NEW YORK, NEW YORK - APRIL 28: CJ Abrams #5 of the Washington Nationals hits a single in the fourth inning against the New York Mets at Citi Field on April 28, 2026 in the Flushing neighborhood of the Queens borough of New York City. (Photo by Elsa/Getty Images) | Getty Images
The Nats won yet another road series with a gutsy 5-4 win against the Mets. It was a glorious win for the Nats and an agonizing loss for the Mets, who are now a shocking 10-21. This game was always going to be decided by a clutch hit, and the Nats were the team that got the big hit when it mattered most.
Going back to the very start of the game, this contest could have been very different if not for an insane defensive play by James Wood. The Nats 6’6 right fielder needed every inch to rob a Juan Soto home run. Wood made another great defensive play later in the game. It really feels like Wood is much more comfortable out in right field.
Perhaps powered by the momentum from that play, the Nats offense went to work in the second inning. After a Jorbit Vivas single, a ground ball hit to the pitcher by Nasim Nunez led to Vivas scoring all the way from first after a comedy of errors by Mets pitcher Freddy Peralta. Jacob Young then delivered later in the inning, driving in Nunez on a base hit.
After the Nats tacked on another run in the third, and now it was up to Miles Mikolas to make the 3-0 lead stick. Ultimately, he was not able to. The Mets put together a two out rally in the third that was punctuated by a three run homer by MJ Melendez on a pitch that was about head high.
It is tough to blame Mikolas for allowing that homer. A red hot hitter just put a crazy swing on a well executed pitch. In his last few outings, Mikolas has thrown the ball better. He only went four innings today, but he gave the Nats a chance to win.
After that, it was a deadlock for a little while. Both offenses went quiet in the middle innings. That is until the Mets got something going against Mitchell Parker in the 6th. Mark Vientos made the Nats pay for pitching around Juan Soto, driving him in on an rbi double.
Mitchell Parker was far from excellent and did not have his best stuff, but he did well to only allow one run in his three innings of work. That set the stage for the fateful 8th inning. Luis Garcia Jr. led things off with a knock. After Daylen Lile hustled to beat out a double play, it was up to CJ Abrams.
After briefly going cold, the Alien announced he was officially back. He destroyed a Luke Weaver changeup. Abrams knew he got it, pointing into his dugout to fire up his teammates. Citi Field was stunned as Abrams rounded the bases to make it a 5-4 ballgame.
However, the work was still far from finished. The Nats bullpen needed six outs against a Mets team that was desperate to comeback. After a Juan Soto double, Richard Lovelady got two key outs before turning things over to Gus Varland.
It was now up to Varland to get the four biggest outs of the game. He got Tyrone Taylor to end the 8th for the first out. After not adding an insurance run due to some poor base running and situational baseball, it was time for Varland to hold his nerve.
When I talked to Varland a few weeks ago, he talked about how he has been on a journey to find confidence. He felt like his mindset was in the best place it had been in a long time. Varland would need that confident mindset to hold on and get the win.
He got two quick outs, but allowed a double to Francisco Alvarez. With a full count to Ronny Mauricio, the gutsy Varland fired off a perfect slider, which got him the strikeout. Varland pumped his fist as the Nats improved to 15-17 and won yet another road series.
Washington Nationals Gus Varland seals Nationals' 5-4 win!
The Nats are now 12-7 on the road, but they need to show that they can carry some of this momentum to Nationals Park, where they are 3-10. This was a fun and satisfying win. Extending Mets fans’ misery gives me great joy. The Nats did that with a nice team win this afternoon.
NEW YORK, NEW YORK - OCTOBER 07: Anthony Volpe #11 of the New York Yankees runs to the field before the game against the Toronto Blue Jays in game three of the American League Division Series at Yankee Stadium on October 07, 2025 in the Bronx borough of New York City. (Photo by Al Bello/Getty Images) | Getty Images
Anthony Volpe’s return from shoulder surgery will probably be judged in extremes. If he comes back looking like the polished two-way shortstop Yankees fans once imagined, every line drive, diving stop, and stolen base will reignite the belief that a true breakout might finally be here.
If the offensive line remains parked where it has spent too much of the last three seasons, the familiar frustrations around strikeouts, on-base percentage, and whether the bat will ever fully arrive will return quickly. The truth, as usual, likely lives somewhere in the middle.
That is what makes Volpe’s 2026 campaign so fascinating. This is less about whether he can suddenly become the star many once hoped for and more about what a healthy, age-25 Anthony Volpe should realistically look like. For Yankees fans, that means separating three different buckets: what to expect, what to accept, and what to hope for from Volpe.
What to expect: Volpe returns as the Yankees’ shortstop
When the Yankees bring Volpe back up to the big league club, it will not be as a bench player. Barring a setback, he is rehabbing to resume being the club’s everyday shortstop. Fans may debate it, but that is the organization’s plan. Even if he’s not playing, say, seven games in seven days because the Yankees aren’t going full-bore yet so early in the season, Volpe will get the vast majority of time at the six.
Players returning from shoulder surgery often need reps for timing, trust, and everyday rhythm to fully return. Entering play yesterday, Volpe had hit .276/.300/.379 in 30 plate appearances while looking steady, but not anything more than that, in the field. That is perfectly fine. The point of rehab is readiness, not domination.
If the shoulder is healthier, the biggest gains may not show up first in the traditional counting stats like batting average and OPS as much as it will in better contact quality, more line drives, and harder hit balls in play. Too much of Volpe’s offensive profile drifted toward weak popups last season as his line-drive percentage fell six percent below his career normal. A compromised shoulder can do that, especially for a hitter whose game depends on quickness through the zone and the ability to drive the gaps.
If the surgery corrected that issue and rehab strengthened it, the expectation should be a healthier version of the player the Yankees already know: not superstardom, but a player entering his prime years who has already shown double-digit power, speed, and quality defense. Thus, fans should expect Volpe to start and have an extended run to fully earn the spot … with the word “earn” meaning he produces slightly better than his career numbers while playing good defense.
What to accept: Caballero has earned a role and is ready
Volpe’s return should not create panic about José Caballero. It should create excitement about roster depth. I am fully on the “start Caballero every day” train, but I also accept that he is a role player with a clearly defined place on this roster. That role is exactly what he has been doing, now with a little whipped cream and a cherry on top at the plate thus far, plus the added value of defensive versatility.
Since Volpe began his rehab assignment, Caballero has been one of the hottest Yankees on the roster. From April 14th onward, he’s hit .347/.396/.510 with two doubles, two homers, six stolen bases, and a .906 OPS, while injecting energy into nearly every game. Aaron Boone acknowledged that reality this week, saying Caballero has “earned a lot of opportunities” and has been “right in the middle of us winning a lot of games.”
That matters. Caballero has provided exactly what winning teams crave from role players: versatility, speed, defensive flexibility, and enough offense to force his way into the lineup.
However, it is worth remembering Caballero got off to a slow start. From opening night against the Giants until April 14th, he was actually hitting a disappointing .179/.220/.286 with a 28.8-percent strikeout rate in 59 at-bats. My colleague Andrés Chávez further broke down Caballero’s contributions in a piece worth reading.
Volpe returning does not mean Caballero disappears. It means Caballero becomes a true utility weapon who can move between shortstop, second base, and third base, even having the ability to man the outfield if a need arises. Amed Rosario should, and will, remain part of that rotation as well.
The Yankees will give Volpe runway to reclaim his everyday role. That is reasonable given what the organization has invested in and communicated about him over the last several years. At the same time, the team now has a much clearer picture of what it has in Caballero and Rosario, and that depth already matters and should continue to matter over the course of the season.
Boone’s comments on Wednesday reinforce that balance. The Yankees still view Volpe as their starting shortstop when healthy, but they have also been clear that Caballero is more than just a placeholder, praising his ability to impact the game in multiple ways and expressing confidence in him holding things down in the meantime.
Fans should resist turning this into a one-week referendum. If Volpe struggles after returning, patience is warranted, even if criticism is fair. If he struggles for a month while Caballero continues producing, then the conversation certainly changes — and that’s to say nothing of top prospect George Lombard Jr., who will likely have his own adjustment period but was just promoted to Triple-A. We have all seen that Caballero can play an effective shortstop and, at least for the half a month of the season, is what we have all hoped Volpe would become at this point of his career offensively.
What to hope for: The Dansby Path
For much of Volpe’s career, he has lived inside comparisons that were never fair to begin with. Because he is a homegrown, righty-hitting shortstop in pinstripes with leadership traits and polished media instincts, the Derek Jeter parallels arrived before his own game ever had a chance to develop.
I am sure that like all of us in a certain generation, Volpe dreamt of being Jeter or as close as possible, and now as fans we would love to see Jeter 2.0. However, the healthier and more realistic hope is not Jeter, a no-doubt Hall of Famer and an outlier. It is Dansby Swanson.
Although a few years older when he was drafted out of Vanderbilt in 2015, Swanson stormed to the majors with star-level pedigree and quickly became a lightning rod for debates about strikeouts, offensive inconsistency, and whether the bat would ever fully match the reputation. His age-24 season with Atlanta in 2018 was affected by injury, and he posted a .238/.304/.395 line.
Then came the rebound. Following offseason surgery and a clean bill of health, Swanson returned in 2019 and slashed .251/.325/.422 while pairing that 91 wRC+ offense with strong defense. He stopped feeling frustrating and started feeling dependable. Over the next four years, Swanson hit a combined .259/.325/.441 with a 108 wRC+ and 16.8 fWAR for the Braves and Cubs, becoming a two-time All-Star and Gold Glove winner.
