If you had told me before the series that James McCann would throw out runners in two of the three games, that would have told you all you needed to know about how it would go for the Diamondbacks.

Arizona’s starting pitching skid continued on Thursday, as the once red-hot Michael Soroka unraveled against Milwaukee’s pesky offense. Soroka allowed eight earned runs in just four innings, and the D-backs dropped the rubber game of the series, 13-1.

Soroka entered the day with a sparkling 2.60 ERA but left with it ballooned to 4.70. His velocity was down nearly a full tick, and his trademark slurve wasn’t generating the usual swing-and-miss. The clunker put the D-backs in a deep hole early — they trailed 6-0 by the third inning. If this team wants to remain competitive, the starting rotation is going to need to make an adjustment, and it has to happen quickly.

Offensively, Arizona couldn’t generate much of anything. Being down by six runs in the third inning is mentally daunting, and it showed. Hitters started pressing, trying to do too much instead of staying within themselves.

The lone bright spot was once again Ildemaro Vargas (sorry, not Bonds), who collected two hits and extended his hitting streak to 26 games dating back to last season. That ties him with Paul Goldschmidt for the second-longest streak in franchise history.

What stung the most in this series was how the D-backs got beat at their own game. When Arizona is at its best, it wins by applying constant pressure on offense, playing airtight defense, and getting solid pitching. Prior to Ryne Nelson’s blow-up start, the rotation had posted a collective 3.40 ERA, and the bullpen had looked better than expected. There were warning signs that the staff might have been slightly overperforming relative to the underlying metrics, but it’s safe to say no D-backs fan saw things unraveling this badly, this fast.

The Diamondbacks now head to Chicago to face the Cubs and their potent offense at the historic confines of Wrigley Field. Given how well Chicago’s lineup has been swinging the bats this season, this upcoming series could get ugly quickly if the starting pitching doesn’t figure things out in a hurry.

The Arizona Complex League starts on Saturday, so there’s some movement in anticipation of that. The Iowa Cubs also got some (probably) temporary reinforcements.

Right-hander Vince Velazquez has elected free agency.

Right-hander Jace Beck was promoted to Triple-A Iowa from Double-A Knoxville.

Outfielder Jeury Ramirez was promoted from the Dominican Summer League Cubs-Red to Iowa.

Outfielder Freiker Betencourt was promoted from DSL Cubs-Red to Iowa.

Right-hander Jubrayker Salaya moved from DSL Cubs-Red to Iowa.

Right-hander Ben Johnson was demoted to High-A South Bend from Knoxville.

Second baseman Darlyn De Leon was promoted to Low-A Myrtle Beach from the ACL Cubs.

Outfielder Derik Alcantara was sent down to Mesa from Myrtle Beach.

Please note that the Cubs did not fly those players out of the Dominican Republic and send them to Iowa. They were in Arizona to be activated for Saturday’s season opener for Mesa and the Cubs just sent them to Iowa to fill out their roster. Presumably they will soon be sent back down to Mesa. None of those DSL players played for Iowa tonight.

Iowa Cubs

The Iowa Cubs were excommunicated by the St. Paul Saints (Twins), 3-1.

It wasn’t a bad start for Charlie Barnes, but he got the loss as Iowa couldn’t score. Barnes’ final line was three runs on just two hits over five innings. He did walk three and hit one batter while striking out four.

Luke Little, Ethan Roberts and Tyler Beede all threw one inning of relief without allowing a hit or a run. Roberts retired the side in order in the seventh, striking out one. He somehow took 23 pitches to get those three batters out. Fifteen were strikes.

The I-Cubs outhit the Saints 8 to 2, but were outscored 3 to 1. First baseman Jonathon Long singled home third baseman James Triantos in the eighth inning. Both players were 2 for 4.

Long’s RBI single was pretty much it for the highlights for Iowa.

Knoxville Smokies

The Knoxville Smokies split a doubleheader with the Rocket City Trash Pandas (Angels), losing game one 3-1 and winning the second game 6-1.

Grant Kipp started game one and took the loss after he allowed one run in the first inning and two more in the second. Kipp’s final line was three runs on four hits over 1.2 innings. Kipp walked three and struck out two.

Knoxville only had two hits in game one. Center fielder Jordan Nwogu was 0 for 1 with two walks and he scored the only Smokies run of the game on an Owen Ayers sac fly in the sixth.

Shortstop Jefferson Rojas was 1 for 3 with a double.

Three pitchers combined on a two-hitter in game two. Starter Dawson Netz pitched four innings and allowed no runs and one hit. Netz struck out seven and walked just one.

