Category: MLB

WASHINGTON – Unlike some of his Major League Baseball peers, Matt Olson does not drain his blood, sip mountain spring water from a green glass bottle to avoid microplastics, nor measure every carbohydrate before sating his hunger.

“No, I’m not the guy,” he tells USA TODAY Sports, “who’s got a chef at home.”

Yet somehow, Olson has outlasted them all.

In this era of load management and general soreness the Atlanta Braves first baseman has not missed a game in nearly five years, stringing together a feat of longevity that can stand up to almost any era. After Atlanta’s 7-3 loss at Nationals Park on April 21, Olson has played in 806 consecutive games, second-longest this century and good health willing, soon stretching into the top 10 all-time.

Barring calamity or bad weather, Olson, on May 10 at Dodger Stadium, will dislodge Gus Suhr from 10^th place all time with his 823^rd consecutive game played. Eight days later, Eddie Yost would cede ninth place when Olson posts up at Miami.

And on Aug. 2, at home against Washington, the great Stan Musial would step aside for Olson’s 896^th straight game and eighth place all time.

No, Cal Ripken Jr. won’t be losing sleep anytime soon: Olson would have to play every day well into the 2037 season to take down the Iron Man’s 2,632-game record. Yet Ripken broke Lou Gehrig’s mark of 2,130 way back in 1995, long before planned days off and nouveau tweaks like oblique tears sent sluggers out of the lineup and onto the injured list.

This is 2026, the fifth consecutive season Olson figures to be one of the two to five players to play all 162 games. Few repeat the feat.

So why Olson, now 32, an age where the body is typically not impervious to a back twinge or a hamstring seizing?

“He’s got a baseball body that’s almost ideal,” says Braves manager Walt Weiss, the bench coach when Atlanta acquired Olson from Oakland in March 2022. “He’s long and rangy. He’s not wound tight.

“Very loose and whippy and all those things and obviously can withstand the rigors of this schedule. He’s a special one.”

And that 6-4, 225-pound frame is putting together what could be another very special season.

Why Matt Olson is ‘star in this game'

Musial was a three-time MVP, Gehrig a two-time winner and Ripken one. They combined to win 11 World Series titles.

Olson can’t make such gaudy claims relative to the men of iron above him on the all-time list. Yet in 2023, the man hit 54 home runs and also led the majors with 139 RBIs. He accrued 7.5 WAR, because he is an excellent defensive first baseman.

Olson has finished first, second or third in defensive runs saved the past six seasons, that rangy, fungible frame that allows his arms to extend in the batter’s box also a fielder’s best friend when a ball is skipped in the dirt toward first.

“The defense doesn’t get the glory that it should – he’s as good a defensive first baseman that you’ll find,” says Weiss. “His wingspan creates a lot of outs for us, with the way he stretches. That’s not something people are locked into, but we notice those types of things.

“He’s a stud. He’s a star in this game.”

Olson could not approach his 54-homer season the following two seasons, yet was metronomic in his production, posting consecutive 29-homer seasons with 37 and 41 doubles and 98 and 95 RBIs.

This year, something special might be brewing.

Olson already has six home runs and ranks second in the major leagues with 16 extra-base hits. His OPS is back over .900, and the 16-8 Braves seem poised to rid the aftertaste of their 86-loss 2025 campaign, which broke a streak of seven consecutive division titles.

Olson takes pride in his consecutive games streak and believes there’s some correlation between his everyday availability and his production – as well as the Braves’ consistent excellence.

Their culture has long revolved around posting, with third baseman Austin Riley playing 159 or 160 games from 2021 to 2023. In 2022, Olson and shortstop Dansby Swanson were the lone major leaguers to go 162.

“The best part of it is no matter how your game goes – great game, awful one – the next day is going to be a good one,” says Olson. “A lot of guys are penciled into the lineup every day. We’re not a big platoon squad and I think it’s good for everyone.

“You know you’re getting four or five, six at-bats every day. It’s going to help you see more pitches and make those bad games particularly easier to flush and know you’ve got a new chance at it tomorrow.”

Continuity is a franchise theme. Olson arrived one year after the Braves’ 2021 World Series title, famously replacing Freddie Freeman at first and signing a $168 million contract extension after the trade from Oakland ensured Freeman’s departure.

After Series-winning manager Brian Snitker retired after 2025, the club poked its head around and gave Weiss, formerly the Colorado Rockies manager, another chance to run the show.

“I think Walt is somebody who kind of respected the chain of command a little bit,” says Olson. “Being bench coach, he was there to help Snit, do his role. Now that he’s the manager, that role and voice expanded a little bit.

“We all don’t have enough good things to say about Walt. Love the way he goes about stuff. Gets us ready, keeps us ready to play.”

Not that Olson needs much in that department.

'It's not easy'

Even as he approaches his mid-30s, Olson needs to ponder a little bit to acknowledge concessions to advancing age. Yet he knows greater treatment, more intensive self-care, perhaps even injury may eventually be inevitable.

He has a simple mental trick to keep that day further into the future.

“It takes me a little longer to get loose every day,” says Olson, who has 294 career homers, and whose career adjusted OPS of 135 ranks 14^th among active players. “But I try to stay out of the training room as much as possible. I’ve seen people who need it every day to go play, and I feel like that becomes people’s baselines a little bit.

“I want to save that for when I need it. There have been times, there’s going to be times you’re going to need it – you’re going to need to get work done.”

That still belies the maintenance behind the scenes – the weight room work, the extra swings – that keeps Olson on the field and at peak performance.

“The routines he has behind the scenes to keep his body in shape and play the amount of games he does and be as locked in, it’s pretty impressive,” says catcher Drake Baldwin. “Not many people are doing it like he is. It’s all a testament to how much he loves the game and how he goes about it.

“Working out, keeping the body right, to be able to play 162 for however many years he’s done it straight, it’s not easy.”

And the mental approach at the plate is just as crucial.

“He’s still trying to take the next at-bat,” says Baldwin, “and make it the most important of his life.”

Olson is yet another Brave who grew up in the Atlanta area, a laid-back dude very much in his comfort zone. Born one year before Atlanta’s first World Series title in 1995, he was well aware of the club’s standard of excellence, as their string of 14 consecutive division titles stretched deep into his childhood.

It became the standard and he expects no less – especially the bit about showing up, being available, doing your job.