The similarities between the two are not just narrative, either. Among qualified shortstops in 2024, Volpe ranked 16th in batting average while Swanson ranked 17th. In OBP, they sat 17th and 14th, in slugging 17th and 15th, and in OPS 17th and 15th.
That is not just stylistic similarity. That is the same offensive neighborhood. The same held true again in 2025. Volpe ranked 24th among shortstops in batting average to Swanson’s 20th, 24th in OBP to 21st, 16th in slugging to 14th, and 21st in OPS to 17th.
Even in what felt like a disappointing season, Volpe remained within just a few slots of one of the league’s most accepted veteran shortstop standards, albeit at a dramatically different price point and with Swanson’s bat not quite as electric as his 2020–23 peak. And honestly, that contrast is part of the point. It is easy to live with this profile on a rookie deal if you are the front office. It becomes a much different conversation once a salary climbs north of $20 million annually.
If Volpe lands in the “2018 Swanson” zone over roughly 100 games, something around .238/.304/.395 with mid-teens power and steals, Yankees fans should probably walk away happy. The public projection systems are already pointing almost exactly there. ZiPS projects Volpe for 103 games with a .230/.292/.397/.689 line, 13 home runs, and 16 steals. Steamer is nearly identical at 102 games with a .232/.297/.399/.696 line, 13 home runs, and 16 steals.
Both systems also land on 1.9 WAR, which is exactly the kind of quietly valuable full-season pace contenders take from the bottom of the lineup bats. If the healthy shoulder restores some of the line-drive contact that disappeared last year, there is a realistic path to something even closer to Swanson’s 2019 jump. The realistic hope should be that Volpe lands somewhere above 2018 Swanson, while understanding that the 2019 version likely represents the true ceiling for 2026 at this point.
That is exactly why the Swanson comp works so well as the hopeful path. Swanson has built a long-term career as a 2–4 WAR shortstop, which is exactly the range Volpe is trending toward. That is the hope for Volpe. It’s not that he suddenly becomes an MVP candidate, but that his age-25 season becomes his version of Swanson’s settling point — a player who moves from polarizing to reliable entering their prime seasons. More directly, a shortstop who quietly helps a team win every single day and shows some of the potential that made him an early draft pick has developed into skills and talent.
The bigger picture
Volpe does not need to be Derek Jeter to matter. He does not need to become a superstar to justify patience. He does not need to settle a fan debate the moment he is activated. However, he may need the last bit of grace fans have left for him as he works his way back into the flow of an MLB season. The better question is simple: What does this Yankees team actually need from Volpe?
They need him to be an above-average shortstop whose offense trends upward from last season and his career norms, and whose presence gives the Yankees more ways to win. If he can make a Swanson-like jump while Caballero remains a versatile contributor, the Yankees will have something more valuable than nostalgia or prospect dreams. They will have options, and good teams win with options.
If Volpe struggles, the Yankees appear to have an in-house option ready for the moment. However, there is also a very real possibility that they have two similar and productive players. Neither projects as a star, but both could become valuable contributors for a winning roster this season and beyond. If the Caballero momentum keeps building, Yankees fans will make their voices heard. The front office is already showing they are not wasting time this season after they designated OF Randal Grichuk for assignment after Jasson Domínguez’s hot start in Triple-A, and deciding to call up top prospect Elmer Rodríguez after Luis Gil struggled.
Until then, it is worth hoping for improvement while expecting the numbers to not look great for Volpe right out of the gate. However, he deserves and will receive at least the same runway that was just granted to Caballero to start the season.
Apr 30, 2026; New York City, New York, USA; New York Mets manager Carlos Mendoza (64) watches from the dugout during the third inning against the Washington Nationals at Citi Field. Mandatory Credit: Brad Penner-Imagn Images | Brad Penner-Imagn Images
The headline says it all: the Mets lost again today at Citi Field, losing 5-4 to the Nationals, and have now lost 17 of their last 20 games. Something has to change, and quickly.
Freddy Peralta looked sharp early, despite walking James Wood to start the game. Peralta struck out the side after allowing the free pass. In the top of the second, Peralta continued to look sharp pitching, but his fielding bit him.
Jorbit Vivas singled with one out. Nasim Nuñez hit a ball to the right of the pitcher’s mound, and Peralta had to rush, throwing an errant throw to Mark Vientos at first, who was not able to handle the throw. Vivas was already at second by the time the ball got away from Vientos, and he not only took third but also came home and scored, while Nuñez got all the way to third. Jacob Young would single Nuñez home, putting the Nats up 2-0.
Peralta wouldn’t be out of the weeds just yet, as in the third Luis Garcia Jr. doubled to lead off the inning. CJ Abrams singled him home one batter latter to put the Mets down by three.
The Mets were struggling to make anything happen against former Cardinal Miles Mikolas, who is having an absolutely atrocious season. In the bottom of the first, Juan Soto hit what looked to be a solo home run to right field, but Wood, calm and measured, jumped and nestled it into his glove. But aside from that and an MJ Melendez single, the Mets weren’t putting anything really on the ball.
That changed in the bottom of the third when, with two outs, Bo Bichette walked and Soto singled to put two on. Melendez then turned on a ball and tied the game with one swing.
With the game now tied, Peralta settled in, not allowing a baserunner in the fourth or fifth inning. In the sixth, Peralta walked José Tena and Vivas back to back. But after a mound visit, Peralta emptied the tank, throwing his hardest pitches of the game and getting Nuñez to pop out to end the frame.
In the bottom of the sixth, the Mets played some small ball, and it paid off. Soto walked to lead off the inning, and was pushed to second on a sacrifice bunt by Melendez. Mark Vientos doubled and scored Soto to put the Mets up 4-3.
Brooks Raley pitched a perfect top half of the seventh inning, and the Mets stranded Carson Benge on second in the bottom half. Luke Weaver would get the eighth, and things did not go very well.
Garcia singled to start the frame, and Daylen Lile hit into what could’ve been a double play ball, but Ronny Mauricio took too much time on a throw to first, and Lile was safe. Abrams was up next, and he deposited a changeup into the bullpen to put the Nationals up 5-4.
Old friend Richard “Dicky” Lovelady pitched the eighth for the Nats. Juan Soto greeted him with a double off the centerfield wall that just missed being a solo home run. Pinch hitter Austin Slater hit a weak grounder to short, not advancing the runner for the first out. Vientos hit a sharp liner right into Nuñez’s glove for the second out of the inning. Gus Varland came in to face Tyrone Taylor and, three pitches later, Taylor hit a weak fly out to left to end the frame.
Devin Williams pitched the ninth, and was greeted by a single, a stolen base, and a sacrifice fly, putting Nuñez on third with just one out. A hard two-hopper by Young to short was fired back to Luis Torrens at home to get Nuñez. Young then tried to steal second, but was thrown out by Torrens, keeping it a one-run game going into the ninth.
The Mets got a two-out baserunner when pinch-hitting Francisco Alvarez pulled a double down the left-field line. Mauricio represented the winning run at the plate, and he struck out on a breaking pitch (shocker) to lose the game and the series.
The Mets travel to Orange County, California for three with the Angels. Christian Scott takes the ball Walbert Urena.
Big Mets winner: MJ Melendez, +29.0% WPA Big Mets loser: Luke Weaver, -46.0% WPA Mets pitchers: -32.0% WPA Mets hitters: -18.0% WPA Teh aw3s0mest play: MJ Melendez’s home run, +29.6% WPA Teh sux0rest play: CJ Abrams’s home run, -48.4% WPA
Apr 30, 2026; Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA; Philadelphia Phillies center fielder Justin Crawford (2) celebrates with teammates after hitting a walk off RBI single during the ninth inning against the San Francisco Giants at Citizens Bank Park. Mandatory Credit: Bill Streicher-Imagn Images | Bill Streicher-Imagn Images
Pitching matchups are fun when they are marquee matchups. Logan Webb against Cristopher Sanchez is something one might consider marquee. It was that way for a while, but a wild ending propelled the Phillies to a victory, one that gave them their first series win since Easter.
The Giants opened the scoring by getting to Sanchez early. Heliot Ramos doubled on the first pitch of the game, then scored when Luis Arraez grounded out, giving the Giants a lead. Matt Chapman, who had doubled after Ramos, scored when Casey Schmitt singled him home and the lead was 2-0. In the bottom of the first, Kyle Schwarber responded by hitting a titanic shot off of starter Logan Webb, making it 2-1.
From there, the pitchers settled in and dominated the game. Webb looked excellent, setting down the Phillies with relative ease while Sanchez also traded zeroes on the scoreboard. The biggest threat on offense was in the fourth inning. Adolis Garcia and Brandon Marsh singled and doubled, respectively, to open the frame with no one out.
Then Bryson Stott struck out in an ugly, ugly at bat with the infield back, conceding a run.
Then Edmundo Sosa grounded out with the infield in, making Garcia a sacrificial lamb at home.
Then Justin Crawford bunted.
The Phillies didn’t score.
Things looked bleak as they had wasted their best chance then and weren’t doing much of anything outside of perfecting the art of grounding into double plays on the first pitch thrown. Yet in the ninth, with Ryan Walker on trying to end it for the Giants, the offense came alive. Garcia singled to open things, followed by a strikeout by Marsh. With that one out and Stott up, it was a reminder that the last time the Phillies fired a manager midseason, Stott hit a walkoff home run in the first weekend of the new manager’s tenure. Things didn’t happen the same this time, but how about an RBI triple?
