Category: MLB

I’m not expert on much of anything, but here I am trying to optimize an MLB lineup, even though I don’t know how much the lineup order really matters, and I have little idea of what I am doing, but I’m going to try to get this offense going.

Optimizing Lineup by Best wRC+ Hitter at that Spot In The Lineup

So just for fun, let’s construct a lineup using the player with the best stats in each position of the lineup, as a starting point. If you set fangraphs splits at each lineup position 1-9, it will tell you who has had the best hitting at each spot in the lineup so far in 2026. I am going to do that now, starting with the best leadoff hitter! Marmol has been experimenting with lineup order lately, so let’s take a look. This is a bat first lineup that still retains Masyn Winn defense.

1. JJ Wetherholt – really no competition here, Lars was ok at leadoff for a couple games but wasn’t as good. The only other option, Winn, is a terrible leadoff hitter and always has been worse at leadoff than at other spots in the lineup. So obviously, Wetherholt is our best leadoff hitter, for now at least. I can’t imagine anyone else taking it over, although I suppose that could change.
2. Ivan Herrera, or maybe Burleson? – Ivan has mostly batted second, and when Walker has batted second, it hasn’t worked out too well. That’s about it, the first two lineup spots are obvious. I have a feeling Burleson would be well placed batting second, but for whatever reason Marmol hasn’t given it a go.
3. Alec Burleson, Jordan Walker, or Ivan Herrera – while Herrera has monster numbers batting third in a few games batting third, you have to bat him second while Walker bats third, right? Because Jordan has had a 154 wRC+ batting third this season, so why not give it a try? I have a good reason why… Burleson’s best spot is batting third, his stats are much better there than batting cleanup. I’d love to see them try Walker batting 3rd, or batting Burly second sometime, but they just haven’t been doing that. So Burleson batting third it is: a 141 wRC+ works for me!
4. Jordan Walker, or maybe Ivan Herrera – Jordan takes one for the team and bats cleanup, having the best power numbers in general, faring very well 4th with a 131 wRC+ in the cleanup spot, better than anyone on the team. He may end up being more of an all-around hitter than a pure power hitter, but his power potential is second to none. He certainly fits as a cleanup guy with our roster. Got to bat him 3rd or 4th, I say. My alternate is batting Herrera cleanup, while Burleson takes over Ivan’s spot and Walker moves up to bat 3rd, as a possibility.
5. Jose Fermin… or Blaze Jordan? – the Ferminator has posted an incredible statistic of 167 wRC+ over 9 games batting fifth, at least at the time of this writing. That experiment of Marmol’s has gone well! Much better than Walker batting 2nd. Fermin’s second-best performance is batting 9th, so you can move him to the bottom of the order if needed. Should he be playing every day? Probably not. But if you had to, no one outhits Jose batting 5th. If Blaze is in the lineup, give him a shot batting 5th, he’s been good there too! The one time he was batting fifth, he did well, anyway.
6. Masyn Winn, Blaze Jordan, etc – while it may not be a bad idea to move Winn down in the order some, he’s historically done ok batting 6th, and it’s a much, much better option than him leading off. This is a defense-first player who is not a total liability with the bat, so maybe batting 7th might be better? Hard to say. That said, Blaze Jordan has done really well batting 6th, Fermin has done well, and it seems to be Torres favorite spot, fwiw.
7. Ramon Urias, or Bryan Torres – our hitters have not done well as a squad batting 7th, and I feel that we notice this in the majority of games. Torres has been closest to league average with a 95 wRC+ when in the lineup here. Perhaps this would be a good spot for Urias if he returns to third base full-time-ish, as he has fared very well batting 7th, albeit in only 16 PA.
8. Pedro Pages or Ramon Urias – the Cardinals hitters batting 8th in the lineup have flat-out stunk. Pages is the best of the crew with a 78 wRC+, except for Urias at 94. Might as well bring Pedro back, I guess!
9. Nathan Church, Fermin, or maybe Crooks? – besides Fermin, Church has been the best bottom-of-the-lineup hitter for the Cardinals with a 119 wRC+ there, second leadoff! We have 77 PA of Church batting 9th, maybe that’s a good spot for him with that stat. Crooks has decent numbers batting 9th, as well. But Church would be your ideal 9th hitter.

Of course the lineup is further complicated by the addition of Pereira, who I might bat 9th instead of Church, I guess? The possibilities seem endless after the home run though. This excercise is, of course, predicated on some playing time before this writing, but after tonight Pereira is playing himself into the conversation. We will just have to see where we go from here.

1. Wetherholt (L)

2. Herrera (R)
or Burly (L)

3. Burleson (L)
Walker (R)
Herrera (R)

4. Walker (R)
Herrera (R)

5. Fermin (R)
Jordan (R)

6. Winn (R)
Torres (L)
Jordan (R)

7. Urias (R)
Torres (L)
Winn (R)

8. Pages (R)
Urias (R)

9. Church (L)
Fermin (R)
Crooks (L)

Urias who will someday be back on the team, has a 131 wRC+ batting 7th. Blaze Jordan has a 161 wRC+ batting 9th. The possibilities are endless. Crooks could bat 8th instead of Pages, he likes it there, I just think Pedro might be a little more valuable on defense and in pitch calling.

It is of course probably better to just obey L/R splits, but sometimes players fare better at certain spots in the lineup and this exercise is all about gaining another angle on lineup construction. Pereira is a right handed hitter, in case you were wondering.

It is my opinion that I would like to see Marmol stray away from the adherence to a certain L/R cadence, so I don’t mind him experimenting with the lineup order, but maybe there is some balance between stats?

Preferred Lineup vs RHP

1. Wetherholt (2B) L

2. Burleson (1B) L

3. Herrera (DH) R

4. Walker, Jordan (RF) R

5. Jordan, Blaze (3B) R

6. Torres (LF) L

7. Winn (SS) R

8. Pages (C) R

9. Church (CF) L

Preferred Lineup vs LHP

1. Wetherholt (2B) (hits RHP better but not too bad vs LHP)
2. Herrera (DH)
3. Walker (RF)
4. Burleson (1B) (better than batting him higher, imo)
5. Fermin (LF)
6. Winn (SS)
7. Urias (3B)
8. Crooks (C)
9. Pereira (CF)

And that, folks, is just what I would do, usually. There are a multitude of distractions and other factors we don’t really know about, matchups to be had, shakeups, but hey, it’s a fun exercise. I suppose we should keep in mind which players truly struggle with lefty/righty splits:

• Fermin 63 wRC+ vs RHP
• Burleson 40 wRC+ vs LHP
• Pereira 120 wRC+ vs LHP
• Urias demolishes LHP but has a 13 wRC+ vs RHP
• Winn above league average vs LHP and below vs RHP
• Pages can’t hit lefties
• Wetherholt, Herrera, Walker, Crooks have no major splits on RHP vs LHP

Even more music from 1994!

I have discovered more albums that I forgot or just didn’t know to list last week in my 1994 music playlist! Which is now in standard youtube playlist form here. Have a listen! Lots of good stuff. And don’t worry, metalheads, the 1994 Heavy Metal playlist is here, too!

