Category: MLB

Freddie Freeman has long been loathe to off days.

And on Thursday, not even a frightening tumble down a set of dugout stairs the night before managed to keep him out of the Dodgers’ lineup.

After escaping his scary-looking fall on Wednesday with only general body soreness from his shoulder to his foot, Freeman was indeed good to go for Thursday’s series-opener against the Milwaukee Brewers, playing first base and batting fourth in the Dodgers’ order.

“I didn’t hit my head, so that was the key part,” Freeman said Wednesday night.

“Kneecaps are sore, shoulder is sore, hand is sore, wrist is sore,” he added. “I mean, I fell. But I’m in good spirits. I’ve already cold-tubbed. I’ve done everything I needed to do to put myself in a position to be able to hopefully play tomorrow.”

When Freeman went crashing into the visiting dugout on Wednesday, an immediate return to the lineup hardly seemed certain.

The 36-year-old remained down for several moments, as Dodgers players and trainers came racing over to check on him.

The crowd held its breath, before breaking into chants of “Fredd-ie! Fredd-ie” as he got back to his feet.

Somehow, Freeman emerged from the freak incident largely unscathed, initially staying in the game and playing out the rest of the eighth inning on defense.

He was removed thereafter, but was feeling good enough postgame to not even warrant an X-ray.

“Really dodged a bullet,” manager Dave Roberts said.

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This was inspired by a comment in Monday’s Gameday Thread, where I joked about the horror of pitchers discovering they’d been drafted by the Rockies. kilnborn asked, “Aren’t players traded away from the team that drafted them far more often than they play for that team in the bigs?” I wasn’t able to find out the answer to that question in the obvious places, and it bugged me. In the end, there was only one solution. Dig into the question myself. Fortunately, Baseball Reference lists all the players that debut for each year – here’s the 2026 list. Particularly helpful, it also lists their original status: drafted or signed as a free-agent, and by which team.

By chance, there have been exactly 200 players this year to have reached the majors for the first time. Arizona have certainly had more than their fair share, with eight debutants (far and away exceeding the over-under expected at the beginning of the season). These have been evenly split between pitchers and hitters. All four of the hitters have been “D-backs since birth”, compared to just one pitcher. At the plate, we’re seen Ryan Waldschmidt, Tommy Troy and LuJames Groover – all AZ draftees – plus free-agent Jose Fernandez. But free-agent Jose Cabrera is the only “native” pitcher. Mitch Bratt, Kohl Drake and Gerardo Carrillo all got started elsewhere.

It is probably worth separating free agents from draftees for a couple of reasons. Free agents include players like Munetaka Murakami, who signed with the White Sox just before Christmas. He clearly wasn’t going anywhere before making his debut. But it also includes the youngest of Latin American players. Rodolfo Durán made his debut with the Padres almost twelve years after signing with the Phillies. He also went through the Yankees and Royals organizations on his way, eventually landing in San Diego. The odds of sticking with any organization for more than a decade are probably lower than average.

So, I split them into two groups: free agents (62) and draftees (138) – six actually had a blank status on the page, but digging deeper on them showed one free agent and five draft picks. Three free agents were originally inked by Arizona. In addition to Fernandez and Cabrera, there’s also Deyvison De Los Santos, who signed for the D-backs in 2019, and was dealt to the Marlins at the trade deadline in 2024, as part of the deal for A.J. Puk. All told, 33 of the 62 free agents did debut for the team which signed them – 53%. There were wide differences between teams. Of the six free-agents initially inked by Pittsburgh, only one did so elsewhere.

But the Dodgers, Yankees and Mets combined to sign five players, all of whom debuted for other teams – including Carrillo, originally a Dodger. So, maybe it’s a payroll thing? The theory here would be that large-budget teams are more likely to trade the possibility offered by prospects, for established major-league players, because they don’t have to worry so much about keeping their payroll down. “Poorer” franchises will hold on to these young players because (for the first few years of service time, anyway), they can provide cheaper production than sources such as MLB free agents. Probably needs a deeper dive. While I’m interested, I’m not that interested!

Moving onto the draftees, we see a larger percentage sticking with the team. Of the 138 drafted players to make their debuts in the majors this year, 84 did so for the team who picked them, compared to 54 who arrived with somebody else. That’s a 61% rate for draftees. But I’m not seeing quite the same obvious difference in behavior among the rich teams. The Yankees, Mets and Dodgers all retained fifty percent or better of their draft picks to arrive in the majors. Perhaps draft picks are seen as more valuable than international free agents? Certainly, I imagine the former tend to be more expensive to sign.

But one thing I did notice was that earlier draft picks are much more likely to be retained. 27 players who were picked in the first round have made their debuts in 2026. But only four were for another team than the one who drafted them, led by Braden Montgomery. He was the 12th overall pick in the 2024 draft by the Red Sox, but was traded to the White Sox just a few months later, as part of the Garrett Crochet deal. The other 23 first-round picks, which is an 85% rate, debuted for their drafting clubs, including Tommy Troy and Ryan Waldschmidt. Though less extreme, the same went for second-round picks: 76% (13 of 17) stayed in-house.