The kid has had his struggles this year, but he also has now two walk off hits for the team. That’s going to play in the major leagues.
As mentioned above, this was the Phillies’ first series win since Easter. They begin the Mattingly regime with two victories and now we can say they’ve won three out of four.
BOSTON, MASSACHUSETTS - JULY 11: Hunter Dobbins #73 of the Boston Red Sox walks off of the field during the second inning of a game against the Tampa Bay Rays at Fenway Park on July 11, 2025 in Boston, Massachusetts. (Photo by Brian Fluharty/Getty Images) | Getty Images
Game Summary
Two first inning homeruns by Wetherholt and Walker spotted the Cardinals to an early 3-0 over Paul Skenes, who would ultimately require 100 pitches to make it through five innings. Burleson and Gorman tacked on RBI hits following Pirate mistakes (error, WP). Another game where the Cardinals 3-4-5 hitters collect RBI. That seems like a good sequence.
On the pitching side, Hunter Dobbins leads out with 3.2 hitless innings, then comes unraveled when a hit breaks the sequence, and subsequently walks five of the next seven batters, allowing the Pirates to cut the lead to 5-3. The bullpen continued the parade of free passes and HBP, further slicing the lead to 5-4.
A late game (8th inning) eruption plates five runs for the Cardinals to make this game a bit of a laugher, as much as can be funny with the recent bullpen history. Pittsburgh plates a late but ultimately useless run in the bottom of the ninth (aided by a throwing error by Walker) to produce the final score of 10-5.
The Cardinals’ bullpen was a mixed bag. Tasked protecting a 4-run lead over 4.2 following innings, they did accomplish that, with assitance of the offense. Bruihl allowed 2 inherited runners to score. Graceffo with a pretty clean 1.1 IP. Romero gave up a solo HR. Stanek with a pretty nice relief inning. Svanson gave up a run in his inning when the game was out of hand. Only 1 walk over 4.2 relief innings, coupled with 4 K. Like I wrote, mixed bag.
It all totalled up to a win and a Cardinals sweep (a mop?) of the Pirates! And they come home with a bullpen that has piled up a lot of innings and walks. The middle of the Cardinal order had 7 RBI today, and the line-up in total had 14 hits to overcome 12 Ks.
Line-up (and roster) machinations
An early start today, 1235a Eastern.
Pretty standard line-up against LHP, if you view Church a fixture in LF.
Ryan Fernandez optioned to Memphis to make room for Dobbins.
Tink Hence optioned to Cardinals’ FCL (Florida Complex League) affiliate in Jupiter. He gets some time in the pitching lab down there. @DGoold reports that the option to FCL is in lieu of placement on the MiLB development list. Apparently, because Hence is on the 40-man roster, he can NOT be placed on the MiLB development list. Assigning him to FCL accomplishes the same thing – gets him to Florida to work in the lab, outside game situations.
The Game Details
T1 – Wetherholt leads off with a solo HR. Herrera reaches on throwing error (E5). This was later changed to a hit. Burleson backwards K. Walker with a towering 2-run HR. Gorman K. Winn K. Odd inning. Cards up early 3-0.
B1 – K. F-8. K. Good start for Dobbins.
T2 – Church K. Pages single. Scott II bunts Pages over the second, but JJW pops out to strand the runner.
B2 – P6. L9. 4-3. Dobbins doing well, but some deep counts adding to pitch count.
T3 – Herrera K. Burly awarded a single on a dribbler to short that Griffin threw away, error on the throw, putting Burly on second. Walker lines out. Gorman picks up the RBI. Winn bounces back to Skenes 1-3. Cards now up 4-0.
B3 – Griffin K. Infield single. Davis GIDP to make a quick inning.
T4 – Church P5. Pages K. Scott II K. Skenes strikeouts piling up now.
B4 – 4-3. 4-3. A double breaks the hitless string. A walk extends the inning, as does another, and yet again another walk with the bases loaded. Dobbins becomes unnerved giving up his first hit????? Griffin grounds out to end the threat. Pirates cut the lead to 4-1.
T5 – Wetherholt singles. Trying to figure out all the fuss about the Skenes guy. Herrera backwards K on a failed challenge. WP. Boy, the Pirates make a lot of mistakes. Burleson singles in JJW. Walker K. Gorman out 5-3. Cardinals now up 5-1.
B5 – Leadoff walk. Cruz walks. Dobbins walks have really piled up now. Bruihl in for Dobbins. He starts his day with a pitch clock violation. A deep fly to center gathers an out but advances two runners to scoring position. A double Reynolds plates 2 runs for the Buccos. 4-3 ends the rally. Pirates cut the Cards lead to 5-3.
T6 – Ramirez in for Skenes. Winn K. Church grounds out 6-3. Pages with an infield hit (yes, an infield hit!). Scott II out 4-3.
B6 – Graceffo in for Bruihl. Cardinals are going to have to find another 12 bullpen outs today if they want to sweep. He avoids the obligatory first batter walk syndrome with an HBP, instead. He follows with a P4, K and 5-3 to navigate the inning. Cardinals still up 5-3.
T7 – Montgomery in for Ramirez. Wetherholt walks. Herrera lines out L8. Burleson F8. Walker forces out Wetherholt.
B7 – Graceffo back out. 4-3. Romero in for Graceffo. Starts with a K. Lowe HR (416 ft) tightens the game some more. Gotta love that lefty lane. Will see them in the ninth, again, I suspect. A walk extends the inning. A K finishes it. Pirates cut the lead to 5-4. No more room to cut.
T8 – Mattson in for Montgomery. Gorman singles. A Winn line drive is misplayed for an error, advancing runners to second and third. This later re-scored to a hit, as well. Church doubles in two runs. Pages F8. Scott II walks. Wetherholt L8. He has hit the ball hard today. Herrera walks. Devenski in for Mattson. Burleson singles in two more. Walker with an RBI single. Gorman K to end the eruption. Cardinals now up 10-4.
B8 – Stanek in for Romero. 3u. F8. Single. Backwards K. Pretty clean inning for Stanek, noticeably lacking in walks.
T9 – Winn P4. Church L8. Pages K.
B9 – Svanson in for Stanek. 4-3. Single. Double, plus throwing error by Walker plates a run. F8 advances runner to third. L7 ends the game (not as nerve-wracking as yesterday’s last out!). Cardinals win 10-5.
Post-Game Notes
In The Feed, check out Today on the Farm – Thursday 4/30 for updates on MiLB action.
The Cardinals head back home today with an upcoming homestand against LAD and MIL before heading west. Expecting Wrobleski, Sasaki and Sheehan as the Dodgers’ trio of pitchers.
The Cardinals ran themselves out of challenges early, which was unfortunate because this umpire missed a number of strikes later.
To my eye, the Pirates got out-managed at every step this series. Probably starting with the 8-pitcher bullpen game to start the series. It was a brilliant move until it wasn’t and set a lot of things in motion that could go wrong. And things did go wrong for them, in bunches. A good pitching team gave up a ton of runs to a team that is not an offensive juggernaut, and likewise couldn’t find a way to overcome a bullpen having trouble throwing strikes.
Pirate mistakes were a theme of this series … unforced errors, wild pitches, passed balls, throwing to wrong base. The scorer can change them back to hits all he/she wants, but they are still plays not made. Much to clean up for them.
Apr 28, 2026; Baltimore, Maryland, USA; Baltimore Orioles catcher Adley Rutschman (35) celebrates at home plate after hitting a grand slam in the fifth inning against the Houston Astros at Oriole Park at Camden Yards. Mandatory Credit: Jamie Sabau-Imagn Images | Jamie Sabau-Imagn Images
It’s almost a shame the Orioles have another game of baseball to play today, because it’s going to be hard to top their game one performance.
The O’s opened a doubleheader with an all-around fantastic win over the Astros, 10-3. Chris Bassitt posted his most impressive outing as an Oriole by a long shot, shutting down the AL’s best offense for just one run in 6.2 innings. The Orioles didn’t score until the fifth but opened the floodgates after that, crushing two grand slams — by Adley Rutschman and Jeremiah Jackson — to reach double digits in runs for the second time this season.
This game pitted a guy with a 6.75 ERA this season against one with a 6.15 ERA in five career seasons. So of course it turned into a pitcher’s duel. But for Chris Bassitt and the Orioles, that was just fine. Bassitt was in dire need of a quality performance as an Oriole, and boy, did he get it this afternoon.
From the get-go, Bassitt was absolutely dealing. It was impressive enough that he started his day with two straight strikeouts, but even more impressive that the second one came against Yordan Alvarez, who historically has crushed Bassitt in his career (9-for-22 with five home runs, his most against any pitcher). But Bassitt carved him up with no issues on his way to a perfect inning.
Bassitt allowed a baserunner in the second but twice got help from Adley Rutschman, who first pulled off a successful ABS challenge to eventually strike out Yainer Diaz and then threw out Jose Altuve trying to steal. Bassitt worked past another baserunner in the third and two more in the fourth, and he followed up with his second perfect inning in the fifth. The veteran right-hander looked every bit like the pitcher the O’s thought they were signing. He was hitting his spots, mixing his pitches, and generally making a very good Astros offense look very silly.
