Category: MLB

The eighth inning of Thursday’s loss to the Washington Nationals summed up the stunning, collective disintegration of the 2026 New York Mets.

On a day when enough had gone right that the Mets had a one-run lead and their three back-end relievers available to hold it, one of them faltered yet again.

This time, it was Luke Weaver, who surrendered a two-run, go-ahead homer to Nationals shortstop CJ Abrams that put the Mets down a run.

Still, trailing by a run in the bottom of the eighth, the Mets received a gift: The Nationals once again decided to pitch to Juan Soto. He rewarded their generosity with a ringing double high off the center field wall that put the tying run in scoring position with no one out and the No. 3, 4, and 5 hitters in their lineup coming up. The tide was turning.

Then it went back out: Austin Slater grounded out. Mark Vientos lined out. Tyrone Taylor lined out. The chance slid away and so did another game. The Mets lost another series. They will have the worst record in baseball on the first of May.

“Not good enough, obviously. Not a secret,” manager Carlos Mendoza said. “That’s not gonna do it. We’ve gotta start winning series. That’s not good enough.”

As the Mets suffered through a 12-game losing streak, then continued to sputter after it ended, two other struggling teams in major markets fired their managers. Mendoza’s future has been a topic of whispered conversations around the industry and on-screen conversations beamed around the country.

But neither Steve Cohen nor David Stearns nor any players have pointed to Mendoza’s leadership as a problem in recent weeks. If anything, Cohen and Stearns have indicated a desire to be patient, and an understanding that if change is needed, Mendoza is not the only place to make it.

As of late Thursday afternoon, as reporters filed into the Mets clubhouse where players solemnly packed bags for Anaheim, no indications surfaced that a change was coming. Indeed, that eighth inning – set up in part by the run that scored after Mendoza asked MJ Melendez to bunt against a lefty in the sixth despite Melendez homering earlier against a righty – made another argument that the Mets' problems are more structural than managerial.

For example: The man who stepped to bat after Soto doubled was Slater, the second-latest right-handed hitter added to the Mets dilapidated roster this week, pinch-hitting for the lefty Melendez. The Mets added Slater to their roster earlier this week after he struggled in early-season duty with the Marlins. In his second at-bat in the last week, and second ever as a Met, Slater grounded out to shortstop.

Then came Vientos, hitting cleanup because someone had to do it. Luis Robert Jr. hit the injured list, where fellow candidates Francisco Lindor and Jorge Polanco are also currently at. The day game after the night game was Francisco Alvarez’s day off. In fairness to Vientos, he had come through with a go-ahead hit two innings earlier. But this time, he lined out to second. Vientos is hitting .236 with a .638 OPS this season. League average is .242 and .714.

The Mets’ last chance was Taylor, also picked for platoon advantage, but by no means a part of this team’s initial vision for the heart of its order. Taylor hit the ball well but lined out to left field. Soto never moved. The Mets are similarly stuck.

So far, Stearns has been as patient with his lineup as he has been with his manager. In giving Tommy Pham a shot, then trying Slater instead, and cycling recently acquired infielder Eric Wagaman onto the roster to replace Robert on Thursday, Stearns has only made moves when forced to do so around the margins. Depending on how the Mets play over the next few weeks, his relative patience will look either admirable or unconscionable.

He and the Mets did make another move for a hitter Thursday, claiming veteran infielder Andy Ibáñez off waivers from the Athletics. He can play second, third, and first and has also played some major league games in the outfield in parts of six big league seasons. He has 28 career homers and a .688 career OPS.

Exactly how they will use him remains to be seen, and he is hardly the only player on the roster whose path to contributing is not clear. David Peterson and Sean Manaea, both of whom struggled in the Mets’ 14-2 loss to the Nationals Wednesday night, are also in sustained limbo.

The Mets’ willingness to give both repeated chances to rediscover their old form made sense in the first few weeks of the season, just as it did with Kodai Senga. The sample was small and the urgency less great.

But Peterson has not missed enough bats and Manaea’s stuff has not been explosive enough to give him any margin for error. And as the sample has grown, the urgency has, too.

The Mets placed Senga on the injured list with lumbar spine inflammation this week, the most comfortable answer to the question of how to remove the struggling veteran from the rotation without giving him away.

Manaea is being paid $25 million this year. Even for Cohen, that is a lot of money to pay someone cut in May. Plus, Manaea at his best was a crucial part of the Mets rotation that somehow carried them to the National League Championship Series in 2024.

But the Mets are also through churning through middle relief options these days: Reserving a spot for a struggling starter-turned-long-man in Manaea means losing one that could be used for the kind of helpful short reliever the Mets need. Peterson appeared to be a reliable long reliever during his seven innings of relief work over two outings last week. But the Mets already have a reliable long reliever in Tobias Myers. Traditionally constructed teams do not usually carry two.

And yet, even with all those shortcomings, the Mets still found themselves six outs away from a series win Thursday afternoon before these 2026 symptoms surfaced again.

“It just feels like there’s a little bit of a culture that’s just adapted to it unintentionally. It’s just how winning and losing goes,” Weaver said. “… Sleep is lost. Your mind wanders. You just kind of get into a fixation you don’t really need to be in. I think the answers are kind of in those words: It’s simplifying the process and maybe doing less. Maybe it’s less reps. Maybe it’s more about just enjoying why you do this for a living, trying to find your inner kid and the joy of why you play the game.”

Some things are improving. 23-year-old Carson Benge, for example, seems to be learning how to contribute in the majors the way he did in the minors early in his career. Mets hitting coaches advised Benge to close his stance a bit and the change seems to be working. The rookie is 8 for his last 24 in his last seven games.

“I feel like I can get in [swing] positions that would take me longer if I was more open," Benge said. “So it just kind of cuts down time.”

And Thursday’s starter Freddy Peralta, who had only finished the sixth inning once in his first six Mets starts, found a way to push through the mental block he admitted had been forming around that frame.

“One thing I know for sure is we are all preparing the right way here,” Peralta said after allowing one earned run in six innings Thursday. “… Unfortunately, things are not going our way. But I want to say that we are preparing to win some games and we are trying hard.”

