New York Mets manager Carlos Mendoza said he’ll talk to Juan Soto about hustling out of the batter’s box after the slugger watched his would-be home run bounce off the Green Monster for a single Monday night against the Boston Red Sox.
Leading off the sixth inning on a chilly night at Fenway Park with a 15 mph wind blowing in from left field, Soto hit a 102 mph line drive to left and stood watching as it sailed toward the Green Monster. The ball hit about two-thirds of the way up the 37-foot wall, and Soto was only able to manage a single.
Soto went from pumping a long single to stealing yet another bag
“He thought he had it,” Mendoza told reporters after his team’s 3-1 loss. “But with the wind and all that, and in this ballpark — anywhere, but in particular in this one, with that wall right there — you’ve got to get out of the box. So, yeah, we’ll discuss that.”
Soto stole second on the first pitch to the next batter, but the $765 million star ended up stranded on third. He denied lollygagging on the basepaths.
“I think I’ve been hustling pretty hard,” he said. “If you see it today, you can tell.”
It’s not uncommon for balls hit off the Green Monster to result in singles: In the first inning, Pete Alonso was thrown out trying for second base on a ball off the left-field wall. But Soto had also failed to run hard out of the box on a groundout Sunday night at Yankee Stadium.
New York Mets manager Carlos Mendoza said he’ll talk to Juan Soto about hustling out of the batter’s box after the slugger watched his would-be home run bounce off the Green Monster for a single Monday night against the Boston Red Sox.
Leading off the sixth inning on a chilly night at Fenway Park with a 15 mph wind blowing in from left field, Soto hit a 102 mph line drive to left and stood watching as it sailed toward the Green Monster. The ball hit about two-thirds of the way up the 37-foot wall, and Soto was only able to manage a single.
Soto went from pumping a long single to stealing yet another bag
“He thought he had it,” Mendoza told reporters after his team’s 3-1 loss. “But with the wind and all that, and in this ballpark — anywhere, but in particular in this one, with that wall right there — you’ve got to get out of the box. So, yeah, we’ll discuss that.”
Soto stole second on the first pitch to the next batter, but the $765 million star ended up stranded on third. He denied lollygagging on the basepaths.
“I think I’ve been hustling pretty hard,” he said. “If you see it today, you can tell.”
It’s not uncommon for balls hit off the Green Monster to result in singles: In the first inning, Pete Alonso was thrown out trying for second base on a ball off the left-field wall. But Soto had also failed to run hard out of the box on a groundout Sunday night at Yankee Stadium.
SAN FRANCISCO — It’s been a few years since Robbie Ray felt this good. Late Monday night, he said his seven innings against the Kansas City Royals were the sharpest of the year and described it as being “kinda on auto pilot.” Ray had confidence throwing any pitch in any count, which reminded him of his form in 2021, when he was the American League’s Cy Young Award winner.
A 2025 candidate was on the other side Monday, although right now, if you’re left-handed, you don’t need to pitch like a Cy Young to cut through this Giants lineup.
Bay Area native Kris Bubic threw seven shutout innings to lead the Royals to a 3-1 win, lowering his ERA to 1.47. He became the latest southpaw to make quick work of a team that’s 28-20 overall but just 4-11 when facing a left-handed starter.
The Giants didn’t have a hit off Bubic until the sixth, when Wilmer Flores hit a slow roller that was initially ruled an error but changed to a hit because second baseman Michael Massey slipped before the ball got to him. Bubic allowed just two hits, which has been the norm.
After Monday’s loss, the Giants are batting just .206 against left-handed starters with a .280 on-base percentage and .348 slugging percentage. They have 10 homers in those 15 games, and on Monday, they hit just one ball over 100 mph against Bubic. That was a Casey Schmitt double, which allowed the official scorer to sleep a bit better given that it came an inning after the 50-50 play at second.
“He pitches in, he pitches out, he pitches up, he pitches down,” manager Bob Melvin said of Bubic. “He had a couple different breaking balls working … we’ve seen some good pitchers this year [and] that was right up there.”
Melvin has made some small tweaks against lefties, moving Flores and Tyler Fitzgerald up in the lineup. Schmitt is expected to get a lot of time at first until Jerar Encarnacion returns. But the real solutions will have to come from the team’s marquee players. Willy Adames has a .371 OPS against lefties, and while Matt Chapman has a high OBP, he has just three extra-base hits. Both popped up multiple times Monday on a night when the Giants had seven of them overall.
With a lineup heavy on right-handed hitters, the Giants figured they would fare well against lefties. That hasn’t been the case, but Melvin wasn’t too stressed Monday.
“I think regardless, it was going to be tough against [Bubic] today,” he said.
Verlander Update
A day after both Melvin and right-hander Justin Verlander declined to elaborate on what was bothering the veteran in four innings, the manager said it was a pec issue. He didn’t provide much more than that.
“We’ll give it a day or two to calm down and hopefully we’re good to go,” Melvin said. “I think these next couple of days will tell. He does get an extra day [of rest] so that’s good as well. I think he’s going to take it easy the next couple of days and then we’ll see how he’s feeling on Wednesday.”