Early on, the O’s had trouble giving Bassitt any support. They were stymied by Peter Lambert, who’d had a very bad MLB career with the Rockies (something that happens to a lot of pitchers, to be fair) before reinvigorating his career in Japan last year. Lambert started the game with three scoreless innings of his own before the O’s broke through in the fourth. Pete Alonso walked, and with two outs, Jeremiah Jackson started his excellent day of work by lacing a double down the left-field line. Alonso huffed and puffed around the bases as fast as his Polar Bear legs could carry him, crossing the plate with the game’s first run.
From then on, the Orioles scored lots and lots of runs, and none of them required a lumbering slugger to breathlessly chug around the basepaths. The O’s chased Lambert from the game in the fifth on a Blaze Alexander one-out double, snapping his 0-for-14 drought. Lefty Steven Okert tried to defuse the rally and instead poured gasoline on the fire. Gunnar Henderson reached on a check-swing squib infield single to third and Taylor Ward walked, loading the bases for Adley Rutschman.
Folks. Adley is so back. If you hadn’t gotten the memo, allow Rutschman to demonstrate. He crushed a sizzling fly ball to deep center field. Astros center fielder Brice Matthews made a leaping attempt at the wall and nearly pulled off an incredible, home run-saving catch. Nearly. The ball was in his glove, but it popped out into the O’s bullpen when Matthews slammed into the wall. The Orioles’ relievers, with an up-close look at the play, erupted into cheers and celebrations while Matthews looked forlornly at his empty glove. GRAND SLAM, Adley Rutschman! The O’s catcher has 11 hits, four homers, and 14 RBIs in his six games since returning from the IL. See my earlier comment re: Adley and his backness.
During the home run call, MASN announcer Kevin Brown gleefully exclaimed that analyst Jim Palmer was now obligated to eat a chicken wing, something that the Hall of Fame O’s legend somehow had never done in his 80 years on this earth. Apparently Palmer made an on-air promise during a 2025 game that he’d eat a chicken wing if the O’s hit a grand slam during a game he was calling. Here it was, and so he delivered: Palmer dug into some chicken wings in the bottom of the eighth, proclaiming, “These are actually pretty tasty.”
Good times at Camden Yards, everyone. And they only got better.
Two innings later, the Astros turned to long reliever Jason Alexander, and today definitely was not the Summer of George. The O’s battered the poor guy for five runs with an incredible rally after there were two outs and nobody on base. It started harmlessly enough with a Ward walk, and then Rutschman did his thing again with a single and Alonso walked. Alexander couldn’t find the strike zone, walking Dylan Beavers on four pitches to force home a run.
Alexander was gifted an automatic strike when Jeremiah Jackson didn’t get to the batter’s box in time. No matter. Jackson swung at the next pitch and blasted it 380 feet into the left-field seats, to a very similar spot as his comeback-inspiring grand slam against the Diamondbacks a couple of weeks ago. It’s another salami for Jeremiah! He increased his team-leading RBI total to 24. Where would the Orioles be without Jackson this year? My goodness.
The offensive explosion made things easy for Bassitt, not that he needed any help. The right-hander ultimately 6.2 strong innings, giving up just one run on seven hits. His seven strikeouts were a season high by far; his previous best was three. Wonderfully done, Chris. That’s exactly what the O’s needed to save their bullpen in the first game of a doubleheader.
Rico Garcia stranded two of Bassitt’s baserunners in the seventh. Anthony Nunez gave up two runs in the eighth, but both were unearned thanks to two O’s errors (good thing the Orioles were already way ahead). Newly recalled Jose Espada, a second cousin of Astros manager Joe Espada, worked through a ninth-inning jam with help from Jackson, who made a nice defensive play at second to start a double play.
And there you have it. A fun, easy, 10-3 Orioles win. What a beautiful day of baseball. Any chance we can keep it up in game 2, guys?
Apr 30, 2026; Cumberland, Georgia, USA; Atlanta Braves catcher Drake Baldwin (30) tags out Detroit Tigers third baseman Hao-Yu Lee (50) during the ninth inning at Truist Park. Mandatory Credit: Dale Zanine-Imagn Images | Dale Zanine-Imagn Images
After an exciting walkoff win that extended their season-opening streak of not losing series on Wednesday night, the Braves got to work in a short turnaround matchup against the Tigers with a chance for a sweep. For a while, a sweep seemed likely, but the Braves were undone by poor pitching and defense in the game’s final frames. Meanwhile, they had their hands relatively full with Framber Valdez, scoring just two runs en route to a 5-2 loss.
Bryce Elder got the start, and, well, it looks like at least in the early going, the universe is paying him back a bit for his lines in past years. Elder’s overall line wasn’t all that great, with a 5/3 K/BB ratio and a paltry 22 percent grounder rate that is the lowest he’s ever recorded in a start, but he nonetheless deked and ducked his way through six innings, only getting a run on his ledger the third time through.
Elder got into a spot of trouble in the first with a random two-out, four-pitch walk after a single. He followed with a get-me-over sinker that Spencer Torkelson took a very awkward swing on and lifted harmlessly to right field. After a quick second, another walk and a single put two on against Elder with one out, but a groundout and a wave from Riley Greene on a hanging, crushable slider stifled that threat. Elder worked around a Torkelson leadoff single in the fourth, and had a 1-2-3 fifth thanks to Ronald Acuña Jr. throwing out Gleyber Torres trying to stretch a down-the-line single into a double.
While all this was happening, the Braves opened up a 2-0 lead on Valdez. They stranded a couple in the first as Valdez bamboozled Austin Riley, but plated the game’s first run when Eli White singled Kyle Farmer (making his first start of the year) home on a hard liner to center. The Braves had a chance for more, especially when a Valdez pitch clipped Acuña’s foot, but it was confusingly ruled as not doing so on replay because there apparently “wasn’t enough evidence” to overturn the call at the plate, and consecutive strikeouts ended the rally. Not to worry, though, as Mauricio Dubon’s single to center in the third plated Ozzie Albies, who had a leadoff double earlier in the inning.
The Tigers got to Elder in the sixth — Riley Greene drew another walk, Torkelson hit another single, and after Elder battled back to strike out Kerry Carpenter on a high four-seamer (for the second time in the game), Matt Vierling blooped a ball in front of Acuña to plate Greene. A soft tapper in front of the plate ended the rally and Elder’s outing. Again, hooray for the 2.95 FIP (and one run charged in six innings), but a 5.10 xFIP is Elder’s second-worst mark of the season, and now gives him three straight starts with a below-average xFIP.
Valdez rolled through the middle innings, as the Braves made ten straight outs after Dubon’s RBI single. He finished with a sparkling 0.95 FIP and 2.15 xFIP in six innings of 8/0 K/BB ratio ball, by far his best start of the year so far.
Tyler Kinley had an adventurous seventh. The Tigers loaded the bases with one out on a walk, a “normal” single, and then a slow bouncer. But, Kinley struck out Greene on three pitches, showing him two sliders in the zone that were fouled off, and then burying a slow curve in the dirt for a whiff. Torkelson then followed with a hard liner to left, but Dubon was able to run it down, and the Braves still led.
The Braves got a couple on against reliever Drew Anderson in the seventh (Acuña two-out double, intentional walk), but Albies grounded out. And then, things fell apart.
The Braves’ bullpen has been a bit short-handed, somewhat in preventable ways, and somewhat just due to the injury to Raisel Iglesias and the fact that Dylan Lee missed a game on paternity leave before returning and throwing a lot of pitches. While I don’t really blame Walt Weiss and company for messing around at all given where the season is, going with your “guys you don’t really wanna use” relievers with a one-run lead will blow up in your face, and yeah, it did here.
Joel Payamps got the call for the eighth, and woofing commenced. Carpenter crushed his fastball to center, where Eli White didn’t track it down — it bounced off the boards for a triple. Vierling followed with a weak bouncer that nonetheless got by given where Riley was positioned at third for a game-tying double. After a walk and a strikeout, Payamps was out and Aaron Bummer was in — but Bummer missed with four straight to Kevin McGonigle, who drew his third walk of the day. Gleyber Torres followed with a weak fly that pushed the go-ahead run across; Bummer ended the top of the eighth with a strikeout of pinch-hitter Jahmai Jones.
Oh, but we weren’t done with foibling (that’s not a word) yet. After Anderson threw a perfect second frame of work, it was Jose Suarez time with a one-run deficit, and… yeah. Suarez looked dominant striking out both Greene and Torkelson, but there’s his enigma in two-minute showcase: he goes from tantalizing to unpitchable from batter to batter, if not from pitch to pitch. Despite being so close to giving the Braves a chance to mount another ninth-inning rally, Suarez walked Wenceel Perez (after being ahead of him 1-2). Vierling followed with a hard grounder that A) Riley couldn’t snag, sending it shooting up in the air, B) Mike Yastrzemski goofed picking up in left, and C) resulted in a slow replay back home, such that D) Perez scored. After another walk (I want to spray Jose Suarez with a spray bottle so badly), Dillon Dingler uncorked a double down the left-field line, which made it 5-2 but also sent the game to the bottom of the ninth as an attempt at a sixth Detroit run was thrown out at home.
The bottom of the ninth, now with a three-run deficit in play, was not very exciting. Facing Kyle Finnegan, all the Braves managed was a one-out single by Yastrzemski. Acuña went down looking to end the game.
This was not really a showcase game for the Braves, as they managed just two extra-base hits, and were diced up to the tune of an 11/1 K/BB ratio by Valdez and the subsequent Detroit relief duo. Meanwhile, Braves arms managed just a 10/8 K/BB ratio.