Maybe that cloud of pressure Weaver admitted has settled in over the Mets can only be vanquished with drastic action. Maybe, and maybe soon, Cohen and/or Stearns will decide that firing Mendoza is their best chance to jettison it. Maybe a roster shakeup of some kind, perhaps via trade, will feel more likely to help. For now, they are not changing anything and will begin May in a state of prolonged crisis. Nothing has changed for their Mets, either.

The Mets have claimed Andy Ibáñez, a 33-year-old infielder who was recently designated for assignment, off waivers from the A’s. In very limited major league playing time this season, Ibáñez hit .118/.167/.118 with a -24 wRC+ to start this season.

Before this season, Ibáñez had spent parts of the previous five seasons in the big leagues with the Rangers and Tigers. In total, he hit .254/.305/.389 with 28 home runs, 10 stolen bases, and a 92 wRC+ in 1,220 plate appearances over that span.

A right-handed hitter, Ibáñez is out of options, and whether the Mets add him to their active roster or attempt to send him to Syracuse remains to be seen. The vast majority of his major league innings have come at second and third base, positions that are occupied by everyday players Marcus Semien and Bo Bichette, respectively. At the moment, the Mets’ lone backup infielder on the big league roster is Eric Wagaman, who was called up earlier today. He has options remaining and could be sent to Triple-A Syracuse.

Albert Pujols sees only one clear way for Trevor Bauer to pitch in the majors again.

As Bauer pitches on Long Island with the Ducks of the Atlantic League, future Hall of Famer Pujols believes the outspoken Bauer must stop bashing Major League Baseball and make amends with the league if he has any hope of returning.

“I think he needs to clear up the issues with MLB first before he gets to this level. I think one thing with Trevor Bauer was that he went against MLB, and you can’t go against the hands that really feeds you,” Pujols said to Fox News Digital.

“If he could do that, though, teams should jump at the opportunity.”

Bauer, 35, has not appeared in the majors since June 28, 2021, when he was placed on administrative leave after sexual assault allegations emerged against the 2020 National League Cy Young winner.

The allegations led MLB to impose a historic 324-game suspension against Bauer, which was later reduced to 194 contests after an appeal.

No criminal charges were filed against Bauer, and he maintains his innocence, claiming the encounters with multiple accusers were consensual.

After he signed with the Ducks, marking his first opportunity to pitch on American soil since the emergence of the sexual assault allegations, Bauer reiterated a belief that he has been blackballed by MLB.

“I could put up a 0.00 ERA and strike out more people than Mason Miller and it wouldn’t change anything,” Bauer said. “I’ve known what this is the entire time. I’m blackballed. I’m not allowed to play Major League Baseball. … I’ve literally offered to pay my entire salary back and play for zero dollars.

“When I say there’s nothing I can do, that everything is completely out of my control, I have offered everything. It just doesn’t matter.”

Pujols, who was briefly teammates with Bauer with the Dodgers in 2021, added that the right-hander’s ability is not the reason for his lack of MLB opportunities.

“Who doesn’t want to have Trevor Bauer on their team? Of course,” Pujols added. “But I think at the end of the day, you know, he’s still trying, but he needs to clear out what his issue is with MLB.”

Over the past few seasons, Bauer continued his career internationally, pitching in Japan and Mexico, to mixed results.

He spent 2023 with Nippon Professional Baseball’s Yokohama DeNA BayStars before earning Pitcher of the Year in the Mexican Baseball League in 2024.

Last season, he returned to NPB with the BayStars, putting up a 4.51 ERA, the worst of any starter in the league.

In two outings with the Ducks, Bauer has shown flashes of his dominance, recording eight strikeouts across four innings and then tossing a seven-inning no-hitter in his most recent outing.

After the win, he took to social media to needle critics who claim he’s past his physical prime.

“I just want to be around American fans and enjoy playing baseball in my home country because I’ve not been allowed to play baseball in my home country for years for no good reason,” Bauer said. “So instead of getting bitter about it, I want to come and enjoy the fans that are here and feel like I am accepted in American baseball.

“I have a huge, passionate fan base. Logically I know that I’m loved by the American baseball community, but once you get to the MLB level and the large brands in baseball and the media, they just hate me. So it’s easy to feel like I’m an outcast here and I don’t want to feel like that.”

It feels like anything that can go wrong will go wrong for the Mets these days.

Even for one of the select few in their lineup who are producing.

Exhibit A: Juan Soto smashed a high, soaring fly ball in the first inning of the Amazin’s game against the Nationals on Thursday afternoon that looked like it would clear the right field wall at Citi Field.

But there was the 6-foot-6 James Wood in right field for the Nationals, who made a terrific leaping catch that saw him extend over the fence to take away a would-be solo home run.

Soto smashed a 1-1 fastball from Nats starter Miles Mikolas 378 feet at 108.1 mph.

But the ball was high enough that Wood was able to ease back to the 370-foot marker on the fence before jumping high to snag the ball to deny Soto his third homer in as many games.

Soto, as he walked back to the dugout, smiled at Wood, almost as if in disbelief.

And in a 5-4 loss, that home run would have been helpful for a Mets team that is now 10-21 and firmly in last place in the National League East by 1 ½ games.

Fittingly, Wood was one of the key pieces the Nationals acquired at the 2022 trade deadline when they sent Soto to the Padres.

Wood’s defensive mastery wasn’t done, however, as he took away a potential hit from third baseman Bo Bichette in the fifth inning with a diving snag on a sinking line drive.

The play had a .777 expected batting average and had a 10 percent catch probability, according to MLB.com.

James Wood gets UP to rob a homer from Juan Soto! pic.twitter.com/CDFjKXtZQ3

— MLB (@MLB) April 30, 2026

Soto finished the day 2-for-3 with two runs scored, coming inches away from a homer in the eighth when he banged a double high off the center field wall.

It wasn’t enough, as reliever Luke Weaver surrendered a go-ahead two-run homer to CJ Abrams and the Mets dropped their second straight series.

After winning three of five games in March, the Mets went 7-19 — with a 12-game losing streak — in April.