Overall, the average draft round for those who remained with the drafting franchise was 4.95. For those traded or left otherwise, it was 9.28. This makes sense. The value of a player increases sharply at the top end of the talent bell-curve, and you need to make the most of them. Of course, don’t tell former Arizona GM Dave Stewart that. He traded away our 2014 (Touki Toussaint) and 2015 (Dansby Swanson) first-round picks before the played in the majors, and then his 2016 selection (Anfernee Grier) never made it above the High-A level. Say what you like about Mike Hazen, the vast majority of his 20 first-round picks since taking over, are still in the organization.

So, what have we learned? Well, bear in mind this is based on a single year of debuts – and not even a full year at that. Expanding the range to cover multiple seasons might tell a different story. But, again: not that interested! If I’d to guess, I think teams are now more aware of the value of prospects, so I think the percentage being held is likely higher now. It also makes a difference that there now are only twenty rounds, not forty or fifty, there’s far less of a long “tail” of prospects who can be traded without much fear, or simply released. But now at least we have some figures, and I’ll be able to sleep tonight…

Author’s note: Earlier this season, Purple Row began a series exploring how Spanish-speaking players learn about English and American culture while working their way through the Colorado Rockies system. English instructor Dr. Paul Worley asked if we would interview some of this students to allow them to practice their English, and we were happy to agree.

The following interview with Francis Rivera is one of those interviews. Francis did have some of the questions in advance so that he could practice with his teacher, though some unexpected questions were asked during the course of the conversation.

At Purple Row, we believe these interviews are important for two reasons. First, they help players develop skills they will use later. Second, we’re committed to providing more information about players in the Rockies farm system. Too often, Spanish-speaking players are reduced to their baseball statistics. We’re interested in helping provide a fuller picture.

—

Francis Rivera, a right-handed pitcher for the High-A Spokane Indians, has always loved baseball.

“I played baseball when I was like four or five years old,” Rivera said, “and I want to be in baseball for my whole life.”

Rivera, 25, grew up in a big family in his native Azua, Dominican Republic, and he has two uncles who were MLB players. Milciades Santa spent time in the Toronto Blue Jays system while Sergio Santa was in the St. Louis Cardinals system. He also grew up close to a baseball field, so it was natural that he quickly grew to love the game.

Although his uncles were position players, Rivera’s baseball career took a different track.

“I was position player when I was younger,” he said, noting that he played every position. “But when I was 17, I felt better on the mound. So that’s why I’m a pitcher right now.”

He signed with the Rockies on July 2, 2018, after attending a showcase in Santo Domingo where he got to attention of Martin Cabrera, a Rockies scout. Since then, Rivera’s been working his way through the Rockies system. In 2019, he made relief appearances with the DSL Rockies and tied for second-most appearances in the league. However, he did not pitch in 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Rivera got back on track in 2021 when he made 23 appearances with the ACL Rockies and DSL Colorado. During that time, he struck out 35 through 23.2 IP.

In 2022, he spent time with the ACL and Low-A Fresno where he had a combined 4-2 record with a 3.47 ERA in 36.1 IP. He logged a 1.32 ERA in 13.2 innings pitched, allowing two earned runs through his final 11 games of the season with the Grizzlies, holding opponents to .192/.269/.213.

However, 2023 found Rivera sidelined as he recovered from Tommy John surgery.

Like many other players who’ve gone through rehab, Rivera says of the experience, “It was boring.”

But he was back on the mound in 2024. That season, Rivera totaled 7.2 IP through eight appearances with the ACL Rockies. His progress continued in 2025 when made 35 relief appearances for the Indians. He went 3-2 with a 5.31 ERA in 39.0 IP.

Rivera has spent 2026 with Spokane as well. This year, he’s appeared in 28 games and has a 4.03 ERA (1.17 WHIP).

During the first half of the season with Spokane, Rivera had a 4.68 ERA in 25.0 IP; in the second half, however, that has improved to a 3.42 ERA in 26.1 IP.

Currently, he likes how his four-seamer is working.

“My fastball is really good right now,” Rivera said. “It’s getting a little harder, so I feel more comfortable.” His intention for the rest of the season is to continue working to improve his velocity.

He’s also pleased with his slider though it’s evolved a bit this season.

“When last year ended the season, (my slider) was really nasty,” Rivera said, “and beginning the season in spring training, they changed my grip a little bit.” However, he’s returned to his original grip.

And he likes his slider because he is confident he can throw it in any count.

But back to Rivera’s Tommy John rehab.

During that period when he had plenty of time on his hands, Rivera focused on two things.

First, he worked on his English, and he would encourage his fellow language learners not be discouraged, even though the work is challenging.

“If you want to do it, you can do it,” Rivera said. “If you want to learn, if you want practice, if you want to be better, you just want to be consistent and practice.”

Then he added, “I know it’s hard, a different language, but if you want to learn, you can learn.”

Second, he worked on his cooking, specifically making Dominican food and mangú, his speciality.