But hey, they’re still doing great this season, they won the series yesterday, and now they’re off to see what adventures await them on a long and hopefully fruitful road trip. Stay tuned.
CINCINNATI, OHIO - APRIL 30: Tyler Freeman #2 of the Colorado Rockies celebrates with Andy González #81 as he rounds the bases after hitting a two-run home run during the first inning of a baseball game against the Cincinnati Reds at Great American Ball Park on April 30, 2026 in Cincinnati, Ohio. (Photo by Jeff Dean/Getty Images) | Getty Images
Missed opportunities at the plate once again spelled doom for the Colorado Rockies as they dropped the rubber match 6-4 to the Cincinnati Reds on Thursday. The Rockies end the road trip having gone 4-2 and end the month of April 13-14.
Striking First
The Rockies started the game on a high note against Andrew Abbott. Brenton Doyle managed to draw a one-out walk in the top of the first inning to give Colorado the first baserunner. After Hunter Goodman was called out on strikes, and Doyle swiped his seventh bag of the year, it fell to Tyler Freeman to bring him home. Notoriously good with runners in scoring position, Freeman again came up in the clutch to belt a two-run home run to right field and give the Rockies an early 2-0 lead. It was the first home run of the season for Freeman that traveled 357 feet to right field.
With an immediate lead in hand, Michael Lorenzen set out to work against the Reds’ lineup. Cincinnati got on the board in the bottom of the second inning thanks to the red-hot Nathaniel Lowe. The first-baseman blasted an 84.2 mph 0-1 changeup from Lorenzen 399 feet, his fifth home run of the season. Unfazed, Lorenzen continued to attack the zone, putting up zeroes over the next two innings.
The Reds struck again in the fifth after Spencer Steer drew a lead-off walk. After a strikeout of Will Benson, TJ Friedl stepped up to the plate and delivered a go-ahead home run to give the Reds a 3-2 lead. A fastball on the inside part of the plate was lofted out to right field and while it looked like Troy Johnston may have a chance at a play, the ball got out just far enough out of reach for Friedl’s second home run of the year.
Lorenzen was chased from the game after giving up a one-out double to Lowe in the bottom of the sixth, who would eventually score. His day ended after 5.1 innings of work, having allowed four runs on four hits with five strikeouts and two walks. While the box score may not reflect it, Lorenzen pitched fairly well in the game.
Once again, the Rockies found themselves in a familiar situation they were in on Tuesday offensively. Before the Friedl home run in the bottom half of the fifth inning, the Rockies had their best chance to score in the top half. Kyle Karros, Ezequiel Tovar, and Jordan Beck all managed to reach, loading the bases with one out. Leading 2-1 at the time, the Rockies needed to keep building and had Doyle coming up to the plate. Unfortunately, he poked a groundball to Elly De La Cruz, who promptly fired the ball home for the forceout. Goodman then followed with a strikeout to end the scoring threat.
Colorado didn’t manage to score again until the ninth inning after the Reds built up a 6-2 lead. Mickey Moniak delivered an RBI single, and Jake McCarthy drove in another on a sacrifice fly. Representing the tying run, Goodman flew out to center field to end the rally.
On the day the Rockies out-hit the Reds 9-7, while striking out nine times and drawing three walks.
Up Next
The Rockies head home to welcome the Atlanta Braves to Coors Field on Friday. Jose Quintana (1-2, 4.91 ERA) will take the mound and face off against Grant Holmes (2-1, 3.62 ERA).
Apr 30, 2026; Cumberland, Georgia, USA; Detroit Tigers pitcher Framber Valdez (59) pitches against the Atlanta Braves during the first inning at Truist Park. Mandatory Credit: Dale Zanine-Imagn Images | Dale Zanine-Imagn Images
After losing two in a row against the Braves and dropping below the .500 mark for season wins, the Tigers were hoping to dodge a series sweep before heading back to Detroit. Despite a losing record, the Tigers only trailed the division-leading Guardians by half a game, because the AL Central is not having a great year so far. To get themselves back on track, Detroit had Framber Valdez on the mound, and the Braves would be depending on Bryce Elder, who is off to a really strong start this season, three wins coming into today’s game, a 1.93 ERA and 0.96 FIP. There’s a reason Atlanta has the best record in baseball right now, so the Tigers would have a fight on their hands to come away with the win.
The Tigers made a push to get baserunners on in the first. Colt Keith got a two-out single, and right on his heels, Riley Greene took a walk. However, a Spencer Torkelson flyout ended the inning, leaving both baserunners stranded. In the home half, Drake Baldwin got a one-out single. Valdez does typically pitch to contact, getting a lot of outs on the ground, but the Braves were going to take advantage of that where they could. Ozzie Albies then singled, putting two on. A Matt Olson groundout got the second out of the inning, but advanced both runners into scoring position. A strikeout did end the inning, thankfully, with no harm done, but a decidedly rough start to the game.
The second inning saw the Tigers go 1-2-3, with bonus thanks to a Braves ABS challenge that ended in the second out of the inning for Matt Vierling. Valdez really started to struggle in the home half, with a leadoff hit-by-pitch to Mauricio Dubon. Kyle Farmer then singled. With one out an Eli White single brought the first run of the game in for Atlanta. There was then some lengthy drama as Ronald Acuña Jr decided he was hit by a pitch and walked to first. The home plate ump belatedly disagreed, and there was a review requested. Some debate later, it was determined he wasn’t hit, and he came back to the plate to get struck out for the second out of the inning. Very peculiar. By some miracle the inning ended with only the one run scored.
Kevin McGonigle got a one-out walk in the top of the third. Right after him, Gleyber Torres singled. A Colt Keith groundout managed to advance both runners into scoring position. Two outs followed, though, leaving things scoreless for the Tigers. Ozzie Albies doubled to start the home half. With one out, Valdez threw a pitch so wild he might as well have been 50 Cent throwing the opening pitch of a game. Albies easily advanced to third. With two outs, Dubon singled, bringing Albies home. Kyle Farmer then hit into a force out to end the inning.
In the fourth, Spencer Torkelson got things going with a leadoff single. Too bad three outs followed that. Thankfully for the Tigers Valdez turned things around in the home half of the inning getting the Braves out in order for the first time in the game.
With two outs in the fifth, Torres singled, but he tried to leg it out into a double and got snagged at second, ending the inning. Valdez continued to look good in the bottom of the inning, going three-up, three-down.
In the top of the sixth, Riley Greene got a one-out walk. Spencer Torkelson followed that with a single. With two outs, Matt Vierling singled, bringing Greene home and putting the Tigers on the board for the first time in the game. They’d need to settle for the one run, but it put them within one run of tying things up.
The Braves once again went 1-2-3 in the home half. If Valdez had this kind of command against the Braves all game, things might be looking very different at the moment.
After six innings and one run, Elder’s day was done. He was replaced by Tyler Kinley. McGonigle had a foul tip hit him on the inside of the thigh and knee. It took a little bit for him to walk it off, but ouch. He worked a walk out of it, getting on base for the second time in the game (but not yet extending his impressive hitting streak). Torres won an ABS challenge by a sliver, then got a single. Colt Keith singled and suddenly the bases were loaded. A Torkelson lineout into left ended the inning, with three men left stranded and the Tigers still trailing. Not sure they’re going to see a better opportunity this game.
In the home half, Valdez was done as well, being replaced by Drew Anderson. Valdez’s final line for the game was 6.0 IP, 6 H, 2 R, 2 ER, 0 BB, 8 K on 99 pitches. It started rough, but he really hit his stride mid-game, impressive against these red-hot Braves. With two outs, Acuña doubled. Anderson then walked Drake Baldwin intentionally. The Tigers got through a nail-biting inning with no runs added to the score.
In an effort to prove me wrong, Detroit got the eighth started with vigor. Kerry Carpenter kicked things off with a triple to dead center against new pitcher Joel Payamps. Matt Vierling, RBI hero, came in and singled, tying the game up 2-2.
Hao-Yu Lee took a walk. AJ Hinch went to his bench, swapping out Jake Rogers for Dillon Dingler. After striking out Dingler on a full count, Payamps was done, making way for Aaron Bummer. McGonigle walked for the third time in the game. Torres hit a sac fly, deep enough into the outfield to score Vierling and bumping the Tigers into the lead.
A pinch-hitting Jahmai Jones came in and ended the inning with a strikeout. Anderson continued for the eighth, getting three outs in a row.
José Suarez was the new Atlanta reliever for the ninth. While the Tigers were fighting it out in Atlanta, we got some updates from the minors regarding our injured players.
Per the transactions log, both Zach McKinstry and Max Anderson will begin rehab assignments with Lakeland tonight. pic.twitter.com/kEublsg03Y
A pinch-hitting Wenceel Perez worked a great at-bat and worked a walk, something the Tigers were doing well in this game. Vierling then continued his dominance against the Braves with a groundball that took a weird little hop. Thanks to a fielding error by Mike Yastrzemski, who couldn’t catch the little bobbling hit, and Perez made an incredible run from first all the way home on the play.
Lee walked for the second time in the game. Dingler then doubled right into the left field corner, giving Vierling enough leeway to get home for another run. Lee tried to get another one across, but was tagged out at home to end the inning. The Tigers were up 5-2 heading into the bottom of the ninth.
Perhaps learning from last night’s walk-off nightmare, the Tigers turned things over to Kyle Finnegan for the ninth. Yastrzemski got a one-out single. With two outs, Yastrzemski advanced to second on defensive indifference. Finnegan worked out of the jam, getting the final out of the inning and the Tigers had a win to take them home and avoid the sweep.