The Chicago Cubs are 19-12 and sitting just a game back of the division-leading Reds despite running what has essentially been a rotating cast of relievers in the late innings for the better part of three weeks. Caleb Thielbar was Craig Counsell’s de facto closer in Daniel Palencia’s absence before landing on the injured list himself. At peak injury chaos, the Cubs found Palencia, Thielbar, Phil Maton, Porter Hodge, Riley Martin, Shelby Miller, Ethan Roberts and Hunter Harvey all on the injured list simultaneously. That’s not an injury list, it’s a catastrophe.

The fact that Ben Brown has been quietly excellent through all of this has been clutch. Brown’s thrown 22.2 innings with five earned runs and 22 strikeouts on the young season. In San Diego he threw some of the highest leverage work of his career, including a bases-loaded, no-out, game saving escape act before also getting two outs in the ninth [VIDEO].

There are rumors that Palencia might return as soon as this weekend according to The Athletic’s Patrick Mooney:

Honestly, that can’t happen fast enough. Craig Counsell clearly does not trust Brown to get the last out of a game, which is why he opted for the platoon advantage that (checks notes) Hoby Milner provides to secure the series victory against the Padres. Don’t get me wrong, it worked and I’m grateful for every out the 35-year-old lefty has recorded so far in 15 innings this season. I’m just also extremely skeptical it will keep working with just five strikeouts, four walks and 10 hits during those innings. I’m also not sure any of our nervous systems can take the type of stress a 2.40 ERA built on a 5.39 FIP induces for more than a few weeks.

A note of caution: while Palencia’s return is welcome, the injury he was dealing with is concerning. What was originally called a left oblique strain was later clarified as a lat strain. Neither diagnosis is particularly comforting for a pitcher whose entire value proposition is built on explosive arm action throwing 102 MPH gasolina.

Maton could be a candidate for saves as Palencia works his way back. Once Harvey and Thielbar rejoin the team, which could happen later in May, Counsell will once again have a deep roster of genuine late-inning arms to deploy. And who knows, maybe an added bonus of this bullpen injury disaster is that Ben Brown gets the experience and confidence to be added to that high-leverage crew.

At the risk of handing it to Jed Hoyer and company, the fact that the organization had the depth to weather a storm like this for any amount of time is impressive. The fact that they’ve done it with a .613 win percentage is almost miraculous. The collection of cost-effective veterans with injury histories, alongside a trusted development pipeline, has been stress-tested hard this April and has largely passed with flying colors.

Two walk-offs? A familiar feeling? What we learned as Phillies sweep Giants originally appeared on NBC Sports Philadelphia

It’s early, but does this feel similar to 2022?

When the Phillies, at 22-29, fired Joe Girardi on June 3 that season, Dave Dombrowski and the front office turned to Rob Thomson.

The Phils won Thomson’s debut, 10-0 over the Angels at home. They won the next day, too. Then, a day later, they walked off the Angels in a 9-7 win. Rookie Bryson Stott delivered the ninth-inning magic.

A sweep.

About 1,425 days later, it has opened similarly. On Tuesday, interim manager Don Mattingly took over for Thomson. The Phillies responded with a 7-0 shutout over San Francisco. Two days later, rookie Justin Crawford walked off the Giants in comeback fashion. Kyle Schwarber hit his 350th homer in the game. 

The Phillies finished the second game — a 6-5 victory — the same way, it would make the day even more unusual: two walk-off wins in one day for the first time since July 24, 1998, against the Florida Marlins.

Reliever Chase Shugart, who delivered a clutch, scoreless top of the tenth, became the first Phillie to win both games of a doubleheader since Terry Adams on Sept. 21, 2002, in Cincinnati.

Alec Bohm, the walk-off hero. Another sweep.

History does not always repeat itself, but baseball has a way of circling back on itself. Three games into Mattingly’s run, there are at least signs of something worth watching. A number of them showed up across Thursday’s doubleheader.

Let’s dive in:

SÁNCHEZ TURNS THE PAGE — GAME 1

Entering the start, Cristopher Sánchez carried a 2.94 ERA despite allowing 44 hits in 33 2/3 innings. He was tied for second in the league in hits allowed per game. More than anything, that has spoken to his poise, especially as he has pitched to contact more often in 2026.

In his previous start, the Cubs scattered 12 hits against him. Three starts earlier, the Giants got to him for 11. There had been a lot of weak contact in those outings, which helped explain why the underlying numbers still looked healthier than the hit totals.

Thursday did not begin well either. Sánchez allowed back-to-back doubles to Heliot Ramos and Matt Chapman to open the game. Then came an RBI groundout and a Casey Schmitt run-scoring single.

The Phillies were in a hole right away.

Without Sánchez’s ability to settle in, though, they would not have come back later. He allowed just one hit the rest of the outing and struck out six, five of them on the changeup. He threw the pitch 34 percent of the time and got a 38 percent whiff rate with it.

“I think he just kept fighting and kept making pitches,” Mattingly said. “That’s a pretty good outing when a guy gives up two in the first and is able to come back like that and keep us in the game.”

Mattingly pulled Sánchez at 85 pitches with two outs in the sixth. Sánchez walked off shaking his head.

“Of course I wanted to stay out,” Sánchez said. “I just wanted to finish that one off.”

Still, the move held, and the comeback stayed alive.

HARD-HITTIN’ ADOLIS — GAME 1

His numbers entering the day did not jump out. García came in with a .699 OPS.

But he keeps scorching the ball.

In his four at-bats in Game 1, three were hard-hit balls. That has been a trend all season. García has posted a 49.4 percent hard-hit rate, which would be his best since his 2023 career year.

And when he has put the ball in play, good things have happened. He is hitting .316 on balls in play, his best BABIP since 2022.

When the Phillies signed García in the offseason, they were betting on a bounce-back year. So far, the metrics say the quality of contact has improved. He changed his batting stance to look more like the one he used in 2023, and it has helped.

The defense has been a major part of the value, too.

He finished Game 1 with two hits, then had a two-run hit in Game 2 and nearly ended the night with a walkoff in the ninth, but Ramos tracked it down.

TREA KEEPS GOING OPPO — GAME 2

Turner wasted no time getting Game 2 started.

On the first pitch he saw after the walk-off win in Game 1, he jumped an Adrian Houser sinker left in the middle of the zone and sent it out the other way. It looked a lot like the opposite-field swing he showed against Braves righty Grant Holmes on the road trip.

