Worldwide Sports News

Mets lineup

1. Carson Benge – RF
2. Juan Soto – LF
3. Francisco Alvarez – DH
4. Mark Vientos – 1B
5. Hayden Senger – C
6. Christian Arroyo – 3B
7. Vidal Brujan – SS
8. Cristian Pache – CF
9. Grae Kessinger – 2B

Jonah Tong – RHP

Cardinals lineup

1. JJ Wetherholt – SS
2. Jose Fermin – 2B
3. Nolan Gorman – 3B
4. Nelson Velazquez – RF
5. Leonardo Bernal – C
6. Nathan Church – CF
7. Joshua Baez – DH
8. Blaze Jordan – 1B
9. Chase Davis – LF

Richard Fitts – RHP

Broadcast info

First pitch: 1:10 PM EST
TV: PIX11
Radio: Audacy Mets Radio WHSQ 880AM, Audacy App, 92.3 HD2

Pittsburgh Pirates vs. Atlanta Braves, February 25, 2026, 1:05 p.m. ET

Location: CoolToday Park, Venice, FL

How to Listen: KDKA-FM 93.7

The Pittsburgh Pirates are on the road against the Atlanta Braves, where they will try and pick up another win.

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BD community, this is your thread for today’s game. Enjoy!

The Tampa Bay Rays top overall prospect will make his spring debut this afternoon, getting the start against the Baltimore Orioles.

There isn’t any radio coverage today, but the Orioles are broadcasting the game so it can be seen on MLB.tv.

First pitch is at 1:05 at Ed Smith Stadium

In the responses to our last question, it seemed that people were generally expecting there to be a lockout at the end of this season, when the current Collective Bargaining Agreement expires. The duration and impact of that lockout is considerably less certain. But to follow up on that, today I wanted to get your opinions on what the impact of that lockout might be – in particular, with regard to the Diamondbacks.

What would a lockout do to this team? Which players or plans get derailed the most?

There are a whole number of levels at which you can look at this. Obviously, there will be a loss of revenue, and while the players may be on strike, that does not mean that all expenditure goes down to zero for the D-backs. On the roster level, it’ll potentially be a year lost for players under contract. But also a year gained for player development (albeit without formal competition, young prospects will still get older and stronger, and can gain experience outside of minor-league settings). Let’s presume the entire 2027 season is lost. Where will the team sit at the end of that year?

Here are the lineups. For the Phillies:

For the Tigers:

Let’s talk about it.

After months of waiting, the Kansas City Royals are back on the field. Granted, it’s for Spring Training games, but still–you can watch professional baseball players in actual games against other teams. The Royals last played a game on September 28, 2025, so it’s been almost five months since diehard Kansas City baseball fans were able to watch their team. 

We all know that baseball is a marathon, which is part of its charm. The National Football League plays 17 regular season games a year. The National Basketball Association plays 82 regular season games a year, with the National Hockey League moving to 84 games a year soon. Major League Baseball? MLB blows them out of the water with 162 regular season games a year.

Nick Kappel, the Royals’ director of media relations, posted this, which really puts into perspective what is about to play out over the coming months:

The Royals played their first game a few days ago on February 20. Their last scheduled game is on September 27. That means that, outside the four-day All-Star break, Kansas City will have played a baseball game in nine out of every 10 days for over seven consecutive months. 

Don’t get me wrong–I’m glad the Royals are back to playing baseball. I prefer when it’s baseball season to when it’s not baseball season. But at the same time, I wonder if MLB’s total number of regular season games has surpassed the point of diminishing returns, and that a return to the 154-game regular season is the way to go. 

From 1904 through 1960, MLB had a 154-game season except for a few outlier seasons like immediately following World War I. The league only shifted to 162 games coinciding with the American League’s 1961 expansion. So many legendary MLB players played all of or most of their careers before the 162-game season, from Babe Ruth to Jackie Robinson, Ted Williams, and Stan Musial. 

The argument for a 154-game season is that it maintains baseball’s unique cadence while eliminating the “filler” that happens in a 162-game season, and we can think of this on two core axes. 