CINCINNATI, OHIO - APRIL 30: Nathaniel Lowe #31 of the Cincinnati Reds celebrates as he rounds the bases after hitting a solo home run during the second inning of a baseball game against the Colorado Rockies at Great American Ball Park on April 30, 2026 in Cincinnati, Ohio. (Photo by Jeff Dean/Getty Images) | Getty Images
Things got off to a saucy start for the Cincinnati Reds in Thursday’s series finale against the Colorado Rockies in Great American Ball Park. If you, like me, are still trying to figure out exactly what that means, let’s just say that Andrew Abbott began the game by serving up a meatball that Tyler Freeman turned into a 2-run homer, a product of Abbott having again issued an ugly walk to put a runner on-base early.
That sequence has been the theme of the early going for Abbott, who in 2025 seemed to find ways to both limit those scenarios and pitch out of them when they did arise. 2026, though, has been very much the opposite, and the groans from those watching probably were audible in Colorado itself after it repeated itself again.
The best possible thing happened from then on, however – Abbott actually settled in.
Cincinnati’s All-Star lefty ground his way through 6.0 IP in total and yielded no more runs on the day, scattering 5 hits and a pair of walks against 5 K to earn his first win of the season. That win came thanks to the bats of Nate Lowe and TJ Friedl, each of whom homered off former Red Michael Lorenzen as Cincinnati rallied back to win the game 6-4.
Things got saucier in the Top of the 9th when Reds closer Emilio Pagan came on in a non-save situation and immediately began operating the singles dispenser. Pagan had only pitched once since April 19th (on April 25th) and needed work, and he clearly had some rust on his right arm on the day, but the Reds made enough plays defensively to seal the win – and yet another series victory.
Other Notes
The Reds move to 20-11 on the season.
Lowe went 2 for 3 with a walk, double, and a pair of runs scored, and earns today’s Joe Nuxhall Memorial Honorary Star of the Game. There’s no way you keep him out of the lineup even when Eugenio Suarez returns.
Spencer Steer began the season looking awful, going 1 for his first 17 across four games played. Entering play today, though, he’d hit .260/.337/.519 across his most recent 23 games (86 PA), which is the kind of bat that can make this lineup shimmy. He went 2 for 3 with a walk and a huge 2-run double that provided the insurance runs Pagan ended up needing, and he’s making a wonderful case that he should be hitting in the top third of the order once again.
JJ Bleday walked twice before being replaced by Dane Myers late. It would be super cool if the good version of Bleday is what the Reds signed out of the bargain bin.
Cincinnati heads out next on a crucial road trip through the NL Central, first to Pittsburgh and then to the north side of Chicago to face the Cubs. They do so as the current 1st place club in the NL Central, and it’s a pleasure to be able to finally write these kinds of sentences.
ANAHEIM, CALIFORNIA - APRIL 5: Los Angeles Angels owner Arte Moreno in attendance for an opening day game between the Boston Red Sox and the Los Angeles Angels at Angel Stadium of Anaheim on April 5, 2024 in Anaheim, California. (Photo by Brandon Sloter/Getty Images) | Getty Images
In 2022, the “It’s Not My Money(ball)” series was created in response to the owners’ lockout, which disrupted that year’s Spring Training and arguably cost Clayton Kershaw a perfect game in Minneapolis (I had fun). As the season completes its first month, the World Baseball Classic now a memory, we must conclude the revival of this series as trouble looms in the distance, hanging in the air, exactly in the way a brick does not.
This trilogy in five parts (it’s yet another Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy joke) was initially conceived from a single essay that ballooned in size to the point where a split was necessary. As I worked on Pandora’s Boxand MLB’s Dirty Dozen, I realized there was a deeper story than skinflint owners and a perception problem that the Dodgers are more than happy to lean into. Before any new business, we take a well-deserved victory lap.
Called it!
Last time, in The Vulture of Private Equity, I called out the practices, in part, of both the San Francisco Giants and Boston Red Sox. The essay was published on April 23. On April 24, word broke that the Giants were selling a portion of the team to a private equity firm owned by Joshua Kusher.
Joshua Kushner, the brother of President Donald Trump’s son-in-law Jared, announced on [Twitter] on Friday that his firm Thrive Capital has agreed to acquire a stake in the San Francisco Giants. The news of Thrive’s purchase was first reported by the Wall Street Journal.
“Our first partnership is expected to be with the San Francisco Giants – an institution built on more than a century of shared identity and community, and among the most iconic sports franchises in America,” Kushner wrote. “We have reached an agreement, subject to league approval, to acquire an ownership stake. We feel privileged by the opportunity to be long-term partners to the Giants.”
Sometimes, a demonstration of the point requires no further explanation, apart from wondering what other landmarks the Giants will purchase, rather than properly spending on their mediocre baseball team.
I suppose the baseball equivalent of “shut up and dribble” is “pipe down and shag some flies.” The firings will continue until morale improves, eh? Joon Lee wrote about the ills of private equity’s involvement in Boston, which can be read in parallel with the last feature in our series, from the perspective of a Red Sox fan. It’s not pretty.
Are the Sox better today than they were yesterday? Doubtful. Can they compete for a wild-card spot in a wide-open American League? Perhaps, if [interim manager Chad] Tracy somehow finds a way to get more out of the players than [former manager Alex] Cora did and the pitching starts to click.
Even with the offensive questions, Cora maintained the Sox would be competitive as long as their pitchers performed to expectations. They haven’t, at least to this point. It sure will be interesting Sunday to hear [Red Sox President Craig] Breslow explain why he left that part of the coaching staff largely untouched.
But enough about Breslow, who in the end is just another [owner John] Henry pawn, positioned to take the next fall. Under Henry, the Red Sox are incoherent, dysfunctional and forever poised to overreact. Yet, why should the owner operate any differently? The turnstiles at Fenway keep spinning. “Sweet Caroline” keeps playing.
Yo-played
For the record, the venerable, actual French yogurt company had nothing to do with this portion of this essay, but the pun was too delicious to pass up. Sam Blum of The Athleticwrote an investigative feature on a mostly fraudulent yogurt company, Cremily, which again has nothing to do with Yoplait, which needs to be read in full to be digested.
The story of Cremily features facts that would not be out of place in a screwball comedy that was an unholy mix of The Producers and Major League. In real life, though, the feature demonstrates a comical lapse in foresight, judgment, due diligence, and acumen one would expect of several major league franchises in dealing with a vendor who met the textbook definition of “overpromising and underdelivering.”
Cremily was a yogurt company that sold French frozen yogurt that was advertised as healthy, keto, and lactose-free, and claimed to donate 100 percent of its profits to “empower girls globally.” In retrospect, the company’s dubiousness probably should have been a little easier to spot.
Just in baseball alone, Cremily had partnerships with the Anaheim Angels, Boston Red Sox, New York Mets, and Arizona Diamondbacks. During the Diamondbacks’ sweep of the Dodgers in the 2023 National League Division Series, there are photographs of the Dbacks celebrating in their pool (…but when the Dodgers do it, it’s gauche apparently…) with the yogurt company’s materials in the background.
From Mr. Blum:
Multiple former employees said Cremily could not produce product to scale, leaving teams with “untenable delays” and subsequently providing the Angels and Diamondbacks with product that was not made by Cremily. The Angels argued in a court filing Cremily was “fraudulently passing (third-party) ice cream off as its own” and knew it didn’t have a viable ice cream formula. An ex-marketing employee even said he was asked to create Cremily labels for generic ice cream.
Ultimately, the Angels and the Diamondbacks separately sued Cremily for failing to pay the teams under their respective deals. Naturally, the organizations that worked with Cremily were taciturn about their dealings.
Who wants to admit to being bamboozled? For the regular person, it happens from time to time without shame whatsoever, because they do not have a legal team or anyone conducting due diligence. What were these teams’ excuses? Ultimately, with Cremily, we’re talking about contract sums that would be a rounding error on a baseball team’s ledger, but there are genuine real-world consequences for those caught in the middle.
Saying the quiet part out loud
There is only one Shohei Ohtani, one Mookie Betts, one Paul Skenes — singular talents that make baseball fans take notice. While Max Muncy and Will Smith are part of the Dodgers’ constellation of stars, their initial pedigree was anything but.
Accordingly, nothing is stopping teams from investing in their front offices, whether in scouts, analytics, or a combination of both, to develop their own players. Yes, we mocked the Milwaukee Brewers for their overreliance on this strategy, but it’s better than the firm masterly inactivity employed by other clubs.
“The number one thing fans want is affordability,” Moreno said. “They want affordability. They want safety, and they want a good experience when they come to the ballpark. Believe it or not, winning is not in their top five.”
Moreno said that information comes from surveys they’ve done.
“The moms want to be able to afford to bring the kids,” Moreno said. “Moms make about 80% of the decisions. They want to be able to bring their kids and be affordable and they want safety and they want to have a good experience, so they get all the entertainment stuff or whatever. The purists, you know, it’s just straight winning.”
When asked what his top priority is, Moreno said: “For me, I’ve always wanted to win. It’s just what’s the cost of winning right now?”
(emphasis added.)
Naturally, everyone gravitated toward an owner’s statement alleging that fans do not care about winning, which is utterly ridiculous. Can you imagine having Ohtani for multiple years and not making the postseason, much less being a winning team? One need not imagine, but only watch what passes for Angels baseball.