If Francis Rivera could tell Rockies fans anything, it would be this: “I love baseball. It’s my passion. It’s everything for me.”

Please keep in mind our Purple Row Community Guidelines when you’re commenting. Thanks!

Background favorite baseball player is Edwin Diaz. And favorite food is chicken and rice.

If you build it…how’s the rest of that go?

The Phillies and Twins will venture to the cornfields of Dyersville, Iowa to take place in MLB’s special Field of Dreams game on Thursday night. Or at least they will be if the weather holds up.

The Phillies will start Aaron Nola. The righthander has had an overall down season, but has been fine lately, giving up three or fewer runs in six of his last seven starts.

The Twins will go with righthander Taj Bradley who is 9-4 with a 3.76 ERA this season.

Game time is 7:30 Eastern and will be televised exclusively by Netflix.

The White Sox came from four runs down to have the winning run at the plate in the ninth, but the tale of this game came in the third inning.

The first pitch was moved up an hour to beat expected rainstorms, but somebody forgot to tell the players they were supposed to be in a hurry, so the game stretched over three hours, mostly thanks to some pretty awful pitching by both teams, as you might have guessed by the score.

Still, the biggest game lengthener came early. The Reds had taken a 3-0 lead in the first on two homers. The Sox got one run back when their first two batters, Chase Meidroth and Randal Grichuk, doubled to the left-field wall. Then they took the lead 4-3 in the second with four hits after two outs and no one on — singles by Sam Antonacci and Luisangel Acuña and doubles (again) by Meidroth and Grichuk.

Which brings us to the top of the third, with Sal Stewart, who had one of the first-inning dingers, leading off. Davis Martin threw one pitch a foot over Stewart’s head, then didn’t miss with the next one:

Being a typical baseball team confrontation, it was more a benches-clearing chat than a brawl, with any former teammates getting to exchange pleasantries, but Davis got the heave-ho.

Was Davis intentionally throwing at Stewart? Very doubtful. Do you have to toss him after two such head shots? Yep.

That brought in Erick Fedde, it being handy to have a usual starter in the pen for such an occasion. Stewart scored on a sac fly to tie the game, but the big damage to Fedde was done in the fourth, when two singles, a walk and a three-run blast by Tyler Stephenson made it 8-4 Reds.

Light rain started falling in the fifth, and the Sox made it pour on two Reds relievers, cutting the deficit to 8-5 on a clutch RBI single by Edgar Quero, who had a great day challenging pitches even if his teammates didn’t.

In came Tanner McDougal for his major league debut in the sixth. He got Elly De La Cruz to ground out, but then suffered from waaaay too much adrenaline, walking three in a row on 16 pitches and giving Eugenio Suarez, who’d homered in the first, the rare HBP RBI which made it 9-5, Reds.

Things then quieted until the home eighth, when singles by Quero (his third of the day) and Antonacci and a Meidroth walk led to a two-run Andrew Benintendi base hit to cut the lead to 9-7.

The Reds produced another pitcher not sure where the plate might be in the ninth, and the Sox came, oh, so close. Braden Montgomery drew his third walk of the day, but Munetaka Murakami pinch-hit and struck out on balls around his ankles. Colson Montgomery drilled one 105 mph to right but not quite far enough for a warning track out; Quero plated Braden with a single, then Sam Antonacci grounded hard, but balls don’t often get by De La Cruz, and that was that.

White Sox pitchers still managed to issue more walks than the Reds staff, six to five, and also hit three batters — by odd coincidence, the three who had homers. Both sides tossed a whole lot of hanging breaking pitches and middle-of-the-plate fastballs when they weren’t issuing free passes. Blame it on the rain if you like.

Losing the series to the Reds makes the White Sox 62-58 on the year, and they head to Detroit with a 2 1/2-game lead on the Tigers, who beat the Guardians this afternoon. The Tigers may have traded Tarik Skubal and Casey Mize at the deadline and lost Riley Greene to the IL this week, but they’re somehow 7-3 in their last 10 games.

MVP
Edgar Quero: 3-for-5, R, 2 RBI

Runners-Up
Randal Grichuk: 2-for-3, 3 RBI
Chase Meidroth: 2-for-3, 2 R, RBI, 2 BB, K
Andrew Benintendi: 1-for-2, 2 RBI, K
Sam Antonacci: 2-for-5, 2 R, 2 K
Trevor Richards: 2 2/3 IP, 1 H, 0 R, 2 K

Cold Cat
Davis Martin: 2 IP, 2 H, 4 R (3 ER), BB, 3 K, 2 HBP
Erick Fedde: 3 IP, 5 H, 4 R, 2 BB, K, L
Tanner McDougal: 1/3 IP, 0 H, 1 R, 3 BB

Red Sox 7 Blue Jays 0

If you had told me, going into this series, that we would win 3 of 4, I would have been happy. I knew we weren’t going to run the table. As Meatloaf never said, 3 out of 4 ain’t bad.

But…..when you win the first three, you get greedy. I wanted four. I wanted, at very least, an effort.

