After hitting a home run last night, we were able to talk with CJ Abrams. I asked him about what has made him so consistently good to start the season. Even when Abrams had hot starts in the past, there would be ebbs and flows, but not this year. The first thing Abrams mentioned was discipline.

In his answer, Abrams said that entails, “Working out, taking care of the body, fueling yourself, sleep, everything. Just being able to get yourself ready to compete every single day”. Obviously this is not rocket science, and I am sure Abrams was doing this stuff before, but consistently following that routine everyday has led to better results for him.

Last night was another great performance at the plate for Abrams, who has been one of the engines of the best offense in baseball. In the first inning, the Nats shortstop hit a 3-run home run off of the debuting Zach Thornton. Over the years, Abrams has made a habit of giving debuting pitchers their welcome to the big leagues moment. Since 2022, Abrams has hit 4 homers off of debuting pitchers.

CJ Abrams' 4 HR against SP making their MLB debut since the start of the 2022 season are tied for the most in the Majors with Aaron Judge, Teoscar Hernandez and Cal Raleigh

h/t @EliasSportshttps://t.co/TOk7frqJon

— Sarah Langs (@SlangsOnSports) May 21, 2026

We have obviously seen Abrams have hot starts before, but I do not think he has ever been this consistently excellent. For the season, Abrams is hitting .300 with a .928 OPS, hammering 10 homers and stealing 7 bases. Those are the best numbers of his career, but we need to see him keep it up in the second half. Abrams has fallen off in the second half each of the last two seasons.

However, at 25 years old now, it feels like this is an older, wiser version of CJ Abrams. When you are young, sometimes you can take the little things even like hydrating for granted. Now, Abrams is doing that stuff every day. He is also going to the gym multiple times a series. Blake Butera has mentioned that Abrams is one of the first people to show up to the ballpark, and one of the last ones to leave. In the past, Abrams may not have been the first guy in and last guy out, but he is in 2026 and it is paying off.

Another key for Abrams is pretty simple. He told reporters that he is eating, and eating a lot. As a naturally skinny guy, he said that it can be tough to keep weight on. With all the work he is putting in, you need food to fuel that. 

That work has obviously led to incredible results. His 3-run homer gave him 42 RBIs on the season. That is tied for the MLB lead, and we are 50 games into the season. In the past, Abrams usually hit in the leadoff spot, but he has been in the middle of the lineup this year, and he has been a fantastic run producer.

CJ Abrams 3-run bomb 🔥

He's tied for the most RBI in MLB with 42!pic.twitter.com/WTKa0CZXMi

— Just Baseball (@JustBB_Media) May 20, 2026

The real test for Abrams is still yet to come. He is flying high when it comes to his performance and his routine. However, he still needs to prove that he can keep it up as we get into the dog days of summer. There are likely to be trade rumors swirling around him. Can Abrams keep a clear head and avoid the distractions this summer? I think he is in a better position to do that now than he ever has in his career before this.

CJ Abrams has been in our lives for quite a while at this point, so it is easy to forget that he is just 25 years old. As one of the most experienced players on the team now, it seems like Abrams is taking it upon himself to set the standard in DC. With this new version of Abrams, I am very bullish on him. He has always had the talent, but I think he is figuring out the other stuff that can truly make him the face of a franchise.

Hopefully Abrams can be a face in DC. There were trade rumors swirling around him this offseason, but I still hold out some hope that there could be an extension. This fanbase is already getting re-energized by this offense. An Abrams extension would really create a buzz around this town.

Right now, Abrams is on pace for 136 RBIs. Who would not want to keep that kind of player around. There will be questions about his ultimate defensive home because he is not a great defensive shortstop. This could create some complications because shortstops get paid more than second baseman. However, he is hitting so well that he deserves a bag regardless of position.

I know we're not supposed to care about RBI, but that's 42 RBI for CJ Abrams in 50 games. He's on pace for 136, which would just barely top his career-high of … 65. https://t.co/ZFOBfRPt0g

— Mark Zuckerman (@MarkZuckerman) May 20, 2026

It is worth noting that Blake Butera has said Abrams’ pre-game work defensively is also getting better. He talked about how some of the things they are working on have not necessarily made it to game action yet as well. If he could somehow find a way to improve that defense at short, Abrams would be an MVP candidate. With the way the bat is rolling though, the defensive issues are not that tough of a pill to swallow.

CJ Abrams has been in the league for a while now, and I think he is really starting to mature. We still need to see it over a full season, but this looks like an older, wiser and more disciplined version of CJ Abrams. The talent has always been there, but his maturation could truly make him a superstar.