Luis Rujano threw the next two innings and got the win because Netz only went four innings. Rujano gave up one run on hit—a double by the first batter he faced in the fifth. Rujano struck out one and walked no one.

Vince Reilly retired the side in order in the seventh. He struck out one.

Third baseman Jefferson Rojas was 2 for 5 with an RBI double.

First baseman Edgar Alvarez went 2 for 4 with one run scored.

Second baseman Ed Howard was 2 for 4 with an RBi single in the second inning. He also scored on the Rojas double.

Center fielder Jordan Nwogu was a perfect 1 for 1 with three walks. He was also hit by a pitch with the bases loaded for an RBI. Nwogu also scored one run.

Rojas’ RBI double in game two.

South Bend Cubs

The South Bend Cubs were dented by the Ft. Wayne TinCaps (Padres), 6-1.

Koen Moreno started and got the loss. Moreno surrendered four runs on seven hits over 4.2 innings. Moreno struck out five and walked on.

Leonel Espinoza came into the game when Reginald Preciado left the game after getting hit by a pitch. Espinoza went 2 for 2 with a double and a solo home run in the eighth. It was his second home run this year.

Espinoza’s home run.

A nice defensive play by second baseman Drew Bowser, costing Luigi a hit. I’m sure that’s Lamar King Jr.‘s nickname now.

Myrtle Beach Pelicans

The Myrtle Beach Pelicans called lights out on the Columbia Fireflies (Royals), 4-2.

Edwardo Melendez started and went four innings, allowing just one unearned run on one hit. Melendez struck out four and walked just one.

The win went to Victor Zarraga because Melendez didn’t go five. Zarraga relieved Melendez and pitched 3.1 innings, allowing one run on two hits. Zarraga did walk three and struck out six.

Braylon Myers pitched the final 1.2 innings and got his first career save. Myers did not allow a run or a hit, but he did walk two while striking out three.

The Pelicans scored all four runs in the second inning.

Center fielder Alexey Lumpuy went 2 for 4 with a two-run double.

First baseman Michael Carico was 2 for 4 and scored one run.

Left fielder Eli Lovich was 2 for 4 and scored one run.

The night after reader holycow8498 pointed out that right fielder Josiah Hartshorn had a 21-game on-base streak to start his professional career, Hartshorn was 0 for 4, snapping the streak.

Highlights.

The Twins finally found the solution to their bullpen: just score enough that they can’t ruin it. Byron Buxton did everything he could, and this time, the rest of the lineup was able to deliver the key hits they’ve been lacking these past two weeks. 

It was a pitcher’s duel early, with both teams only getting two baserunners through the first three innings. I wouldn’t say either Bailey Ober or Toronto starter Kevin Gausman had their best stuff, but the vets were mixing pitches and keeping opposing batters off balance.

I’ll focus the rest of this recap on the lineup, who deserve their flowers, but I want to again give a shoutout to Ober who keeps finding ways to get things done. What he’s doing is completely unprecedented in the modern game, which makes me skeptical he can keep it up, but he keeps delivering solid start after solid start. His average fastball velocity of 88 MPH is the slowest in the game by a healthy margin. The average four seamer from a righty averages 95.1 MPH. His strikeouts are down, his walks are up, but by golly he just keeps posting quality starts. I’ll take whatever we can get at this point.

Despite Ober’s wizardry, Daulton Varsho and the Jays finally struck in the fourth inning with a solo shot off of Ober. But for the first time in weeks, the Twins were ready to respond. 

Trevor Larnach got the Twins their first non-Buxton leadoff baserunner. And then future All-Star Ryan Jeffers took command of the game. Jeffers fought off a bunch of tough pitches and finally got a fastball down the heart of the plate on pitch number 8. He gave the Jays’ bullpen a little souvenir for their troubles. 2-1 Twins.

Since we all can see the future, we know the Twins technically didn’t need another run but given the state of literally every single reliever in the organization, no one watching was comfortable with a one run lead. Luckily, we have the aforementioned Buxton, who is quite good at bashing baseballs. Buck’s solo dong in the sixth inning was his eighth of the season, all of which have come in the past two weeks. Safe to say we’re in the midst of another patented Buxton hot streak. Austin Martin plated one more in the frame with a clutch, two-out single.

Just to really cover their bases, Buxton got one final rally going in the 8th. A Buck single and a throwing error (largely caused by Buck’s speed) put two on for Josh Bell, who was able to deliver a clutch, two-run single of his own. Walks to Austin Martin and Kody Clemens left them juiced for Luke Keaschall, who brought in one final insurance run on a sac fly. With a six run lead, the lineup decided that the bullpen could (probably) handle it from there.