“Since I was a kid, it was the way the Braves went about it,” says Olson. “You got your guys, and the team expects you to play. Fans expect you to play. You should expect to play.

“Ever since I came over here, it’s been exactly that. And I think it’s great for everybody involved.”

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: MLB all-time consecutive games played list: Braves’ Matt Olson is modern Iron Man

MLB.com | Joe Vasile: The New York Yankees and the Hudson Valley Renegades announced yesterday afternoon that pitchers Gerrit Cole and Carlos Rodón will start for the Renegades on Thursday and Friday, respectively, as part of their rehab assignments. Cole will be making his second start, as he began his rehab assignment with the Double-A Somerset Patriots last week, while Rodón will be taking the hill for the first time this season. I’m not saying I feel bad for the Brooklyn Cyclones batters they’ll be facing, but, well, I kind of do.

The Athletic | Brendan Kuty and Jen McCaffrey: With the Yankees and Red Sox starting their first series of the season yesterday, The Athletic’s reporters on the New York and Boston beats teamed up to break down how the two teams have been going in the early weeks of the season. Perhaps unsurprisingly, the starting rotations of both staffs were highlighted: the Bombers need their rotation to cover for a shaky bullpen, while the Red Sox has been overtaxing their bullpen due to underperformance.

ESPN | Jeff Passan: The history of pitching is, in many ways, the search for more and more velocity. Two decades ago, a pitcher hitting triple digits was a rarity. Nowadays, though, so many pitchers — both starters and relievers — reach 100 miles per hour consistently that it no longer seems all that remarkable. Talking to players throughout the league — including Yankees starter/ace-in-training Cam Schlittler — Jeff Passan talks about the rise of the 100 mph fastball over the last few years, to the point where it has become an obsession even among high school students.

And, while Passan doesn’t get into it, probably also the reason for so many arm injuries.

The San Francisco Giants have not developed a reputation for intelligence early this season, but on Tuesday they did something very, very smart. They jumped on Yoshinobu Yamamoto early.

You’re familiar with Yamamoto. You hoped he was as good as everyone said he was when the Giants appeared determined to not be outbid for his services two years ago. You feared that he was as good as everyone said he was when he instead signed with the Los Angeles Dodgers. You confirmed that he was as good as everyone said he was when did his best Madison Bumgarner impression last fall while leading the Dodgers to a second consecutive championship, collecting a World Series MVP award and a top-three Cy Young finish along the way.

So the Giants did the sensible thing. They pounced before Yamamoto had time to realize where he was.

Willy Adames led off the bottom of the first inning with an infield single, and took second on an error by shortstop Hyeseong Kim. Luis Arráez followed by doing the one thing he does better than anyone on the planet: hitting a single.

Yamamoto was just seven pitches in, and found himself both in trouble and unsure what had happened. Lost in a haze of confusion and crisp Bay Area fog, he proceeded to walk Matt Chapman, loading the bases with no outs.

The Giants are not always prepared to capitalize on these situations. You might go so far as to say that they’re rarely prepared to capitalize on these situations.

But they capitalized on this situation.

On the very next pitch, Rafael Devers looked nothing like his old self, as he barely made contact on a get-it-in fastball, ever so lightly dusting a foul tip into Dalton Rushing’s glove.

But on the pitch after that, Devers looked very much like his old self, dipping below the zone to grab a sinker and still smacking it loudly into the outfield, scoring a run.

The Giants had achieved the rare act of capitalizing, and had a rarer act left in their back pocket: adding on.

Casey Schmitt hit next and flew a ball into left field, scoring a run on a sacrifice fly which, it turns out, was the absolute best-case scenario for the Dodgers. Despite it being a fairly routine fly ball for Teoscar Hernández, center fielder Alex Call flew full speed after it, robbing his teammate of catch and instead gifting him a head-on collision. Miraculously, Call hung onto the ball. Even more miraculously, neither player was injured on the type of play that catches an entire stadium’s collective breath.

After the dust from that had settled, Jung Hoo Lee wisely seemed to predict that Yamamoto would be a little out of sorts, and so he jumped on a first pitch curveball that hung up in the zone, and toasted it into right field, scoring a third run.

Just like that, the Giants had put a three-spot on Yamamoto and forced 26 pitches out of him. The ref was counting to 10, and the star pitcher was wobbling his way back to his feet and falling against the ropes.

And then Yamamoto retired the next 10 batters he faced, quickly and with almost dismissive ease, and went around the lineup two full times before giving up another hit.

Things got entertaining when he did finally give up another hit, though. In the sixth inning, the Northern California rain started to come down in droves. But being the grandson of one adverse weather condition apparently gets you in with all adverse weather conditions, as Lee was utterly unbothered by the large amounts of water falling on his face, and again hit a single to right field, this time with two outs and nobody on, giving him his sixth multi-hit game in the last 10 contests.

Heliot Ramos followed and, I’m pleased to report, the swing that he found in Washington D.C. appears to have made the trip back to the West Coast, as he worked the count full before blasting a 108.5-mph single right back up the middle.

Which is where the fun — and pain — began.

Lee, who had a two-out jump, who knew that the wet baseball would be hard to throw, and who had watched for innings on end as none of his teammates could get a hit off of Yamamoto, decided to try to score.

From first.

On a single.

A hard-hit single that was directly to the center fielder.

More accurately, Héctor Borg took all of that into consideration, saw the speed at which Lee was flying at, and watched Call lazily get the ball back in, and decided what the hell, let’s get funky.

Funky indeed.

It didn’t work, but it was fun. And in Borg’s defense, it took a wonderfully-thrown relay by Alex Freeland and a perfect tag by Rushing to retire Lee, and I’d put the odds of that not happening as higher than the odds of Drew Gilbert getting a rain-soaked hit off of the second-best pitcher in the National League when they’re in a flow state that we sports mortals simply cannot relate to.

But Lee was out indeed, and in more than one sense of the word. He walked off the field gingerly, and was replaced two innings later by Jerar Encarnación. Thankfully, the Giants did not sound concerned about the injury, which Tony Vitello described as a banged-up right quad. Unfortunately, the Giants do not have a great track record with expressing a lack of concern in an injury. But that’s an issue for another day.

