The Braves are currently putting it all on the line in an attempt to pull off a rare series win in Los Angeles against the Dodgers. One of the biggest examples of that has been Eli White’s performance in this game. In an extremely high-leverage situation where the Dodgers had Max Muncy at the plate with the bases loaded and two outs in the sixth inning of a 4-0 game in favor of the Braves.

Muncy crushed it out to right field for a line drive that would’ve drove in maybe three runs had it not been caught. Instead, Eli White ran directly into the wall and held onto the ball to make the inning-ending catch.

Eli White did stay in the game to take an at-bat in the seventh inning but he was clearly feeling the effects of his crash into the wall and exited the game. We have no word on what the reason was but considering it was shortly after that big-time slam, you could probably infer that he probably got his bell rung as a result.

We’ll update this post once we get more information.

We come together this Sunday for what is a sorrowful edition of our weekly social media roundup, as we mourn the loss — and celebrate the life — of John Sterling, who passed away this past Monday. How did the Yankees, and others throughout the league, honor the legendary Yankees broadcaster? And what else were they up to this week? Let’s find out!

In memory of John Sterling

Our main story of this week, of course, needs no introduction. As soon as the news broke about Sterling’s passing, tributes poured down throughout the league, from within and outside of the Yankees organization.

Players who posted in Sterling’s memory, but whose posts are unable to be embedded for whatever reason, include Aaron Judge and CC Sabathia, while Gleyber Torres posted on his Instagram story.

Elmer’s Glue? No, Elmer’s Debut!

Two weeks ago, Elmer Rodríguez made his Major League debut, and this week, he finally got around to posting on Instagram about the experience.

Keeping Up with the Joneses

Speaking of Major League debuts, the Yankees brought up former top prospect Spencer Jones this week, with much fanfare surrounding his arrivaling.

His college team, Vanderbilt, also took to Instagram to congratulation him on his promotion.

CC Talks Ball

Some words of wisdom from CC Sabathia this week:

Everybody is better than Jalen Brunson til it’s time to be better than Jalen Brunson…

LFG New York Knicks!!!

Speaking of CC, he spoke about his time with the Brewers as the Yankees visited Milwaukee this week, where the Brewers honored him for his contributions to the 2008 squad.

Behind the NY

In this week’s episode of Behind the NY, we learn about Yankees pitching prospect Carlos Lagrange, who put himself on the map during spring training with his dominant fastball — and caught the eye of Yankees ace Gerrit Cole.

Use the Force, Aaron

We cap off this week with Aaron Judge messing around and pretending to use the Force, recreating what is in my opinion the most relatable scene in the entire Star Wars franchise, Sabine Wren’s battle with the cup.

There were a lot of similarities between today and yesterday’s loss, but at least this one was quicker. The Yankees couldn’t get the one extra hit they really needed, and the Brewers showed why they’ve been so formidable over the past couple years. In the end, breakout star Brice Turang clubbed David Bednar’s offering over the center-field wall in the bottom of the ninth to give the Brew Crew a 4-3 win and sweep the Yankees right out of town.

For the seventh time this season, Aaron Judge was able to spot his club a first-inning run:

That’s Judge’s 16th bomb of the year, moving him back into a tie for the most in baseball, now knotted up with Kyle Schwarber of the Phillies. He also passed Hall of Famer Larry Walker on the all-time home run list, No. 384 putting him in a tie for 69th with Harold Baines. In his first three PAs, the Captain was the Three-True-Outcome player, going deep, striking out, and working a walk in the sixth. Unfortunately old friend Gary Sánchez gunned down Judge’s stolen base attempt in that frame.

The following inning, Spencer Jones got the monkey off his back with his first career hit and RBI, a single to center that scored José Caballero and made it 2-0, New York:

I am not a Spencer Jones believer, and it had been a tough weekend for the sixth-ranked prospect. Good for him for getting his first MLB knock, and even better that it brought a run in. Hat tip to the kid.

We had a bit of a mixed bag from Carlos Rodón today. I think you can and should be encouraged by the pure stuff we saw — sitting 96 with his fastball and 87 with his slider, both notably harder than he threw them in 2025. The issue, perhaps predictably, was control. Three of the five innings he appeared in opened with a free pass to the leadoff hitter, and while he was able to get through three frames without trouble, if you poke a bee’s nest enough you’ll get stung.

William Contreras and Sánchez both walked to kick off the bottom of the fourth, before Rodón dotted Andrew Vaughn to load the bases. The Yankees cut Contreras down at home but couldn’t get Luis Rengifo out at first, meaning Garrett Mitchell’s fly ball was a sac fly and RBI rather than the third out of the inning, and the Brewers were on the board. A two-run single by recently-recalled erstwhile Yankees farmhand Blake Perkins put Milwaukee up 3-2, and while that would be the totality of damage against Rodón, all of the damage was because of that poor control.