The first axis here is simply player quality. You want your best players to play all your games, but a 162-game season is grueling and very few players play in the whole thing. Last year, only 6 hitters played in 162 games, and only 22 starting pitchers made 32 or more starts. Every time one of the clear best players in the league doesn’t play, they are replaced by a less talented and less exciting player. Meanwhile, there were 51 hitters who played in 154 games, and 54 starting pitchers who made 30 or more starts–all of whom would have played every possible game in a shorter season.

The other axis here is game quality. There are some games that are just not attractive for fans or teams alike, and those games are early-season weekday games. That’s when the weather is the most questionable, when school is in full swing, and when teams haven’t built up excitement in the product. I took a look at the five least-attended home games for each of the AL Central teams last year, and the results are just about what you’d expect for those 25 games:

• 19 were April games
• 5 of the non-April games happened when teams were 9+ games behind first place
• 24 were Monday-Thursday games
• 0 were Saturday/Sunday games

You can’t just cut eight Monday-Thursday games in April and call it a day. But you can do some of that, and also cut weekday games throughout the year to provide more off days. 

While it seems unlikely that the union or the owners would want to cut 120 games off the books, it can be balanced in two ways. First, increase the divisional series to seven games to get multiple high-revenue playoff games on the books. Second, timing it alongside an expansion from 30 to 32 teams would increase the total games played from 2,430 to 2,464. 

Baseball will never get to a truly short season, and it shouldn’t. However, cutting just a few games from the calendar could have a knockdown effect that gives everyone a breather and just might result in a better product.

RHP Hunter Brown, who was announced by Joe Espada as the Astros Opening Day starter, will make his Spring debut today. In 2025, Brown established himself as one of the top starters in the Majors, going 12-9 in 31 starts with a 2.43 ERA with 206 strikeouts in 185.1 innings of work. Among AL starters, Brown ranked second in ERA and Quality Starts (21),  third in strikeouts (206), fourth in WHIP (1.03) and fourth in pitching WAR (4.8). Brown was named to his first All-Star team and finished third in the voting for the AL Cy Young Award. He also earned AL Pitcher of the Month honors for June (1.19 ERA, .130 opp. avg.) and his season included a 28.0-inning scoreless inning streak in 2025.

Game Info

Game Date/Time: Wednesday, February 25, 12:10 p.m. CST

Location: Roger Dean Chevrolet Stadium, Jupiter, FL

TV: No Local Broadcast

Streaming: MLB.tv (audio only)

Radio: KBME 790 AM / 94.5 FM HD-2

TODAY’S POTENTIAL RELIEVERS: RHP Jayden Murray, RHP Roddery Munoz, RHP Alimber Santa, RHP Logan VanWey, RHP Amilcar Chirinos, RHP Wilmy Sanchez, RHP Trey McLoughlin.

CURRENT CAMP NUMBERS: The Astros have 66 players at Major League Spring Training, including a full 40-man roster and 26 non-roster invitees…the roster consists of 36 pitchers, eight catchers, 12 infielders and 10 outfielders.

Carlos Mendoza provided an update on Francisco Lindor to the media today, saying that the Mets’ shortstop can restart “impact” activities in 2-3 days after having the stitches removed from his surgically repaired left hand on Tuesday.

Lindor underwent surgery on February 11 to repair a stress fracture in his left hamate bone and the estimated recovery time was six weeks, putting him on track to return right around Opening Day. Lindor is progressing as expected, according to Mendoza, and is still on track to meet that timeline provided all goes well as he resumes baseball activities. He has been present at Port St. Lucie with his teammates, but not an active participation in spring training thus far. However, that should change soon.

What is less clear is how long it may take Lindor’s power to return once he starts swinging the bat again. Baseball players are particularly susceptible to hamate injuries and in fact, multiple other players suffered hamate injuries right around the same time Lindor did this spring. Though the surgery recovery timeline is fairly standard, some players suffer lingering effects, particularly in the power department. However, the majority of players have good outcomes. The only thing that will determine which bucket Lindor falls into is time.

Speaking of time, Lindor has missed very little of it since coming to the Mets, despite playing through discomfort on a few occasions. The 32-year-old also underwent right elbow debridement surgery following the conclusion of the 2025 season, but there is not any evidence that has hindered him at all this spring. Though Lindor should be able to take the field for the Mets on March 26 as scheduled, his hamate injury has prevented him from participating in the World Baseball Classic for Team Puerto Rico, which plays its first game on March 6 against Colombia.