Turner won the batting title in 2025 at .304, but he went to the opposite field only 28.1 percent of the time. This season, he has hit the ball to the right side 34.7 percent of the time.

It is not a bat-speed issue. His 2026 bat speed is actually a tick above last season’s. He has hit the ball softer overall, as the hard-hit rate is down. Even so, after a multi-hit day, he looks like he may be finding something again.

It gave the Phillies a jolt right away in the second game of the doubleheader. Clubs can drag a little in those spots. The Phillies did not.

HOW ABOUT THAT SHOT? — GAME 2

It was a milestone day for Schwarber.

No. 350, then a tape-measure blast.

The Phillies slugger demolished a hanging slider from Houser and drove it to right-center. It hit the red sign on the facing of the second deck. Without that sign, it may have reached the concourse in front of Chickie’s & Pete’s.

It left the bat at 112.4 mph. His earlier homer came off at 113 mph. Together, the two traveled 852 feet — nearly three football fields.

Schwarber would later come through with a game-tying double with two strikes and two outs in the ninth. A day to remember.

His power has been there all season. He is barreling the ball at a 20 percent clip. As for the 350th homer in Game 1, it came in his 1,321st game, the seventh-fewest contests to reach the mark, according to the Phillies.

WHEN DO REALMUTO, DURAN RETURN?

Mattingly said this week that J.T. Realmuto is progressing. He went on the 10-day injured list on April 22 with back spasms, his second injury issue after getting hit on the foot earlier in San Francisco.

The Phillies’ interim manager made clear they are not rushing it.

“We need a strong J.T. to be the best J.T. we can,” Mattingly said. “We want him back being J.T. And not for a week.”

That caution makes sense. Rafael Marchán and Garrett Stubbs entered Thursday with a combined .113 average and .328 OPS. Everyone benefits when Realmuto is back in the lineup and fully healthy.

Closer Jhoan Duran is moving forward, too. He threw a bullpen Thursday for the first time since going on the IL with a left oblique injury.

In the 16 days since that stint began, the Phillies have not had a save opportunity. The way things are trending after the first three games under Mattingly, that may change soon enough.

LOS ANGELES — The Dodgers completed their stretch of 13 games in 13 days and were just 6-7. But they bucked a trend in recent years of constantly churning through pitchers on the roster to get through long stretches.

They only called up one pitcher during the last two weeks — left-hander Jake Eder on April 20, and that move was only because closer Edwin Díaz felt something in his elbow and needed arthroscopic surgery. So much for my prediction two weeks back that many pitching additions were coming, but that’s what we were used to. Last year, for instance, in four stretches of at least 10 days in row through the end of August (with roster limits of 26 players and 13 pitchers) the Dodgers added three, nine, three, and four pitchers.

This time just one rode the fresh arm express. Eder, who was acquired from the Washington Nationals on April 1, was pitching in bulk relief for Triple-A Oklahoma City before getting prepped for joining Los Angeles.

“I had thrown two innings, three innings, then I think I was going to go four the next time out, but then they said, ‘Are you good going one, so you could be available to come pitch here?,” Eder explained about pitching one inning for the Comets on April 16, then got called up four days later. “When I’m here, I’m just whatever they want, whenever they call, just be ready.”

Eder has pitched in three of the 10 games for which he was active, going one inning in each appearance, and earned his first major league win on Monday when Kyle Tucker’s walk-off single completed a Dodgers comeback win over the Miami Marlins.

But the Dodgers haven’t needed Eder nor really any of the relievers all too often during the 13 days, as their starting pitchers averaged 6.05 innings during the stretch, with nine starts lasting at least six innings, including three seven-inning starts and even an eight-inning start, all with a 2.40 ERA with 82 strikeouts against 28 walks in 78 2/3 innings.

Not having to go to the bullpen early helped keep the relievers fresh, as did the distribution of some of the losses. They lost four road games in this 13-day stretch, and did not have to pitch the ninth inning in any of those games, preventing a few unnecessary miles on the odometer.

No two ways about it

Having Shohei Ohtani as one of the highly-functioning members of the rotation is a boost not only due to his performance, but due to the fact that as a two-way player Ohtani does not count against the active roster limit of 13 pitchers.

Chicago Cubs manager Craig Counsell said early last week, “there’s one team that’s allowed to carry basically one of both, and that he gets special consideration. Which is probably the most bizarre rule. … For one team.”

Dodgers president of baseball operations Andrew Friedman last week with David Vassegh of KLAC 570 AM talked about the two-way player rule:

“When Shohei was on the Angels and MLB was considering this [rule], they reached out to a bunch of teams, us included. I said, from a competitive standpoint as the Dodgers, I don’t love it, but wearing my industry hat and what’s best for Major League Baseball, it is to do everything we can for Shohei Ohtani to be in and stay in games.

“As far as the 13-pitcher rule, again, it is more that we have 13 pitchers. I had to clarify this with Jim Bowden, who said that we have nine relievers. We don’t have nine relievers, we have eight relievers just like everyone else, we have five starters like everyone else. It’s just that when Shohei is able, and the rest makes sense, Shohei pitches also. It’s not the we’re carrying an extra reliever relative to others. It’s certainly an advantage, but it should be an advantage. What Shohei does and what he’s capable of is so unique, it should be rewarded, it should be celebrated. Everyone knew the Shohei rules, and had an equal opportunity to sign him two years ago.”

While the Dodgers aren’t carrying extra reliever, simply having Ohtani start games removes innings that relievers need to cover, not to mention it allows the team to start the rest of the rotation on at least five days rest whenever possible (to date, no Dodger has started a game on four days rest this season). For instance, Ohtani during this 13-game stretch pitched 12 of the 113 innings, which means the rest of the 13-man staff only had to pitch 101 innings.

No matter how you slice it, that’s less of a burden on the rest of the staff. During the last 13 games, the Dodgers only pitched a reliever on back-to-back days seven times, and only three times had someone pitch three times over four days. That’s light work relative to most similar stretches.

When Ohtani first rejoined the Dodgers rotation last June, the team was comfortable with him gradually building up, and he only pitched one or two innings his first four starts, and didn’t go past three innings until his ninth start. General manager Brandon Gomes called anything Ohtani gave them on the mound were “free innings” that the rest of the staff did not have to cover.