Say what you will about Barry Bonds, but Dodgers manager Dave Roberts offered this compelling description of him: “Very low maintenance.”

He prepared himself every day. If he was healthy, he was playing, and why wouldn’t he? He was the best hitter in baseball.

“With Barry, you just pencil [him] in the lineup and you don’t think anything of it,” said Roberts, his former teammate.

Roberts now manages Shohei Ohtani, who has won the most valuable player award four times. The only person with more MVP awards is Bonds.

Read more:Dodgers' Shohei Ohtani hits leadoff homer then shuts down Padres in victory

You might think Roberts would treat Ohtani the same way as Bonds: If Ohtani is healthy, he is in the lineup.

Instead, on the day he let Ohtani pitch and hit in the same game for the first time in a month, Roberts insisted he would make that decision on a “start by start” basis for the foreseeable future.

That risks turning the question of “Will he hit or not?” from a discussion into a weekly distraction.

Bonds did not pitch, of course. Ohtani is trying to complete his first full season as a pitcher in four years, after elbow surgery in 2023, and he already has thrown more innings this year than he did last year.

“For Shohei, you’re just constantly trying to manage his workload, his health, the surgeries and all that stuff,” Roberts said.

“With Barry, it was really just turnkey. Nothing against Shohei. That’s part of being a two-way player.”

On Wednesday, Ohtani hit a home run and pitched five shutout innings, leading the Dodgers to a 4-0 victory and a series victory over the rival San Diego Padres.

Do the Dodgers risk overthinking this?

Roberts said he believes the team can evaluate the strain on Ohtani without driving him crazy every week wondering whether he is going to hit the next time he pitches.

“I think he understands that it’s fluid,” Roberts said. “I don’t think that there is one model. It should be a read and react thing. I don’t know how the week is going to look after this off day.

“I could change my mind and have him not hit in his next outing, but that’s more on workload and how he feels.”

Consider Wednesday’s outing: It was Ohtani’s shortest start of the season, five innings and 88 pitches of what Roberts and Ohtani agreed was a “grind.” In the first three innings, he retired all nine batters. In his final two innings, he faced 10 batters and five reached base.

In the box score: five scoreless innings.

“I have a pretty high standard as far as performance,” Ohtani said through an interpreter. “It didn’t really match.”

Said Roberts: “I think it’s just another case in point that it’s good for us to be mindful of the workload and just not take that for granted.”

Roberts started asking Ohtani to stop hitting on days he pitched because he was slumping. Ohtani did not necessarily see the connection and, in any case, the slump appears to be over: On the six games of this road trip, Ohtani is batting .478 in six games, with six extra-base hits, six walks, and nine runs batted in.

On Wednesday, on the first pitch of the first game in which he hit and pitched in the same game, Ohtani launched a home run into the Petco Park beach beyond center field.

“I think that he’s very mindful of everything that’s said about him,” Roberts said. “At times, he uses that as motivation to prove people wrong, that he can do something.

“So, yeah, he’s certainly aware of all of it.”

Read more:Shaikin: From the Big Apple, sour grapes toward the voice of the Dodgers

For all the chatter, and for the weeks in which Ohtani at bat was not the Ohtani we have come to expect, his OPS is .885.

In 2022, the last year he pitched a full season, his OPS was .875. He finished second in the American League MVP race to Aaron Judge, who hit 62 home runs.

Ohtani hit 34, and he also put up a 2.33 earned-run average. He leads the majors in ERA this season, at 0.73.

Pencil him in.

Sign up for more Dodgers news with Dodgers Dugout. Delivered at the start of each series.

This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.

It turned out to be a sign of things to come when Shohei Ohtani hit a homerun on the first pitch from Randy Vasquez to give the Los Angeles Dodgers a 1-0 lead over the San Diego Padres at Petco Park. The Dodgers would go on to add three more runs to their total, while the Padres were held without a run in a 4-0 loss.

Vasquez was not as sharp as the Friar Faithful have come to expect and when facing not just Ohtani the hitter, but also the sub-one ERA Ohtani on the mound, the start from Vasquez proved costly. The San Diego right-hander allowed three runs on six hits over 4.1 innings with three walks and no strikeouts. It was the shortest outing for Vasquez since April 15 when he lasted just four innings against the Seattle Mariners.