• Beck – ‘Stereopathetic Soulmanure’ I will start with an album I had tabbed up on my phone to include, but since I wrote the article on a computer, forgot to include! This is Beck’s weirdo country folk avant garde mishmash album just before he broke big with ‘Mellowgold’, which is also really good… I’ve just grown attached to his other album from 1994 a little more, this album has been with me just as long! Both real good. “Satan Gave Me A Taco” is the song that sold me on this one at first. If you end up still liking Mellowgold more, I can’t blame you. Both are fantastic.
• Failure – ‘Magnified’ and somehow I missed one of my all-time favorite rock albums, which so happened to be from 1994! Most are familiar with ‘Fantastic Planet’ if they know Failure, but I heard this one first and still like it even more! Fucking fantastic! The way the guitar and bass sound on this is just absolutely mindblowing and the drumming takes it all to otherwordly heights that I cannot even explain. Total love for this album.
• Swing Out Sister – ‘The Living Return’ I am no expert on pop or even jazz really (who is??), but this is a nice blend of the two, mixed with 90s advancements in sound and style. Perfect album start to finish, absolutely stacked and SOS at their best! They came a long way from one hit wonder in the late 80s to reach this peak! Can’t miss if you appreciate alt-rock, jazz fusion, 90s sophistipop, soul/rnb, or just amazing catchy music in general.
• Sausage – ‘Riddles Are Abound Tonight’ another big album that I loved when it came out in 1994 that I forgot to include! Had this one on tape, despite me usually buying CDs in 1994. It’s like PRIMUS but with an alternate dimension lineup. I’m not sure if this is closer to Les Claypool’s initial vision, or what, but he did a couple spinoff bands from Primus. This ended up being better than anything Primus released after, but not quite on the level of Frizzle Fry/Seas of Cheese/Pork Soda. IMO!
• Move D Namlook – ‘Exploring the Psychedelic Landscape’ this album does as good a job as any exploring the creative side of rave/techno music of the times, taking it to tasty new levels. I actually just uncovered this awesome album, and look forward to being able to say more about it, but there’s something special to it, even though I’m more familiar with acts like Orbital, The Orb, and similar releases of the early electronic music movements.
• Moonshake – ‘The Sound Your Eyes Can Follow’ this is another new find that I cannot say much about other than I’m surprised I never heard it before, and how good it is, how eclectic, etc. Much love.

1994 Heavy Metal

• Acid Bath – ‘When The Kite String Pops’ it is sort of tough putting this album as the best Metal album of 1994, because it is super eclectic and diverse in genre and style, but in the end, this sure sounds like a heavy metal album. Sure, there are elements of hardcore punk, death metal, thrash, alt rock, southern, and other genres, making it seem like Acid Bath is sort of like the Faith No More/Mr Bungle of New Orleans, but… if you’re a metalhead and cannot bang your head to this album, there is something wrong! And why yes, that’s John Wayne Gacy cover art. They were in the back of the old mail order magazines with the album cover, I believe organized by their record label for maximum effect. Their second album cover was by Jack Kevorkian. The 90s were all about some shock value, sometimes. My friend lived above a guy that had a Gacy painting in Chicago, I wondered how this frail but energetic Irish woman from Ohio ended up there.
  (New Orleans)
• Brutal Truth – ‘Need To Control’ Brutal Truth address all kinds of issues, mental, physical, and spiritual, on this magnificent release, which balances artfulness with intensity, creativity with timely delivery, and a hyper-focused, concise message. A standout among a stacked catalog to those in the know. And maybe the most clearly produced BT album of all. Death metal, industrial metal, or grindcore as advertised, what is it? It’s Brutal Truth at their best, going off the map a bit. And it’s fucking awesome. Although, to be fair, each of their albums exists within its own universe.
  (NYC)
• Godflesh – ‘Selfless’ the definitive industrial metal album, imo, and my favorite Godflesh album. 10 mile wide, high density riffs forever, with the heaviest drum machines you could find in the 1990s. This album had Justin K. Broadrick, G.C. Greene, and crew, perfecting the formula leading up to this fine and perfect release. Total gamechanger for me, along with Ministry of course. Heavy slabs of guitars, monitored by a cybernetic organism, with its creator observing, singing, and decrying it, all while being at the center of it all.
  (UK)
• Brutality – ‘When The Sky Turns Black’ is my hidden gem pick for this week. With each song, this album kept getting better and better, and throwing in an old-school Black Sabbath cover did not hurt one bit. Most albums I hear for the first time at age 50 make me want to hear something else, but this one was quite the opposite: it made me feel younger, hearing a new style for the first time. And for that, I cannot repay… I have discovered a historic band this year. They haven’t really (re)invented the wheel here, they just do the style so much justice and are completely BRUTAL at it. The production also suits the sound.
  (Tampa Bay)
• Corrosion of Conformity – ‘Deliverance’ COC morphed from crustpunk to hardcore to thrash to southern metal real quick it felt like, but by the time Deliverance was released Carolina’s Corrosion of Conformity had been around a while. This ended up being probably their biggest album, with the hit single “Albatross”. This is COC exploring a bunch of different styles for the first time, and doing better than any other time in their career, so if you want to explore this band, this is a good starting point. Superb musicians with Pepper Keenan in several big name bands. Highly recommended if you want a heavy metal album that borders on alt rock with swagger.
  (North Carolina)
• Sadistik Exekution – ‘We Are Death…’ one of the fastest bands of all time, sounds like chaos to some but I hear an underlying order similar to a few other death metal bands, blurring the lines between traditional death metal, black metal, and total chaos. Stupid fun brought to you by a dangerous band.
  (Australia)
• Infester – ‘To The Depths In Degradation’ mysterious teenage one and done extreme death metal album by a band from the Pacific Northwest during the grunge era. For being an unknown band this sounds pretty freakin’ amazing, fantastic youtube find from just before I wrote 1994’s review!
  (Seattle)
• Oppressor – ‘Solstice of Oppression’ it’s tough to rank as impressive of a find as this in the middle of the pack, because i have a feeling this will be a grower and the production could be slightly better… but it already sounds like a classic, to be perfectly honest. Super creative next level heavy metal for its time, and our time, too!
• Emperor – ‘In The Nightside Eclipse’ just probably the best black metal album of all time created by teenagers… if you want more goth, keyboards, and the supernatural in your metal, this is for you. I bought the remaster on vinyl, it’s so good. While this is certainly somewhat cheesy sounding, it also sounds completely genuine.
  (Norway)
• Cryptopsy – ‘Blasphemy Made Flesh’ what drew me to this album was the crazy bass playing and tone. The guitars and drums are super technical and delivered with precision, as is the bass, but it makes this album stand out from the pack, along with the weirdass vocals. Guitar solos are pretty unique and the whole thing feels more on the progressive end of death metal without sounding it. This is not easy to pin down.
  (Canada)
• Enslaved – ‘Frost’ probably what I would call the most tasteful and well done of black metal bands. They have forged their own path, too. 1994 saw Enslaved release their debut album, as well as this followup which I have enjoyed more because of its wider scope and more precise production and sound. Both are good, but if I had to suggest just one…
  (Norway)
• Samael – ‘Ceremony of Opposites’ if you want black metal that borders on the industrial music scene, Samael is your best bet. This album just comes off as a classic upon first listen, a classic of the genre. 1994 was really where black metal started to take off and branch out into many directions, while also being at its beginnings still. Just as crucial as Emperor and Enslaved in 1994! But maybe the most catchy of the three. Mayhem also released a pretty good one that year.
  (Switzerland)
• Nailbomb – ‘Point Blank’ a straight up industrial metal release from Max Cavalera of Sepultura and producer Alex Newport (also of Fudge Tunnel). Perhaps the heaviest straight up industrial metal release of all, even including Ministry. Just an all time classic, with some hardcore punk edge too.
  (Brazil/UK)
• The Chasm – ‘Procreation of the Inner Temple’ I have been blasting this album for years now so I can vouch for its staying power. I tend to prefer their albums after this one, but it’s a rather solid debut! Also sounds like no other… if you love blackened thrash/death metal, you have to check out their discography.
  (Mexico)
• Cianide – ‘A Descent Into Hell’ total caveman sludged out midtempo old school death metal, one of the best of the midwest. Check out their whole discography! For real.
  (Chicago)

Back to baseball…

I’m perplexed… fangraphs has a stat called Clutch that rates the Cardinals offense as one of the best in MLB. But, they’re not doing very well in high leverage situations. They also don’t produce much in low leverage situations. They do excel in medium leverage situations, however! So I guess they’re clutch, outside of the biggest moments, and when the game is off the line?