Jake Bird was called upon to navigate a two men on, one man out situation relieving Carlos, and did just that to keep the deficit to just one. Jazz Chisholm Jr. wasted little time rewarding Bird for the clutch bit of pitching with a big swing in the top of the sixth:

That RBI double was as good as it would get though. The Yankees would get a man on in each of the final three innings, but in a repeat of yesterday, couldn’t manage the one hit to push another run across. Five Bombers struck out in the seventh, eighth and ninth, and Cody Bellinger and Jones were the only hitters to get a ball out of the infield — a single and a fly out respectively.

David Bednar was asked to work the ninth, and actually got two outs before facing Brice Turang, who entered action with a 158 wRC+ and a top-10 fWAR that matched Rice (1.8):

This is the second time the Yankees have been swept this year after that nightmare series down at Tropicana Field.

There’s nothing else really to say about the series, the Brewers outplayed the Yankees in all three games, took advantage of mistakes and their pitching staff was seemingly able to stave off disaster at will. Milwaukee’s a very good team, for a reason. The only thing you can do from here is fly down to Baltimore and take a couple games against a team that you should be able to, with a back-t0-health Ryan Weathers back in the rotation for the opener of that series tomorrow against righty Brandon Young. First pitch is at 6:35pm Eastern, and hopefully we get a more robust offensive effort in a different town.

Box Score

Though things looked precarious for a moment there, but the Davis Martin Hype Train choo-choos on!

In the first inning, it looked as if the 29-year-old’s magical run to start this interesting 2026 campaign might finally be at its end. Martin struggled to put hitters away early, letting in a run in the first inning — just the second time this season he’s been tagged for a tally in the first — when Julio Rodríguez drove a double into the left field gap, moved to third on a wild pitch and ultimately scored on a Randy Arozarena poke into center field.

With those hits sandwiching a nine-pitch walk of Josh Naylor, it was one of the more laborious innings we’ve seen from Martin in a while. At that point, I was bracing myself for the inevitable turning of Martin’s luck.

Wrong. Martin gritted his teeth, dug in, and proceeded to allow just two baserunners over his final five innings, one via hit and one via walk. And it wasn’t all soft contact, either — Martin has become a bona fide whiff machine, tying the career high he set just six days ago with 19 swinging strikes.

His pitch chart is a thing of beauty, showing how effectively and consistently located his fastballs up and to the glove side, paired with a healthy dose of changeups and breaking balls just below the zone — more or less exactly where you want them.

Unfortunately, Martin was robbed of what should have been his sixth win of the season by virtue of Seattle starter Logan Gilbert, who the White Sox simply couldn’t touch in what was easily his best start of the season.

That the White Sox managed to win a game in which the opposing hurler twirled six one-hit innings, facing just a hair over the minimum, seems like an alien idea. Yet that’s exactly what happened today.

Sox hitters were clearly pleased to see Gilbert depart the game for José Ferrer in the seventh inning, although Ferrer followed his starter in keeping Chicago scoreless. In the eighth inning, it was Antonio Bazardo’s turn to quiet the Sox bats — and this time, the home team won the matchup with just a few swings of the bat.

First, Bazardo hung a dry-aged ham of a breaking ball to Randal Grichuk, who managed to deposit it into the bleachers despite a heady wind blowing in from left field.

It’s pretty refreshing when the declining veterans get cast off into the White Sox lineup and still actually have something left in the tank, isn’t it!

Almost immediately following, Drew Romo continued his tear at the plate, slicing a double into the right field corner to put the lead run in scoring position. After Sam Antonacci laid down a perfectly-executed sacrifice bunt to move Romo to third, it was Miguel Vargas’ turn to play clutch again. Though he certainly wishes he had hit this fly ball a little deeper, it was just deep enough for Romo to bait Arozarena into air mailing his throw home, allowing what was ultimately the winning run to cross the plate.

Seranthony Domínguez had a very Seranthony Domínguez ninth inning, loading the bases with just one out — and looking like his feel for the strike zone was irreparably gone for the day — before inducing a pop out and a weak ground ball to end the game and earn his ninth save of the season. We’re not even halfway through May, and those nine saves are already tied with Michael Kopech’s 2024 for the most saves by a Sox reliever since Liam Hendriks notched 37 in 2022. What a time to be alive!

With this win, the White Sox remain within striking distance of .500, and with Cleveland dropping their matinee to the Twins this afternoon, they’re just a single game back of the Guardians in an AL Central that is fully AL Central-ing, with four teams all hanging around .500 and refusing to take the reins and separate from the pack. They’ll look to keep climbing during the rest of this season-long homestand, next hosting Kansas City for a three-gamer from Tuesday through Thursday. Erick Fedde takes the hill in the first game of that set, scheduled for 6:40 p.m. CT. We’ll see you there!