The Padres offense was held to just five hits. Three came off Ohtani who completed five scoreless innings with two walks and four strikeouts. The other two hits came off reliever Kyle Hurt who pitched a scoreless innings despite the hits. Fernando Tatis Jr., Gavin Sheets, Ramon Laureano, Nick Castellanos and Bryce Johnson each had a hit in the game. Johnson came into the game in the top of the fifth inning to replace Jackson Merrill in center field after he appeared to be experiencing some discomfort in his torso following an attempt to rob the first inning home run by Ohtani.

San Diego dropped the third game of the series and lost the series to Los Angeles, 2-1. The Padres have an off day on Thursday and will return to action on Friday against the Athletics at Petco Park at 6:40 p.m.

Padres News:

• Alex Verdugo had a short-lived tenure with the San Diego organization and was released by the team earlier this week.

• Lucas Giolito made his first start for the Padres and his velocity was down compared seasons past. He said he expects that to change as he gets more starts under his belt.

• Infielder Jose Miranda looked like he had a legitimate chance to make the San Diego roster out of Spring Training, but he struggled in the minors which resulted in him being released by the team.

Baseball News:

• Kyle Harrison and the Milwaukee Brewers dominated the Chicago Cubs in win.

• Trey Yesavage leads Toronto Blue Jays to 2-1 win over New York Yankees.

• The Tampa Bay Rays scored four runs in the eighth inning to win and get their sixth sweep of the season.

• Arizona Diamondbacks second baseman Ketel Marte lead his team past the San Francisco Giants, 6-3.

• Texas Rangers get ninth inning win over Colorado Rockies.

Want to get more Covers content? Add us as a preferred source on your Google account here.

The Los Angeles Angels hope to avoid a sweep as they host the Athletics tonight in Anaheim.

My A’s vs. Angels predictions see the Halos grabbing a much-needed win with ace Jose Soriano on the bump. Read on for more analysis of tonight’s game with my MLB picks below.

Who will win A's vs Angels today: Angels moneyline (-108)

Jose Soriano has been flat-out one of the most effective starting pitchers in baseball, taking the leap from solid rotation piece to bona fide ace. 

The right-hander has a 2.41 ERA through 10 starts primarily thanks to his elite swing-and-miss stuff. He rides a 93rd percentile whiff rate en route to a 28% strikeout rate. 

When he’s not striking batters out, he’s doing the next-best thing — inducing soft-contact (75th percentile in hard-hit rate) grounders (81st percentile in ground ball rate).

The Los Angeles Angels are a different team with their flamethrower on the hill, winning 70% of his starts.

A's vs Angels Over/Under pick: Under 8.5 (-115)

One thing about betting on the Angels is that it’s difficult to count on much run support from the lineup, which has a league-worst 54 wRC+ against RHP this month. 

Luis Severino allows too many baserunners (1.57 WHIP) for me to rely on him to lead his team to victory, but he could help keep this a low-scoring game against the Angels.

His 107 Stuff+ ranks 12th among qualified starters, and this is the second consecutive season in which he’s been more effective on the road (3.56 ERA). The A’s have an uninspired 93 wRC+ in away games.

A's vs Angels odds

• Moneyline: A's -110 | Angels -110
• Run line: A's -1.5 (+135) | Angels +1.5 (-180)
• Over/Under: Over 8.5 (-115) | Under 8.5 (-110)

A's vs Angels trend

The A’s are 6-16-1 O/U in their last 23 road games. Find more MLB betting trends for A's vs. Angels.

How to watch A's vs Angels and game info

A's vs Angels latest injuries

A's vs Angels weather

This article originally appeared on Covers.com, read the full article here and view our best betting sites or check out our top sportsbook promos.

We step outside the lab again today to take a look at the argument for an Astros tear down. There are two main reasons why a rebuild makes a ton of sense. So, we should take a look at what that looks like and the whys and what fors for a decision as seemingly rash as this. Isn’t this giving up on the season? Indeed it would be and that is the first thing we should take a look at.

In a previous post, I looked at the Astros current math problem. They sit at 20-30 as I write this. In order to win 85 games they would need to finish 65-47. That’s assuming that 85 wins sneaks you into the playoffs. That’s a 94 win pace over a full season. I don’t think any of my colleagues picked them to win that many games. I had them pegged at 85 wins and that was assuming good health for guys like Hunter Brown. I just don’t see .580 baseball as very likely from here on out.

However, the Astros usual course is to continue trying to win and then adjusting for the next season on the fly. If it means that players depart for free agency then so be it. You get your compensation pick (when you tender them a qualifying offer) and hope that your farm system can pick up the pieces. Framber Valdez took the spot of Gerrit Cole. Jeremy Pena took Carlos Correa’s place. Kyle Tucker replaced George Springer. You get the idea.