The Giants are off Thursday, so Verlander can get some extra treatment if he is to start Saturday in Washington, D.C. If he’s not ready, there are options. Kyle Harrison is in the bullpen and Jordan Hicks is still stretched out to start if needed.
Hicks made his first relief appearance Monday and allowed a run in the top of the ninth. He hit 100 mph three times but threw just seven of 18 pitches for strikes.
Headed Elsewhere?
To clear a roster spot for Schmitt, the Giants DFA’d David Villar for the second time in two months. If he clears waivers — which seems likely given that he did the first time — he can elect to become a free agent, and the expectation is that he will do so and look for a better opportunity elsewhere.
If this is it for Villar as a Giant, he’ll finish with a .200 average, .683 OPS and 15 homers in 118 games. After the 2022 MLB season, there was a runway for Villar to take over at third, but J.D. Davis ended up breaking out and Matt Chapman was signed after the season.
The Giants have just 38 players on their 40-man roster, which is a bit odd and surely horrifies the previous regime. They’ll get Encarnacion back from the 60-day IL in the next week or so, but there’s still an open spot if they need to add someone at some point soon. Like, perhaps, PCL Pitcher of the Week Carson Whisenhunt.
New York Mets manager Carlos Mendoza said he’ll talk to Juan Soto about hustling out of the batter’s box after the slugger watched his would-be home run bounce off the Green Monster for a single Monday night against the Boston Red Sox.
Leading off the sixth inning on a chilly night at Fenway Park with a 15 mph wind blowing in from left field, Soto hit a 102 mph line drive to left and stood watching as it sailed toward the Green Monster. The ball hit about two-thirds of the way up the 37-foot wall, and Soto was only able to manage a single.
Soto went from pumping a long single to stealing yet another bag
“He thought he had it,” Mendoza told reporters after his team’s 3-1 loss. “But with the wind and all that, and in this ballpark — anywhere, but in particular in this one, with that wall right there — you’ve got to get out of the box. So, yeah, we’ll discuss that.”
Soto stole second on the first pitch to the next batter, but the $765 million star ended up stranded on third. He denied lollygagging on the basepaths.
“I think I’ve been hustling pretty hard,” he said. “If you see it today, you can tell.”
It’s not uncommon for balls hit off the Green Monster to result in singles: In the first inning, Pete Alonso was thrown out trying for second base on a ball off the left-field wall. But Soto had also failed to run hard out of the box on a groundout Sunday night at Yankee Stadium.
Dodgers pitcher Landon Knack delivers in the fourth inning of a 9-5 loss to the Arizona Diamondbacks on Monday night at Dodger Stadium. (Kyusung Gong / Associated Press)
Dodger Stadium was eerily quiet for much of Monday night. And not just because whole sections of the upper deck sat largely empty.
In a 9-5 loss to the Arizona Diamondbacks, the Dodgers didn’t just drop their fourth straight game, but turned in a performance that elicited as many boos as anything else at Chavez Ravine, stumbling to a season-worst losing streak on a night they did little right in any facet of the game.
There was bad defense early. In the first inning, center fielder Hyeseong Kim lost a fly ball in the twilight sky, leading to two runs that would have been unearned had it not been ruled a double. In the second, third baseman Max Muncy spiked a throw to first on a slow-rolling grounder that led to another preventable score, even though his miscue was also ruled a base hit.
The pitching wasn’t great either. Left-handed opener Jack Dreyer followed Muncy’s bad throw with an even wilder pitch to the backstop in the next at-bat, advancing the runner to set up an eventual sacrifice fly. Landon Knack took over in the third and promptly gave up a pair of two-run home runs, one to Lourdes Gurriel Jr. on a down-and-in slider and another to Gabriel Moreno on an inside fastball.
Even the few bright spots offensively weren’t close to being enough.
Mookie Betts hit two home runs in his continued search to break out of a slow start. Shohei Ohtani retook sole possession of the major league lead in long balls by whacking his 17th of the season. But all three blasts came with no one on base. And they represented the Dodgers’ only hits of the night against Arizona right-hander Brandon Pfaadt, who was otherwise unbothered in a six-inning effort that included no strikeouts (or even a single swing-and-miss from a Dodgers hitter) but plenty of fine plays from an athletic defense behind him.
“It's hard to start games behind before you take an at-bat,” manager Dave Roberts said. “We've given up runs in the first inning. We got to put up that zero and kind of get a chance to get the game going.”
While shaky defense and inconsistent production at the plate have been bugaboos for the Dodgers (29-19), it is the team’s increasingly pitching struggles that have stood out most during this four-game skid — the club’s longest since losing five in a row in late May last season.
With the loss to the Diamondbacks (26-22), the Dodgers own a team earned-run average of 4.28, which ranks 22nd in the majors and is their highest at this point in a campaign since 2010.
The main root of the problem is easy to identify. Starters Tyler Glasnow, Blake Snell and Roki Sasaki remain on the injured list, forcing the club into plans such as Monday with a rookie in Dreyer opening for a depth arm in Knack. The bullpen has been shorthanded, too, with Blake Treinen, Evan Phillips and Kirby Yates all injured, as well.