Yamamoto returned for the seventh inning and struck out Gilbert, Patrick Bailey, and Adames, in order, all looking, capping an exceptional night that had felt impossible just six innings earlier: seven frames, six hits, no extra-base hits, two walks, and seven strikeouts.

But the Giants had not only jumped on him early, but stacked more than half of their baserunners in one inning, using sequencing to get a few runs on the board. And now all that was left was to rely on the pitchers, and hope that they could teach Yamamoto about the glorious and dreadful (but today just glorious) art of The Caining.

It’s funny. When you watch sports with a rooting interest, you inherently see everything through the lens of your team. The old adage that hitters don’t hit home runs, but rather that pitchers throw them, is emphatically true when your team is pitching. And it’s a crock of manure when your team is at bat.

Such it is that when we think of a Caining — or a Webbing, to use the parlance of the youths — we associate it with the Giants hitters being feckless numbskulls incapable of the teensiest shred of offensive life. We never really frame it as a great pitcher showing off their talents at the Giants’ expense. But really, it’s both.

Enter Landen Roupp.

Roupp’s season has been a revelation, and with every start he inches a little further away from “encouraging start to the season” and a little closer to “wait a dang minute, this guy might be really, really good.” But he hadn’t faced a team like the Dodgers this year, and this felt like the test. And it felt like he knew it was a test, and was screaming the answer when he opened the game by striking out Shohei Ohtani, something he would do twice on the day.

It also felt like Roupp was yelling his answer when, after ceding a two-out first-inning walk to Freddie Freeman when Bailey chose not to challenge a pitch that probably was strike three, Roupp calmly took his spot on the mound, glared at the opposing hitter, and needed just two more pitches to end the inning.

But it was the third inning where Roupp really stated his top-of-the-rotation case, when he struck out Freeland swinging, then struck out Ohtani swinging, then struck out Kyle Tucker swinging. That’s a whole lot of hundreds of millions of left-handed dollars (a few even not deferred!) that Roupp mowed down easily, with both a demeanor and a talent that look more and more like Bumgarner with every passing day.

Yet while Roupp’s excellence was the main story of LA’s stuck-in-first offense, it was the fourth inning where the Caining really transpired. That’s the inning where the Dodgers and their fans shook their heads and questioned how this could happen to them, while Yamamoto sat somewhere on the bench wondering why his own teammates hate him so much.

Freeman opened the inning by drawing a walk. Hernández worked three balls before rolling over a pitch, hitting it softly into a fielder’s choice. Max Muncy walked. And then the play that briefly shifted momentum: Rushing took a 3-1 curveball, called for strike two. He challenged, and won by what could generously be described as an eyelash. Suddenly the bases were loaded, and there was just one out.

And then Roupp walked Kim, putting the Dodgers on the board and doing nothing to ease the danger of the situation. But after falling behind to Call 2-0, Roupp battled back and, thanks to an infield defense that lived up to its potential and paycheck, got a gorgeous inning-ending double play.

Roupp’s fifth inning was much cleaner, as he took down the side in order, sandwiching an Ohtani fly ball with Freeland and Tucker strikeouts. It was an outing that, true to the Bumgarner comparisons, was as steeped in grit as it was in talent. He needed a career-high 106 pitches to get through just five innings. He threw just 58 of those pitches for strikes. He walked five batters, including a run home.

But he gave up just one hit — a soft two-out line drive by Kim — and that one run was the only one he would allow.

Against the Dodgers.

Baseball enthusiasts and keen eyes alike will note that Roupp pitching five innings still left four innings unaccounted for, and the Giants were legally required to give those innings to the bullpen, which really added to the Caining/Webbing of the Yamamotoing. No Dodgers fan will sleep well tonight with the thought that the Giants bullpen preserved a lead for four innings, and, armed with that knowledge, you should sleep well tonight.

But Vitello pressed the right buttons, and, more importantly, the arms delivered.

Against an almost entirely left-handed lineup, Vitello turned to lefty killer/killed by righties southpaw Ryan Borucki for the sixth, and it was the perfect time to go in that direction. Borucki easily dismissed of three lefties — Freeman, Muncy, and Rushing — and did so with such comfort that you barely noticed that a righty (Hernández) snuck in there to bop a double that went nowhere (righties are now hitting 8-15 with four extra-base hits against Borucki this season).

Vitello stacked his lefties, turning to Matt Gage in the seventh, who got two quick outs before walking Freeland.

That brought up what was, at the time, the most intriguing bullpen decision by Vitello, and one that you rarely ever see. With his lefty reliever cruising, looking good, and having thrown just 14 pitches, and with a trio of left-handed hitters up next, the Giants skipper trudged out to the mound, took the ball, and brought in a different lefty. The oh-so-rare lefty-replacing-lefty.

But if you know anything about Erik Miller, it’s that no one on earth has proven as capable of getting Ohtani out, and so Vitello turned to his secret weapon. And in a cruel twist of fate, Ohtani hit a soft infield single to keep the inning going.

Just long enough for Tucker to strike out swinging.

Vitello’s decision to turn to Miller was unconventional, but it was both savvy and analytically sound. What happened in the ninth, however, was a bit more controversial.

After a smooth eighth — Miller retired two batters, and left one runner on for Keaton Winn, who absolutely obliterated pinch-hitter Will Smith, with a nasty sequence of sinkers and splitters — Vitello had a choice to make. I assumed it would be a four-out save opportunity for Winn, who has had perhaps the most electric stuff of anyone in the bullpen this year.

But no. Vitello turned to Ryan Walker. The same Walker who was fresh off a blown save in a similar opportunity. The same Walker who has flirted with disaster enough recently that you can hear — even through the TV — the reaction in the stands as the nerves kick in.

Arguably the biggest selling point of Vitello was his ability to manage players and get the most out of them. Bob Melvin lost his job because once the Giants started slumping they simply couldn’t stop, and that wasn’t just a team issue: it happened at the team level because it happened so frequently at the individual level.

That’s why Vitello is in San Francisco where, he admitted before the game, he finally stepped out to enjoy the local culture on Monday night.

I don’t want to give all the credit for good baseball plays to one of the few people in uniform who wasn’t making baseball plays, but I had to wonder: had Vitello’s motivational ways worked some magic on Walker?

He looked fantastic striking out pinch-hitter Andy Pages, who has been one of the best hitters in baseball this year, on just four pitches. Perhaps Vitello’s show of trust was helping him settle in.

