Category: Sports News

There’s always a worry that a team will come out flat the day after an emotional victory like last night’s come-from-behind win. That’s why it’s important to have a strong performance from your starting pitcher – particularly with this team’s bullpen – and Zac Gallen delivered exactly what the team needed. Unfortunately, he was lined up against the two-time Cy Young winner in Tarik Skubal who continues to show why he’s one of the best starters in the game right now. It’s rare that Opening Day starters square off outside of what should be a national holiday, but that was the case today across the league. And we were treated to a taut, well-played, defensive and pitching masterclass that the D-Backs narrowly took.

Thankfully though, Skubal wasn’t perfect. One of the few mistakes he made all afternoon opened – and closed – the scoring when Corbin Carroll launched a fastball above the zone that just snuck over the centerfield fence to give the D-Backs a 1-0 lead in the very first inning. The D-Backs created plenty of traffic throughout the game – there were only two innings where they didn’t have at least one baserunner – but they failed to capitalize on any of them. Instead, Skubal did what any starting pitcher would like to do: he induced weak contact and allowed his defense to work behind him by dialing up three separate double plays that extinguished rallies before they even started.

For his part, Gallen was up to the pitching duel, matching Skubal’s scoreless innings step for step. He leaned a little more heavily on his knuckle curve over his slider to great effect, collecting a pair of whiffs on the pitch. But even better, Gallen also leaned on his defense – far from a team strength the last two years – as he had just two strikeouts across his six innings. In fact, there were only eight strikeouts total from each team, landing in the lower-third of strikeout totals for games so far this season. Instead, there were defensive gems on both sides that kept the offense off the board. Crucially, Gallen ended his outing with an incredible show of athleticism and quick thinking. With the tying run at third after a one out triple from Kevin McGonigle, Gleyber Torres smacked a ball ticketed for right field that Jose Fernandez snagged out of the air and immediately threw to third to double up McGonigle and end the inning. It was a heads up play that you can’t always expect from a player who’s in his second career big league game, but Fernandez has already shown a level head for big moments and demonstrated it again today.

In classic baseball fashion, after a deflating sweep at the hand of the hated Dodgers to open the season, the D-Backs returned home to sweep the AL Central favorites with a dynamic offense, excellent defense, and just enough pitching to make it all hold up. It’s easy to live and die with the results of each game and I’m certainly prone to that kind of vacillating feeling throughout the season, but it’s always worth remembering to take a deep breath and remind yourself that it’s a long season and your confidence can change drastically on a day-to-day basis.

It was a fun day for the Clippers. We saw Kahlil Watson go 2-4 with a 413 foot bomb off of a 98 mph fastball. Stuart Fairchild also hit two HRs of his own. Juan Brito continues to destroy AAA pitching. After his 2-4 performance today, he is now hitting .400 with a 1.085 OPS on the season thus far. He should probably get an opportunity with the big league club soon.

It was a great day for the Clippers pitching staff as well. Trent Denholm struck out 8 batters in 6 innings while allowing just one run on two hits. We also got to see Daniel Espino and Franco Aleman throw scoreless innings.

This will be the last minor league recap that features just one team, as Thursday, April 2nd will be opening day for all the Guardians affiliates. I cannot wait to watch some minor league baseball this season.

LOS ANGELES — The Dodgers have gotten off to a good start because they are 4-2, but in spite of a an offense that has been unable to get off to good starts in games.

They have yet to score in the first or second innings this season, and the first time through the batting order through six games have just nine hits in 49 at-bats, with a home run, double, and five walks, hitting just .184/.259/.265.

“We haven’t gotten off to a good start. In a majority of our games, the opponent has scored first. It just seems like the first three innings, we’re not getting much production, and nothing much going on. Then as we get into the game, we start to threaten a little more,” manager Dave Roberts said. “Maybe we get on the road and get a chance to strike first.”

The Dodgers trailed 2-0 in all three games against the Arizona Diamondbacks but managed to win all three. They trailed 4-0 in the first and last games against the Cleveland Guardians, falling to score until the ninth inning of both losses.