Reason One: The farm system is barren

You cannot expect someone to come up and replace the stars. In the span of another year plus, you are on pace to lose Jeremy Pena and possibly Hunter Brown (more on that later). There isn’t anyone in the farm system there to take their spots. So, you are essentially just losing guys for the sake of losing them. This dive bombs us into the real reason why a rebuild is necessary. Simply put, you are on a hamster wheel and there is no good way to get off.

Even if you could re-sign Jeremy Pena or Hunter Brown then you would be committing all of your resources to keeping a team together that is not currently good enough to win. Jose Altuve and Carlos Correa are going to continue to get older and less effective as that nucleus gets older. The younger guys behind them will also continue to get more expensive.

There are only two ways around that hamster wheel. The first is to spend money like the Dodgers. We aren’t even sure what the CBA will look like after the season and if that will even be legal. However, it is nearly impossible to envision Crane spending upwards of 300 million on the roster. The other way to get through it is to fill enough holes with young players that you can compete. Neither of those scenarios seems likely.

Reason two: You aren’t likely re-signing Hunter Brown or Jeremy Pena

It just isn’t likely for any multitude of reasons. For one, both are in line for one of the long-term megadeals that the Astros simply don’t pay. For another, we aren’t even sure that they would deserve that kind of pay day even if we were willing. Given the recent history of the Astros, I seriously doubt they would sign any pitcher to a contract beyond two or three seasons. This could be an industry wide thing.

Pena has the look of a three or four win player moving forward. Fangraphs would peg that as worth between 25 and 30 million a season, but it is hard to see the Astros giving a deal beyond five seasons at that kind of money. I personally would not blame them. If that is a given then playing them until they are free agents is a foolish option. As we saw with Kyle Tucker, you could get as many as three useful players for a player with one year left until they become a free agent.

Imagine having more than a season. Teams that make deals at the deadline can demand a king’s ransom because the acquiring team gets them for two pennant drives. You could then get between six and eight players if you deal them separately, If you dealt them together you could demand multiple top 100 overall prospects and probably some current big league talent.

A roster without Pena and Brown would likely not compete in any circumstance. So, you might as well trade the likes of Paredes, Walker, Abreu, Hader, and Meyers. If you managed to jettison all of them you could be looking at between five to ten additional prospects. That is a total of 10 to 16 prospects between all of those players. The coup de gras would be Yordan Alvarez, If you got a Juan Soto type deal you could see another four or five prime prospects coming. We are talking a total of 20 prospects.

The Cash considerations

If you traded all of the players listed you would be looking at upwards of 120 million in player salary savings. Between 1998 and 2000 the Seattle Mariners dealt or allowed three of their stars to walk. They won 114 games in 2001. Obviously, that is the absolute ceiling of what we are talking about here, but the blueprint is there. You cannot just consider the players you get back for those players. You must also consider the financial savings from cutting their salaries from your roster.

Those Mariners used the money to sign good but not great players that made that roster deeper. No, they did not win the World Series that season and they were never THAT good again, but they were constantly above .500 and in the hunt even though they dealt three Hall of Fame level players. The St. Louis Cardinals dealt all of their expensive players away this past season and they currently sit at 28-19.

The difference between this and a traditional rebuild is that Crane has shown he is willing to spend up to the current tax line. If you couple the right prospects with 120 million worth of free agents then you could return to competitiveness immediately. You also restart the clock on star level players so that you aren’t necessarily churning veterans every year. You could build something.

I’m not sure Dana Brown is up to this task. That is the downside. However, if you couple these moves with another solid draft then your farm system goes from being one of the bottom five to one of the top five. It’s time to start building the next great era of Astros baseball. This one is winding down. It has happened to all dynasties before. The 1990s Braves feels like the most compelling comparison point. Those Braves got old. These Astros are getting old. No one wants to sit around and watch the 2010-2014 Astros again. A teardown would prevent that kind of prolonged pain if handled correctly. What do you think? Is it time to start the teardown?

Remember yesterday, when I brought out the old line: “No team is as bad as it looks when it’s on a long losing streak”?

I dunno. Maybe I’m wrong about that. The Cubs sure looked that bad in losing to the Brewers 5-0 Wednesday evening at Wrigley Field, being swept by their division rivals and now on a five-game losing streak.

The Brewers both dominated the Cubs pitching-wise and schooled them in several aspects of the game.

Edward Cabrera got out of the first inning scoreless despite allowing two hits. Nico Hoerner then led off the bottom of the first with a double.