He looked excellent getting Call to fly one out to left field, never falling behind in the count. Maybe Vitello, who has refused to name a closer publicly, has said the perfect things privately.

He looked dynamic striking out Freeland with an other-worldly sinker, then unleashed the roar of someone who felt like himself for the first time in a while. Like someone who has made no attempts to hide that they want to be the closer, and that they believe they should be the closer.

The buttons correctly pressed. A Caining on the other foot. Another data point suggesting Roupp is That Guy. Some timely hits. And a bullpen that maybe isn’t so bad, after all.

Most importantly, LA beaten. By a delightful 3-1 margin.

For my first recap at Lookout Landing, I signed up for a Tuesday Night Against the A’s, and Tuesday Night Against the A’s I got. The Mariners fell 5-2 on Tuesday night in what can only be described as a “tough one.”

The bats just never got going for the hometown nine against Jacob Lopez, who entered the day with an ERA north of six. He went 5.1 innings, allowing two runs on seven hits, despite only generating three whiffs in 35 swings. His first and only strikeout of the day came against J.P. Crawford in the sixth — the final hitter he faced on the evening.

Luis Castillo walked the first hitter off the game in Nick Kurtz, and it did, in fact, haunt. Kurtz got a massive jump to steal second base and move into scoring position. Then, with two outs in the inning, Tyler Soderstrom took advantage of a slider left in the middle of the plate, lacing it into the right field corner for an RBI double to make it 1-0.

“I always say the leadoff walk is like a free base, because for me it’s a 70-75% chance they’re going to score,” Castillo said. “They made me battle, and unfortunately, the run scored. But it was really important to get back to myself, attack with first pitch strikes, attack every batter and get ahead, and we were able to do that.”

Castillo still gave up some hard contact, but he settled in and seemed to go as his slider did, saying himself that the pitch felt better tonight. He generated eight whiffs with that pitch alone, and 14 in total. He struck out six — five of them were the first batters he retired. The A’s had trouble stringing together hits against him to do any damage.

The Mariners got the first couple of hitters on in the third, with Rob Refsnyder and Cal Raleigh singling. A Julio Rodríguez flyout was able to advance Refsnyder to third, setting up a Josh Naylor sacrifice fly to tie the game up at one.

Castillo’s night was over after five innings, allowing two runs on five hits. The only other run allowed came on a solo shot to right by Jeff McNeil in the fourth. Though they weren’t able to do much tackling on in the early going, the A’s were pesky as usual at the plate, managing to spoil many of Castillo’s potential put-away pitches.

“The pitches were were I wanted them to be, but when you have an aggressive team like that that makes a lot of contact, they like to swing,” Castillo said. “But for me, what I took from that is those pitches they fouled off were exactly where I wanted them to be. Sometimes those are fouls, and sometimes they go for pop ups or roll outs, but for me, I knew those pitches were where I wanted.”

Raleigh showed another flash that he may be beginning to heat up, depositing a solo shot of his own into the ‘Pen — his fourth of the year — to once again tie the game at two. It was his second homer in as many days.

Every time the A’s jumped out in front, the Mariners had an answer. Well, until the third time. Then they didn’t.

Eduard Bazardo entered in the sixth inning to make his 11th appearance on the season. Back-to-back doubles from Soderstrom and Jacob Wilson to lead off the inning gave the A’s the lead right back, and this time they wouldn’t relinquish it. Bazardo would take the first regular season loss of his career.

On the brighter side of things, Mitch Garver continued to flex his ABS challenge muscles behind the plate. He notched three more successful challenges for his pitchers on Tuesday, but also lost his first appeal of the season, in the words of Aaron Goldsmith on the broadcast: “by the width of a credit card.” It registered on ABS as missing by less than a tenth of an inch.

The A’s would tack on in both the seventh and ninth, with a Shea Langeliers solo homer and a Wilson RBI single, respectively.

The Mariners failed to mount a late rally and went down quiet in the ninth. They’ll return to T-Mobile Park tomorrow afternoon for a Wednesday matinee, looking to preserve a game from the series before heading to St. Louis.

PHOENIX — Well, maybe Munetaka Murakami won’t have a difficult time making that transition from Japan to Major League Baseball after all.

In the meantime, is he ever making a whole lot of teams look foolish for ignoring him in free agency.

Murakami made more history Tuesday night by homering for the fourth consecutive game in the Chicago White Sox’s 11-5 rout over the Arizona Diamondbacks — a 434-foot shot —going where no Japanese player has ever gone before.

He is not only the first Japanese-born player to hit nine homers in his first 23 games, but also the first player since at least 1900 to produce nine homers and more than 20 walks in the first 23 games of a career.

The only Japanese players who have ever homered in four consecutive games at any juncture in their career are three-time MVP Shohei Ohtani of the Los Angeles Dodgers and Chicago Cubs All-Star outfielder Seiya Suzuki.

MUNETAKA MURAKAMI HOMERS FOR A 4TH STRAIGHT GAME! pic.twitter.com/68FsSqpqi1

— MLB (@MLB) April 22, 2026

Murakami, 26, is looking just like the dude who was Nippon Professional Baseball’s premier slugger, breaking the legendary Sadaharu Oh’s single-season home run record with 56 homers as a 22-year-old, and winning two MVP awards.

Sure, the season is just three weeks old, but the strikeouts and swing-and-miss rates that spiked since his historic 2022 season, with teams concerned whether he’d make enough contact to even provide power, now are regretting that they allowed the White Sox to virtually steal Murakami with a modest two-year, $34 million contract.

Murakami is soft-spoken and humble about his early heroics, saying he simply is happy that he’s contributing, but his bat is doing a whole lot of talking.

Murakami is hitting .234 with nine homers — just one behind MLB leader Yordan Alvarez of the Houston Astros — with 17 RBI and a .978 OPS. He has struck out 33 times in 97 plate appearances, but he has also walked 22 times, giving him a .398 on-base percentage.

He is everything the White Sox could have imagined, and much more.

After a truly insane nine innings of baseball, the White Sox (9-14) won their second game in a row, taking the first game of the series against the Diamondbacks (13-10), 11-5. The South Side bats were on fire, the pitching was solid, and the defense was making diving plays all over the place — it would probably be easier if I told you what didn’t happen. It’s been a minute since I was this excited watching the Chicago White Sox play baseball, so bear with me as I am still slightly in shock.