Now the pitching staff is benefitting from those free innings in much larger quantity — Ohtani has pitched six innings in all five of his starts so far in 2026 — which has led to one of the Dodgers’ most stable roster stretches in recent years.

Here are the lineups for game 2 of today’s doubleheader. Let’s discuss.

For the Phillies:

For the Giants:

(Note: data are through Tuesday’s series opener against the Tigers only — the awkward timing of Thursday’s day game will make the data two games out of date by the time this runs.)

In the near-perpetual gloom that was the Atlanta Braves 2025 season, there was a chase rate contest. Maybe. I think there was a chase rate contest because I heard it on the broadcast. Brandon Gaudin and C.J. Nitkowski talked about how then-new hitting coach Tim Hyers and the players had implemented one, with Braves players grouped by handedness (where did Ozzie Albies fit in? who knows?) and competing to see who could chase less (as a percentage of swings, or total chases? who knows?). When he was first hired (hyerd?), Hyers said that one of his orienting principles was, “You’re only as good as the strikes you swing at.” There are a lot of ways to take that, but as a guy that touted swing decisions as a key factor in his early-days-with-the-Braves pressers, it aligns to a meta-game of not chasing.

On the flip side, maybe there wasn’t a chase rate contest. Maybe it was never as concrete as the broadcast made it out to be. Maybe it only existed for a brief period, and then fell apart amid either the knowledge of such being spread to opposing teams, or the fact that the Braves’ offense (and the season) spiraled the proverbial drain fairly quickly. Maybe it’s just me, but when I search or query the internet writ large for “Braves chase rate contest” or a variant, the only thing I really get is, well, my own writing. Maybe I hallucinated it. Maybe I’m hallucinating this. It’s been a tough few years, woof.

Meanwhile, in the near-perpetual beach day that’s been the Atlanta Braves 2026 season so far, there is no chase rate contest. No, really, there is no chase rate contest. Tim Hyers is still the hitting coach, the only topline coach to survive a robust staff turnover in the offseason. The chase rate contest? I bet you wouldn’t have even remembered that maybe it existed if I hadn’t brought it up.

I’m gonna show you some stuff. It’s early days for 2026 yet, but still, it’s all in service of the title.

It’s not that the Braves were, in recent history, some kind of prodigious set of boors or rude boys. 2019 was the first year of what we jokingly/wistfully refer to as Braves_PowerPoint.pptx, and they had a below-average chase rate that year. It was average in 2021, and then hovering in above-average territory, but not egregiously so. Then you get 25, and well… chase rate contest? 2026 has been a hard reversal, though.

(A small procedural note which may be of more interest to you than the rest of this post. Due to the implementation of ABS, there are now a bunch of nascent if minor data problems. Or, more accurately, we are now nascently, or perhaps just more keenly, aware of prior minor data problems. FanGraphs now includes two different sets of plate discipline data from Statcast — “Legacy” and “ABS.” These differ, but not by much. Further, per an exchange with Ben Clemens earlier this week, it looks like the prior implementation of the Statcast strike zone was not consistent pitch-to-pitch for the same player (but is now consistent with ABS), and as a result, there are some minor weirdnesses with what “chase” meant pre-2026 compared to 2026. For that reason, I’m skipping literally all of this and its implications and simply using ranks and z-scores so that actual rates don’t matter.)

Of course, no one commits to chasing. Some guys might have swings that can not only reach, but do serious damage on, pitchers that aren’t rulebook (or likely) strikes, but generally, higher chase is the result of other decisions and processes, not something targeted in and of itself. A lot of times, it helps to contextualize chase rate with the rate of swinging at strikes.

The below is a plot of all teams from 2024. I could do earlier ones, but I think you’ll get the idea.

The 2024 Braves are the red dot, the other teams, are, well… the other teams. The 2024 Braves swung at strikes more than anyone, and they swung at balls at an above-average rate. They swung a lot, basically.

Alright, here’s 2025. It’s certainly different!

Did the Braves succeed at being more selective? They sure did! They joined a bunch of other teams that were similarly chase avoidant-ish while offering at an above-average number of strikes. We know it didn’t actually do them any good writ large, but they still did it.

Alright, let’s do 2026 so far. It’s more exaggerated in most directions because, well, the sample size is small, and differences between teams are magnified as a result.

I think this is kinda funny. The Braves are killing it offensively, but if you think about things purely in terms of swing decisions, it’s kind of unexpected. In 2024, they swung at way more strikes than anyone else (a full two standard deviations above the mean), with an elevated but non-dramatic chase (+0.5 standard deviations). In 2025, it was restrained/selective: +0.6 standard deviations for swinging at strikes, and -0.4 for chasing. 2026? +0.8 for swinging at strikes, and +1.4 for chasing, as shown in the table above. A purist might call it misplaced aggressiveness, but I think most will just call it, “Whatever it takes to rake” for now.

Of course, teams are just a composition of players, and the Braves have been fairly stable in their cast of characters, especially compared to other teams. So, even if we avoid overloading the synapses by doing just our little 2024-2025-2026 pseudo-round trip, then we get into below. And I’ll be honest, this is really funny to me, and hopefully to you.

Ronald Acuña Jr.

In 2024, Acuña was more about not chasing than swinging at every strike. He actually chased more in 2025, but swung at fewer strikes. Oops. (He still posted a 161 wRC+ and a near-.400 xwOBA. It’s fine.) In 2026, he’s chasing more than in either of the past two years, and swinging at lots and lots of strikes. There is no chase rate contest, but if there were, he’d be useful at it.

Ozzie Albies

Albies is unapologetically himself, through days of cornucopia and fallow periods both. Can you tell whether there was a chase rate contest based on Albies’ behavior? You could not. One way, and probably the correct way to read it? He would not be very useful to you in a chase rate contest.

Michael Harris II

Harris is also unapologetically himself, though as not-quite-a-veteran relative to Albies, we can’t blame him for some more variation. Like Albies, it’s not clear that he understood the idea of a chase rate contest… at least not in practice. When presumably coached around being more selective, he was instead… more aggressive. Hmm. Anyway, he’s chasing a bit less these days, though you’re probably aware that he’s re-broken out because he’s focusing on mashing the ball rather than not-doing-a-thing-he-was-incapable-of-doing-anyway (being more selective).

