that potential home run ball.

Starter Zack Wheeler, who began his career with the Mets and hated their constant drama, watched and just laughed. He went on to make it stand up into a 2-1 win for the Phillies.

We still cannot believe this catch 😮

Did Derek Hill just make the play of year?! https://t.co/RYCBl3d1xOpic.twitter.com/t1xKp3BTDe

— MLB (@MLB) June 26, 2026

The Phillies went crazy. Brandon Marsh who had been running over for backup from right field, yanked off his cap and went over to congratulate Hill. Bryce Harper celebrated at first base and Alec Bohm just put his hands on top of his head and stared out in amazement.

It is already a contender for catch of the year.

Wheeler, meanwhile, went seven innings and gave up just one run and four hits, while striking out seven.

That is just the type of week Hill and the Phillies – and Mets – are having. Wednesday, down to their last out against the Nationals, Hill hit a go-ahead two-run homer in a 5-4 win. Thursday he had another in the ninth. The Phillies acquired him from the White Sox on June 11.

Friday he won the game in the first inning.

The Mets lost their seventh straight game.

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Catch of the Year? Watch Phillies' OF Derek Hill rob Juan Soto of home run

It is Friday. The Orioles have returned home and beat the Nationals, 3-1. Trevor Rogers was good. Coby Mayo was also good! There were some shenanigans, but not enough to keep the Orioles from getting the win.

YOU KNOW WHAT MUST BE DONE

(GIFS!)

The Texas Rangers scored five runs while the Toronto Blue Jays scored four runs.

Remember last night when the Rangers scored a bunch of runs early and then gently moseyed to a victory over the Blue Jays despite their lead shrinking to almost nothing late? Well, tonight’s game was pretty much the same deal.

The Rangers scored three runs in the top of the first off of 2025 friend Patrick Corbin as they enjoyed a rare trio of hits with RISP. A couple of innings later, Justin Foscue made it 5-0 with his fifth home run of the season, a two-run shot following a Jake Burger walk.

Irritatingly, the Rangers went hitless with RISP in their remaining nine opportunities as they couldn’t quite turn the game into a blowout. The well running dry at the plate would eventually lead to some late-innings heartburn again. Nevertheless, the early damage was already in the books and, luckily for Texas, they had Nathan Eovaldi on the mound and he was shoving.

The second most famous pitcher from Alvin, TX went seven innings and allowed zero runs on five hits and a walk with nine strikeouts. Toronto didn’t have their first hit until the fourth inning and only really threatened Eovaldi in his last couple of frames. The veteran erased a couple of rallies to maintain the five run lead.

The Rangers needed all five of ’em, too. Like last night, despite being staked to a big early lead, the Blue Jays flipped it on in the late innings and eventually put up a four-run frame in the eighth.

Starring down a potentially dubious outcome after leading by five runs early, Texas again turned to Jacob Latz for the save and he came through for the second consecutive one-run win for the Rangers in Toronto.

Player of the Game: Foscue drove in three of the five runs and his dinger was big, and Wyatt Langford continued his torrid June with three more hits and a stolen base while flying around on the bases, but it’s hard to argue against Eovaldi’s evening as he provided Texas with seven shutout frames to keep the mileage off a sputtering bullpen during this brutal stretch.

Up Next: Eyeing a third win in three tries to begin this series, the Rangers don’t yet have a pitcher listed for tomorrow’s game while Toronto will start RHP Dylan Cease.

The Saturday afternoon first pitch from Rogers Centre is scheduled for 2:07 pm CDT and will be back on the Rangers Sports Network.

Happy Pride Night! After a rousing electric guitar version of the Star-Spangled Banner, the Orioles came on out and delivered an inspired Friday win, defeating the Nationals in a tidy 3-1 contest. It wasn’t the most explosive offensive performance ever, but left-handed starter Trevor Rogers certainly brought the energy, going 6 1/3 innings with a fastball that was simply ruthless.

Let’s talk about another great start from Trevor Rogers, his third quality start in a row. As of May, Rogers’ ice-cold start to the season was making Birdland wonder whether his charmed 2025 was a mirage, but June has been quite the leveler. He now has a 2.05 ERA in five appearances. That’ll work.

Tonight, Rogers faced the minimum through three innings. This included a drama-free first inning with two pop flies (Rogers nicely battling back from down 3-0 to Curtis Mead) and a swinging K. In the second, Rogers whiffed CJ Abrams with high heat, making me think how tough the lefty Rogers looks against a lefty—but then he did the same on three pitches to right-hander Dylan Crews!

The Rogers four-seam fastball has been a weapon in June, and it looked devastating today. Of his first 20 pitches, 16 were strikes, and of 87 total, 65. Wow. Trevor Rogers is locked in, people.