The Dodgers put up three four-run innings against the Diamondbacks in their first 11 innings of the season, but in the 39 innings since, they only scored 11 runs. Gavin Williams struck out 10 in seven scoreless innings for Cleveland on Wednesday night, keeping with a recent theme. Over the last four games, the opposing starting pitchers have allowed only two total runs, one earned to the Dodgers, with 24 strikeouts in 22 innings.

“The amount of strikeouts is a little concerning,” Roberts said. “We’re striking out at quite a clip. But I think it will level out, it will balance out.”

Andy Pages had three of the five Dodgers hits in Wednesday’s loss, and is off to a great start, hitting .429/.429/.619. His nine hits are most on the team by far. Freddie Freeman, whose home run in the ninth inning was the only run on Wednesday, and Teoscar Hernández, are tied for second on the team with five hits thus far, through six games.

“Andy’s been great, since spring training. He’s one of the guys who’s carried us,” Freeman said. “He looks great, on both sides of the ball. Hopefully the rest of us can join him on Friday.”

The Dodgers are off Thursday, then play the Washington Nationals to start a six-game road trip.

“Offensively most of our guys are struggling,” Roberts said. “It’ll be good to get on the road, get an off day, and go from there.”

“I think you could talk to every one of us, and say we wish we had a better offensive first week, but I think our offense is inevitable,” Freeman said. “Anytime anyone goes into that box, anything can happen. We have a really good lineup, we’re just not hitting yet. It’s a long season, it’s just the first week. We’ll be fine.”

We were reminded of three people we are lucky to have on Wednesday: Chris Sale, Drake Baldwin, and Matt Powers. Chris Sale wasn’t his best self and had a major velocity dip to start the game, but he worked through 6.0 innings of 1 run ball to deliver a series victory for Atlanta. Drake Baldwin continued his torrid start to the season at the plate as he is having something closer to a sophomore surge than a sophomore slump early on in the season. Meanwhile, Matt Powers continues to be a tremendous asset to Braves fans as our very own draft expert, writing up an absurdly extensive and thorough update on college draft prospects who might be of interest for the Braves in the first three rounds and how they have performed so far in the first half of the college system.

Braves News

Our in-house draft expert Matt Powers gave a Braves-centric look at college draft prospects about halfway through the college season.

Chris Sale completed his flu game with 6.0 innings of 1 run ball, sealing a series victory at home against the Athletics.

Atlanta hasn’t blown the doors off to start this season, but they have taken care of business and won their first two series.

MLB News

The Royals placed Carlos Estevez on the IL with a foot contusion from being hit by a Michael Harris comebacker before giving up six runs to allow a Braves comeback.

Baseball’s top prospect Konnor Griffin is reportedly deep in talks with the Pirates on an extension.

Fangraphs’ Ben Clemens took a self-described nerdy look at the ABS system early in the season.

The bottom third of the Kansas City lineup has taken care of business for the second consecutive game, but in much more spectacular fashion tonight. Scoring started in the second with two out and no one on when Jac Caglianone hit a 110.1 mph rocket to center for a double. Collins hit the next ball 110.9 mph to top Jac and bring him home on another double followed by a Kyle Isbel RBI single. He then stole second and Maikel Garcia hit a hard to field ball off of Brooks Lee’s glove at short to score the third run on the inning. That was just the beginning.

Another run scored in the 3rd on a popup to third by India that the fog hid from Royce Lewis.

And another came the next inning after Cags, Collins, and Isbel all reached again and Garcia hit a sac fly. The rain really got going as KC batted 11 in the 6th. Walks, HBPs, errors, and a Jonathan India grand slam brought seven more runs and a $25,000 Sonic Slam winner. The rest of the game was hampered significantly by the weather but without any extended stoppage of play. At 12-1, it looked like the Royals would cruise to victory.

Jac, Isaac, and Kyle combined to go 8 of 11 with a BB and HBP reaching base in all but 3 of their 14 plate appearances. Isbel tacked a solo shot on in the 7th to finish the dominant performance off for the bottom of the order. All of the starting 9 at least reached base with Carter Jensen sneaking a single in during the 8th to join in on the fun, but it was the back of the lineup that carried the load today.