Matt Olson

This one is kind of my favorite. In 2024, Olson had an average chase rate and swung at a lot of strikes. In 2025, Olson just swung less, which included swinging a lot less at strikes. In 2026, Olson is being passive ayy eff. Wait a minute! Isn’t this what we were complaining about in 2025? Well, Olson has a 169 wRC+ and a near-.400 xwOBA while losing more homers than anyone else to ballpark dimensions so far (which would’ve pushed his wRC+ to some kind of absurd level had they landed beyond fences), so…

(Maybe Olson thinks there’s still a chase rate contest? If so, he’s not actually doing as well as last year.)

Austin Riley

Riley does his own thing, so his presence here (or on any similar exercise) will always be kind of strange. I won’t make any chase rate contest quips here, I’ll just say that from this, it’s pretty clear that Riley is still kind of adjusting to re-existing at the plate at this point, and if things keep up, he might pause a PA to break out in a rendition of 4 Non Blondes’ “What’s Up?” before the All-Star Break.

Drake Baldwin

Drake Baldwin once knew life under the oppressive atmosphere of the chase rate contest. Now that it’s gone, uh… well, he seems to be having a pretty good time either way.

Coda:

• The Braves were second in xwOBACON in 2024, 11th last year, and are fifth this year.
• The Braves were third in walk rate in 2019, but finished between 10th and 19th every year from 2021-2024. They were third again in 2025. They’re 25th right now.
• The Braves’ strikeout rate has had no pattern or trend year to year, bouncing around fairly wildly. It was ninth-highest in 2024, 17th in 2025, and is currently the third-lowest rate in baseball.

The Mets have been waiting for someone other than Juan Soto to step up and boost their offense with a handful of their regulars sitting out on the injured list. 

On Thursday afternoon, MJ Melendez was the man for the job. 

Melendez smacked a single in his first at-bat of the day, then picked up Freddy Peralta his next time up, lifting a game-tying three-run homer over the right-field fence. 

It was the lefty slugger's second home run since joining the Mets. 

Two innings later, he stepped to the plate and gave himself up, dropping down a sacrifice bunt to push Juan Soto into scoring position after drawing a leadoff walk in a tie game in the sixth.

New York took its first lead of the day just one pitch later as Mark Vientos lined a double.

Melendez was set to come back up in another big spot after Soto led off the bottom of the eighth with a double to right, with the team now trailing Washington by a run. 

However, with former Mets left-hander Richard Lovelady on the mound, Carlos Mendoza elected to have Austin Slater come off the bench and pinch hit.

Slater, who recently joined the Mets on a minor league deal, had just one at-bat in the last week but came into the day a career .263 hitter with 30 of his 45 homers and a .776 OPS against left-handed pitching.

He couldn’t deliver this time around, though, working the count before grounding out to shortstop. 

New York, of course, ended up squandering the opportunity before going down quietly in the ninth as the team closed out the long homestand with its sixth loss in nine tries. 

Mendoza explained his thought process behind the decision afterward. 

“Slater is here to hit lefties, obviously,” the skipper said. “Knowing that we’ve seen Lovelady against righties as well, just wanted to take the chance their with a righty against him and try to do some damage.”

Mendy talks job security

After suffering their second consecutive loss, the Mets fell to 10-21 over the first month of the season. 

They remain in possession of the worst record in baseball heading into May. 

With questions about his job security, injuries throughout the lineup, and just an overall lack of production from up-and-down the roster, Mendoza says it’s been tough on everyone. 

“It’s not easy, but we have to keep going,” he said. “There’s no other choice here, we have a responsibility and we have to turn this thing around -- it’s not early anymore, so yeah, it’s obviously frustrating for a lot of people in here.”

Box Score

For the second time in three games, the Brewers outscored the Arizona Diamondbacks by double digits. Milwaukee got to Michael Soroka early and often, and despite Brandon Woodruff’s exit in the second inning, the bullpen — led by Shane Drohan — held Arizona to just one run over 7 2/3 innings. Milwaukee is now two games over .500 as they head to the nation’s capital for a series against the Washington Nationals.

Woodruff walked D-backs leadoff man Geraldo Perdomo to start the game, but retired the next three batters to get back to the dugout unscathed.

At first glance, that seems like a fairly unremarkable first inning for the veteran right-hander, but it was anything but. Woodruff threw 15 pitches in the first inning, but none of them touched 87 mph. Not only was the lack of velocity concerning, but — as described by our own Dave Gasper — he “looked uncomfortable delivering the baseball. His smooth, repeatable, athletic delivery looked rigid, unathletic, and unusual.”

Woodruff came back out for the second inning, but clearly didn’t look right and was pulled after allowing a one-out single to Lourdes Gurriel Jr. Grant Anderson came in to finish the inning with strikeouts of Nolan Arenado and Alek Thomas.

With Woodruff out of the game early, this one effectively became a bullpen game for Milwaukee. Thankfully, the Brewers’ offense was able to give their pitching staff some quick run support with a three-spot in the bottom of the first off Soroka. With one out, William Contreras lined a double down the left field line. Garrett Mitchell, who had led off with a walk, scored from first to give the Crew an early lead. Soroka then walked Jake Bauers to put runners on first and second.

Tyler Black flew out for the second out, but Luis Rengifo kept the inning alive by lacing a double into the gap in right-center field. Contreras scored, Bauers scored, and just like that, the Brewers were up three runs before the end of the first inning.

Milwaukee added three more runs in the bottom of the third. After Brice Turang led off the inning with a single, Contreras delivered again, hitting a moonshot over the center field fence for a two-run home run. Soroka couldn’t stop the bleeding there, allowing back-to-back singles to Bauers and Black. Rengifo grounded out for the first out of the inning, but Bauers scored from third to put the Brewers up six runs.

Arizona finally got on the board in the fourth off Shane Drohan, who had come in to start the third inning. Corbin Carroll led off with a double to give the D-backs their first runner in scoring position. Drohan struck out cleanup hitter Adrian Del Castillo, but allowed consecutive singles to Idelmaro Vargas and Gurriel. Gurriel’s single scored Carroll from third to put Arizona on the board.