“You go through certain situations like this, it’s just tough to find a way to get back healthy and get our guys back out there,” Betts said. "But we’re battling with what we got.”
Arizona's Gabriel Moreno, right, celebrates with teammate Josh Naylor after hitting a two-run home run in the third inning Monday. (Kyusung Gong / Associated Press)
The good news is that several of those sidelined options are on the mend. Glasnow and Snell are both progressing in their throwing programs, with Glasnow “a tick ahead of Blake,” according to Roberts. Sasaki is expected to begin his throwing program during the team’s upcoming road trip. And Ohtani, who has been throwing regular bullpen sessions all season, is beginning to build up his pitch count as the club targets his return to the mound sometime around the All-Star break.
But in the meantime, the Dodgers have still expected more from their currently healthy group.
"It's not the staff we thought we'd have this season, but I feel that what we still do [have], and have done in the past with injuries, we're not doing,” Roberts said. “In the sense of getting ahead of hitters, and keeping them in the ballpark.”
And to do that, Roberts cited one place to start.
“On first glance, we need to be better at getting ahead in counts,” he said. “It doesn’t take a deep dive to see we start 1-and-0 quite often. When you do that, it makes pitching tough.”
Indeed, the Dodgers entered the night 24th in the majors with a 59.8% first-strike rate, a problem Roberts believes has led to too many long innings, and too large a workload for the staff.
“The 30-pitch innings just don’t play. It’s not sustainable,” he said. “And that starts with getting strike one. That ultimately goes to our entire pitching staff.”
The Dodgers were better in that area Monday, starting 27 of 49 at-bats with a strike. But it didn’t help. Dreyer needed 38 pitches to get through his two innings. Knack threw 106 to get through the next five (including 16 in one at-bat to Moreno in the fifth).
And when long reliever Matt Sauer took over in the eighth and gave up a two-run home run to Geraldo Perdomo, much of a season-low (and atypically quiet) crowd of 41,372 began streaming for the exits, not sticking around for one of the Dodgers’ flattest showings this year.
He did not have his best stuff, but Senga battled in six innings with four scoreless frames after the Red Sox (24-25) scratched their three runs across the first and second.
"The first couple innings with the wind and just the environment in general, I was having a hard time executing my pitches," Senga, who scattered five hits while striking out five and walking three, said through an interpreter. "But I wanted to go out there, stay in the game and make it a winnable game, and I was able to stay out there for a good amount."
Jarren Duran's leadoff double to right field, Rafael Devers' walk and Senga's wild pitch suddenly put Boston runners on second and third with none out.
Alex Bregman grounded out to second baseman Jeff McNeil and scored Duran before Trevor Story's eventual two-out single past third baseman Brett Baty down the line brought Devers home.
"I thought he settled in nicely," Carlos Mendoza said of Senga (4-3, 1.43 ERA). "They attacked him -- first pitch of the game, Duran gets him. But then, as the game went on, he continued to get better. I thought the fastball was really good. I thought the split was good, the way he used all of his pitches. Bases loaded there and he didn't get a call and continued to make pitches, got out of it, was able to give us six, so I thought he was solid today."
Duran's two-out triple in the second inning scored Carlos Narváez, who reached base on a one-out walk, and widened the lead to 3-0, the most earned runs he's allowed on the young season.
Senga limited the damage, though, including his work out of a bases-loaded jam in the fourth inning as he eventually convinced Mendoza to let him have the sixth.
"I felt good at that point," Senga said. "I felt pretty confident with the feel that I had. I felt like I could go back out there. I think I was at around 90 pitches and I wanted to get as many outs as possible for the team. I haven't been able to contribute in the innings side as much. I was able to get those three outs and it was good."
It was a grind, as he managed just 25 called strikes and whiffs on the night, and struggled with finding his command. Of course, he did get seven whiffs on his 18 swings on the forkball, which improved as the night went on.
As the Mets seek a bounce-back game Tuesday at 6:45 p.m. on SNY, they do so with their bullpen fresh after only using José Castillo and José Buttó in relief of Senga.
"I was glad that I was able to grind through it and find six innings," Senga, who threw 60 strikes on 100 pitches, said.
After falling behind by three runs in the first two innings, the Mets' offense got eight at-bats with a runner in scoring position over the next seven frames in Monday's game at Fenway Park. But the visitors only managed to convert those chances into one run -- a Tyrone Taylor third-inning single -- during a 3-1 loss to the Boston Red Sox.
"Obviously, we're not getting the job done with runners in scoring position," manager Carlos Mendoza said.
New York is now 9-for-54 (.167) with RISP over their last seven games, and after leaving six on base Monday, have left 53 men on in that span. They've gone 3-4 with 14 runs scored.
"At times, feel like [we're] taking really good pitches to hit, being passive and then, at times, chasing," he said. "We've got to start executing."
Mendoza wants to see his charges "go up there with conviction," have an awareness of what a pitcher is trying to do against them, and then "pulling the trigger" when the chance is there, he said.