Max Scherzer can’t be faulted. He had a great game. He might be the only Jay to have a great game, but he was very good. Five innings, three hits, two walks, one earned, four strikeouts. You really couldn’t ask better from Max.

He is now at 3004 innings pitched. He’s 139th all time.

You could have asked better from the offense. Just two hits. And really not many good at at bats. The threw eight innings, likely could have gone nine, but why push it when it is 7-0. There was no offense to speak of. I don’t know that Payton Tolle was all that great, but we seemed to be in a hurry to get it over with.

Vlad and Nathan Lukes had a hit each.

Spencer Miles gave up two hits, but got out of his inning.

Braydon Fisher had a quick seventh.

Chase Lee….well, not so quick. Four hits, Four earned (a grand slam). And that was the game.

Lazaro Estrada gave up two more.

Jay of the Day: Max Scherzer (0.14).

Other Award: Lee (-0.23), Clement (-0.12), Valenzuela (-0.11, plus he picked the wrong pitch to challenge in the first inning. Why?), and Okamoto (-0.10). and Springer (-0.09).

I don’t know that a first inning challenge is ever a good idea, but a first inning challenge on a pitch that wasn’t even close to a strike is never a good idea. Maybe not the reason the Jays lost, but it really didn’t help.

Tomorrow the Yankees are in town. Let’s win another series.

Sal Stewart smashed a homer off Chicago White Sox starter Davis Martin in the Top 0f the 1st inning, a homer that was later followed in the same inning with a 2-run shot by Eugenio Suarez. It was the first salvo in a game the Reds would eventually win 9-8, a game that featured Andrew Abbott getting bounced early and some pretty epic back and forth lead changes.

Nothing, though, got the fireworks going like the Top of the 3rd.

Stewart stepped in to face Martin for a second time, and after Martin hummed a four-seam fastball over the outside part of the plate to get ahead 0-1 a pair of 93 mph heaters nearly domed Sal right in his helmet.

Sal seemingly shrugged off the first one, surely knowing that it would be quite odd for Chicago’s starter to be intentionally putting a runner on in a 1-run game while they’re mired in a playoff chase. The second one, though, clipped his helmet, and the benches cleared as the Reds clearly weren’t having any more of that nonsense on the day.

Whether intentional, or not, Martin was ejected from the game. Even if he didn’t mean it, you simply can’t have a guy that wild still on the mound.

Sal later added another RBI on a day that saw him go 2 for 4 with a walk, said HBP, 4 runs scored, and a pair of ribbies, and he’s pushed his season OPS all the way back up to .817. The homer was his 26th, by the way, and sounded like it couldn’t have been hit more on the screws.

The win gave the Reds the series victory and keeps them 5 games back of the final National League Wild Card spot, albeit in a position where they still need to leapfrog 5 teams to get into position. The odds of that are long, obviously, but when Sal’s in the lineup everyday seemingly anything is possible.

The Red Sox came back down to Earth from the historic July stretch over their last five consecutive losses. Being swept into Toronto would’ve begun the calls for valid concerns. 

Instead, two key contributors from the summer success turned in exactly what the Red Sox needed to put their August sprint back on track in a 7-0 win Thursday. 

Here’s three takeaways from Thursday afternoon’s win. 

TOLLE TERRIFIC

Garrett Crochet isn’t available to be the stopper right now. Luckily for the Red Sox, Payton Tolle is. 

He didn’t have true strikeout stuff Thursday afternoon, but Toronto could not figure him out. The southpaw set down the last 17 hitters he faced in eight shutout innings with just two hits allowed.

In a stretch where worries swirled about his workload, Tolle has allowed just three earned runs in his last 20 innings of work with 25 strikeouts. 

THE DURBINATOR
Caleb Durbin might play with nine functioning fingers the rest of the season with consistent treatment of his pinky, but he delivered the most consequential swing of the week. 

Boston got two on before a Willson Contreras sacrifice bunt and an intentional walk issued to Masataka Yoshida. Durbin made the most of a bases-loaded opportunity with his second grand slam of the summer and his career-best 12th homer of the year. He added an RBI knock for insurance in the ninth inning. 

While the Red Sox failed to do much against Max Scherzer (entered with 5.77 lifetime ERA vs. Boston), Durbin brought the run support needed to avoid the sweep. 

BYE BYE, BIRDIES

The Red Sox will be thrilled to be rid of the Blue Jays for the remainder of the regular season. Even after Thursday’s victory, Boston went just 4-9 against Toronto in 2026. 

The Blue Jays would have work to do to jump one of the three AL East playoff contenders in the Red Sox, the Yankees and the Rays. 

Yankees second baseman Jazz Chisholm Jr. said at spring training he had a "gut feeling" he was on the precipice of an amazing year. 

After going hitless in four at-bats with three strikeouts in Thursday's 1-0 loss to the Seattle Mariners, Chisholm's slash line dipped to .216/.296/.391 on the year for a .687 OPS, down .126 points from his mark a season ago. And that gut feeling has become a season-long stomachache as things have been particularly bad of late: He has just five hits in his last 36 at-bats (.139) over his last 11 games with 16 strikeouts.