I mean, I really could just stop this recap right there because the rest of the game was all Brewers and not Cubs. The thing about Nico’s double is — he took a really wide turn around second, thinking “triple,” but then had to quickly scoot back to first. I guess he really wanted third base because then he tried to advance on a medium-deep fly ball to left-center.

Hoerner was called safe, but it was overturned on review [VIDEO].

If you did not see this game — that was the only time the Cubs had a runner past first base.

In the second, the Brewers played that annoying kind of baseball that has made them good and drives us nuts. First, they got a catcher’s interference call on review [VIDEO].

Then Cabrera walked Joey Ortiz.

And then this happened [VIDEO].

I dunno. (I think I’ve said that before.) I’m obviously not in Pete Crow-Armstrong’s head and have no idea what’s on his mind or what he was thinking there, but something is clearly off with him. If it’s still the incident with the Sox fan, well, that’s in the past and gotta move on from it. PCA always wears his heart on his sleeve and his intensity level is something we don’t see from too many players. Often, that intensity serves him well. Recently, it has not. Honestly, given everything that’s happened to him this year, maybe Craig Counsell should have given him Wednesday off, which would have given him two full days (with today’s off day) for a reset.

PCA talked about all this after the game, and listening to this clip, he didn’t sound real good [VIDEO].

If Joe Maddon were managing this team, I think he’d tell PCA to take the off day and not think about baseball at all.

Anyway, that play made it 3-0 Brewers, and you’re thinking this is 20/20 hindsight but honestly my first thought after that play was, “This game is over.”

And it was. The Cubs had just three more baserunners the entire game — walks to Seiya Suzuki in the second and Michael Busch in the eighth, and a single by Alex Bregman in the seventh. Busch was erased on a double play, and that along with the DP on Nico in the first meant that Brewers pitchers faced just two over the minimum. Starter Kyle Harrison struck out 11 Cubs and reliever DL Hall added two K’s. It’s like the Cubs were just going through the motions after that Little League home run in the second. I’d like to hope I’m wrong about that.

And to top all that off, Cabrera left the game with a blister [VIDEO].

Obviously, the last thing the Cubs need is another starting pitcher injury. Fortunately, blisters aren’t serious and perhaps he won’t even miss a start. Cabrera threw reasonably well; the error on PCA made all three of the runs that scored on that play unearned.

Cubs relievers, with one notable exception, threw well. Trent Thornton, Hoby Milner, Ryan Rolison and Daniel Palencia combined for 5.1 shutout innings, allowing two hits and two walks, with six strikeouts.

And then there was Phil Maton, who allowed Milwaukee’s fifth run in the seventh, giving up two hits and a walk and wild-pitching in the run [VIDEO].

At this point, I’ve got to think maybe there’s some other injury to Maton that can put him on the IL again and get someone in the pen who can actually get outs. Who would that be? Here’s the Cubs’ 40-man roster, maybe you can figure it out. And I know this has become a meme but… maybe the Cubs really should stop signing former Astros relievers.

Here, let me show you one positive Cubs highlight. Nico made a nice stop and jump throw for an out in the seventh [VIDEO].

Here are postgame comments from Counsell [VIDEO].

A “sad note,” as he called it when he sent it to me, about this game from BCB’s JohnW53:

This was the 305th regular-season game since 1901 in which the Cubs made two or fewer hits — one of every 64 played.

It was the 49th since July 31, 2012, the last time the Cubs made no more than two hits and committed three errors. They made one hit and three errors that day, in a 5-0 loss at home to the Pirates.

They made one hit and two errors in a 5-0 loss at home to the Dodgers on May 31, 2016.

They made two hits and two errors in losses at Washington by 4-1 and 6-1, on June 13, 2016, and June 27, 2017.

They also made two and two in a 9-0 loss to the Reds at home on May 6, 2023.

Back to that line I quoted at the top of this recap… No, of course no team is as bad as it looks during a long losing streak. We know this Cubs team is better than that. Hopefully they begin looking that way starting Friday.

Even with this losing streak and being swept, the Cubs are just 1.5 games behind the Brewers, in a virtual tie with the Cardinals for second place in the NL Central (three percentage points behind). The team will certainly enjoy this off day, their first after playing nine days in a row, and then will begin a three-game series against the Astros Friday afternoon at Wrigley Field. Jameson Taillon is the Cubs’ listed starter for Friday. At this time the Astros don’t have a starter listed. Game time Friday is 1:20 p.m. CT and TV coverage will be on Apple TV (how to watch).