Twins win!

STUDS

• Byron Buxton: 3-4, 1 HR, 1 2B, 2 R, 1 RBI
• Ryan Jeffers: Go-ahead 2 run dong
• Bailey Ober: 6 IP, 1 R, 4 H, 2 BB, 2 K
• The bullpen!: 3 IP, 2 H, 1 BB

DUDS

• NO DUDS TWINS WIN!!!

Comment of the game goes to Zach for being the real winner tonight.

The Twins close out April at 14-18, but are just two games back of the AL Central. They are also one of just five teams in the American League with a positive run differential, alongside the Tigers, Yankees, Mariners, and Rangers. The bullpen makes it extraordinarily hard to believe, but the Twins are still very much in this race with the first full month of the season in the books.

Nine straight sinkers to Bryson Stott before his game-tying triple that led to the Phillies 3-2 walk-off win earlier in the day. 

Seven straight splitters to Kyle Schwarber before he ripped a two-out, game-tying double that eventually led to another Philly win in 10 innings — the first time an MLB team has walked-off twice in a doubleheader in 22 years.

April 30th was really really so close to being a pretty dang good day. Two ball games, two leads in the 9th. 19 innings packed with some promising Giants baseball that ultimately has to get dumped into the toilet bowl and flushed.  

This was so close to being a joyous, insightful recap about a 5-4 win, rather than an incoherent rant about a 6-5 palm-to-the-face loss. I still want to salvage something from the wreckage. Anything, really. Look, see, the offense was kind-a doing their job. 5 total runs scored. They erased a two-run deficit twice to put themselves in position to win in the 9th inning. Luis Arraez and Jung Hoo Lee each came through with clutch 2-out RBIs. The line-up out-hit the Phillies 13 to 9 and walked 5 times. A Giants batter hit with a runner in scoring position in seven of 10 innings. Two sacrifice flies!

All silver linings that as I sit here at my desk really really tired after a day of teaching and an evening of watching gut-punching baseball and a later-evening of writing with another day of teaching looming in the morning, I realize are not silver linings at all — rather instruments of torture.

There is no sunshine behind clouds. All clouds do is piss rain, postpone games and delay the inevitable. Spring has sprung a leak. Two deficits erased, more like two blown leads, aided by free bases, conviction-less offerings, and 2-out RBIs handed-out by relievers. 18 baserunners, 15 at-bats with a runner in scoring position, and all the offense could manage was two run-scoring hits with two sacrifice flies. All those opportunities lost. Rafael Devers, Willy Adames, and Matt Chapman all struck out twice each. Heliot Ramos followed his 3-hit afternoon with a 4 K evening. 

And not to harp on this — but seven splitters in a row? Did we learn nothing from Ryan Walker’s stubbornness? And why was Keaton Winn even pitching to Schwarber in the first place? Schwarber had hit two homers on the day, and San Francisco arms had yet to get him out in the game. Winn had already thrown 1.2 innings and gave up a lead-off double in the 9th. Lefty Matt Gage was up in the bullpen. Instead of going for the left-on-left match-up, manager Tony Vitello stayed put, and the Winn-Bailey battery waffled between wanting to pitch to the slugger or not. The first two pitches were nowhere near the zone, then his splitters started creeping into bashin’ range, keeping Schwarber at the plate — which was the last place the Giants wanted him to be. Would it have been better to put the winning run on base, and face Bryce Harper? Was the thinking that the splitter had the best chance of eliciting chase, or poor contact, or keeping a ball in play on the ground? But there’s a point where an off-speed isn’t off speed anymore, and by the last one Winn threw, Schwarber was well-timed to it, got down on one knee and golfed it into right. 

And why didn’t Drew Gilbert score from second on Ramos’s single in the 10th?

The ball ricocheted off Bryson Stott’s glove and rolled into no man’s land in shallow center — Gilbert would’ve scored easily, but third base coach Hector Borg decided to hold him at third. Did Borg lose track of the ball? Did he throw the stop sign up too early? Add ‘em to the list of exasperating questions!

During the postgame wrap, Ron Wotus referred to this as “a broken play” in which the action goes awry and the normal functions of a play get thrown out the window. Though it was possible Borg didn’t see the ball, Wotus — who knows a thing or two about coaching third — figured he threw up the stop sign with an abundance of caution. He had to make a split-second decision. There were no outs, the 2-3-4 hitters were due up. Wonky things happen on wonky plays, why risk getting thrown out at home? Turns out the Giants didn’t have the luxury of those precautions. Chapman struck out on a sinker out over the plate, Luis Arraez lined out…and that was basically the game. 