Asked after Thursday's loss why he thought it has been a struggle for Chisholm offensively, manager Aaron Boone said, “Don’t know.”

After a long pause of nearly 10 seconds, the skipper attempted to give a better answer for the second baseman’s struggles: “Missing his pitch a fair amount. Some of the balls that he’s hit well have kinda been that one-hopper to second base when maybe he gets a good pitch to drive and do something with. That’s the subtlety of this game and baseball. You gotta make hay when you get your pitches.”

Entering Thursday's game, Chisholm has seen his xwOBA dip from .346 to .289 (13th percentile), expected slugging drop from .481 to .364 (23rd percentile), and his barrel percentage go from 15 percent (91st percentile) to nine percent (56th percentile).

“Because I feel like overall, he’s making fairly good swing decisions,” Boone continued. “He’s not chasing; there’s patience in there. But probably whether it’s just missing, maybe a foul off, maybe swinging through more pitches than he’s used to. Again, just hasn’t gone on that hot streak really at any point.”

To that end, Chisholm's chase rate has ticked up a hair, but not changed relative to his position in the league, and his whiff rate has actually gone down, but that is of no comfort in the midst of a slump.

“Missing fastballs down the middle. Missing sliders down the middle. I can’t tell you why,” Chisholm said after the game, via The New York Post. “Or else I would be hitting.”  

Boone also pointed to the slow start Chisholm went through – 22-for-109 (.202) with 35 strikeouts and a .611 OPS in his first 30 games – but mentioned he has had some clutch moments during the year.

“He’s had some big hits for us but hasn’t gone on that long stretch where he’s really capable of impacting the game in a big way,” the manager said.

In spring training, Chisholm publicly stated some very lofty expectations for himself: 50 home runs and 50 steals. Through 112 games, he has 17 home runs and 31 stolen bases on 38 attempts.

Is it a matter of failing to meet that high bar that has weighed on him?

“Well, I don’t know, he expects to be great, but that’s part of this game,” Boone said. “You gotta handle that. And, look, different guys say different things publicly. [But] they’re just that. It’s a grind of a season for everyone involved, and you gotta be able to handle all the things, and he is.

“But he certainly hasn’t found that stretch of play that he’s done with us the last couple years that he’s accustomed to and that he expects.”

With 41 games left in the regular season and the postseason looming, a few clutch hits could be enough to wash out the bad taste of a grinding season.

“Forty-one good games can turn a season around. And that’s what I’m planning on doing,” Chisholm said. "I feel like mentally, I’m not defeated. So if I was mentally defeated, I think it would have been a different story in my eyes, but I’m not. I feel like I’m still as good as I am.”

Logan Gilbert tossed six scoreless innings and the bullpen stepped up behind him to snap the Mariners six-game losing streak with a 1-0 win against the Yankees.

We’ve reached the part of the season where I’m mostly watching for the love of baseball. I think we all know by now this whole “2026 Mariners” thing probably isn’t going to work out. Maybe it’s the great Dan Wilson conspiracy. Maybe it’s the bad hitting, pitching, fielding and base running. Maybe it’s a nuanced third thing. I don’t really care anymore, which I guess is kind of the point.

One thing I love about following a team from Pacific Time is the occasional morning baseball game. When I was in elementary school the Mariners played a game in Boston that started very early (I think it was this game). I remember pestering the bus driver until she agreed to put it on the radio for the 30 minutes or so it took to get to school. It’s a small example of how baseball — even awful baseball — tends to sneak itself into the background of life and help breakup the monotony of the week.

So rather than recap this baseball game, let’s just recap my morning, with baseball.

I woke up at 9:30 or so. Well, actually I woke up on the couch at about 6:30 when my wife began her morning routine. I’ve been tremendously sick this week, with some sort of upper respiratory infection that, perhaps coincidentally, began after spending too much time in Spokane’s wild fire smoke this weekend. I’ve been sleeping long, weird hours, trying not to let my incessant hacking and sniffling disturb the flow of our household. After moving to bed and getting another three hours of sleep, I woke up feeling pretty good for the first time in several days. This is one of the great natural highs of life, to find yourself on the other side of sickness. It was a good day from the start.

With only a few moderate coughs, I got ready myself, then fed the animals and took the dog out, making sure to go far enough down the sidewalk to space out her toxic piss from last night’s relief. We live in a long line of identical town houses, but ours is identifiable by the patch of dead grass out front. Whoops.

Back indoors I quickly realized we’re out of coffee beans and added “walk to coffee shop” to my list of morning ablutions. But first, the game preview. Yes, in sickness and in health, the show must go on here at Lookout Landing, so I quickly wrote a few paragraphs that nobody read (me neither) to preview Thursday’s affair. Once that was published, I turned my attention to my actual work-from-home job, sending emails, updating spreadsheets, loading data, and filling myself in on the last few days. The game started in the background at about 10:35. Not long after, I saw a camera flip and zoom in on the left field wall, revealing Weston Wilson had snuck a solo homer over the fence against the excellent Max Fried. That’s baseball, I guess.