The Cardinals play at 1:15 this afternoon. https://baseballsavant.mlb.com/preview?game_pk=823017&game_date=08/12/2026

Zack Wheeler faces Kyle Leahy on his home turf. Wheeler is dealing this season so we will be lucky to take the series. But, Leahy has been no disappointment; maybe we will get lucky and score some runs and watch the wheels fall off for Wheeler!

The Detroit Tigers took the first game of a critical home series against the Cleveland Guardians on Tuesday night with a narrow 6-4 victory. The good guys got their first win against Tanner Bibee since July 2024 thanks to some well-timed offense, and somehow, Kenley Jansen did not blow the save despite feeding the batters meatballs in the ninth.

Taking the mound for the Motor City Kitties in Game 2 is left-hander Framber Valdez, who is coming off two straight seven-inning quality starts. Across those 14 frames of work, the 32-year-old veteran posted a 1.29 ERA and 2.38 FIP on 14 hits and four walks — good for a 1.29 WHIP — while striking out 11 en route to a pair of wins.

Valdez faced Cleveland once before this season on May 18 in Detroit, and it was not pretty, serving up four runs on five hits and four walks while striking out three over five innings of work to take the L in an 8-2 loss. However, that was during the heinous month of May, so it might not be wise to extrapolate much from those results.

For the visitors, fellow southpaw Foster Griffin will toe the rubber for the second time in a Guardians uniform after being traded from the Washington Nationals, who received four players for the 2026 All-Star. The 31-year-old was shellacked in his first start for Cleveland against the New York Mets, coughing up five runs on seven hits (two home runs) and two walks while striking out six over four frames to earn his fourth loss of the season in a 12-4 final.

Take a peek at how the two match up stats-wise with our data below.

Detroit Tigers (59-60) vs. Cleveland Guardians (58-62)

Time (ET): 6:40 p.m.
Place: Comerica Park, Detroit, Michigan
SB Nation Site:Covering the Corner
Media: Detroit SportsNet, MLB.TV, Tigers Radio Network

Game 120: LHP Framber Valdez (7-7, 4.17 ERA) vs. LHP Foster Griffin (12-4, 3.31 ERA)

VALDEZ

GRIFFIN

Free of charge for the discerning reader.

Happy birthday to Matt Clement, and a mighty host of others.

Today in baseball history, in 2018 – After another great performance by Max Scherzer, the Nationals go into the bottom of the 9th with a 3 – 0 lead in a Sunday night game against the Cubs at Wrigley Field, only to see rookie David Bote hit a two-out pinch-hit walk-off grand slam off Ryan Madson for a 4-3 win, and other stories as well.

Today in baseball history:

• 1876 – Chicago’s versatile Cal McVey has the unusual distinction of both pitching and catching in a 5-0 win over Cincinnati. The win goes to starter Al Spalding‚ his 10th straight win over the Reds
• 1930 – With 40‚000 fans on hand at Wrigley Field‚ Dazzy Vance gives up 14 hits and walks four but strands 16 Cubs runners. With the game tied 2-2 in the 11th, Riggs Stephenson bounces a single to drive in the winning run.
• 1934 – In St. Louis, the Cubs sweep the Deans‚ winning 7-2 against Paul‚ and 6-4 over Dizzy. Big Jim Weaver wins the opener and Pat Malone is the victor against Diz.
• 1951 – Roy Campanella breaks up a pitching duel between Don Newcombe and Boston’s Johnny Sain with a three-run homer‚ his second of the game‚ and the third time in nine games he’s collected a pair of homers. Campy’s five ribbies give the Dodgers a 7-2 win.
• 1953 – Brooklyn slugger Duke Snider hits his second grand slam in three days‚ accounting for all the runs in the Dodgers’ 4-0 win over the Giants. Carl Erskine allows New York just two hits.
• 1956 – At Wrigley Field‚ Stan Musial doubles in the sixth for his 1‚071st extra-base hit‚ tying Mel Ott for the National League record‚ but his Cards lose‚ 6-2.
• 1963 – Stan Musial announces his retirement, effective at the end of the season, at the St. Louis Cardinals’ annual team picnic.
• 1964 – Mickey Mantle sets a major league record when hits a home run from both sides of the plate for the tenth time in his career. Mantle hits a left-handed homer off Ray Herbert over the 461-foot marker in centerfield that lands 15 rows into the bleachers, 502 feet from the plate.
• 1974 – Nolan Ryan fans 19 batters in the California Angels’ 4-2 win over the Boston Red Sox. Ryan breaks the American League record of 18 strikeouts set by Bob Feller in 1938 and ties the major league record set by Steve Carlton in 1969 and Tom Seaver in 1970. He also ties the major league record with 32 Ks in his last two games.
• 2001 – The Braves fall to the Diamondbacks‚ 9-1‚ as Greg Maddux‘s National League-record streak for innings without allowing a walk is ended at 72.1. Maddux intentionally walks Steve Finley in the 3rd inning to end the streak.

Cubs Birthdays:Ian Happ, Matt Clement*, Dave Pavlas, Ellis Burton, Bob Buhl, Charlie Gassaway, Don Hurst. Also related: Ray Schalk HOF. Christy Mathewson HOF.

Today in history:

• 1492 – Christopher Columbus arrives in the Canary Islands on his first voyage to the New World,
• 1851 – American inventor Isaac Singer patents his famous sewing machine.
• 1877 – To his amazement, Thomas Edison records himself reciting “Mary Had a Little Lamb” on his newly completed cylinder phonograph, a device that records sound onto tinfoil cylinders.
• 1908 – Ford Motor Company builds its first Model T car, which Henry Ford himself tests on a hunting trip to Wisconsin and northern Michigan.
• 1958 – Art Kane photographs a group portrait of 57 leading jazz musicians assembled in front of a brownstone on 126th Street in NYC for Esquire magazine; originally titled “Harlem, 1958,” it appears as the centerfold of Esquire’s January 1959 issue celebrating the “Golden Age of Jazz”.
• 1966 – The Beatles hold a press conference at the Astor Tower Hotel, in Chicago, Illinois; John Lennon apologizes for his “more popular than Jesus” remark.
• 1966 – The last Beatles concert tour of North America begins with two shows at the International Amphitheatre in Chicago, Illinois.
• 1978 – NFL New England Patriots wide receiver Darryl Stingley suffers a spinal cord injury, leaving him with incomplete quadriplegia after a hit by Oakland Raiders’ Jack Tatum in a preseason exhibition game.
• 1991 – Heavy metal band Metallica releases its fifth album, “Metallica,” which debuts at No. 1 on the Billboard 200 chart.
• 2016 – American star swimmer Katie Ledecky sets a world record of 8:04.79 to dominate the women’s 800 m field at the Rio de Janeiro Olympics; a medal tally of four golds and onx silver makes her the most decorated US female athlete at one Olympics.

*pictured.

Phillies News

• A weird analysis of walk-up songs, to which the Phillies are noted
• Could Alex Cora be softening up to the idea of managing the Phillies in 2027?
• The Bryce Harper/FanDuel controversy is forcing Congress to ban all MLB players from sportsbook marketing

MLB News

• Hindsight looking at the trade deadline a week later
• Predicting this year’s All-MLB Team, whatever that is
• Giants lose 3B Matt Chapman to season-ending core muscle surgery

With the MLB trade deadline behind us and a lot of players on the move around the league, Baseball America did a full re-rank of their top 100 prospects list last week, placing just three Detroit Tigers prospects on the list. With Kevin McGonigle long graduated, and Max Clark on his way to graduating from prospect status by season’s end, the system is bolstered with good depth after the deadline deals, but for the moment is a bit lacking in high end impact prospects. That’s not a problem to be worried about right now, because the Tigers already have one of the better young core position player groups in the game, while Jackson Jobe’s return to join Troy Melton and Keider Montero gives them a center piece group to build their rotation around for years to come. It just means that there may be fewer impact position players coming along in the next couple of years.