After that, Drohan settled in, escaping the inning by retiring Arenado and Thomas. With Woodruff exiting early, he gave the Brewers exactly what they needed — length and stability out of the bullpen. He turned in four strong innings, allowing five hits but just one earned run.

After giving up three runs in each of his first two appearances with Milwaukee, Drohan has responded by allowing just one run over his last five innings. He’s starting to look like a more dependable option — most likely as a long reliever, but with the ability to step into the rotation if needed.

Meanwhile, the Brewers’ offense kept the pressure on, adding two more runs with consecutive singles from Hamilton, Mitchell, Turang, and Contreras. That last hit from Contreras ended Soroka’s day after eight runs on 10 hits. The Crew also tacked on three more runs in the sixth — thanks to a Bauers groundout and a two-run double from Black — and another in the seventh on a Sal Frelick homer, his third of the year and second of the series.

Frelick’s home run brought the score to 12-1, but Milwaukee wasn’t done there. They scored their 13th and final run of the game off of D-backs catcher James McCann, who walked Black with the bases loaded in the bottom of the eighth. Jake Woodford struck out two on the way to retiring the side in the ninth, bringing the game to its final score of Milwaukee 13, Arizona 1.

Despite the uncertainty surrounding Woodruff’s status, the rest of this game was incredibly encouraging. The bullpen shut down a dangerous Diamondbacks lineup, and every starter besides Greg Jones recorded at least one hit — including William Contreras, who went 4-for-4 with four RBIs. Hopefully, the Brewers can carry their offensive momentum into their upcoming series against a Nationals team that swept them earlier this year.

Tomorrow’s series opener pits No. 1 starter Jacob Misiorowski against right-hander Jake Irvin. First pitch is set for 5:45 p.m. CT.

Thursday afternoon’s game at Citi Field between the Mets and the Washington Nationals was a microcosm of what’s been a disappointing 2026 season for the home team. After falling behind 3-0, the Mets tied the game in the third on a three-run blast from MJ Melendez and then took the lead on a Mark Vientos RBI double in the sixth. 

But things fell apart in the eighth inning, when Luke Weaver allowed a leadoff single and then later the go-ahead two-run home run to CJ Abrams, as Washington won the game 5-4 and took two out of three in the series. 

On one pitch, a 2-1 changeup from Weaver that caught too much of the plate, the Mets went from being back on track as winners of the series, to falling to 10-21, the worst record in the majors. 

Afterwards, Weaver was outspoken about the pressure to perform that he and all of his teammates are feeling on a daily basis.

“I think at the end of the day, this pursuit of perfection is just an ultimate pressurized failure mindset,” Weaver said. “I just think it just becomes everybody wants to be the hero because we care and we want to win really, really bad. And I just don’t think success lives in that realm. It truly doesn’t, and I think the freedom of which we play day to day is kind of being suffocated a little bit.

“I want to just do my job, it’s that simple. There are moments that feel really close, and then there’s just one mistake that magnifies our situation. So, of course I sit there and feel the weight of the world and feel like I let the team down, but at the end of the day I do feel like I’m in a good spot. 

“We sit there and we just tell you guys ‘It will come. This is the game. This is the law of averages’ and all these things, but at the end of the day, those words just don’t hold the same weight when you go day after day. I think the encouragement and the motivation to pursue just being the best person you can be and the best baseball player you can be is the only answer. Until we prove that, I understand the grievances from the outsiders."

Weaver is far from the only Met who has had his struggles this season, but he was acquired this offseason to be in high-leverage spots, exactly like the one he found himself in on Thursday afternoon. 

With his performance on Thursday, Weaver now has a 6.00 ERA on the season, allowing eight earned runs in 12.0 innings.

“Typically, you don’t see an entire kind of collective group at the same time not playing their best brand of baseball. It feels individualized. It feels like a moment like today where everybody played well and we’re playing well as a group, and today I kind of let the team down. It just kind of feels like there’s a little bit of a culture that has adapted to it, unintentionally, and it’s just kind of how winning and losing goes. 

“When you win, you feel on top of the world. When you’re losing, everyone wants to talk about the failure of the outcomes. The magnification just becomes immense. Sleep is lost, the mind wanders, and you just kind of get into a fixation that you really don’t need to be in. I think the answers are kind of in those words. It’s simplifying the process and maybe doing less. Maybe it’s less reps and more about enjoying why you do this for a living and trying to just find your inner kid and enjoy why you play the game and not trying to do it for other people.”

With 10 wins in their first 31 games, the Mets find themselves in last place in the NL East, certainly not where anyone on the team or around the team thought they’d be as the calendar flips to May. 

According to Weaver, the Mets’ performance on the field hasn’t matched their preparation off of it, and perhaps taking a step back to refocus is something the team must do to right the ship.

“I’ve been a part of great teams and part of teams that weren’t up to par. I look at this team, and if you took our record off and just looked at the internal things that you guys can’t see, the conversations, just the enjoyment on a day-to-day basis, I wouldn’t believe you if you told me what our record was,” Weaver said. “I think that is a testament to the people we have in here, the mindset that we bring on a day-to-day basis. 

“You’ve got to reframe the way that you think. Make it a priority to be like ‘This old habit is going to die today’ and this new, kind of rejuvenated mindset is something that I’m going to have to attack it and say ‘This is how I want to play baseball.’”

Milwaukee Brewers right-handed pitcher Brandon Woodruff can’t shake the injury bug.

The two-time All-Star left his Thursday afternoon start against the Diamondbacks in the second inning after a concerning drop in his fastball velocity.

Woodruff, whose heater has averaged 92.5 mph this season, per Baseball Savant, did not throw a fastball above 86.9 mph during his 21-pitch outing Thursday.

Brandon Woodruff was pulled in the second inning of his start today.

His fastball velocity was in the mid-80s after being in the low-90s in his previous outings this year pic.twitter.com/WINt00WHZa

— Talkin' Baseball (@TalkinBaseball_) April 30, 2026

After he delivered an 83.8 mph cutter for a ball to Arizona batter Nolan Arenado in the top of the second inning, Brewers manager Pat Murphy and the team’s training staff immediately came out of the dugout to check on their starter.

Following a brief visit, Woodruff handed the ball over to Murphy and walked off the mound with trainer Brad Epstein.