Rogers’ counterpart on the mound, the rather inexperienced Andrew Alvarez, who has all of ten career starts, made a strong first impression here at Oriole Park, too. Alvarez whiffed two in a perfect first inning, dotting breaking balls everywhere. Lefties bearing offspeed pitches, and this Orioles lineup? Danger.

The Orioles wasted a scoring chance against Alvarez in the second when Pete Alonso walloped a curveball and with two outs, Leody Taveras walked. But Taveras ran into a third out on the bases, and Alvarez was out of trouble. Baltimore put the leadoff man on in the third, Jackson Holliday legging out an infield single, but Pete Alonso struck out with runners at the corners, and the rally went no further.

Meanwhile, Rogers was working at a furious pace, like he had somewhere to be. The third inning was just a bunch of groundballs. A somewhat lackadaisical throw to first by Gunnar Henderson took Pete Alonso just off the bag long enough to allow Jacob Young to get on base on the E6. But Rogers was unbothered: he teed up another ground ball—double play—and one more grounder to get out of the inning. Unflappable.

The Nationals nicked Rogers in the fourth—Maryland native James Wood doubled, and Curtis Mead followed him with a bloop single—but astonishingly, even with men on second and third and no outs, didn’t draw blood. Rogers just dug in, attacking the zone like a beast. First, he drew a bouncer right at Blaze Alexander, who made a strong, accurate throw home, and Wood was a sitting duck at the plate. Defense! CJ Abrams popped out next, and there were two outs. Crews scorched a ball, 104 mph, into the infield—but right at Jackson Holliday, who made a great stop, and fired to first. De-fense!

The game’s first runs came in the fourth, and they were orange-colored. Coby Mayo had taken some ferocious hacks at Alvarez in his first AB, back in the second, but he didn’t miss a big hanging curveball this time—double. A flustered Alvarez walked Tyler O’Neill on four pitches (one looked to be a strike). A mound visit and two quick outs later, and the rally looked to be toast. But Jackson Holliday walked to load the bases, and from the 9 spot, Blaze Alexander got the big base-knock. Two scored. Don’t get too enamored with Blaze, I’ll just say. Taylor Ward singled with two on, but Alexander got thrown out trying to go first-to-third and no third run would score. Runs, but also another stupid mistake.

On top of that, Washington immediately got one back, making it 2-1 in the fifth. With one out, Jacob Young had doubled deep to center. It looked like Rogers would get out of it cleanly when he struck out No. 8 hitter Nasim Nuñez. But the veteran Keibert Ruiz singled him home.

But that was all the Nats would get off Rogers tonight. Determined, I assume, to avoid handing this Orioles bullpen anything like a narrow lead, Rogers came back out for the sixth. I joke, but he’d only thrown 75 pitches when he came back out for the seventh, too.

Maybe Rogers likes a challenge, so he spotted the Nationals a leadoff double. Maybe not. He really struggled to retire Daylen Lile, but a pop out ended Lile’s AB and Rogers’ night. The O’s lefty exited with another quality start: 6 1/3 innings with one run on five hits, seven strikeouts and no walks. Welcome back, Rogers!

I’m sorry to remind you but I must: over the last three weeks, this Orioles bullpen has an ERA of 5.38. Happily, they didn’t look like it tonight. Also, the Orioles offense made their assignment a little easier by scratching out a third run for insurance. Washington’s Brad Lord had pitched a clean sixth, and tried to give his team length by pitching into the seventh. Bad call, probably.

Lord allowed a leadoff single to Taylor Ward before Gunnar struck out in an inconvenient spot. But Pete Alonso walked for the second time, and up to the plate came Coby Mayo. Mayo looked locked into today. He came through, to the tune of a 113-mph run-scoring double, his second of the day. 3-1 Birds.

After that, no drama from this relief corps whatever. Tyler Wells got two quick outs to end the seventh. Grant Wolfram pitched a perfect inning in the eighth. So, too, did lately homer-prone closer Ryan Helsley, who, flashing both a nasty breaking ball and 100 up in the zone, drew a quick groundout, a swinging strikeout, and … a slow roller to short. Too many times lately, the Orioles have done stupid things when faced with a play like this. But not tonight: Gunnar barehanded it and made an absolutely perfect throw to first. Ballgame over.

Clocking in at just over two-and-a-half hours, this was a clean, well-pitched, well-fielded game. Just the cure for the Orioles’ recent sloppiness. Watching a game like this, you could easily be tricked into believing the Orioles could actually make some noise down the stretch. Who knows?  

So who is your Most Birdland Player, CamdenChat? Trevor Rogers and his 6 1/3 one-run innings (maybe not just SPB [Starting Pitcher Bias])? Coby Mayo, 2-for-4 with two doubles? Blaze Alexander, with the big two-run RBI single, a walk, and a run-saving throw home? Taylor Ward, quietly going 3-for-5 at the top of the order?