It was close enough to noon after the bottom of the fourth that I decided to go get that coffee. I doused myself in sunscreen, leashed up the dog, and set out for the trail. Our dog, Arrow, is a German Shorthaired Pointer, which means she has a sort of manic energy that keeps the leash taut. She’s also eight-plus with fairly severe arthritis, so she generally slows down after about five minutes, preferring to roll in the grass than move forward. That’s OK, as Gameday implied there was little reason to rush back. It was actually the first beautiful day in Spokane in weeks, with the smoke from our wildfires having moved on to pester other regions (sorry). The trail was packed, with plenty of Spokanites taking advantage of what’s likely a brief window of blue sky. It was nice to see the familiar faces (and snouts) of the neighborhood again. I got a 16 oz iced Americano and finished it by the time I’d returned for the seventh.

The score was still 1-0, back at my desk. Logan Gilbert was no longer on the mound, having been removed after six scoreless innings. I can’t claim to have seen much of it, but the stats imply he was sharp. His velocity was up, and he got 15 whiffs, seven strikeouts, and a ton of weak contact. The Mariners pitching has been really bad of late, with the starters struggling to work deep into games (especially on the road) and the bullpen shallow behind them. While the lineup and Dan Wilson will steal most of the post-mortem for the season, the second-half cratering from the pitching staff is why the Mariners are no longer even mediocre. Gilbert offered a nice change of pace.

Eduard Bazardo was on the mound in the seventh. He got two quick outs, then made things interesting by walking consecutive batters. After working Amed Rosario 0-2 on four straight pitches right down the middle, he threw a fifth pitch up-and-away that Rosario took for a ball. Jhonny Pereda challenged and ABS confirmed it had just nicked the zone for strike three. It was Pereda’s fourth correct challenge of the game, and his third challenge resulting in a strikeout. There haven’t been a lot of bright spots for the Mariners this year, but it’s been a joy to watch Pereda exhibit competence as a backup catcher, especially on defense.

And then suddenly, Aaron Goldsmith was announcing “no wiggle room” for Andrés Muñoz heading into the bottom of the ninth with a 1-0 lead. I figured I’d tune in for this part. He got a groundout, then a pair of strikeouts to end the game 1-0. Not a bad way to start the day.

Step one on the path to regaining confidence was figuring out ways of winning no matter what, and that defines the previous series against the Royals—a hard-fought sweep with three close games against one of the worst teams in the sport. Step two is managing to carry on these results against superior opposition such as they’ll face in this four-game set versus the Brewers, owners of the best record in the National League for the second year in a row.

As if turning Kyle Harrison into a dominant starter wasn’t enough, the Brewers have managed to develop Shane Drohan into a solid one. Drohan was acquired alongside Harrison in an offseason trade with the Red Sox that sent Caleb Durbin, Andruw Monasterio, and Anthony Seigler to Boston. Coming off his worst outing of the season, in which he allowed six runs in a loss against the Twins, Drohan will be making his third appearance of the year. Drohan twice appeared in relief when the Dodgers visited the Brewers back in May, allowing three runs, two of them earned, in 4.1 innings.

For Roki Sasaki, the Dodgers starter in this series opener, who will only be making his second start at home in the last month, the matchup with the Brewers has its appeal. The starting pitcher with the highest HR/9 currently on the Dodgers staff, Sasaki, will face the team with the lowest number of home runs in all of baseball. Milwaukee enters play today with 111 home runs; for the purposes of comparison, that’s 44 fewer long balls than the Dodgers, who are tied for sixth overall. Keeping the ball in the yard, Sasaki has a chance to improve over .500, currently with a 5-5 record.

Thursday’s game info

• Teams: Dodgers vs. Brewers
• Ballpark: Dodger Stadium
• Start time: 7:10 p.m.
• TV: SportsNet LA, MLB Network (out of market)
• Radio: AM 570 (English), KTNQ 1020 AM (Spanish)

After burning through their weekly allotment of runs Wednesday, the Yankees were all out of offense an afternoon later. 

If Tuesday’s big, four-run inning and Wednesday’s big, 10-run game looked like the beginnings of a stirring of the Yankees’ offense, Thursday the group looked drowsy once more. 

Perhaps that was the Logan Gilbert effect, but regardless of the cause, the Yankees were shut out for a seventh time this season in a 1-0 loss in front of 41,842 in The Bronx, where they could not finish off a sweep of the Mariners. 

On a day the Rays were idle, the Yankees (68-53) fell to a season-worst 6 ½ games behind in the AL East before trips to Toronto and Baltimore. 

Games like this series finale — in which the Yankees finished with four hits, went 0-for-5 with runners in scoring position and watched Max Fried and even their ‘B’ bullpen (Ryan Yarbrough, Yerry De los Santos and Fernando Cruz) deal — have become commonplace for a team that just has not scored enough with its best bats hurting. 

And yet they somehow have won 18 of their past 29 games, sweating through each narrow victory and narrow defeat. 