On the pitching side, Noah Cameron was very sharp to begin the night, especially the first two innings. He through a first pitch strike to each of the first six Minnesota batters but did seem to lose some command in the 4th and 5th innings. He got through that 5th despite giving up a lot of hard contact and was pulled with a final line of 5IP, 4H, 1BB, 1ER, and 5K and the win. That is a solid start to his sophomore campaign.

Daniel Lynch, Alex Lange, and Brady Falter all struggled to find the zone a bit with Lynch giving up 3 runs in the 7th, Lange 2 in the 8th before Cruz came in and finished the inning, and Falter 3 in the 9th. There were a lot of walks and hit batters from both teams due to the wet baseballs, so I would not read too much into their less than spectacular performances. It did make the game look closer than it felt and even ended up in a save situation that brought in Lucas Erceg to seal the deal.

There were also a ton of ABS challenges, 9 out of 11 were overturned and the Royals only went one for two. Since the game was not very close, none of these mattered all that much in the end. Still, it was a busy day for the new system and a very high success rate.

In the end, the Royals move to 3-2 on the year. They are above .500 and going for sweep against the Twins tomorrow. There is a bit more rain in the forecast again and that 1:00 pm start time is definitely in jeopardy.

Gavin Williams was unbelievable today. I could end the recap right here and pretty adequately sum up the events of tonight’s rubber match. He was in full control of the game for basically all seven innings. This performance from Gavin vindicates all of us loyal Gavin Williams believers who truly know that this domination is what he can do every single time he takes the mound. I have no notes for his performance which, if you’ve read any of my articles before, is rare. He had every single pitch working for him, and completely silenced the best lineup in baseball. He kept his fastball in the upper half, and sequenced it beautifully with his cutter & breaking pitches. He was getting his sinker to jump into the outer-third against righties all night. He was getting chase, and generated 16 (SIXTEEN) swings and misses. Truly a spectacular performance from him. This is exactly what I want him to do (within reason) every night. This performance showcases exactly why he can be not just a Cy Young finalist, but a legitimate contender to win it. Just look at this beautiful chart (obtained from the lovely Thomas Nestico, @TJStats on X, as always).

To the offense! Daniel Schneemann got the fun started with a true do-it-yourself run. He doubled, then stole third and, on a throwing error from Will Smith, waltzed home. Arias followed that up with a missile to center.

It was more-or-less quiet until the 8th, when our sleeping giant finally woke up.

(By the way, why on EARTH did Dave Roberts bring in a lefty for Jose? With Manzardo right behind him, why would you pitch to the guy who notoriously nukes lefties. I get it’s Tanner Scott, but why even take the risk?)

Anywho, Shawn Armstrong got himself into some trouble in the 8th, giving up a single and double to Hernandez and Pages, respectfully. He struck out Alex Freeland for the second out, and was then replaced by Erik Sabrowski to face Shohei Ohtani. Erik Sabrowski, if you weren’t already aware, is an unbelievable talent. On the majority of teams in MLB, he would be their best reliever. He came in and got Ohtani out on three pitches, two of which were out of the zone.

For reference, Sabrowski has generated whiffs on 46.2% of pitches this year (per @TJStats). FOURTY-SIX. Insanity. He’s a monster.

Cade Smith came on in the 9th and, well, wasn’t as sterling as is expected of him. Gave up back to back barrels to Freddie Freeman and Will Smith. Freeman’s, unfortunately, left the park. That was the Dodgers’ only run tonight. Cade has been a little iffy to start the year, but hopefully he gets back on track when the team comes back to Cleveland on Friday.

If you haven’t already (and are able), get tickets to watch the Guardians this homestand. Among the highlights: Opening Day festivities on Friday, Chase DeLauter’s (regular season) Cleveland debut, and last, but not least, Jose has a chance to sit atop the Guardians’ franchise games played leaderboard on Monday if he plays every game. A lot to watch for, so please turn out.

By the way, 4-3 against two World Series contenders to start the year.

Pretty good.

See you on Opening Day!