"Not only putting together a good plan, but going out there and executing," Mendoza said. "And I feel like, when we see guys taking really good pitches to hit early in counts and then chasing, that's a sign that we're kind of in-between in situations like that.
"Understanding that [the pitcher] is the one in trouble, he's the one that has got to make pitches."
However, the skipper sees it as "just a matter of time" before his club's hitters end this slump, even as the Mets' first four batters -- Francisco Lindor, Juan Soto, Pete Alonso, and Brandon Nimmo -- combined to go 2-for-14 and hitless in four scoring chances, which included two of the three double plays on the night.
"They're human," he said. "Our offense, when those guys go, we're gonna go."
Lindor specifically has struggled of late, as he has just one hit in his last 22 at-bats with three walks and five strikeouts. Mendoza said that he is seeing the shortstop chase pitches, including a 2-1 fastball above the zone and a 3-2 slider below it with runners on first and third and two outs in the fifth against left-hander Justin Wilson.
"I thought he chased today against a lefty and trying to be aggressive on the first pitch in the [seventh with runners on first and second], but it's not gonna be perfect all the time," the skipper said. "He's too good a player ... the past couple of days, he's not getting the results there. But, he'll be fine."
Vientos’ power numbers have taken a bit of a tumble from a year ago. In 454 plate appearances last year, he had 27 homers (5.95 percent) and 22 doubles (4.85 percent) with a .516 slugging percentage. Through 179 plate appearances this year, he has just five homers (2.79 percent) and six doubles (3.35 percent) for a .377 slugging percentage after an 0-for-4 Monday in Boston.
Mendoza noted before the game that Vientos is “hitting some line drives,” but the power numbers and the 25-year-old “driving the ball out of the park the way we saw last year” have not been there.
“Every player will go through stretches like this, and once they hit one, they gonna come in bunches. That’s what hitters with power usually do,” the manager said pregame. “I don’t want him to go out there and chase homers. I want him to continue to give [a] good approach, control the strike zone, get pitches to hit, and then putting good swings on it.
“And then, they’ll come. But yeah, it’s been a little bit of an on and off [start] here.”
Vientos snapped out of his early-season funk with a 16-game stretch with a .533 slugging percentage from late April to mid-May, but now has gone six games without an extra-base hit and has just two in 58 at-bats during May.
The advanced stats paint the story this way: In 111 games last year, he posted a .463 expected slugging percentage (84th percentile), 91.2 mph average exit velocity (82nd percentile), 14.1 percent barrel rate (92nd percentile), and a 46.6 hard-hit percentage (80th percentile), per Statcast.
In 2025, the expected slugging percentage entering Monday was down to .387 (33rd percentile), average exit velocity down to 90.6 (61st percentile), barrel percentage 6.5 (31st percentile), and hard-hit rate to 44.7 (59 percentile).
Could it be a matter of less time in the field? Vientos, who started as the DH on Monday for the fifth time this year, played the field in all 105 games he started last year. Mendoza believes he has been handling rotating between playing at third base and serving as the designated hitter “fine” and didn’t seem to see a link.
“I think he’s just gotta continue to work,” he said. “And then the days that he’s not playing third base, DH-wise, he’s gotta continue to do his pregame routine and stay ready. But I think he’s handled it fine.”
Mendoza admitted that it can be a challenge for a young player used to playing in the field to learn to adjust to just being a DH.
“There’s always challenges,” he said. “But I don’t think this is new for him, I don’t know what to make of this. The one thing is, he’s in the lineup, he’s getting at-bats, and he’ll learn, he’ll adjust, and he’ll continue to get opportunities at third base, too.”
Call to ConEd answered?
Another young Met experiencing a bit of a power outage is Francisco Alvarez, but he snapped out of a 0-for-12 skid with hits in his first two trips to the plate, including his first extra-base hit in his last 44 at-bats.
The catcher has seen his slugging percentage dip from .437 in 123 games his rookie season to .403 in 100 games last year to just .353 through his first 18 games. Before Monday's contest, Mendoza identified a culprit for his struggles.
“The one thing I’m seeing the past few days is he’s getting beat with fastballs,” the manager said. “And, at this level, you gotta be able to hit the fastball. He’s been a good fastball hitter, but again, I think he’s just late. Hitters are gonna go through this, he’s aware of it.”
Alvarez batted .315 with a .534 slugging percentage on the heater a year ago. Entering Monday's games, those numbers were down to .310 and .310 this year. The big drop came in the expected category: His xBA on is down 50 points to .213 and his xSLG is down 160 points to .299.
His whiff rate on the heater is up from 22.1 percent to 44.3 percent, which is his highest rate against any type of pitch for the first time in his career.
“It’s pretty easy, they’re getting ahead and they continue to throw him fastballs, especially at the top of the zone with two strikes,” Mendoza said. “He’s gonna have to make some adjustments, and he will. But again, that’s part of 162 and he’s going through it right now.”
Alvarez looked to rectify that, smacking a first-pitch 95 mph fastball from Hunter Dobbins to right for a double that got over Wilyer Abreu's head in the third. But later in the game, he was caught looking at a 0-2 fastball on the outside corner and bounced into a game-ending 4-6-3 double-play on a 98.9 mph sinker from Aroldis Chapman in his final two times up.