“It’s been playoffs every day, it feels like,” manager Aaron Boone said of a club whose last three defeats have come by scores of 1-0, 2-1 and 3-1. “I got people on the street saying, ‘Hey, it’ll turn around.’ 

“I’m like, ‘We’re doing all right.’ ” 

The rallying cry from the clubhouse during an extended period in which just about every game is a toss-up is that these anxieties should help later. 

“Games like this are battles,” said George Lombard Jr., who was again impressive with his glove but went 0-for-4 with a strikeout. “And that’s how games are in October. So just practice finding a way to win those tight games.” 

Their offense had shown signs of breaking through in the first two contests against Seattle, which boasts one of the best pitching staffs in the sport, but Gilbert (six innings, four hits, seven strikeouts) and the Mariners bullpen were overwhelming. 

With Aaron Judge, Giancarlo Stanton and Cody Bellinger watching from the dugout, the offense they left behind did not muster many chances and did not do anything with the few they did. 

“I thought early on we had some good at-bats against [Gilbert], right from jump with [Trent] Grisham and [Spencer] Jones smoking balls for outs in the first inning, and then [Luis] García [Jr.] leads off the second with a double, gives us a good scoring opportunity,” Boone said. “But from there, we just weren’t able to do much.” 

After his double, García (the only Yankee with multiple hits) watched Lombard (foul out), Jazz Chisholm Jr. (one of his three strikeouts) and José Caballero (pop out) go down in order. 

Their best opportunity probably came in the third, when Ali Sánchez sliced a one-out single down the right field line before Grisham drilled what looked like a double into the same area. But Grisham’s momentum took him into and briefly off second base, and a Mariners challenge found that he had been tagged out coming off the base. After a Ben Rice ground out, Sánchez was stranded on third. 

No other Yankee reached scoring position until the seventh, when a rally formed around Caballero walking, reaching second on an error and stealing third to pair with a Ryan McMahon walk. But a pinch-hitting Amed Rosario became the third Yankees batter to be punched out on a Mariners automated ball-strike system challenge. 

Wasted was a solid, if not efficient, effort from Max Fried, who allowed one run on five hits and two walks in five innings, not throwing enough strikes (55) during an 88-pitch afternoon. 

His only blemish was a second-inning, 2-2 cutter to Weston Wilson, who turned on it and clobbered a home run to left field. In Fried’s first 14 starts this season, he had allowed just one homer while facing 312 batters. 

And that was the game. Such is the Yankees’ margin for error. 

“We’re just grinding through it right now,” Boone said after another series victory that did not quite feel like one.

I sincerely hope nobody reading this recap took a friend, family member, or romantic partner to this afternoon’s Yankees game, hoping to make a baseball fan for life in the process.

Last night would have been a great game for that sort of thing. The Bombers clawed their way back from an early deficit and beat the brakes off the Mariners in a 10-5 thriller. It’s a fallacy to think in these terms, but it seems as if they expended all the remaining offense they had in their stores for the homestand in that evening tilt. The only scoring either of these two lineups could produce was a home run for Seattle’s Weston Wilson with the bases empty in the second—the rest of the afternoon was dominated by pitching. Logan Gilbert led the charge with a six-inning scoreless performance, outdueling Max Fried as the visitors avoided the sweep and ended their six-game slide with a 1-0 final.

As mentioned, all the offense you would get if you bought a ticket for this getaway day game was a solo home run in the second inning. It was just the second round-tripper allowed by Fried in 2026—and it came against Weston Wilson, a bench bat for Seattle who only had three long balls on the year. Inserted into the lineup over promising regular Cole Young, Wilson fell to two strikes with two outs before a misplaced cutter from Fried gave him a chance to sock one over the left field wall.

An inning later, it looked as if the Yankees had a splendid scoring opportunity. A single from ninth-place hitter Ali Sánchez was followed by a double by the suddenly scorching Trent Grisham, giving the Yankees two runners in scoring position with just one out for Ben Rice.

Well, until the Mariners challenged, and upon review it was abundantly clear that Grisham had slid too hard into second, bunny-hopping off the base and permitting Leo Rivas to apply the tag on him while he was suspended in midair. Abra-cadabra, the double turned into a big second out for Logan Gilbert, who rolled Rice over to second to neutralize the threat. I gave my fair share of grief to the now-demoted Jasson Domínguez for falling in love with the headfirst slide and subsequently giving away outs, but there’s an art to the footfirst slide too—Grisham did not practice it there. Can we get some drills going?

Like his last start on Friday, Fried was sharp, but his counterpart was sharper. Max scattered five hits and did some of his best work with two outs to prevent any crooked numbers, but Logan Gilbert mowed his way through the Yankee lineup to make the one misplaced cutter to Wilson stand up.

While Randy Arozarena and Julio Rodríguez failed to combine for a run in the fifth, they collectively saw enough pitches with two out to force Aaron Boone to the bullpen the following frame. Ryan Yarbrough did his best Fried impression with a perfect sixth, striking out a pair.