“He wasn’t himself,” Murphy later said to Brewers.TV reporter Sophia Minnaert during a mid-game interview. “He 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.”

UH BRANDON WOODRUFF’S VELO????? pic.twitter.com/sbRU2772lj

— AT (@BaseballWRLD_) April 30, 2026

Entering play Thursday, Woodruff was in the midst of a solid 2026, sporting a 2-1 record with a 3.77 ERA and 23 strikeouts across 28.1 innings.

Woodruff, who missed most of the past two seasons due to injury, recorded at least five innings in each of his first five starts.

He missed all of 2024 after undergoing right shoulder surgery to repair his anterior capsule and despite returning to the mound last season, managed just 12 starts before going down with a season-ending lat strain.

If Woodruff misses an extended stretch, the Brewers – who traded ace Freddy Peralta and swingman Tobias Myers to the Mets during the offseason – will have to lean on their depth to cover his absence.

Flamethrower Jacob Misiorowski, Chad Patrick, Kyle Harrison and a healthy Woodruff have been solid to begin the season for Milwaukee, which entered play Thursday with a 15-14 record.

“He’s going through this process and hopefully [will] be okay and he’ll work himself into his form,” Murphy added. “Because even with him maybe not throwing his normal 95 he can still get outs and win. As long as he doesn’t risk injury I’ll go with him every time.”

The 2026 San Francisco Gianta are discovering new ways to lose. In the first game of Wednesday’s doubleheader, it was a blown save and a walk-off infield single.

Ryan Walker (0-1) gave up a game-tying triple to Bryson Stott in the 9th inning and Stott scored on Justin Crawford’s two-out infield single to give the Philadelphia Phillies 3-2 comeback win. The blown save wasted an excellent pitching effort from Logan Webb and some standout defensive plays to drop the Giants to 13-17.

The game began with such promise. With a 9:30 AM local start, earlier than some of your favorite McCovey Chronicles scribes generally wake up, the Giants put together a first-inning rally that made some early risers rub their eyes in disbelief. Two doubles? In a row? One of which only advanced the runner on second base to third?

It was not a dream. Heliot Ramos started off his three-hit afternoon (with a walk!) with a double to center, then Matt Chapman doubled off the wall for an almost-home run. According to @MLBNearHR, an invaluable resource on X.com the everything app, Chapman’s blast would have been a home run in another major league ballpark! Well, one of them at least.

Thinking the ball might be caught, Ramos only advanced to third, but it didn’t matter after Contact King Luis Arraez came through with an RBI groundout to second. Casey Schmidt and his .523 slugging percentage followed with an RBI single and the Giants had a 2-0 lead against 6-foot-6 Phillies ace Cristopher Sanchez.

The Phillies cut the lead in half in the bottom of the inning when Webb left a 3-2 cutter over the middle of the plate and Kyle Schwarber hit it halfway to Scranton for his 350th career home run. That tied two-time Giants All-Star Charles “Chili” Davis on the all-time list.

Davis left the Giants as a free agent primarily because of how much he hated playing in Candlestick Park to which we say: Fair.

That was the lone run allowed by Webb, who went seven innings and gave up seven hits and two walks, while striking out six. It wasn’t the cleanest appearance, but Webb consistently pitched his way out of jams.

In both the 3rd and 5th innings, Webb wisely walked Schwarber with one out, then got Bryce Harper to ground into an inning-ending double play, the second handled by Willy Adames all by himself.

In the fourth, Adolis Garcia singled on a ball he lined off Webb’s inner thigh, then Brandon Marsh followed with an opposite-field double that rolled about 170 feet past a shifted infield to put runners on second and third with no outs.

But Webb got a strikeout, then got a great play by Matt Chapman throwing out Garcia at the plate. After a successful bunt single by Crawford loaded the bases and deeply confused the Giants broadcasters, who weren’t sure why he opted for a two-out bunt with a runner in scoring position and an .085 hitter on deck. Said hitter, catcher Rafael Marchan, grounded out to Rafael Devers on a play that nearly paralyzed the still-new first-sacker with indecision at first.

In the 7th inning, Patrick Bailey, who went 1-for-4, made a great play to throw out Crawford trying to steal for Webb’s penultimate out. Surely Crawford’s speed wouldn’t hurt them later!

While Webb was thwarting the Phillies, the Giants’ bats weren’t doing much damage against Sanchez, who gave up two runs, four hits, and three walks while striking out seven in 6.2 innings. Ramos singled and Chapman walked in the 5th, but Sanchez got Arraez to fly out and battled back from a 3-0 count to retire Schmidt.

After the first inning, Sanchez allowed just one hit and two walks. Twice, Sanchez retired eight hitters in a row. Ramos and Chapman gave him trouble, which is why he was pulled for Orion Kerkering with Ramos coming up with two outs in the 7th.

The Giants threatened again in the 8th when Chapman and Schmidt both singled. Left Tanner Banks relieved Kerkering and struck out Devers and retired Adames. They got two more runners on in the 8th when Ramos and Bailey got hits with two outs, but Chase Shugart struck out Chapman to end the inning and eventually earn his first win of the season.

They had chances to pad their lead, but the Giants are like a California homeowner near an earthquake fault line: It’s way harder than it should be to get insurance.

In the 9th, Garcia got his second infield hit of the game on a ball Arraez knocked down on the far side of second base but couldn’t throw him out. Then defensive positioning hurt the Giants again when Stott pulled a ball down the right field line with Jung Hoo Lee shifted well into center field against the left-handed batter. Lee had to run forever to get the ball and Stott got an easy triple.

Two batters later, the game was over.

Manager Tony Vitello made defensive substitutions for the bottom of the 7th, bringing in Drew Gilbert to play center and moving Lee to right. The move may have been motivated by the left-handed Sanchez exiting the game, though Gilbert had to face a lefty in the 9th anyway.

Vitello may have also been motivated by Encarnacion’s own defense, specifically when he clearly believed there were only two outs when he caught an inning-ending fly ball in the second inning. He received a razzing from his teammates and an adorable thumbs-up from Lee.

The Giants don’t have time to dwell on the loss since they’re making like Ernie Banks and play9ing two. Don’t eat too many hoagies from Wawa or fill up on Tastykakes during the break, fellas!

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.

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.