While FanGraphs still has 27-year-old right-hander River Ryan on their Board as a prospect, Baseball America regards him as graduated due to his age and service time, even if much of that time as a big leaguer has been spent recovering from 2024 Tommy John surgery. That categorization certainly makes the Tigers system weaker on Baseball America’s list, but remember that it’s overall organizational talent that matters in the end, not who has the best players still regarded strictly as prospects. In terms of high end, 25 and under talent in the organization, few teams can compete with the Tigers right now. Still, the Tigers will certainly need to see some of their players just outside of “top 100 status” to continue developing into prospects with higher levels of certainty to continue to flow talent into the major leagues in the years ahead.

The one huge whiff on Baseball America’s new top 100 list in regards to the Tigers is the exclusion of catcher/first baseman Josue Briceño. We can at least give them a point for consistency, as they didn’t rank Briceño in their 2025 post-draft top 100 rankings in August of 2025 either, but doubling down on a mistake does one no credit. At that point, fellow catcher-first baseman Thayron Liranzo was their 69th ranked prospect, but he’s now off the list entirely. Max Clark was ranked 22nd and Kevin McGonigle was 23rd. Obviously that doesn’t look too good in retrospect either, but at least they were both fairly highly ranked. SS Bryce Rainer was ranked 60th and is now their 73rd ranked prospect.

A wrist injury suffered in spring training back in March required surgery, and sidelined Briceño until July. The left-handed hitter hasn’t taken long to get back into form, and his combination of a plus hit tool and plus power locked in quickly to conquer the Double-A level. He has eight homers in just 17 games for the Erie SeaWolves, and after striking out a bit more than usual in his first series, he looks right back on track in that regard. As a result, the Tigers will promote Briceño to Triple-A Toledo starting on Tuesday.

There are ongoing concerns about Briceño’s ability to stick behind the plate, of course. Those concerns are largely mitigated by Dillon Dingler’s rise as one of the elite players in the game, but between Eduardo Valencia and . Briceño the Tigers have two decidedly bat first catchers that don’t really jibe with A.J. Hinch and his staffs’ philosophy of demanding excellence behind the plate from their catchers. Thayron Liranzo has a lot more questions about his bat, but has really separated himself as the most likely future backup catcher for Dingler.

Still, even as a first baseman, Briceño is comfortably a 50 FV prospect and should be on any top 100 list. There aren’t 10 better hitting prospects in baseball at the moment. The 21-year-old reached Double-A in early July of 2025 at age 20. He played 45 games there last year and hit five home runs, while his strikeout rate spiked from 16.4 percent at High-A to 23.7 percent at Double-A. Still, he barely had time to do much more than settle in at the level by season’s end, and he was 3-4 years younger than most players in the Eastern League at that point.

To miss the first half of the season with a wrist injury and then level up and conquer Double-A conclusively in a couple of weeks is extremely impressive. He’s trimmed his chase rate to well above average levels, and is running a swinging strike rate just under 11 percent combined at the level overall. He makes a lot of contact, and much of it is very hard contact. He’ll also take his walks. Briceño combines one of the better combinations of plate discipline, pure contact ability, and big time juice in all the minor leagues. He may just not provide all that much value defensively as a first baseman and designated hitter.

FanGraphs and MLB Pipeline are on the right side here, as both continue to put 50 FV grades on him, while acknowledging that he’s a bat first prospect that may not provide much value defensively. Ultimately, top 100 status at this site or that site doesn’t have any relevance to how a player’s career works out, but people often use top 100 players to judge farm systems. They’ll be missing part of the picture in Briceño’s case.

#17 CF Max Clark

Young Mr. Clark has made a very successful start to his big league career over the past week, and will be graduated off top 100 lists this offseason unless something goes very awry.

Clark entered the season needing to do a few things to get himself to the major leagues. The main thing was tackling a more advanced class of pitcher and getting acclimated to the more advanced and complicated sequencing he’s seeing in the major leagues. Next was to clean up his defensive game and base running a little further. Clark’s reads and route running improved quite a bit in 2025, and he was no longer relying on speed and closing ability to play a good center field. However, there were still finer points in his first step, reads, and body control as he pursued balls in the gaps and over his head that needed work this season, and his time with the Mud Hens was all about refining the details of playing the position, while improving his ability to get jumps on more experienced pitchers and steal bases.

All signs are positive. Clark combines a gritty, old school approach and a distaste for strikeouts with the ability to go the opposite way, draw his walks, bunt for hits, or turn and crush home runs. His first step has improved quite a bit, but his routes can still be a bit circuitous. His speed and closing ability has always made up for some of those deficiencies, and this season he made nice strides improving the finer points of his game and no longer relying so much on pure speed alone. There are still improvements to come, and at 21 years of age, a high likelihood that Clark will continue to develop into one of the better defensive center fielders in the game.

#39 OF Zyhir Hope

The Tigers next top prospect is their newest. The left-handed hitting outfielder is an athletic specimen with huge juice in his bat and good speed and defensive ability to boot. He moves up significantly in BA’s rankings after trimming his 2025 High-A strikeout rate down a little bit at the Double-A level, while handling high velocity much better and doing a ton of damage at the plate. Hope has 23 homers and 18 steals in 94 games for Double-A Tulsa this season.

His profile has always come with some swing and miss concerns, but Hope has proven both driven and coachable and his progress this season lends a lot more confidence that the swing and miss isn’t going to hold him back too much. He made some adjustments to his stance and bat path that alleviated some of the strikeout concerns and helped him cover more of the zone effectively against all pitch types. Hope might turn out to be a relatively low average slugger who mainly feasts on right-handed pitching at the major league level, but he’s handled left-handed pitching reasonably well this year, giving more confidence that he’ll break through as a full-time right-fielder who can play center on a part-time basis while contributing in all phases of the game with All-Star caliber upside if everything comes together.

#73 SS Bryce Rainer

The recently turned 21-year-old Rainer’s stock has slipped this season due to the high strikeout rates he’s posting at the High-A level. His double plus power and arm strength have returned intact after season ending shoulder surgery in early June of 2025, and his plate discipline remains excellent. However, Rainer only had 35 games of pro ball out of high school coming into this season and the Tigers moved him aggressively up to High-A West Michigan this spring after a brief stint at Low-A Lakeland to get his feet back under him.

Rainer’s development as a shortstop continues to go well, and he looks like a future above average defender whose outstanding arm strength enables him to throw out runners from deep in the hole and get plenty of gas even on off balance throws on choppers and slow rollers, or from awkward angles going up the middle.

The issue is still the strikeouts. As argued repeatedly, Rainer’s numbers early on this year were pretty irrelevant. He needed time and reps just to get back into the swing of things after 8 months without swinging a bat in game situations. And as expected, those extreme strikeout rates he ran in April and early May cooled down significantly as he settled in. Rainer then tore the Midwest League up in June, with a high percentage of his balls leaving the bat at 108 up to 114 mph. He posted a 1.140 OPS for the month with six home runs, most of them tape measure shots, but continued to strike out around 30 percent of the time. Those strikeout numbers got worse in July, and he stopped hitting the ball in the air as much as pitchers started trying to jam him and in general pitch around him a little more.

What’s really noticeable, however, is that the high strikeout rates come more from patience verging on passivity than from swing and miss. It bodes much better for his long-term potential that he’s just taking a lot of strike calls than if he were swinging and missing to extreme degrees. The former can be alleviated by alterations in his approach and simply building up reps, whereas bat to ball skill is more innate and hard to develop. Rainer’s long levers and stiff-legged swing remain highly effective at balls in the middle of the plate or away, and he takes the ball to left field with eye-popping authority. But those same traits sometimes get in the way of him pulling balls he should crush on the inner third, and rolling them over on the ground instead. His approach has generally been to avoid swinging even at strikes unless he can extend on them. His 12.7 swinging strike rate is a little on the high side, but for a very inexperienced hitter at the High-A level they’re very reasonable. His 20 percent called strike rate tells the tale, as he’s often rung up on edge pitches he just doesn’t think he can do much with anyway. The solution probably involves improving his lower half strength and flexibility, improving his platform to help him adjust to balls in flight more effectively.