MILWAUKEE — The Yankees don’t lose series often, but when they do, they get swept.

At least the last two times, anyway, and this one in crushing fashion.

After arriving here as one of the hottest teams in baseball, winners of 16 of their past 19 games, the Yankees delivered a dud of a series, getting swept by the Brewers, including a pair of walk-offs in the last two games.

Sunday afternoon, it was David Bednar who gave up the game-winning home run to Brice Turang with two outs in the bottom of the ninth, handing the Yankees a 4-3 loss in front of a sellout crowd at American Family Field.

That came on the heels of Saturday’s 4-3 loss in 10 innings when the bullpen and lineup combined to waste Cam Schlittler’s gem, making for a frustrating weekend as the Yankees (26-15) dropped their first series since being swept by the Rays last month, going 6-0-1 in series in between.

They also fell to 1-8 against teams with winning records — the Brewers, Rays and A’s, accounting for their only three series losses of the season — though they haven’t had many chances to improve on that because there are currently only two other teams in the American League above .500.

“We’re really good,” manager Aaron Boone said. “We had a bad series.”

Carlos Rodón was hurt by a lack of command while giving up three runs in 4 ¹/₃ innings in his season debut, but the biggest issue for the Yankees all weekend was trying to figure out the tough Brewers pitching staff.

Coming into this series, the Yankees had outscored opponents 123-52 over their past 19 games, then mustered six runs on 16 hits in three games against the Brewers. They also struck out 39 times in 28 innings, hindering their ability to break any games open the way they had so often of late.

“They got an incredible pitching staff, from the starting rotation to their bullpen, their back-end bullpen,” said Aaron Judge, who crushed his 16th home run of the season in the first inning for the 1-0 lead. “Guys that, from the bullpen to their starters, run up to 97-plus. They got a good thing going over there. So it made for some tough at-bats, some long days, kind of battling back and forth all series long.”

Making his first start in seven months, with elbow surgery in between, Rodón looked like he was still knocking off some rust. The left-hander walked five (three to lead off innings), hit a batter and threw a wild pitch, which turned into three runs — all coming in the fourth inning to erase a 2-0 Yankees lead — across 4 ¹/₃ innings allowing only two hits.

After scoring two runs early off righty Logan Henderson — Judge’s solo shot and Spencer Jones’ RBI single, his first career hit — the Yankees tied it up in the sixth inning on Jazz Chisholm Jr.’s RBI single against lefty reliever DL Hall. But that was all they would get, as the Brewers’ hard-throwing, back-end bullpen trio of Trevor Megill, Aaron Ashby and Abner Uribe shut them down late.

Then, after Jake Bird, Paul Blackburn, Fernando Cruz and Tim Hill had all put up zeros out of the bullpen, Bednar struck out the first two batters in the bottom of the ninth before throwing a first-pitch curveball over the heart of the plate to Turang, who snuck it over the center field wall to end the game.

• CHECK OUT THE LATEST MLB STANDINGS AND YANKEES STATS

“Just didn’t execute the way I wanted to,” said Bednar, who had not allowed a homer in 16 appearances this season. “But that’s baseball. It sucks.”

So did much of the weekend for the Yankees, who will now try to get back on track against the Orioles on Monday.

“Tough weekend, obviously,” Boone said. “Didn’t play our best and I thought they pitched really well against us and matched up well against us. But just not able to string together enough big hits there. Good swing by Turang to finish it off. Obviously a tough weekend, part of it, and look forward to getting on to Baltimore and righting the ship.”

Ahead of Sunday’s series finale against the Athletics, the Orioles gave off the usual signs of chaos. There was a roster move to shuffle for a fresh bullpen arm who nobody really wants to see. There was a day-of decision to have Keegan Akin go as an opener instead of Chris Bassitt making a regular start. If you took those things and also were told that the Orioles would only get six hits and only score two runs, you’d probably be expecting a loss. The O’s surprised us all, avoiding a sweep by the once-Oakland Athletics with a 2-1 win.

The first prong of a successful opener strategy is actually having the opener get through a scoreless inning. When Akin is involved, this is not something you can take to the bank. On Mother’s Day, Akin turned in a fine outing, retiring his three batters on only 13 pitches.

The second prong is having the guy who otherwise would have been a starting pitcher pitch well. When Bassitt has been involved in the 2026 season, this has not been guaranteed, either. There was a “Here we go again” feeling to Bassitt allowing a leadoff double to the first batter he faced, then bungling the fielding of a comebacker hit by the second batter that he faced. The not-officially-called-Sacramento Athletics had two men in scoring position before Bassitt got anybody out and the first out he recorded was a run-scoring sacrifice fly, giving the A’s a 1-0 lead in the second inning.