Outhitting the D-backs 14-8, the Good Guys smashed six of those for extra bases: a double, triple, and four home runs. Although they exploded for 11 runs, they did still manage to go 2-for-12 with runners in scoring position and left nine on base, but we’re not talking about that right now. Nearly everyone got a hit, except for Everson Pereira and Reese McGuire, who still managed to drive in at least one run. There was so much offensive production from this team tonight that half of the lineup (five batters) produced multi-hit games.

Sean Burke mostly cruised through his start and was able to maintain control, though the same couldn’t be said for righthander Merrill Kelly. The Good Guys nearly batted through the order in the top of the first, and they wasted no time pouring runs on Kelly and the Diamondbacks, dropping a four-spot to give Burke plenty of cushion before he even threw a pitch. The Sox immediately caused trouble to start the game with consecutive base hits from Andrew Benintendi and Munetaka Murakami, and Miguel Vargas walked to load the bases. Keeping his momentum up from Sunday after mashing a long ball, Colson Montgomery squared one up and ripped a two-run double to center to give the South Siders a two-run lead, 2-0. They tacked on two more after a sacrifice fly from Everson Pereira, and Sam Antonacci drove in his first major league run with an RBI triple to make it 4-0, Good Guys.

If you thought the first inning was fun, the second was even better. Murakami continued to showcase his prowess at the plate and kicked off a two-out rally by smashing his fourth home run in as many games, joining some solid company as just the third Japanese-born player ever to homer four games in a row. Have a freaking week, Mune:

To really pour salt into Kelly’s gaping wound, Vargas followed up Mune’s moonshot with a line drive homer to left, and Montgomery clobbered a 440-foot tank to center to give the Sox a seven-run lead.

BACK.

TO BACK.

TO-BACK!

With seven runs to work with, Burke simply just had to lock in and throw strikes, and he pretty much did just that. It also helped that the South Siders added an eighth run in the top of the fifth on a Reese McGuire sacrifice fly. Burke had gotten into some hot water in the bottom of the first, but cleaned up after himself. Ketel Marte drove a leadoff base hit, making it to second a few moments later on a wild pitch to get into scoring position. A swinging bunt pulled Burke over to the first base line, and he was able to tag the runner and get the double play at the plate to end the inning as Marte was trying to sneak a run in.

Burke was otherwise scoreless through three and was efficient overall in his six innings. Geraldo Perdomo tripled to begin the fourth and subsequently scored on an RBI ground out for Arizona’s first run of the game. Just two runs allowed on five hits — including a solo home run from Alek Thomas in the fifth — and one walk while striking out three. Burke has now lowered his ERA from 4.43 to 4.10.

To help Burke and the pitching staff out, the defense was also excellent and definitely helped keep some Arizona runs from scoring, especially as the ninth inning got a little dicey. Antonacci had made a nice sliding catch out in left, and Pereira was all over the place, laying out twice for two different balls to rob a couple of base hits, making the catches flawlessly. This play, especially in the seventh, was key to shutting down any momentum that the Diamondbacks were building up, as this almost surely would have been a triple had Pereira not caught it:

Out of the bullpen, Lucas Sims tossed a hitless inning thanks to Pereira bailing him out, as the two baserunners reached base on balls, though he did strike out one. For the final two innings, righthander Osvaldo Bido made his first appearance in a White Sox uniform, picked up on waivers after being designated for assignment by the Atlanta Braves last week. Bido walked two batters but was otherwise decent in the eighth, and he fortunately didn’t have to worry too much about the lead since the South Siders tagged on three more runs in the ninth.

After checking his first MLB RBI off the list earlier in the game, Antonacci decided to cross off his first major league homer: an inside-the-park home run. The rookie ripped a ball down the left field line that ended up sort of hitting the ball boy, but Lourdes Gurriel Jr. gave up on the play, likely thinking that it would be called a ground-rule double or interference. Who knows.

Since the top of the inning was weird, the bottom half had to follow suit. Arizona started to rally, and it seemed like the game wasn’t ever going to end. Will Venable clearly didn’t want to go to the bullpen for a couple of outs with a nine-run lead, and I can not blame him for that, but Bido was struggling to throw strikes, and when he did, the D-backs were really starting to catch up to him. After two base hits, he gave up a garbage-time three-run bomb to Ildemaro Vargas, who extended his hitting streak to 19, right in the nick of time. Though Bido walked a couple more batters, he eventually was able to get out of it to close out the game, officially crediting Burke with his first win of the season.

New jerseys of new, losing streaks of old. One was introduced, and another stayed the same on Tuesday night in Mizzou baseball’s 11-4 loss against SIUE at Taylor Stadium. After two straight SEC series, which have now accumulated to two sweeps and seven straight losses, Mizzou’s offensive struggles reached their compounding point, accumulating just five hits against the Cougars.

The Tigers started well from the plate, with a lead-off homer from Blaize Ward, his second over the last four games and of his freshman season as a Tiger. Missouri bats continued to slowly chip away at SIUE pitching, as catcher Juliomar Campos’ RBI double and an infield RBI single by Eric Maisonet gave the two Puerto Ricans with an RBI apiece and a 3-0 Missouri lead by the bottom of the fourth.

The main difference between SIUE and Mizzou? The Cougars’ offensive production wasn’t slow but surely, and it wasn’t spread out; it was condensed to just two innings of pure offensive devastation. A three-and-eight run slot in the sixth and eighth innings was too much to overcome for Kerrick Jackson’s squad, on a night where the debut of brand-new COMO jerseys and free admission aimed to set a more positive evening tone for the Tigers.

The visitors did exactly that from the sixth inning onward, scoring 10 runs against the Tigers’ bullpen, to the one run in response by Mizzou, which came on a Kam Durnin sac fly in the bottom of the sixth.

“[From an offensive standpoint] just not consistent and focused in what their approach needed to be,” Jackson said. “We had flashes and had a couple of guys that were consistent on the day with how they went about their business. But again, just getting anxious. The worst thing for us was Blaize hitting a home run in the first, and the reason why that was the worst is that that’s his second home run of the year. Everybody else after that thought I should hit a home run too.”