Rainer deserves a lot of leash before people’s opinions about his future start to calcify. Right now, he looks like a future low average hitter who will walk a fair amount and hit for good power while playing average and likely above average shortstop. That easily makes him a viable top 100 candidate, but the kicker here is that the upside is enormous, because when he can extend his arms, he consistently drives balls harder than all but a few other prospects in baseball, all while rarely chasing pitches out of the zone. I think we can dispense with hopes of future Corey Seager comps, because Rainer just doesn’t have the adjustability in his swing to foul off a lot of tough edge pitches or serve them for softer hits. The risk/reward levels here are high, but the power, eye for the zone, defensive tools, along with some basestealing ability and overall speed, all give him a more stable floor than most hitters of this type.

Even now, Rainer only has 119 games out of high school and he’s hitting in the heart of a High-A batting order. Don’t expect him to run through Double-A in 2027. The development path is still going to be a few years, and it won’t be a surprise if adapting to the Eastern League will take a full season or more. How long it takes him to adapt and thrive at that level will tell us a lot more about his future outcomes than this season’s work, as he’s only really gotten back up to speed after the injury over the last two months. He’ll be 23 in July of 2029, and that’s probably when to expect him to be ready for a major league debut.

Best of the rest

Right now, the Detroit Tigers’ farm system is still top ten in baseball, but Clark’s graduation will send them back closer to the bottom third of teams. On the other hand, besides the Briceño oversight, the Tigers have added and developed several players to the tiers just below a 50 FV grade, and some, like 2026 first rounder RHP Cameron Flukey, RHP Kelvis Salcedo, LHP Ben Jacobs, and LHP Kash Mayfield, aren’t far from top 100 consideration. We need to see a bit more but RHP Lucas Elissalt is close to that tier of pitchers as well.

Flukey in particular will get top 100 consideration this offseason if he throws some innings at Lakeland as expected this year. Early reports on his bullpens and the development of a kick change have been glowing. Salcedo has arguably the best stuff in the system but threw 68.2 innings last year as a 19-year-old, and may not top that this season after missing some time with minor injuries this year. If he can prove his durability in 2027 and reach 100 innings in his age 21 season while maintaining the velocity and stuff he already displays, he too is going to get 50 FV grades and top 100 status next season.

Shortstop Jordan Yost has shown off pure hitting ability that should land him plus grades, and his high end defensive ability for his age and experience says he’s going to develop into a pretty good major league shortstop on his current trajectory. The question with Yost is how much power he’ll develop as he gets into his 20’s, but he’s already made strides in terms of batspeed and max exit velocities, and has a fairly projectible frame that should eventually get him to average raw power.

Beyond them the Tigers have a deep group of position players, including some young international standouts like Angel De Los Santos and Jesus Pinto in Lakeland. Brett Callahan and John Peck at the Triple-A level exemplify the Tigers philosophy of taking athletic players who can hit, even if their raw power and hitting pedigrees weren’t notable on draft day. They now have a wealth of talented but still flawed players, any of whom could potentially break out and become useful major league players in time.

The issue in the system has been on the pitching side the past few years, but the Skubal and Mize trades, along with more emphasis on pitching in the draft and the development of guys like Jacobs, Salcedo, and Elissalt, now have them in a much better place. This should be a relatively strong and well balanced player pipeline for years to come. Most likely, we’ll just have to wait quite a long while for a duo like McGonigle and Clark to come along again.

New York Daily News | Gary Phillips: At this point in the 2026 season, Giancarlo Stanton has been out so long that he almost feels like an afterthought, as he last played on April 24th in Houston. The calf injury was said to be minor, but sadly nothing truly is with MLB’s active home run leader. If nothing else, Stanton at least hit a milestone in the rehab process yesterday, participating in on-field baserunning drills at Yankee Stadium for the first time since June (when his calf strain recurred). He had been working on his hitting, but he hadn’t previously done this during the process.

Stanton has avoided rehab appearances in recent years since as a DH, the Trajekt pitching machines do an excellent job of replicating game action. But manager Aaron Boone noted that rehabbing somewhere in the minors could be the next hurdle assuming Stanton’s calf is still OK, though it appears more likely that even if all goes well, Cody Bellinger will return to the Yankees sooner (with Aaron Judge after Stanton). The Yankees could use any boost they can find for their lineup, and despite the clunky roster fit at this point Luis García Jr., Ben Rice, Paul Goldschmidt, and Heliot Ramos also being varying degrees of DH types—to say nothing of Judge—they will gladly find a way to squeeze Stanton in if his body says he’s good to go.

The Athletic | Dan Barbarisi: A month ago, it was reported that the Yankees were close to receiving a boost from the firm Apollo Global Management. That has indeed to come pass, as a $2.6 billion financing agreement was announced on Tuesday, “a mix of debt and equity and will allow the Yankees to refinance or retire much of their existing debt, then pursue new ventures.”

Hal Steinbrenner’s not going anywhere as the Yankees’ managing general partner and we only know that the stake is not larger than 15 percent due to MLB rules about individual private equity investment, but Apollo Sports Capital CEO Al Tylis is joining the Yankees’ board (formally known as Yankee Global Enterprises).

MLB.com | Matthew Ritchie: An even more forgotten Yankee is on the rehab trail like Stanton. Yes, Luis Gil really did begin the 2026 season in the Yankees’ rotation. Well technically they skipped him the first time through, but Gil did make four starts in the season’s opening month. He looked too similar to the guy who the Yanks very reluctantly gave a (doomed) playoff start in 2025, and with better rotation depth this year, they optioned him to Triple-A Scranton/Wilkes-Barre.

However, the oft-injured Gil quickly went down with right shoulder inflammation. The 2024 AL Rookie of the Year hadn’t pitched in a game since April 26th until making a rehab appearance at High-A Hudson Valley last night. Gil threw a good inning, throwing 12 of 13 pitches for strikes across five batters. Gil will probably eventually end up back at Triple-A if his body responds well, as again the depth is too deep for him in the Yankees’ rotation at this point — though Boone said that there could “potentially” be a bullpen role.

Scranton/Wilkes-Barre RailRiders: The Yankees’ Triple-A affiliate will remain in Northeast Pennsylvania next year, but they’ll have a identity. Scranton/Wilkes-Barre adopted the RailRiders moniker after massive renovations finished on PNC Field in 2013; the former Red Barons had simply been the Yankees for their first few years as a Yankee affiliate after moving on from the Phillies in 2007. Now, something new is on the horizon for Scranton’s name in 2027. It will not be revealed until November, but if recent minor-league team names around the industry are any trend, expect something quirky.

MLB Trade Rumors | Steve Adams: Former Astros foe Rafael Montero had joined the Yankees as Triple-A depth for much of the 2026 season, but that chapter has come to a close. Originally a Mets starter and now an 11-year MLB veteran, Montero never made it to The Show with the Yankees and is being released after recording a 5.67 ERA in 28 games for Scranton/Wilkes-Barre. I’d say that this might be the end of the line for him, but teams are so desperate for bullpen help these days that it would not shock me in the slightest to see him hook on elsewhere, especially if he’s willing to keep grinding it out at Triple-A.

Speaking of the bullpen, the Yankees made a slight tweak to the big-league club yesterday with Bradley Hanner coming up for what could be his MLB debut later in the week. Kervin Castro was placed on the IL with right elbow neuritis. Jeff had the story for us, so check out more here.

The Dbacks dropped the second game of the series Tuesday night as they scored 2 runs in the first inning, and then were blanked by Sugano and the Rockies bullpen.