Originally, the backhanded remark towards the Anaheim Angels spoke for itself, but owner Arte Moreno actually said the quiet part out loud and admitted what most Angels fans have known in the pit of their souls for years: winning is not a priority in Anaheim.
It went about as well as expected, as Moreno said the quiet part out loud: some of the more self-austere owners eschew scouting and analytics spending, which would not break the bank and would improve their respective clubs.
The creeping death that is private equity in baseball is slow and methodical until it’s not. So if teams are cutting useful spending on things like due diligence and scouting, and spending all this time and effort acquiring commercial real estate, what is the league focusing its energy on?
Baseball forgets the lessons of the Black Sox Scandal
At a time when there is a literal epidemic of addiction to online sports betting, especially with young men, in the United States, baseball has been slowly wrapping its figurative mitts around gambling for years.
It’s a shocking development, because gambling interests nearly toppled the sport in 1919, leading to the creation of the Commissioner’s office in the aftermath of arguably the worst gambling scandal in sports history: the fixing of the 1919 World Series by the Chicago White Sox.
One would think that a fixed World Series would act as such a scar on the psyche of baseball that no one would dare touch gambling again. But 107 years later, what is old is new again. Now-dead and still-disgraced gambler Pete Rose has been reinstated for Hall of Fame eligibility (after presidential pressure, which really merits its own essay from a site that focuses on the Cincinnati Reds), so clearly, time is a flat circle.
The Clase Scenario Writ Large
Before dealing with the pervasiveness of actual gambling in baseball, with actual sportbooks being on stadium grounds, with advertising dollars from DraftKings and the like seemingly everywhere, it often feels like the horse is so far out of the barn at this point that it will die of old age before it returns.
Seeing betting odds on AppleTV telecasts, and in the margins of articles in both reputable publications and blogs, there is an entire industry trying to get you to spend money. One would be tempted to tune it out as background noise. But one cannot ignore this growing problem, not anymore, as recently covered in The Guardian:
Gambling addiction is spiraling “out of control” in the US, a leading campaigner for stricter guardrails has warned, as experts from around the world are set to gather in Boston to push for more regulation of the industry.
The rapid expansion of online gambling, prediction markets and sports betting platforms, “demands a public health response”, according to Harry Levant, director of gambling policy at the Public Health Advocacy Institute (PHAI), urging policymakers to intervene.
“You regulate the distribution, the speed, the type, the access to the product, because the product is what’s dangerous,” he said, calling for gambling to be treated like alcohol or tobacco. “The problem is the product, not the people,” said Levant. “We have a crisis here.”…
“We firmly believe gambling should be regulated like any other addictive product,” said Mark Gottlieb, executive director of PHAI.
Sports betting has been legalized in 39 states and Washington DC since the landmark 2018 supreme court ruling.
With such conditions, is it any wonder that players would eventually get drawn in? Most recently, Cleveland Guardians (and frequent hypothetical future Dodger) closer Emmanuel Clase and Luis Ortiz were indicted for fraud, conspiracy, and bribery stemming from an alleged scheme to rig individual pitches, resulting in gamblers winning hundreds of thousands of dollars.
Joseph Nocella, Jr., United States Attorney for the Eastern District of New York, and Christopher G. Raia, Assistant Director in Charge, Federal Bureau of Investigation, New York Field Office, announced the government’s allegations against the pair:
…The defendants agreed in advance with their co-conspirators on specific pitches that they would throw in MLB games. The co-conspirators then used that information to place hundreds of fraudulent bets on those pitches.
Beginning in or around May 2023, Clase, a relief pitcher for the Cleveland Guardians, agreed with corrupt sports bettors to rig proposition bets – or “prop” bets – on particular pitches he threw. The bettors wagered on the speed and type of Clase’s pitches, based on information they knew in advance by coordinating with Clase, sometimes even during MLB games. Clase often threw these rigged pitches on the first pitch of an at-bat. To ensure certain pitches were called as balls, Clase threw many of them in the dirt, well outside the strike zone. The bettors used the advanced, inside information that Clase provided about his future pitches to wager thousands of dollars at online sportsbooks.
Clase at times received bribes and kickbacks from the bettors in exchange for providing advanced, non-public information. He also sometimes provided money to the bettors in advance to fund the scheme. The indictment includes numerous examples of pitches that Clase rigged, including one in the Eastern District of New York in a game against the New York Mets. In total, by rigging pitches, Clase caused his co-conspirator bettors to win at least $400,000 in fraudulent wagers.
In or around June 2025, Ortiz, a starting pitcher for the Cleveland Guardians, joined the criminal scheme. Together with Clase, Ortiz agreed in advance to throw balls (instead of strikes) on pitches in two games in exchange for bribes and kickbacks. Before an MLB game on June 15, 2025, Ortiz agreed with his co-conspirators to throw a ball on a particular pitch in exchange for bribes. The bettors agreed to pay Ortiz a $5,000 bribe for throwing the rigged pitch and Clase a $5,000 bribe for arranging the rigged pitch.
Clase and Ortiz are innocent until proven guilty, and their trial is scheduled to start on May 4, 2026. One would think even this offramp of a story would be enough to get the league, or any league, to reconsider buddying up to gambling interests.
Remember how bad everyone felt after 2017, which was only compounded after it was revealed that the Houston Astros were blatantly cheating? It was like reliving the loss all over again, but worse.
Mark my words: the shoe that will eventually drop from this entirely foreseeable fiasco will make any scandal (including the Clase affair) look insignificant and quaint in comparison. It is knowingly setting up shop in Chornobyl after the nuclear accident, and acting surprised both that something bad happened and that the consequences were somehow unforeseen.
Either way, it’s a lesson that must apparently be relearned, but it’s not my money(ball)…
If the story ended there, I could sign off, but it gets even worse. Sites like FanDuel, Draft Kings, etc., are the devil you know and the devil you can avoid. But the league has embraced something far more nihilistic, which deserves your full attention: prediction markets.
Apr 30, 2026; Milwaukee, Wisconsin, USA; Milwaukee Brewers starting pitcher Brandon Woodruff (53) walks off the mound with an injury in the second inning against the Arizona Diamondbacks at American Family Field. Mandatory Credit: Benny Sieu-Imagn Images | Benny Sieu-Imagn Images
The red flags popped up immediately. Brandon Woodruff’s first fastball of the game came across the plate at 84.2 mph. I initially thought the radar gun was mis-calibrated, or the system registered an off-speed pitch as a fastball. But then the next one came in at 85 mph, and instantly things looked bad.
Brandon Woodruff looked uncomfortable delivering the baseball. His smooth, repeatable, athletic delivery looked rigid, unathletic, and unusual. He walked Geraldo Perdomo with some really bad misses but somehow rallied to get a pair of strikeouts and a scoreless first inning.
Pat Murphy, the pitching coaches, and the athletic trainer all huddled trying to figure out what to do. Woodruff went back out for the second inning as the bullpen stirred, but no one began throwing. After allowing a single to Lourdes Gurriel Jr, the Brewers had seen enough. Murphy, Chris Hook, and athletic trainer Brad Epstein went out to the mound and quickly Woodruff was removed from the game.
His fastball averaged 85.4 mph and he didn’t register a pitch above 86 mph. Woodruff’s average fastball velocity this season is 92.5 mph, a drop of 7.1 mph.
Murphy on the Brewers TV broadcast said “He wasn’t himself. He felt like, felt kind of dead. He said he didn’t feel any pain, just nothing was coming out. We’ve seen a little bit of this, but never at this level where he can’t get the ball over 85 mph. He’s so important to us. We’re not going to risk anything maybe long term by having him try to step on it.”
Woodruff missed the entire 2023 postseason and 2024 regular season with a shoulder capsule injury that required surgery. He finally returned to the big league rotation in the middle of last season and found great success. That was until a lat injury prevented him from being able to pitch in the postseason again last year.
Woodruff came into this season focused on maintaining his health so he could be available all season long and into the playoffs. That’s why his ramp up in spring was slower and why he did not start on Opening Day. The Brewers have been as careful with him as they can be to keep him on the mound throughout the whole season.
This article will be updated as new information is provided from the Brewers on this concerning injury for one of the Crew’s best starters and longest-tenured player.
CLEVELAND, OH - APRIL 21: George Valera #7 of the Cleveland Guardians looks on during the game against the Houston Astros at Progressive Field on Tuesday, April 21, 2026 in Cleveland, Ohio. (Photo by Grace Hoppel/MLB Photos via Getty Images) | MLB Photos via Getty Images
The team has announced that George Valera has been sent back to Columbus. What will they do to fill out their roster?
George Valera had a brief and inglorious time in Cleveland this April. In 38 plate appearances, he put up a 46 wRC+ and struck out in back-to-back games against the Rays in spots where the team desperately needed a hit or a walk. His 40% chase rate was the big issue in his return, as well as looking pretty bad in the field (-1 OAA in LF and -1 OAA in right field). I think it’s a wise move to let Valera settle down in Columbus. Honestly, they should probably revisit swapping Valera and Kyle Manzardo in a couple weeks and let Valera be a DH vs. RHP if Manzardo can’t find a way to right the ship. Valera is still hitting the ball hard, not whiffing an exceptional amount and making good in-zone contact. He just couldn’t find the barrel or stop chasing, both skills he HAS shown in the past and may be able to find again.