Is the skipper concerned about Alvarez getting beat on the heater?
“No, because he’s been a good fastball hitter before,” he said of the 23-year-old before the game. “It’s just whatever he’s doing mechanically. He [has to] go watch film, and make some adjustments, and he will.”
No rest for the Mets -- yet
After three games against the AL East-leading Yankees, the Mets opened a three-game set against the (sub-.500, but) second-place Red Sox with a weekend series against the NL West-leading Dodgers coming up.
“That’s what the schedule says, right?” Mendoza said about the stretch of games. “Can’t look too far ahead, you got to take it one series at a time. We lost the series against the Yankees, here we are getting ready to play another good team.
"I feel like in the big leagues nowadays, there's no soft spot anymore. Every team you play is a good team, especially in the National League. The way I see it is, it’s a pretty competitive league. As far as who you’re playing, there’s always good teams."
Of course, the Mets do close the month with the final six games of a nine-game homestand coming against the White Sox (14-34) and Rockies (8-39).
Mendoza was asked about Soto's leadoff at-bat in the sixth inning when he sent Justin Wilson's 3-2 fastball off the middle of the Green Monster and settled for a single.
Soto appeared to be admiring what he seemingly thought was a home run, walked backward out of the box and jogged up the line before Jarren Duran's barehand catch and throw to second base kept Soto at first.
"We'll talk to him about it," Mendoza said. "Tonight, obviously, someone gets a hold of one and knows when he gets it, it's Juan. And he thought he had it, the wind and all that. And in this ballpark ... with that wall right there, you've got to get out of the box. So we'll discuss that."
The wind had been blowing in from that direction and the 101.9 mph drive went just 347 feet. In the first inning, Pete Alonso was similarly a bit slow coming out of the box when his drive (109 mph) carried just 365 feet and went off the wall. Alonso, who broke for second, was thrown out there on a perfect throw from Duran.
Juan Soto singles off the Green Monster and then steals second base on the next pitch pic.twitter.com/BQoIQAkmlO
Soto stole second base on the first pitch as Alonso worked a walk, but Brandon Nimmo grounded into a 5-4-2 double play and Mark Vientos flew out to right field to strand Soto at third.
"I hit it pretty hard ... tried to get to second, but it wasn't enough," Soto said.
Soto was asked if being "slow getting out of the box" is something that he needs "to be more aware of."
"No," Soto said. "I think I've been hustling pretty hard. If you see it today, you could tell."
In the eighth inning of Sunday's 8-2 loss to the Yankees, Soto led off and grounded up the middle to a sliding DJ LeMahieu at second base but did not appear to get out of the box fast enough.
LeMahieu threw from his knees and beat Soto to the bag by a few steps.
Soto and the Mets (29-19) look to rebound Tuesday at 6:45 p.m. on SNY in the second game of a three-game series with the Red Sox (24-25).
"I mean, it's part of the game," said Soto, whose 1-for-4 evening brings his batting average to .246 through 47 games. "It's not always going to be great. We're going to have up and downs. We've just got to keep our chin up and keep moving forward. It's a game of failure. Sometimes you're going to fail, and you've just got to keep moving forward. It doesn't matter what."
Kodai Senga guts through six innings, but the Mets batters couldn’t capitalize on their chances in a 3-1 loss to the Boston Red Sox on a cold and windy Monday night at Fenway Park.
New York had chances, but bounced into three double plays, left six on base, and went 1-for-8 with runners in scoring position. The Mets fell to 29-19 on the year and have lost four of their past five games. The Red Sox improved to 24-25.
The Mets' first five batters in the order combined to go 2-for-18 with two walks and four strikeouts, accounting for five missed chances with RISP.
Here are the takeaways...
- Boston jumped on Senga right away as Jarren Duran smacked the first pitch he threw down the first base line for a double. The Mets’ starter was then charged with a pitch clock violation for not having the PitchCom, tossed three straight out of the zone for a walk, and a wild pitch on a ball way in the dirt put two in scoring position with nobody out.
A weak grounder up the middle plated the run (with Jeff McNeil making a fine play) and a grounder to first put a runner at third with two down. Senga got ahead 0-2, but Trevor Story stayed on the forkball and just kept it fair down the third base line for an RBI single to make it 2-0.
With two down and a runner at first after a walk in the second, a 2-2 forkball to Duran got too much of the plate and was rifled through the hole at first for an RBI triple. The three earned runs were the most Senga has allowed all season.
Alex Bregman’s double off the Green Monster to start the third gave Boston another scoring chance, but Senga kept them off the board as Alonso made a fine play on a hot shot for the first out unassisted, Story swung through a ghost fork for his first strikeout of the night, and Nick Sogard bounced out to first with Alonso making a toss to Senga covering.
Senga appeared to work around a one-out single in the fourth when Duran grounded one to Alonso, but the first baseman’s underhanded toss soared over the pitcher covering. After Rafael Devers walked on a 3-2 fastball just below the zone, Senga got Bregman to ground out to Baty to leave the bases loaded.