As mentioned, the game got off to a strong start as both Corbin Carroll and Ketel Marte went yard in the bottom of the first inning. If you would’ve asked most Dbacks fans at this point, they would probably be feeling pretty good about the rest of the game considering what this team has done to the Rockies this season. However, Sugano had different thoughts.

All in all the young lefty Mitch Bratt looked pretty good tonight as he allowed just the 2 run home run over 6 innings tonight. This continued an impressive turn through the Dbacks starting rotation as they group has allowed a grand total of 5 ER over their last 5 starts. Bratt continued to demonstrate poise and presence beyond his years tonight as he navigated his way through the Rockies lineup while striking out 4 Rockies batters.

However as mentioned earlier, it was really the offense that let the Dbacks down again tonight in what has become a trend of scoring early and then getting shut down. It is worth noting that Sugano has had quite a bit of success against the Dbacks this season as he has allowed just 6 ER across just over 17 innings of work. It seemed like the Dbacks were overly aggressive tonight, especially after the first inning. This offense when they are at there best works the counts, and passes the baton to the next guy up. The biggest red flag for this team continues to be their performance against right handed pitching. What started out as such a positive with Marte and Carroll, quickly shone a light on an ever growing problem once again.

All in all, this was a disappointing loss tonight for this team, especially given the fact that the Padres won. Fortunately, the Phillies lost so it is now a 3 team tie for the 3^rd wild card spot. I believe the Dbacks techinically have the upper hand in the standings with the tie due to their intradivisional record, not that it matters all that much yet. Im likely to chalk this loss up to a difficult pitching matchup for this lineup. Maybe because of his deep arsenal and his splitter usage? Hard to say.

The answer is: Power hitting, sloppy opposing defense, and iceberg lettuce from Taylor Farms.

The questions is, what are three things likely to produce runs Tuesday night?

The San Francisco Giants got four runs Tuesday night, which was enough to defeat the Houston Astros, 4-1, after 7 2/3 innings from a pair of magnificent Carsons. Winning a close game where the Giants ran the bases opportunistically and the other team committed a bunch of errors? That’s some weird, wild stuff.

Carson Whisenhunt had a rough start, letting six of the first nine Astros he faced reach base. But he escaped and eventually earned his third win of the season after giving up just one run in 5.2 innings. Then Carson Seymour came through with two shutout innings of relief, yielding only a single to “Late Night” LaMonte Wade, Jr.

It was a different sort of game for the Giants, who continued their hard-luck ways Monday when Andrew Susac fouled a ball off leg and fractured his kneecap, which will keep him off the field and off his scooter for the foreseeable future. But Tuesday, the breaks started to go their way.

In the first inning, Whisenhunt escaped a bases-loaded jam, caused by a walk, a single and hitting Jose Altuve with a pitch. Then he loaded the bases with no outs in the second inning, but got a forceout at home, and a sac fly from Yordan Alvarez to get out with only a 1-0 deficit.

They tied it up with a Rafael Devers walk and a Drew Gilbert RBI single.

In the 4th, Gilbert walked, after the Giants actually won an important ABS challenge that held up the ball four call. Then he reached second on a grounder to the pitcher, thanks to a hit-and-run call, and scored on Drew Cavanaugh’s single. Baserunning!

One inning later, Bryce Eldridge went yard for the first time in two weeks, sending a slider from Astros starter Hunter Brown (3-2) over the center field wall. The rookie has been in a power slump for a while, but a double Monday night and his 12th dinger of the season show he may be breaking out.

The Giants won another ABS challenge to get a strikeout in the 6th, then Christian Koss doubled in Cavanaugh, running faster than any Giants catcher in recent memory, and aided by Jeremy Pena’s second throwing error of the game on his relay throw to the plate. Clearly, he was intimidated by Cavanaugh’s wheels.

The rest of the game was remarkably free of drama and remarkably full of the Giants taking extra bases. Willy Adames went 2-for-4, with his 25th double of the season and his fifth stolen base. Osleivis Basabe got a bunt single, a regular single, and advanced on a wild pitch. Cavanaugh went 2-for-4 and stole his first career base.

But also, nothing weird or bad happened to the Giants. JT Brubaker only needed seven pitches in the 9th to get his second save. Lou Seal didn’t hit anyone with his belly, and even the guy in McCovey Cove serving out a fantasy football punishment managed to stay dry.

It was a well-played, drama-free night of baseball for the orange and black. Where have these guys been all year?

The Kansas City Royals lost, 5-4, to the Los Angeles Dodgers via a walkoff single in the 10th inning. Royals starter Michael Wacha pitched well into the seventh inning and the offense rallied in the eighth inning, but the bullpen did what it does best—give up runs and lose baseball games.

Most of this game was rather uneventful because Wacha and Blake Snell were cruising for most of it. Mookie Betts smacked a solo home run in the second inning and Salvador Perez lifted a sacrifice fly in the fourth inning, but most of the action happened in the final four frames. In the seventh inning, Alex Call doubled home Mookie Betts to give the Dodgers the lead, and then Teoscar Hernandez doubled to score Call and push the lead to two.

Kansas City battled back the very next frame. Against reliever Evan Phillips, Nick Loftin walked and advanced to third on a Bobby WItt Jr. single. Jac Caglianone and Salvy hit consecutive singles to tie the game.

Carter Jensen then smashed a laser of a line drive that tied Andy Pages in knots. Though Pages corralled the ball, he dropped it right before he threw it, which allowed Cags to score and give the Royals their late-inning lead.

But I think everyone knew what was going to happen. Stephen Cruz walked Pages, hit Max Muncy with a pitch, and then gave up a clean opposite-field single to Betts. That tied the game, and the game would go to extra innings.

In extras, the Royals immediately moved the ghost runner, Kyle Isbel, to third base with a Loftin fly ball. But Witt flied out and Salvy grounded out.

For a second, it looked like Lucas Erceg might get out of the jam. He intentionally walked Freddie Freeman to set up the double play and unleashed a nifty little infielder-esque toss to throw Pages out on a high bouncer. One more intentional walk, this time of Kyle Tucker, loaded the bases again to set up a forceout at every base. But then, you know.

You know, I wrote earlier today that I didn’t think that Kansas City would lose 100 games. But this bullpen is hideously, aggressively, stupendously, extraordinarily, impossibly, infuriatingly, insultingly awful, so that is still in the cards. I don’t know what else to say other than, well, good night.

Dodgers southpaw Blake Snell called his shot.

It wasn’t quite Babe Ruth pointing from the batter’s box. The moment won’t make its way into any movie. But Snell did tell manager Dave Roberts over text message that he was going to throw six innings in his first start back from the injured list after undergoing surgery to remove loose bodies from his elbow.

Then, en route to a 5-4 walk-off Dodgers victory in 10 innings against the Royals, Snell did just that.

“I knew that’s what the plan was coming in, and I really wanted to execute that plan,” Snell said after limiting the Royals to one run and three hits.

Despite Snell’s resume, the two-time Cy Young winner wasn’t guaranteed a smooth return. It had been three months since he’d last started a major-league game. And it was only his second start of the season, after a late buildup in spring training due to shoulder fatigue, a May season debut against the Braves, and surgery shortly after.

Eventually getting back this version of him, however, was key to the Dodgers’ postseason aspirations.

Read more:Dodgers' Dalton Rushing provides promising update on his elbow injury

“I think the biggest thing was just being aggressive,” Snell said. “Be in the zone, attack. I know how good my stuff is, so I didn’t want to just be nibbling and then complaining like, ‘Oh that’s a strike.’ I didn’t want to do any of that again like I did versus Atlanta.”

That was a short and not so sweet season debut. He exited after three innings, having put his team in a five-run (four earned runs) hole.

The difference Tuesday was “stark,” as Roberts put it.

To clear room on the roster to activate Snell, the Dodgers (72-48) optioned left-handed pitcher Charlie Barnes to triple-A and transferred right-handed reliever Blake Treinen (right elbow inflammation) from the 15-day IL to the 60-day. Though he has not yet begun a minor-league rehab assignment, manager Dave Roberts said Treinen has not had a setback.