THE INFAMOUS EIGHTH

After the Cougars scrapped their way back from a 3-0 deficit, Kam Durnin’s sacrifice fly gave the Tigers a one-run lead. In the space of an inning, two in-game replays, and what felt like a slow-motion collapse, SIUE turned a one‑run deficit into an 11–4 lead before the Tigers recorded the third out.

An error on a routine grounder by Ward at second base resulted in Gage Franck reaching first. The inning grew more complicated from there for Tigers reliever Juan Villarreal, who didn’t end up earning any earned runs due to the error by Ward.

A passed ball moved Franck up, a balk pushed him to third, and suddenly, Juan Villarreal was working with a runner ninety feet away and no real margin for error. He walked Joshua Heyder, and SIUE brought the game even when Ethan Willoughby lifted a sacrifice fly to right.

Missouri still had a chance to settle things, but the Cougars kept stacking up runs. Mack Mitchell jumped ahead in the count against Villarreal and turned a 3–0 pitch into a two‑run homer that traveled well over the left field fence.

Brenden Fry followed with a double to right‑center, prompting a move to the bullpen, but the momentum didn’t shift. A pitching change by Jackson led to PJ Green didn’t stop pinch hitter Cooper Eggert from attacking the first pitch he saw and sent another two‑run shot out to right.

Even after the opening onslaught, Missouri couldn’t slow the inning down. A walk and a wild pitch set up another run when Daniel Gierer punched a single through the left side. Another wild pitch moved Gierer up a base, and a throwing error on a comebacker to Green brought in yet another unearned run.

By the time the Tigers finally recorded the third out, SIUE had turned a one‑run game into an 11–4 lead, fueled by a mix of hard contact, free bases, and defensive mistakes. A bullpen game for the Tigers rotation ultimately led to seven total pitchers being used, starting with Dane Bjorn and ending with a very sudden and devastating end in the infamous eighth.

“Guys come in and throw strikes, but you also need to execute pitches,” Jackson said. [SIUE] was aggressive. Their ball club was aggressive, and we threw pitches in the zone, and they attacked them. Hopefully, if anything, our guys are watching that thinking to swing the bat. If a guy’s coming in, he’s coming in to throw strikes, and if he’s gonna throw strikes, then you could be on time, that’s what they were.”

THE MENTAL ERRORS

What was going wrong for the Mizzou offense and defense was compounded by mental mistakes that drove the point home of Tuesday evening being one to forget for the Tigers. Two players, Isaiah Frost and Juliomar Campos, were sent to the bench mid-game by Jackson. Jamal George replaced Campos to begin the fourth, and Donovan Jordan replaced Frost to begin the ninth.

The common theme? Errors on the base-paths. After a Tyler Macon walk occurred in the bottom half of the second, Campos inexplicably wandered too far off of second base and was caught in between the baselines between third and second, thrown out at third, by Jose Fichera behind the plate.

Frost, after reaching base on a hit-by-pitch in the eighth, was doubled off at first base following a line drive hit by Eric Maisonet. Jackson was critical of both of these moments post-game when I asked about the thought process behind the two substitutions.

“[The subsitutions] were based on stupidity.” Jackson said. “You can’t just take off running when you’re Campos in a situation where we just drew a two out walk, where were you going? Isaiah Frost, we talk all the time about when a line drive is hit, you go back on a line drive. This is the second time that as a fifth year senior, he’s looked to advance, and you just can’t do bad things on the baseball field, and then think that you’re still going to have the opportunity to be out there. If you’re going to do that, then just come out and let me put somebody who is hopefully is a little bit more mentally locked in.”

UP NEXT

Missouri turns its attention back to Southeastern Conference play later this week. The Tigers stay home to open a three‑game series against No. 24 Arkansas on Thursday night at Taylor Stadium, with first pitch set for 7 p.m. The matchup begins another stretch of conference play where Mizzou will look to steady its bullpen and bounce back from its seven-game losing streak.

In the words of Jack Sommers, regression is a harsh mistress. And the past 2 games the Dbacks have played, there couldn’t have possibly been more regression. This game seemed like a game where absolutely nothing went the Dbacks way and everything the White Sox’s way. From baseballs getting stuck in Nolan Arrenado’s mitt, to inside the park home runs due to golden glover interference. The Dbacks could absolutely not catch a break in this game.

The starting rotation may have been a storyline of the early season, but the Dbacks have now allowed 12 runs in the previous 2 first innings. Merrill Kelly flat out stunk in this one allowing 4 ER in the first inning and 3 consecutive home runs to put the Dbacks into a 7 run deficit almost immediately.

The offense was able to come up with 5 runs tonight, however they should’ve come up with a lot more. Dbacks had leadoff hitters on base 6 of the 9 innings tonight, a 45.5% hard hit percentage and an xBA of .277. The White Sox defense seemed to be positioned perfectly all night to take hits away from the Arizona offense. It felt like almost every single inning there would be some base traffic followed by a diving catch in the outfield or a snared line drive by a White Sox infielder. Certainly a frustrating loss for the fans and the team, however with slightly better luck the score could’ve certainly been much closer.

About the only positive from tonight’s game may have been the the bullpen did a good job of holding the White Sox in check. They had to really shoulder the load tonight because of Kelly’s ineffectiveness, and they did a pretty good job of doing just that silencing the White Sox offense to mostly singles the rest of the game.

In addition, Ildemaro Vargas continued his hitting streak in this one with a 3-run home run in the 9^th inning. This marks the 16^th straight game he has hit safely in to begin the season. What an accomplishment!

As if this game wasn’t already lopsided enough against the Dbacks favor due to batted ball luck, things really got ridiculous in the 9^th inning when a ball was hit down the 3^rd base line that was clearly interfered with by the golden glover and the umpire team ruled that the play wasn’t reviewable despite the challenge by Torey Lovullo. This was the second time in the past 3 games a golden glover interfered with a ball in play. The official scoring came back as an inside the park home run. Clearly one of the most bizarre plays you will see and a clear head scratcher as to why that play wasn’t reviewable. Home plate umpire Doug Eddings had already had himself a game by not allowing several players to challenge ball strike calls, and then he didn’t allow Torey to challenge the clearly blown call by the 3^rd base ump.