So maybe Borg’s stop sign made some baseball sense — it’s just this team that doesn’t make baseball sense.

With the offense being so hit-or-miss, hot-or-cold, nothing feels guaranteed. Playing it safe doesn’t work. Scrap that philosophy, load up at the buffet, grab what ya can carry off the sale rack, take the money and run. Runners at the corners and nobody out is just as much a crap shoot as two-out and runner on second. Luis Arraez can dump an 0-2 change-up into right, or he can slap a liner right into the outstretched glove of Alec Bohm. Or if it’s Willy Adames at the plate, he can strike out on three pitches or four.   

But we should’ve known it was going to end this way. Omens of disappointment announced themselves from the very beginning.

Trea Turner and Schwarber were up front about what was in store for Giants fans with back-to-back homers in the 1st inning off Adrian Houser.

While I’m glad, deep down…somewhere, that the Giants made things a little more interesting, my Thursday evening would’ve certainly been much simpler if that early 2-0 score held. Houser would’ve been the story, and what I wrote before the late-inning meltdown would’ve been much more relevant.

I already had a headline too: “Burning Down the Houser.” Great stuff. This is what I wrote.

Adrian Houser is made of straw and sticks. He’s been structurally unsound up on the hill, blown down by the slightest huff and puff from an opposing offense. The mound is nothing more than shifting sand beneath his feet, ground impossible to put one’s faith in. Houser entered Thursday’s start with a 7.36 ERA over his first five starts of the 2026 season, with a -10 Pitching Run Value. He had given up at least 4 earned runs in all but his first start and was still looking for answers to his 11-hit, 8-run thrashing by the Marlins when he took the mound in Philadelphia. Tipping pitches? Sure, man, maybe…or based on the first pitch solo shot by Trea Turner, it’s less that he’s tipping, and more that he’s just throwing. Throwing the baseball has really just not worked for Houser this past month. It’s time to tear down, to restructure and rebuild — if that fact wasn’t clear beforehand, it became obvious after Kyle Schwarber chased Turner’s solo shot with an absolute tank to deep right center. 

Two batters into the game, two runs already in. Burn it all down, and Houser did. Right in the middle of the diamond, he burst into flames, becoming engulfed in a cleansing fire, and was reduced to ashes. Like a phoenix, he reformed in front of our eyes. A new man with gritted teeth, and a hardened, Clint Eastwood visage of determination. Or something like that. Houser didn’t become Dirty Harry, but he started getting hitters out. Batters no longer felt lucky to face him. A front door sinker froze Bryce Harper at the top of the zone. Two groundouts stranded Justin Crawford in the 2nd after his one-out triple that missed another solo home run by a couple of feet. The next Phillies hit off Houser wouldn’t come until two outs in the 5th. After walks to Schwarber and Harper in the 3rd, he got Adolis Garcia to ground into an inning-ending double play, then made a nice recovery play after taking a comebacker off his hip as part of an 8-pitch 4th. He dropped a wicked 0-2 curveball on Garrett Stubbs for the second out in the 5th before Turner punched a single up the middle, chasing Houser from the hill, before coming around to score three batters later. 

The 4.2 IP, 4 H, 3 ER, 2 BB, 2 K, 2 HR isn’t quite a .44 magnum of a pitching line, but considering how poorly Houser has pitched, and how poorly his afternoon started, those particular results are a decent step forward. He held the line long enough for the Giants offense to piece themselves back into the game. The third run earned was hardly his fault considering Turner essentially walked around the bases with Ryan Borucki on the hill.  

At just 68 pitches, and it being Philadelphia’s first hit since the 2nd, it did seem like a quick trigger by Vitello. Then again, take a moment to think about it, and the decision was pretty understandable. Don’t be swayed by recency bias. Houser pitched well for three innings.  Did we truly believe he had been rebuilt, or reborn? Did we want to see him face off against Schwarber for a third time if the homer in the first still hadn’t returned to earth? And with lefty specialist Ryan Borucki, why give Houser more rope to potentially trip himself on? The button was there, rosy red and flashing, and Vitello punched it. Many of us would have. 

Having not pitched in six days, Borucki was well-rested and well-rusted. He was holding the baseball but didn’t seem to be in control against Philadelphia’s power lefties. With count leverage, Schwarber flipped a hustle double to left field. Harper then walked on four pitches to bring up the right-hander Adolis Garcia, who sawed a 3-2 slider into left for a 2-run single to regain the lead.

Soon after a passing spring shower relieved itself over south Philly postponing the game for half-an-hour. Some Giants fans may have preferred it if the grounds crew had just kept the tarp on the field and called the game then.