Snell, who had 10 strikeouts Tuesday, kept the Royals off balance all night leaning on a fastball that had a little extra life to it, a curveball that generated a 63% whiff rate, and a changeup that was especially effective against right-handed hitters.

“I was more calm than I thought I was going to be, so that was good,” Snell said. “But the curveball’s finally coming back to how I remember it being. It was always a pitch that was a wipeout, I could throw it, but now I’m finally releasing it where I need to release it. And I’m kind of releasing everything in the same slot out in front.”

Counterintuitively, Snell pointed to his last rehab start, in high-altitude Salt Lake City, as another factor that helped lock him in for Tuesday. It’s a notoriously difficult place to pitch, with the thin mountain air affecting the way the ball moves.

“To have that start and be that frustrated pitching knowing that I can’t throw anything that I want with any shape,” Snell said, “to be able to come here and just pitch and know I can throw a curveball where I want, whenever I want, and a fastball, that felt way better.

“But Salt Lake was so difficult. Oh my God. If I played in Salt Lake growing up, I don’t know if I’d be here today.”

Roberts set expectations low in his pregame availability, saying the hope was to get Snell through five innings. Snell had other plans.

Read more:Shaikin: The Shohei Ohtani Economy: A two-mile ride to Dodger Stadium, for $85

He struck out the side in the first inning and retired the first 10 hitters he faced.

When he finally gave up back-to-back singles to the Royals’ Bobby Witt Jr. and Jac Caglianone, neither was particularly well struck — a soft line drive and a grounder that found a hole on the right side of the infield.

With runners on the corners and one out, Snell gave up the only run of his start, on a sacrifice fly by Salvador Perez.

The next inning, Snell worked around a leadoff hit — a blooper into shallow right field that speedy Tyler Tolbert stretched into a double — and a stolen base, to strand Tolbert at third.

Back out for the sixth, Snell retired the side in order. He finished his outing by getting Perez to chase a changeup below the zone and pop it up behind second base.

“He was fantastic tonight,” Roberts said. “And you know we pushed him a little bit into the six and through the six, but just because he was so efficient, certainly that extra inning was huge for us.”

It was especially important once the back and forth in late innings pushed the game into extras.

Hard-throwing right-hander Seth Halvorsen tossed a scoreless tenth inning in his Dodgers debut, setting up Max Muncy for a walk-off single in the bottom half of the inning.

“That’s the Snell that we’re used to seeing,” Muncy said. “And hopefully we have him for the next two, three months — for the long run.”

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This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.

In the eighth inning on Tuesday night, it looked like the Dodgers were trying to give the game away.

In the end, all they were really doing was setting up some late theatrics.

In a back-and-forth, twist-and-turn, 5-4 thriller of a win over the Kansas City Royals, the Dodgers took another step forward from their recent two-week slump –– overcoming a bafflingly blown two-run lead in the eighth by ultimately winning on Max Muncy’s walk-off single in the 10th.

“I just love the way we really, really bore down and competed tonight,” manager Dave Roberts said, harkening back to calls for renewed urgency after the Dodgers’ recent 1-8 skid.

“You just have to keep moving forward,” Muncy added. “I think that’s been one of the biggest things we’ve been doing.”

The Dodgers certainly had to move forward on Tuesday, in a game such dramatics shouldn’t have been required.

The team got a dominant six-inning, one-run start from Blake Snell in his return from the injured list. They broke a 1-1 deadlock with a two-run rally in the seventh, when Mookie Betts, Alex Call and Teoscar Hernández all hit doubles. 

But instead of coasting the rest of the way with a 3-1 advantage, they quickly let the game go flying back off the rails.

Right-handed reliever Evan Phillips created a mess in the top of the eighth, following a one-out walk by allowing three-straight singles that tied up the score again. 

Then, after Jack Dreyer took over, came the night’s most confounding moment.

Dreyer got Carter Jensen to hit a routine fly ball to deep center. But after making the catch, outfielder Andy Pages somehow let the ball slip out of his hand on the transfer and sent it skipping behind him back toward the wall.

At second base, Royals runner Jac Caglianone went from retreating to the bag, to getting waved all the way home for a go-ahead run.

Of all the games the Dodgers have given away lately, none had threatened to feel so gift-wrapped as this one.

With their backs against the wall, however, the two-time defending champions responded.

In the bottom of the eighth, Betts got the game tied once more, slicing an opposite-field RBI single for his third hit of the night (he also snapped an 18-game home run drought with a solo blast in the second).

Then, after the teams traded zeros in the ninth, the Dodgers finally prevailed in the 10th.

Right-handed reliever Seth Halvorsen survived the top half of the inning, stranding a runner at third in his debut outing with the team. 

Moments later, the Dodgers were pouring out of the dugout to mob Muncy, who gave the team its first set of back-to-back wins since July 29-30 on a one-out line drive to right-center field with the bases loaded.

“To relent and give up that lead again tonight, but to fight back and recapture the lead was great,” Roberts said. “It’s just guys coming together and being ready when called upon. It doesn’t matter who’s playing, where you hit, who’s pitching. Just find a way to win a game … The last two nights is what we’re looking for.”

In what’s been a Cinderella summer for the Red Sox, the clock on the wall suddenly appears to read four minutes after midnight. No, the season is not over, but the magic carpet ride that transported this team through a wormhole and into the thick of the playoff race is almost certainly fading into the fabric of history.

Instead of everything breaking Boston’s way and almost everybody being hot at the same time, we’re suddenly seeing a brand of baseball where every mistake is magnified, every clutch play ripples, and every little thing makes a huge difference. In other words, welcome to meaningful baseball in August, where the goal for the next three months is to make that July matter as much as possible.

Nowhere is the reality check more evident than in the way the last four games have ended. They’re not just losses, they’re losses to subpar pitching performances all ending with with men on base in the ninth inning and the tying run either at the plate or stranded somewhere aboard the broken carousel.

Tonight in particular was filled with lowlights. Here’s some of the most glaring:

• The team was 0-7 with runners in scoring position (part of a 3-36 stretch with 38 men left on base over their last four games).
• Caleb Durbin, usually one of the more surehanded defenders, made a costly error that led to a pair of unearned runs in the fifth.
• Jarren Duran got thrown out representing the tying run trying to steal second base in the eighth inning.
• Willson Contreras went hitless again and looked like he belongs closer to the IL than the cleanup spot. (I wonder if one of the reasons it took so long to get the corresponding roster moves to Adley Rutschman getting activated is because one of the options may have been to IL Contreras.)
• Wilyer Abreu struck out in a key spot to end the seventh to a guy who trotted out from the bullpen with a 10.20 ERA.
• Adley Rutschman made the final out of the game in his Red Sox debut, missing a very hittable pitch during the second offering of the at bat.
• The team collectively failed to score a run against the soft underbelly of Toronto’s gassed bullpen despite the Blue Jays bullpen usage looking like this in terms of innings pitched over the last week:
  • Tuesday (8/4): 6.0 innings
  • Wednesday (8/5): 6.0 innings
  • Thursday (8.6): 3.1 innings
  • Friday (8/7): 4.1 innings
  • Saturday (8/8): 5.2 innings
  • Sunday (8/9): 5.2 innings
  • Monday (8/10): 5.0 innings
• Speaking of bullpen work, how about this 0-2 pitch by Seth Martinez in the bottom of the eighth with a chance to get out of the inning without any damage?

But all of this doesn’t even get to what I think might be the biggest big picture problem from this game: Patrick Sandoval kind of sucks. He doesn’t throw enough strikes, he struggles to go deep into games, and he’s flirted with all out disaster in at least half his starts despite not yet having a signature meltdown.

Over The Monster’s own pitching guru Jake Roy noted during the game that “Sandoval’s fastball velocity was down about 1.5 mph, and he had a ton of arm side misses, which tells (him) he was probably fatigued.”