Bassitt, to his credit, limited the damage to that one run. Also to his credit, he went on to pitch for five more innings without allowing any more runs. He worked through the Athletics lineup just like the Orioles hoped he might, giving up four hits and a walk while striking out six batters. The Orioles needed this kind of outing from the veteran who they signed with the idea of bolstering the back of their rotation. They’re going to need several more for the signing to look like something other than a bust. Bassitt lowered his season ERA to 5.21.

The Orioles knotted the game back up in their half of the third inning. The bottom of the lineup got things going, as Dylan Beavers led off with a double and Weston Wilson drew a walk. Those were the 7 and 8 hitters. #9 guy Blaze Alexander squared, dropped a bunt, and advanced the two runners as the lineup turned over.

In general, I am not a fan of sacrifice bunts. This one gets a pass because Alexander’s chances of doing damage are not high, might as well move the guys over for better hitters and see what happens. Not that the hitter who was at the top of Sunday’s lineup, Gunnar Henderson, has been at his best in the 2026 season; he entered the game with a 30.2% strikeout rate for the season and could very easily have struck out and ruined the point of getting a guy to third with only one out.

Henderson did not strike out. He did not even get to two strikes. After fouling off the first pitch he saw, Henderson was able to pull the bat inside and get to a cutter boring in on his hands. This resulted in a grounder to A’s first baseman Nick Kurtz, who was playing deep, not worried about cutting down a runner going home. Kurtz was slow to start running the ball to first himself and A’s starter Luis Severino didn’t rush there initially either. Henderson ran hard all the way for an odd infield hit. This was going to get the run in regardless, but Gunnar will certainly take the hit.

The Orioles still had Wilson at third base with only one out, but he was stranded by Taylor Ward and Adley Rutschman. This was not the only case of stranding runners on Sunday. Over the 5.1 innings that Severino was in the game, the Orioles got six hits against him and drew four walks. That’s a lot of traffic. They just couldn’t capitalize as much as you’d like, in part because they only loaded the bases in the fifth inning after they had two outs.

They did manage to get to Severino for one more run, which turned out to be the game’s decisive run. Samuel Basallo got things started with a double in the sixth inning. Leody Taveras moved him up to third as he added a single to center field; the ball hung up in the air too long for Basallo to be sure it wouldn’t be caught, so he wasn’t able to score. Basallo scored easily as the lefty Beavers slashed a line drive to the opposite field. The Orioles took a 2-1 lead that proved to be the final score.

The game did not lack for drama from then on. The Athletics threatened again in the seventh – Bassitt’s last inning – with Carlos Cortes picking up a one-out single and stealing second base during a strikeout to get himself into scoring position. Then they got one last hit against Bassitt as Nick Gelof drove a single into center field. That probably sounds like a recipe for a game-tying hit, doesn’t it? Except that Taveras, the center fielder, charged in hard on the ball and made a strong, accurate throw home. Basallo picked up the ball and was ready to tag out the runner.

Cortes is listed at 5’7” and 197 pounds. If he ran into you or I, that would probably go badly for us. Cortes’s problem is that he wasn’t running into us, he was running into Basallo, who is listed at 6’4” and 250 pounds. That’s a basic problem that Isaac Newton could have explained for Cortes with his laws of motion. You did this one in middle school math class. Does this moving object have enough force to budge a larger object that is braced to remain still? No, man. You’re going to look like an idiot if you try that. And so:

This was barely even dramatic enough to call it a collision. Cortes, probably realizing that he was running dead, and also realizing that he had no interest in a full-force crash into Basallo – which, remember, is against the rules now anyway – just kind of bumped awkwardly into Basallo. The young Orioles catcher sent Cortes flying as if he was a bumper in a pinball machine and Cortes was the ball.

Basallo stood up and regarded Cortes with a look of disdain. Like, you really tried that? This was a badass sequence reminiscent of Matt Wieters holding on to a ball after a collision during the Chris Davis Pitching Game, after which he flipped up his mitt and showed the umpire the ball, while grinning like the Cheshire Cat. Basallo has his own moment now. Runners beware. If any Orioles outfielder can execute a good throw home, you’re in trouble.

Fortunately, Anthony Nunez didn’t spoil the party in the eighth inning even though he gave up two walks and tossed a wild pitch. In the ninth, Rico Garcia came in and closed the door, allowing a two-out walk but otherwise keeping the maybe-some-day-Las Vegas Athletics off of the bases. This was Garcia’s third save of the year.

It is safe to say that this victory does not dispel any lingering concerns about the Orioles, particularly the state of their offense. Most games, six hits and two runs isn’t going to cut it, especially with another series against the Yankees coming up.

The Orioles are now three wins better than they were through the same number of games last season. That’s good. They are also now on pace to win 71 games this season. That’s not good. Avoiding the free fall is only the first problem. They still need to actually get good. These are problems for tomorrow and beyond. Today, they won the one game they could win today. That’s still worth something.