After the righty worked his first 1-2-3 inning, he walked off the mound and shook one finger toward the dugout as if to ask for one more inning. And repeated his feat with a 1-2-3 sixth, which began with Alonso making a routine stop and toss to Senga covering. The first baseman showed some emotion celebrating the successful play, and the pitcher had a broad smile as he caught the ball.
His final line: 6.0 innings, three runs, five hits, three walks, five strikeouts on 100 pitches (60 strikes). Senga’s best ability was keeping the Mets in the game as he held the Red Sox to just one hit in nine chances with runners in scoring position, which means opponents are now 5-for-49 (.102) against him in those situations.
- Francisco Alvarez lined a first-pitch double over the head of right fielder Wilyer Abreu to start the third, getting a bit of help from a strong wind. After McNeil's groundout, Tyrone Taylor notched an RBI single to right to put the Mets on the board.
Francisco Lindor, in a 1-for-20 skid, walked to put two on for Juan Soto. But the slugger, stuck in a 3-for-26 skid, bounced into an inning-ending 4-6-3 double play.
- Alvarez lined a first-pitch single the other way his second time up with one down in the fifth and went to third on McNeil’s single down the line in right. Taylor should have walked on a 3-2 sweeper that looked below the zone, but was rung up by home plate umpire Brian O'Nora for the second out. Lefty Justin Wilson came out of the ‘pen and got Lindor (batting .227 with a .574 OPS as a righty on the year) swinging at a slider below the zone.
- Soto started the sixth with a single off the Monster. He did not run hard out of the box and looked to make up for that lack of hustle by stealing second on the first pitch, which he did without a throw. After Alonso walked, Brandon Nimmo got a big chance but slapped into a 5-6-3 twin killing. Righty Greg Weissert entered and got Mark Vientos to fly out to right.
Nimmo and Vientos both finished the day 0-for-4 with a strikeout. Soto was 1-for-4.
- After McNeil walked with two out in the seventh, Taylor smacked a bullet single to right. McNeil was able to motor into third when Abreu mishandled the ball to give Lindor a shot against righty Justin Slaten. But he bounced the first pitch to second to end the inning. Lindor finished the night 0-for-3 with a walk and a strikeout.
- Alonso, who had gone 46 at-bats since his last home run, came two feet short of a dinger his first time up with a stiff wind keeping the ball in the park. The slugger tried for a double, but Duran played the ball perfectly off the Green Monster to barehand it and make a perfect throw to second. (Boston had to challenge the on-field call of Laz Diaz.) He finished the day 1-for-3 with a walk and his second error in as many games after committing just one in his first 46 games.
- Starling Marte delivered a broken-bat pinch-hit single with one out in the ninth off of Aroldis Chapman, but Alvarez bounced into the game-ending 4-6-3 double play. The Mets' catcher finished 2-for-4 with a strikeout.
- José Castillo, acquired last week from Arizona, got the first two, but a walk and a wind-aided ground-rule down to left put two in scoring position for Story. But the left-hander got a lineout to center for a scoreless frame in his Mets debut.
- José Butto allowed a one-out single to the speedy David Hamilton, but Alvarez gunned him down at second with a perfect throw. That proved big as Carlos Narváez doubled off the Monster, but a pop-up to center stranded another runner.
In total, Boston went 1-for-10 with RISP and left nine on base.
DENVER — Safe to say Kyle Schwarber knew he got this one.
The National League’s preeminent slugger connected on the sixth pitch he saw from lefty reliever Scott Alexander in the top of the ninth inning Monday night for a titanic 466-foot blast off the third deck at Coors Field.
It extended a Phillies comeback in a 9-3 win and was a moment Schwarber won’t forget because it was the 300th of his career.
“It’s a really cool thing, 300 homers is a lot of them,” he said. “I think the biggest thing is there’s a lot more to come. They asked me would 12-year-old Kyle think he’d hit 300 homers, I’d say probably not. I’ve always loved the game. I didn’t know what it would hold but it’s been really gracious to me. I’ve been around a lot of really good people who have helped me be the player I am now.”
Schwarber’s game has reached a new level with the Phillies and he continues to improve. Despite being 32, he’s gotten better three years in a row. He hit 47 homers in 2023 but with a .197 batting average. He altered his approach after that season to utilize more of the field and shorten up on occasion and it has worked wonders. His batting average rose by 51 points to .248 last season yet he still hit 38 homers and led the NL with 106 walks.
This season? This is the best Schwarber has ever looked. He’s hitting .257, which he’s only exceeded once. His .389 OBP and .563 slugging percentage are career-highs. He’s second in the majors with 16 home runs.
“He’s really a star in this league,” said Cristopher Sanchez, who allowed three runs over six innings. “I just feel lucky that he’s on my side.”
Schwarber is also hitting .306 against lefties with half of his home runs. If you thought last season’s .300 clip vs. same-handed pitchers was a fluke, think again.