In the bottom of the sixth, the Yankees’ mission was as follows: get somebody into scoring position for Luis García Jr., who was the only guy in the lineup to solve Gilbert multiple times. He doubled to lead off the second, then singled with one out in the fourth, but the Yankees failed to advance him in either instance. He was due up fourth, so the Bombers needed to get somebody on and ideally somebody over.

Well, the Bombers got a man on, as Ben Rice worked a four-pitch walk. But thanks to the power of ABS challenges, the Bombers failed to get him over; Jhonny Pereda made two successful challenges on outside fastballs with two strikes to give Gilbert a pair of big Ks. García came up and battled Gilbert to the hilt, but ultimately fell on the pitch which gave the home team fits all afternoon: the splitter. The tall Seattle righty finished with six scoreless innings, scattering four hits, the lone walk to Rice, and striking out seven.

More frustration followed in the seventh, even as the Yankees built a two-out rally from dryer lint and a couple of Cheerios. In other words: Eduard Bazardo issued a pair of two-out walks, permitting a chance for Amed Rosario to tie the game off the bench. But Rosario quickly slipped into an 0-2 hole, then fell victim to yet another successful challenge of a borderline pitch by Pereda, who probably deserved game MVP honors among position players given the triumvirate of punchouts he reclaimed for his pitchers. The Yankees at least managed to get their fans to stand up in considerable number before getting them to sit back down again.

José A. Ferrer made quick work of the Bombers and pinch-hitter Heliot Ramos in the eighth, setting the stage for the ninth. Seattle closer Andrés Muñoz faced all three Juniors in succession—García, Lombard, and Chisholm. García bounced one to second, Lombard struck out on three pitches, and Chisholm swung through a slider to cement a 1-0 dud from a Yankee lineup which sorely missed Aaron Judge, Cody Bellinger, and Giancarlo Stanton.

If you thought, boy, the Yankees sure played like they had a flight to catch…well, they did. Get ready to learn Toronto dialect, buddy. That’s where the Bombers are headed: north of the border to Rogers Centre to kick off a road trip. The Blue Jays did the Yankees a massive favor by taking at least three games from the Red Sox earlier in the week—now New York will try to communicate their gratitude by defeating them. Isn’t that nice? Gerrit Cole will take on Shane Bieber in the series opener tomorrow night at 7:15 PM on Apple TV+.

Box Score

While the Los Angeles Dodgers say Mark Walter's sale of the Lakers will have no impact on the baseball club and there are no plans to sell the back-to-back World Series winners, their best player's record-setting contract is tied to the current owner's presence in the organization.

As part of Shohei Ohtani's 10-year, $700 million contract deal for the 2024 season (with $680 million deferred), the four-time MVP has the ability to opt out of the contract if Walter or Dodgers president Andrew Friedman leaves the organization.

Ohtani's contract states that if there is "specific change in Dodger personnel, player may opt out of contract at end of season the change occurs," USA TODAY Sports reported in 2023.

It was believed to be the first time such a "key man" provision had been included in a player contract.

“When you sit down with people and you form a bond and a partnership," Ohtani's agent Nez Balelo told USA TODAY, “it’s important that you keep the band together.

"If the band falls apart, at least you have options. We felt like it was important to say that as long as everyone stays together, we’re all in."

For now, Dodgers owner Mark Walter does not appear to be trying to sell the team.

But even if he does, don’t expect it to impact two-way star Shohei Ohtani.

In the 10-year, $700 million contract he signed with the Dodgers before the 2024 season, Ohtani included a “key-man clause” that would allow him to opt out of the deal if either Walter or president of baseball operations Andrew Friedman left the franchise during his tenure with the club.

However, even in the case of a hypothetical sale by Walter, the four-time MVP would seemingly be unlikely to exercise that option, a source with knowledge of the situation confirmed to the California Post.

That removes at least one potential unknown amid the sea of uncertainty currently surrounding the Dodgers’ owner.

Speculation over Ohtani’s key-man clause initially arose on Wednesday, in the wake of Walter’s stunning decision to sell the Lakers only a year after acquiring them.

That transaction, Dodgers president Stan Kasten insisted repeatedly, is not expected to have any impact on the Dodgers, nor served as any signal Walter could now try selling the baseball club.

Still, given the ongoing federal investigation into Walter’s business empire, and another Wednesday report from Bloomberg that the businessman had been seeking to raise capital to pay back loans being probed by the Securities and Exchange Commission, a potential Dodgers sale didn’t feel implausible.

And if one were to happen, it would leave Ohtani with a decision.

However, as The Athletic first reported, there are no signs the 32-year-old would be looking to leave the franchise.

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Since joining the Dodgers, Ohtani has won two MVP awards, two World Series, accomplished the first 50/50 season in MLB history, and found an apparent comfort level with the team after a six-year run with the Angels.

His decision to defer $680 million of his contract has also worked out as intended, allowing the team to surround him with layers of superstar talent.

Circumstances could always change, especially given all the questions that continue to linger around Walter.

But for now, Ohtani is clearly content in Los Angeles; so much so, even if he had the chance to use his opt-out, it’s unlikely he would do so.