Obviously none of the above matters a whole lot when your starting pitcher allows 7 runs in the first 2 innings, however nothing much was going the Dbacks way tonight. There is still time to salvage this series to maintain their series winning streak, however it doesn’t appear as thought the White Sox are going to just roll over and just let them take it. The Dbacks are going to have to do a better job this season of playing when they have expectations on them to win, something this team has struggled with in previous seasons.

A’s 5, Mariners 2

Good: Cal Raleigh, +.25 WPA

Bad: J.P. Crawford, Eduard Bazardo, -.13 WPA

Game Thread Comment of the Day:

The Mets fans who showed up to Citi Field on Tuesday night were none too happy when they walked out of the Queens ballpark, and they voiced their frustration throughout a disastrous night.

The Mets lost to the Twins 5-3 after holding a three-run lead over the Twins for their 12th straight loss. 

Mets reliever Austin Warren getting MVP chants from the Mets crowd after Devin Williams gave up the lead pic.twitter.com/Ha1gGTorGr

— Jomboy Media (@JomboyMedia) April 22, 2026

After Devin Williams imploded in the ninth and allowed the go-ahead runs to score, the Mets called in Austin Warren to try and clean up the mess.

After he struck out his second batter of the inning, Mets fans began sarcastically chanting “M-V-P” at the right-hander. 

The small but vocal group of Mets fans that had started the tongue-in-cheek chant summed up the frustration of Mets fans on Tuesday night. 

Warren did manage to end the pain by getting the last out of the inning and capping the damage to just a 5-3 deficit. 

Video from inside the stadium showed Citi Field nearly empty by the time the final out was recorded. 

And the fans that did remain all the way until the end were loudly booing as the Mets left the field. 

The Mets’ 12-game losing streak is the longest the franchise has had since the team lost 12 straight back in 2002. 

“We’re all very aware of it,” Francisco Lindor told reporters after the latest defeat. “But at the end of the day, every day is new. We have to come out and bring it. It’s one of those where you know what’s happening and everybody has the urgency of winning and trying to do their best. You just got to learn from it and move on.”

Mendoza told reporters afterward that “it sucks” after the loss. 

The Mets have two more games against the Twins before they begin a three-game series against the Rockies in Queens.

This time, the boos were reserved for him. They followed Devin Williams as he walked off the field and toward the Mets dugout, his latest implosion scattered around the bases and evident on the scoreboard.

There were mock cheers — “MVP” and “Aus-tin War-ren” chants — when Austin Warren entered in the ninth inning after Williams was pulled and proceeded to record three consecutive strikeouts.

Because for the third consecutive appearance, Williams, handed $51 million and the Mets closer role in the offseason to prove his brutal year in The Bronx was an anomaly, delivered a disaster.

This time, in the 5-3 loss to the Twins on Tuesday that marked a 12th consecutive Mets defeat, he allowed the final two runs on one hit and three walks, bringing his ERA to 9.95 this season.

He entered a tie game and failed to record an out, adding another chapter to the Mets bullpen woes this month.

“I felt a little out of sync mechanically,” Williams said. “Couldn’t really land my changeup for strikes, so it was tough to try and just beat guys with just the fastball.”

Williams entered play with a career ERA of 4.95 in March and April, and around this time last year, he was demoted from the Yankees closer role they’d just acquired him for in the first place.

It didn’t take long for those issues to appear again with the Mets, as he allowed a grand slam on April 15 against the Dodgers and then blew the save Sunday against the Cubs.

And against the Twins, Williams struggled with command. Three of his five batters had three-ball counts. He struggled with the challenge of being a one-dimensional pitcher when his signature “Airbender” change kept missing the zone.

He walked Josh Bell on four pitchers. He walked Ryan Jeffers. Mark Vientos couldn’t record a force out on a sacrifice bunt, which loaded the bases. Then, Luke Keaschall singled to left and Matt Wallner walked, and the Mets lost any chance to snap their lengthy skid — their longest since 2002 — in the bottom of the frame.

“Once you start walking people,” manager Carlos Mendoza said, “you’re in dangerous territory there.”

Instead, Warren mockingly became the star of the ninth inning. He was the one who entered and stranded the bases loaded.

This was the risk when the Mets signed Williams. There was always the danger that his struggles with the Yankees last season weren’t a fluke.

Those concerns have only continued to reappear. And Tuesday was just the latest instance.

SAN FRANCISCO –– Shohei Ohtani saved his on-base streak with an infield single in the seventh inning on Tuesday night.

But in the Dodgers’ 3-1 loss to the San Francisco Giants, it wasn’t enough to spur a late comeback.

By the time Ohtani came up for his final at-bat in Tuesday’s series-opener at Oracle Park, it had been a long night for both himself and his team.

The Dodgers had fallen behind early with a comedy of errors in a three-run first inning. They had barely threatened offensively outside of a four-walk rally in the fourth.

Ohtani himself was hitless at that point, having struck out his first two times up before hitting a harmless flyout in the fifth inning.

But then, for a fleeting moment, he gave the club renewed life.

After Alex Freeland had drawn a two-out walk in the at-bat before him, Ohtani made some club history with his ground ball to shortstop, flying down the line to beat out a bang-bang play at first.

With that, Ohtani had his on-base streak to 53 games dating back to last year –– tying him with Shawn Green for the longest on-base streak in the Dodgers’ Los Angeles era (Green reached safely in 53 consecutive games during the 2000 season), and moving him five back of Duke Snider for the franchise’s all-time mark (which Snider set back in Brooklyn in 1954).

“It speaks to his talent,” manager Dave Roberts said of the four-time MVP, who has kept the run going despite an 11-for-43 grind at the plate over his last 11 games. “He’s really not hit his stride yet. He’s really not comfortable with his swing. It just shows that he’s an impact player. He’s getting on base.”

Unfortunately for the Dodgers (16-7), they couldn’t capitalize in a lackluster offensive performance, en route to suffering their third loss in the last four games.

Even before then, the team had wasted key chances –– none bigger than the inning-ending double-play that Alex Call grounded into with the bases loaded in the fourth.

Things only got worse after Ohtani’s infield hit put two aboard in the seventh. 

Kyle Tucker struck out to extinguish that threat. The Dodgers left another runner stranded on second in the eighth. And overall, they finished a three-hit, seven-walk night with eight baserunners squandered and 0-for-5 mark with runners in scoring position. 