At this rate, 400 home runs is a likelihood and 500 is a possibility. The guy hits 40 a year, after all …
“I always make the joke, ‘I’ll get 200 more and I can quit,'” he said. “There’s a lot of things that have got to go right. I don’t really think about that, I just live day-to-day with these guys and obviously want to go win a championship here.”
The Phillies have won 16 of 22 games since being swept by the Mets last month at Citi Field and moved a half-game ahead of New York on Monday into first place in the NL East. The Dodgers’ loss to the Diamondbacks means the Phils will enter Tuesday with the best record in the National League.
Still 115 games to go, of course, but the Phils are rolling.
“We’ve been playing some pretty good baseball. It’s a long year, there’s ebbs and flows, I talk about it all the time,” manager Rob Thomson said. “You can’t get too high, you can’t get too low, you’ve just got to ride it out.”
The Phillies rode out some early doldrums in the series opener to come back and win big. They had one run through six innings and finished with nine runs on 17 hits. Trea Turner was a homer shy of the cycle. Edmundo Sosa had four hits. Alec Bohm hit the go-ahead homer. Bryce Harper, Nick Castellanos and Brandon Marsh had two hits apiece.
“It’s funny,” Schwarber said, “I was talking to a lot of different guys where I remember my first time coming here, we were having our team meeting and they were just like, hey don’t panic if you’re down 7-0, we’ve seen a lot of 15-14 baseball games here.
“I just more feel like the group, it doesn’t really matter who we’re playing, whenever we’re down we always kind’ve find that rally to put us within a swing of either tying it or taking the lead. It’s such a rare thing to have, it’s kind’ve been a common thing the last three, four years that whenever we’re down, I feel like we’re finding a way right back. Sometimes when you do have those losses it hurts more than others because you’re within striking distance but when you have a win like that, it makes it that much more satisfying.”
The Phillies are 4-0 during their run of seven straight games against the two worst teams in baseball, the Pirates and Rockies. They’ve taken advantage of both teams’ defensive miscues, weak bullpens and lackluster offenses. They trailed for just one inning over the weekend against Pittsburgh, and despite becoming the first team in 15 games to let the Rockies score first, the 29-18 Phillies won comfortably.
“The first four or five innings, it looked like travel or altitude or something,” Thomson said. “It looked like we were kind’ve just walking through this thing. But they turned it up in the last part of the game. It was great.”
ARLINGTON, Texas — Two-way free agent Seong-Jun Kim will receive a signing bonus of $1,200,000.67 as part of his minor league contract with the Texas Rangers.
Texas announced the agreement Saturday with the 6-foot-2, 185-pound shortstop and right-handed pitcher. Kim, scheduled to graduate from Gwangju Jeil High School next January, was selected as South Korea’s high school player of the year in 2024.
Kim has reached 95 mph while pitching. He has spent a majority of his position player time at shortstop and is hitting .333 this season with a 1.015 OPS.
Kim is the fifth player from the high school to sign with a major league team, following Byung-Hyun Kim, Hee-Seop Choi, Jae Weong Seo and Jung Ho Kang.
DENVER — Alec Bohm was hitting .150 when the Phillies left St. Louis in mid-April. He wasn’t producing, he wasn’t experiencing any luck when hitting the ball hard and was hearing it from all angles as scrutiny intensified.
“I know eventually everything sort of evens out and I know that I’ve hit well over .400 for an entire month in this league at times,” Bohm said that weekend. “I think the longer you play in the big leagues and the more experience you get and the more comfortable you get with who you are and that you belong here, the less anything really affects you.”
Bohm hasn’t quite hit .400 since that weekend but has been one of the Phillies’ top bats for over a month — .324 with a hit in 25 of the 30 games.
He helped turn a potential loss into a win Monday night with a 422-foot, two-run homer to dead center in the eighth inning of a 9-3 Phillies win. Eight of the Phils’ nine runs came in the final three innings.
Bohm was facing right-hander Seth Halvorsen, whose second and third pitches were 100 and 101 mph. Halvorsen then went with a slider, missed middle-in and Bohm made him pay.
The Phils have won four in a row, passed the Mets in the NL East by a half-game and will end the night with the best record in the National League unless the Dodgers come back from a huge deficit.
Trea Turner, who tripled and scored the Phillies’ first run in the fifth, added crucial insurance with a two-run double in the eighth. Those extra runs are always important but especially so a day after the Phillies lost Jose Alvarado for 80 games and the playoffs to a PED suspension. Matt Strahm had pitched in back-to-back games and Jordan Romano had appeared in three of the last five so the Phillies were likely without their top three relievers. Joe Ross, Carlos Hernandez and Tanner Banks pitched the final three innings. Hernandez went 1-2-3 in the eighth.
The Phillies are 29-18 and the Rockies are 8-39 but no game or series is a guarantee. The Rockies scored first Monday for the first time in 15 games and were up two the majority of the night.
“Anybody’s capable of beating anybody on any given day, that’s the way it is,” Phillies manager Rob Thomson said pregame. “The other part of it is we historically haven’t played well here, so we need to play well.”