In Valera’s absence, the team could promote any one of four main options:
CJ Kayfus, LHH – After putting up an 83 wRC+ in Cleveland, Kayfus was demoted earlier this month and has put up a 115 wRC+ in Columbus. He has split half his time in the field there between first base and the two corner outfield positions. I don’t think Kayfus’s numbers would warrant a call-up, and I suspect that, due to Angel Martinez and Daniel Schneemann’s recent success, the team will be looking for a player who isn’t still developing (i.e. won’t have growth hampered by part-time reps).
Nolan Jones, RHH – Jones has a 140 wRC+ with a 26/14 K/BB% in Columbus and fits the bill of a veteran whose development is past the point of where part-time reps will hurt him. He’s still struggling with zone-contact (only at 79%), so, personally, I wouldn’t make him my first call. He would, however, replace the left-handed bat the team has removed in Valera and is capable of playing centerfield (though has spent most of his time in right field in Columbus). I think the team might prefer someone with the flexibility to play any outfield spot in this place on the roster.
Stuart Fairchild, RHH – Fairchild has a 161 wRC+ with an 18.8/13.5 K/BB in Columbus. He has split his time pretty evenly between all three outfield spots there and is 4 for 4 in stolen base attempts. He is whiffing more than I’d like (12.6%), but his zone contact rate is right at average (85%). Fairchild may have a clause in his contract where he will be released by 5/1 if he is not on a major league roster. This has been rumored, but not confirmed anywhere that I can find. The timing of the Valera move would seem to indicate that Fairchild is likely to get the call, and, again, he would be a veteran fit for a part-time role. Notably, either Jones or Fairchild would require a roster move, and I suspect it would be a Codi Heuer DFA.
Kahlil Watson, LHH – Watson has a 140 wRC+ with a 28/20 K/BB in Columbus, while playing excellent defense in centerfield. His average exit velocity is an eye-popping 93 mph and he has a hard-hit rate of 50%. I am still concerned about his 78% zone contact rate and a 12.6 whiff rate isn’t ideal, but he has dramatically cut his chase rate from 34% to 20%. If Watson continues this pace, he will eventually get a shot this season to play center in Cleveland, but I think we are likely to be a 4-6 weeks away from that point.
In conclusion, I think it’s likely that tomorrow’s roster move will be adding Stuart Fairchild to the active roster and the 40-man and DFA’ing Codi Heuer, bringing the 40-man to 20 pitchers and 20 hitters. The active roster becomes, then:
C – Bo, Hedges, Fry 1B – Manzardo, Hoskins 2B – Bazzana 3B – Jose SS – Rocchio LF – Martinez CF – Kwan RF – DeLauter Utility – Schneemann OF – Fairchild
That’s 6 lefties, 3 switch-hitters, and 4 right-handed hitters, which is a pretty solid mix of handedness. It also gives the Guardians some much needed speed off the bench, as Fairchild has 86th percentile sprint speed in comparison with Valera’s 25th percentile. Going from Brito to Bazzana and Valera to Fairchild drastically changes this team’s available speed… and likely dramatically improves them defensively. Time will tell how the hitting changes shape up, but I like the move for Valera’s development and for the current roster’s ability to succeed.
The Royals conclude their trip to Sacramento this afternoon in the rubber game of their series against the A’s. After taking the first game in extras on Tuesday, the Royals fell yesterday. Now, Noah Cameron takes the mound with a chance for Kansas City to take it’s second straight series.
Vinnie remains out of the lineup, which is righty-heavy with the lefty Jeffrey Springs on the mound for the A’s. Lane Thomas is batting third, there are three catchers in the lineup, and Cags is also on the bench. Cool cool cool.
Man, those jerseys are sick. These are, to me, the best uniforms in baseball. I wish I could root for the A’s. Unfortunately, they left Kansas City about 30 years before I arrived.
After today’s game, the Royals head to Seattle for three to conclude their road trip. It would be really nice to capture this one.
April is just about over, which means it’s time for our first GM approval poll of the 2026 regular season. We’ve learned several things through the first month of games. The American League could be an absolute dogpile with just the Yankees and Rays better than one game over .500, while across the league managers’ seats are getting hotter earlier than ever. Boston’s Alex Cora and Philadelphia’s Rob Thomson learned this lesson the hard way and free-falling Mets skipper Carlos Mendoza seems likely soon to follow. Before the season started, we polled our readers on their confidence level in Brian Cashman and the team he assembled heading into the new campaign, voters overwhelmingly voicing their disapproval of the Yankees GM. Now that we are a month into the season, we are curious if any of those opinions have changed.
The Yankees started their season with a three-game sweep of the Giants at Oracle Park, followed by series wins against the Mariners and Marlins. But then the offense went silent, leading to a 2-9 stretch against the A’s, Rays, and Angels. That span included a five-game losing streak, getting one-hit by the Rays, and going 17 consecutive innings without scoring. This inability to dent home plate was primarily attributed to being dragged down by the worst bottom of the order in MLB.
It's still very early in the season, but the Yankees entered today's game with the worst 6-7-8-9 hitters in baseball.
Those spots had a combined 22 wRC+ before today's game. They are currently 0-for-6 with 3 Ks today.
Despite splitting that four-game split with the Halos, they built positive momentum as the offense started to click — this time it was the pitching’s fault, giving up 32 runs including an eye-watering 13 home runs in those four games. They rode that wave to a 10-2 finish to the month to reclaim their lead atop the division. That span included back-to-back sweeps of the Royals and Red Sox, an eight-game winning streak, four straight series victories, and a 26-inning scoreless streak by their pitching staff.
The dominant narrative of the early going has been the Yankees’ stellar starting pitching. Cam Schlittler and Max Fried are one and two in fWAR among all qualified pitchers. The highest ERA of their four regular starters belongs to Ryan Weathers at 3.21, and he has acquitted himself well since joining from Miami over the winter. Both he and Will Warren have a double-digit strikeout start to their names, the latter looking like he has taken the next step in his development after a solid rookie campaign. Even with the since-demoted Luis Gil’s struggles, the rotation is far and away the best in baseball, with the most innings per start (5.8), lowest ERA (2.70) and FIP (3.21), and most fWAR (4.6) of any starting staff in the land.
This is the 3rd time in franchise history the Yankees have 11+ wins and 40 or fewer runs allowed in their first 16 Road games of a season.
Fried and Schlittler aren’t the only ones on the team performing among the best in their discipline. Aaron Judge and Ben Rice place third and seventh, respectively, in position player fWAR, meaning the Yankees have the two best pitchers and two of the seven best hitters in all of baseball, which is certainly a good starting point for any roster. Judge and Rice became the first pair of Yankees teammates in franchise history with at least 10 home runs and at least 20 walks before the end of April, the pair placing second and third in wRC+ among qualified hitters in the league.
It’s a good thing that pair is more than pulling their weight when you consider the output of the rest of the offense. The Yankees do not have another lineup regular with a wRC+ above Cody Bellinger’s 108 mark. Amed Rosario has been a remarkable catalyst when he bats against lefties, but his defensive limitations prevent him from being an everyday starter. As we alluded to earlier, the bottom of the order was a black hole through the first three weeks, Jazz Chisholm Jr., Austin Wells, Ryan McMahon, and José Caballero combining to give the Yankees an automatic out in almost half their lineup. Fortunately that has turned around some in the final half of April. Every member of that quartet has posted a wRC+ of at least 119 since the start of the Royals series, and it is no surprise that this coincided with the Yankees’ best stretch of results.
That leaves the bullpen as the unit that struggled the most for the entire month. The group sits middle of the pack league-wide in ERA (3.86), FIP (3.97), and fWAR (0.7), though it’s easy to envision a scenario where those metrics are worse had the starting rotation not accounted for so many innings pitched. They optioned (and recalled) Jake Bird to the minors for the second time in his short Yankees tenure, you can reliably pencil Camilo Doval in to give up a home run in every outing, Fernando Cruz is walking almost a batter per inning, there’s a fear of pitching the suddenly-important Brent Headrick into the ground with 17 appearances in 31 games, and even David Bednar is a human vasopressor when he closes games.
Just when it looked like the Yankees would go injury-free in April, the bug started to bite in the final week. Giancarlo Stanton landed on the IL with a calf strain and his replacement, Jasson Domínguez, had to exit the series finale against the Rangers; he is undergoing imaging after getting hit on the elbow by a fastball. Conversely, they do have reinforcements on the horizon. Carlos Rodón is about a week and change away (two rehab starts) from rejoining the team after undergoing offseason surgery to remove bone chips in his elbow. Gerrit Cole is probably a month behind his rotation mate as he completes a lengthy rehab from Tommy John surgery. Anthony Volpe could join up with the big-league squad during the upcoming homestand after his offseason surgery to repair a partially torn labrum in his left shoulder. The players they will eventually displace from the active roster is a question they will have to answer shortly, but it’s a good problem to have when you’ve got veterans reinforcing a team that’s already performing well.
That brings us to today’s task. Do you approve of the job Brian Cashman has done through the end of April? On one hand, the Yankees sit atop the division with the best record in the AL posting the second-most runs per game and the lowest staff ERA in the AL. On the other hand, the areas that everyone identified as weak spots over the offseason — third base and the bullpen — continue to drag the team down. The polarizing GM certainly elicits stronger feelings than can be captured in a one-word response — you may feel a question such as the one being posed requires more nuance, greater elaboration, or a wider selection of options than just a “yes” or a “no,” however for the sake of this exercise, a binary question works best.
Note: This is the same poll that is currently appearing on the Feed, so if you’ve voted there, that should already be counted.