“I think we took good at-bats overall, we grinded them out,” Call said. “Ultimately, we just didn’t get the big hit when we needed it.”

Forcing Ohtani’s historic moment to come in defeat.

What it means

Yet again, the Dodgers didn’t have to worry about their opening at closer in the wake of Edwin Díaz’s injury.

After blowing out the Rockies in their first game without their $69 million offseason signing, Tuesday’s loss also came without a save opportunity.

Despite that, the team’s ninth-inning plans remained a topic of conversation prior to first pitch.

Roberts reiterated that the club will go closer-by-committee for now, with several relievers in the mix for save opportunities. But when he was pressed on who he thinks will get the most, he finally relented.

“I would say probably Tanner Scott, if I had to guess,” he said.

That might send a shiver down some Dodger fans’ spines, after Scott converted only 23 of 33 save opportunities as the club’s primary closer last year.

However, the left-hander has gotten off to a better start this year, lowering his ERA to 0.93 on Tuesday by pitching a scoreless inning in the eighth.

Who’s hot

Yoshinobu Yamamoto, who responded to the three-run first inning with some of his most dominant pitching this season.

After the Giants took their 3-0 lead –– we’ll get to how they did so in a minute –– Yamamoto didn’t allow another run in a seven-inning, 101-pitch outing. He finished with seven strikeouts, including three in a row to punctuate his night in the seventh. He retired 19 of his final 22 batters, leaving his ERA at 2.48 through five starts this year.

“I think it shows why he’s the staff ace,” Roberts said. “For him to manage the pitch count, give up three runs and then go seven innings and give us a chance to win the game, says a lot about him.”

Who’s not

The Dodgers’ defense, especially in Tuesday’s first inning.

The three-run frame started with an error from shortstop Hyeseong Kim, who airmailed a throw into the dugout to put Yamamoto under immediate stress. It was bookended by a flare to right field Kyle Tucker couldn’t get to. 

But the worst moment came on a fly ball in between.

With the bases loaded, and one run already across in the inning, Call and Teoscar Hernández collided in left-center field, miscommunicating on what should’ve been a routine play.

Hernández initially erred in left, breaking back on a ball that wound up falling well in front of him. Then, as he and Call converged, neither heard the other trying to call to make the play. It resulted in a violent collision that Call got the worst of. And though he managed to hang on to the catch, he had no chance to hold the runner at third in what resulted in a sacrifice fly. 

“Certainly not the way you want to start the series,” Robert said.

Up next

Shohei Ohtani (2-0, 0.50 ERA) will take the mound for the Dodgers as they continue their series against the Giants on Wednesday. And this time, he will be back in the batting order as designated hitter –– though Roberts took a long pause before confirming that in his pregame address Tuesday.

Roberts said the team will still look for opportunities where they have Ohtani only pitch on his start days, as they did last week while he was nursing a shoulder bruise.”It takes a little bit of a toll,” Roberts said of the days Ohtani plays both ways. “He certainly has managed it really well, but if it makes sense, I’ll have that conversation with him.”

For Wednesday, however, Roberts said he felt good with Ohtani hitting and pitching, even with a day game looming on Thursday.

Four games ago, the Dodgers were on a pace to win 128 games. They would win the National League West by, what, 20 or 30 games?

Today, for the first time this season, the Dodgers do not own sole possession of first place in the NL West.

They are tied for first with their rivals: the San Diego Padres.

On a cold and intermittently rainy night in San Francisco, the Dodgers’ bats were cold, and most productive when not used. In a 3-1 loss to the Giants, the Dodgers scored their only run by bunching four walks in one hitless inning.

In the first inning, the Giants tagged Yoshinobu Yamamoto for three runs before he had recorded the second out. Yamamoto righted himself by retiring the next 11 batters he faced, but the Dodgers lost for the third time in four games.

The shine on the Dodgers’ most historic rivalry has faded, right along with the Giants. San Francisco has posted one winning record in the last nine seasons, and the chants of “Let’s Go Dodgers!” at Oracle Park were more spirited than the chants of “Beat L.A.!” until the last couple of innings.

Read more:Who's the Dodgers closer? Tanner Scott ... maybe

The Dodgers collected three hits, never more than one in an inning. They had a prime chance to score in the seventh, when Alex Freeland walked and Shohei Ohtani singled to put the would-be tying runs on base with two out.

Kyle Tucker then struck out, for the third consecutive at-bat.

In 28 at-bats this season with runners in scoring position, Tucker is batting .214, with no extra-base hits.

The walk did extend Ohtani’s on-base streak to 53 games, tying Shawn Green for the longest in Los Angeles Dodgers history. The franchise record: 58, by Hall of Famer Duke Snider for the 1954 Brooklyn Dodgers.

Yamamoto finished his evening’s work by striking out the side. He completed seven innings for the second consecutive start, something he did not accomplish until September last season.

He was succeeded on the mound by Tanner Scott, whom manager Dave Roberts had said before the game might be the first choice in a save situation. In this situation, with the heart of the Giants’ order due up in the eighth inning and two left-handed hitters included, Roberts summoned the left-handed Scott.

Scott worked a scoreless inning, lowering his earned-run average to 0.93.

Read more:Dodgers Dugout: The first problem of the season has arrived

The first inning was ugly. The first batter singled, then advanced to second base on a throwing error by shortstop Hyeseong Kim. The second batter singled, the third batter walked, and the fourth batter singled home a run.

Casey Schmitt then hit a very catchable fly ball to left-center field, where left fielder Teoscar Hernández and center fielder Alex Call tried to catch it. Call did, but he slammed into Hernandez and tumbled to the ground. He did get up in time to return the ball to the infield, but the Giants scored a run on what was scored as a sacrifice fly, then another run on a dying fly ball that dropped just in front of Tucker for a single.

That put the Giants up 3-0 with one out, marking the first time in five starts this season that Yamamoto had given up more than two runs in a game. The next two outs were long outs, one to the warning track and one almost as far, balls that might have carried for extra-base hits on a warmer night. After throwing 26 pitches in that first inning, Yamamoto threw 28 over the next three.

In all, Yamamoto gave up six hits over seven innings, striking out seven. All of his first five starts have been quality starts; no other major league pitcher has more than four.

Sign up for more Dodgers news with Dodgers Dugout. Delivered at the start of each series.

This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.