The Phillies had lost seven of their previous 12 games at Coors Field, scoring two runs or fewer in five of them, despite the Rockies averaging 96 losses over that span. Monday night looked like it might be another Denver dud when the Phils had runners on the corners with nobody out, down two in the seventh inning for Harper, Kyle Schwarber and Nick Castellanos and still ended it trailing.
But then came the explosion — four runs in the eighth and three more in the ninth. Schwarber blasted a 466-foot homer in the ninth (his 300th) and Edmundo Sosa hit a two-run shot as part of a 4-for-5 night. Sosa is hitting .386 with a .945 OPS in 62 plate appearances.
The Phillies had 19 hits and seven different players had multiple knocks, a homer or both. That’s the kind of damage you’d expect from this offense at baseball’s most hitter-friendly stadium.
Jesus Luzardo is on the hill Tuesday night as the Phils look to make it five in a row.
SAN FRANCISCO — The Giants have struggled with left-handed starters all year, but they hit a new low Monday night.
Bay Area native Kris Bubic flirted with a no-hitter, and briefly thought he had one through six — before a grounder to second was changed to a hit. He still became the latest left-handed starter to have a strong night against this Giants lineup, leading the Kansas City Royals to a 3-1 win at Oracle Park.
The game was scoreless and speeding along until the top of the eighth, when Royals first baseman Vinnie Pasquantino reached out and crushed a Tyler Rogers pitch into the arcade for a two-run blast. The homer was the rare blemish for Rogers, who had allowed just three runs in his first 22 appearances.
The Giants, as they often do late in games, immediately struck back. Sam Huff and Heliot Ramos got them going with one-out singles in the eighth, and two batters later, Jung Hoo Lee lined a double down the line. With the tying run on third and go-ahead run on second, Matt Chapman hit one of the Giants’ seven pop-ups.
You Make The Call …
The Giants hadn’t even hit a ball 100 mph when Wilmer Flores came up with two down in the sixth. He hit a 74.5 mph bouncer to the right side, but second baseman Michael Massey was shifted toward the bag and slipped as he tried to gather himself to field the ball and throw out one of the league’s slowest runners.
The ball originally was ruled an error by official scorer Michael Duca and Bubic struck out Lee to get through six no-hit frames, but between innings, Duca announced that his call had been changed to a base hit.
The error in the bottom of the sixth has been changed to a base hit. The no-hitter is over. pic.twitter.com/pJCxjbK5MT
Casey Schmitt made sure there was no controversy an inning later, smoking a double down the left-field line for the second hit of the night.
Enjoying His Return Home
Bubic is from Cupertino and went to Archbishop Mitty and Stanford, so he likely left a lot of tickets for Monday’s game, his third in the ballpark he grew up visiting. His first two starts back home went well, but he has hit a different level this season and entered with a 1.66 ERA, the sixth-lowest in the big leagues.
The Giants never even made him sweat, picking up just three walks and that “single” before Schmitt’s double. Bubic got some help in getting out of the jam when Tyler Fitzgerald hit a liner to shortstop Bobby Witt Jr., who flipped the ball to third for a double play. With the seven shutout innings, Bubic has now allowed just three earned runs and nine hits in 18 1/3 career innings at Oracle Park.
Typical Ray Day
Robbie Ray once again did his part, throwing seven shutout innings to lower his ERA to 2.67. That’s eighth in the National League and gives the Giants two pitchers in the top 10; Logan Webb is fourth at 2.42.
Ray put at least one runner on in six of his seven innings, but he never seemed stressed. He picked a pinch-runner off in the seventh and benefited from a break in the third. After a leadoff single and a walk, Witt hit a line drive but right at shortstop Willy Adames. He snared it and doubled the runner off second.
Ray took a no-decision and will have to wait to try and extend his personal win streak to start the year. He’s 6-0 and looking to become the first Giant since Kevin Gausman (2021) to go 7-0.
Despite a strong 2023-24 season when he recorded 28 goals, 29 assists, and 57 points, he followed that up with a lackluster 2024-25 campaign as he regressed in every statistical category.
This regression also happened after he was awarded a seven-year, $52.15 million contract extension by the Rangers.
Lafrenière has been the subject of trade rumors since the Rangers season came to a close. However, now is not to trade Lafrenière.
The 23-year-old still has a ton of potential and upside just to give up on him just yet. It would be foolish for Rangers president and general manager Chris Drury not to see that.
At this point in time, Lafrenière is at his lowest value and the Rangers would not garner a strong enough return to validate trading such a young talent of Lafrenière’s caliber.
ATLANTA — The Atlanta Braves reinstated right-handed pitcher Spencer Strider from the injured list.
Strider, a former Major League Baseball strikeouts leader in 2023, has made only one start this season because of a right hamstring injury that occurred during a warm-up session in mid-April.
Strider’s next start will be just his fourth since the beginning of the 2024 season. He was limited to two starts in 2024 by elbow surgery to repair an ulnar collateral ligament injury.
He made his first start in a year on April 16, a 3-1 loss at Toronto, before hurting his hamstring. He pitched a simulated game, after which he said he felt ready to return.
The Braves next play against the Nationals in Washington.