Well, that’s kind of an enormous problem, because he’s already not giving the Sox enough length, and they don’t really have anywhere else to go with Payton Tolle and Jake Bennett already at career highs in innings pitched, Connelly Early traded away, and reinforcements from the likes of Garrett Crochet, Johan Oviedo, Kutter Crawford, and Tanner Houck nowhere to be found on the immediate horizon.

Compare this to the more fixable nature of everything else that went wrong tonight: I know the Sox offense is going to be streaky. I know Caleb Durbin is a better defender than his misplay showed. I know Willson Contreras is a better hitter than the last week indicates. I know Adley Rutschman is going to come through his fair share of the time when his spot comes up in the ninth, and I know Seth Martinez isn’t going to be pitching in the eighth inning all that often. You know what I don’t know? How the Sox are going to manage the bottom of this rotation over the next few weeks if anything else cracks.

Chad Tracy knows he’s stuck with Sandoval for the foreseeable future too, because oh boy was he putting lipstick on this pig after the game:

“I thought he was really good. Just two earned runs and a few walks. I thought he controlled counts much better. Didn’t have many spurts where he lost control. I thought he had a pretty good outing.”

I like Tracy and think he was just covering for his guy, but this here is not at all what I want to see from my starter:

Way too many uncompetitive balls that proved easy takes for the opponent, and not nearly enough swing and miss stuff. If it wasn’t for a pair of double plays and Wilyer Abreu’s assist in the fifth, there’s almost no way he makes it through six innings. Going forward, this is a ticking time bomb.

And yet, do you know what’s worse? The obvious second guess of leaving Sandoval in this game too long isn’t all that obvious given the broader circumstances. If this was a “gotta have it game” down the stretch, Tracy could’ve pulled Sandoval after five innings and just used some combination of Justin Slaten, Tyron Guerrero, Erik Miller, Garrett Whitlock and Aroldis Chapman for the final four frames.

But at some point, you need length out of your starters at this stage of the season, so Tracy took a chance with Sandoval in the sixth given his low pitch count (60 pitches entering the inning). It obviously didn’t work, but there’s going to be nights where Tracy has to do this because he can’t get to the end of September with his bullpen completely gassed. Sadly, tonight is a good example of what’s generally going to happen whenever he has to ride with Sandoval too long. It’s a true damn if he does and damn if he doesn’t situation when it comes to squeezing out that last inning from Sandoval.

So at this point, the second guess needs to branch further out. Specifically, did the front office add enough pitching at the deadline? One way or another, Sandoval is going to play a big role here for at least the next few weeks, and that feels like a very dangerous proposition.

Let’s ask the OTM community:

Three Studs

Wilyer Abreu: Despite that crummy at bat against Little that proved extremely costly, we’ll still give it to him with a low bar tonight thanks to a home run in the fourth inning, a walk, and this outstanding throw to end the fifth.

Ceddanne Rafaela: A home run, a sac fly, and a bit unlucky on this very sharp ground ball in the ninth that could’ve made things really interesting. (Great play by Andres Gimenez’s)

Tyron Guerrero: Looked fantastic again in his scoreless inning of work in the seventh.

Three Duds

Patrick Sandoval: Unlike Chad Tracy, I thought this outing sucked. He coughed up a lead, got worse as the night went on, was bailed out early by an overaggressive Toronto lineup, still fell behind plenty of batters, and only generated five swing and misses the whole game. His velocity was also down, which is a huge problem for a guy who certainly won’t be getting people out from great command anytime soon.

Willson Contreras: 0-4 tonight and has just one hit since missing a few days with illness. He looks like a guy who should be on the IL right now with that barking hamstring, and it also feels like he just needs some time to refresh after getting hit in the head in LA and missing games due to an illness.

Caleb Durbin: 0-4 at the plate with two strikeouts and an uncharacteristic error in the field.

Up Next:

The Sox turn to Ranger Suarez to stop the losing streak on Wednesday. He’ll toe the rubber against Jose Soriano and a still exhausted Blue Jays bullpen.

After getting trounced 9-0 by the Arizona Diamondbacks in the series opener, the Colorado Rockies looked to get back on track in Game 2.

And they did that in a close game that found the Rockies defeating the D-backs 3-2.

The offense got key hits (with a big thanks to Kyle Karros)

The Rockies (again) started off in the hole when Tomoyuki Sugano gave up a one-run homer to Corbin Carroll (17).

Two batters later, Ketel Marte (21) repeated his teammates’s feat and sent one over the right-field wall.

Those were the only runs Sugano allowed — though he did surrender a triple to noted speedster Nolan Arenado — and the Rockies came out of the first inning with a 2-0 deficit. (For those keeping score at home, the Rockies have allowed more first-inning runs than any other team in MLB.)

As for the Rockies, they continued to struggle offensively and could not figure out D-backs lefty starter Mitch Bratt.

In the third inning, the Rockies finally had their first base runner when Jordan Beck smacked a double. Connor Norby followed that up with a walk in his first Rockies at-bat. However, the Rockies were unable to capitalize and headed into the bottom half of the third still down 2-0.

The offense took another run at getting on the board in the fourth inning. Cole Carrigg hit a double (14) with one out, but the Rockies were, again, unable to capitalize, and the score remained 2-0 D-backs.

The game dragged along until the sixth inning when Ezequiel Tovar got on base with a single. And then Kyle Karros stepped to the plate and slammed his 10th homer of the season, tying the game and got the Rockies on the board for the first time since an 8th-inning Hunter Goodman homer on Sunday in St. Louis.

The bottom half of the inning, however, found a swift change in Karros’ fortunes when he collided with Tovar while both were attempting to field the same ball. Karros took a blow from Tovar’s shoulder to his head before leaving the game with Willi Castro moving to third and TJ Rumfield entering the game to cover first.

One pitch later, however, Arenado hit into a 6-4-3 double play to end the inning and keep the game tied at two.

Bratt left the game after the sixth inning. He allowed two runs (both earned) on four hits while walking one and striking out five. For the seventh, D-backs manager Torey Lovullo went to his bullpen.

With Kevin Ginkel entering the game in relief, Hunter Goodman kicked things off with a lead-off triple.

Mickey Moniak hit a fly ball to left field to score the run and give the Rockies a 3-2 lead.

The Rockies went to their bullpen in the seventh. Jimmy Herget allowed one hit, but the runner did not score, and the Rockies headed into the eighth with a one-run lead.

Brennan Bernadino handled the eighth inning.

The Rockies came into the ninth inning hoping to tack on another run (or two). Carrigg hit a single with one out and stole second base, his seventh steal of the season. With two outs, Castro walked, and designated hitter Mickey Moniak came to the plate. However, a fly ball to center ended the threat.

Closer Jordan Romano came in for the ninth looking to preserve a 3-2 Rockies lead. After getting Ketel Marte to pop out, Arenado hit a single. However, Romano finished the side to end the game and give the Rockies a win.

The Rockies finished the evening with three runs on six hits. They walked twice and struck out seven times.

“We kept grinding, just like we always do,” Schaeffer said of his team’s effort.

Schaeffer said that Karros is under concussion protocol. Additional updates will be provided tomorrow.

Stalwart Sugano (菅野 智之) kept the Rockies in the game (again)

It was a fairly typical Tomoyuki Sugano game.

He gave up two solo homers in the first inning (his 25th and 26th, respectively), and then settled in for the rest of the game. However, he battled against an elevated pitch count since he had already thrown 43 pitches by the end of the second inning.

Still, after allowing a hit in the third inning, Sugano retired nine consecutive batters.

He relied primarily on his splitter (24%), followed by his four-seamer (22%), and his sinker (20%). Once agin, Sugano’s extensive pitch mix coupled with elite control was enough to shut down a smoking-hot D-backs offense after the first inning.

Sugano’s final line was 6.0 IP with two runs (both earned) on six hits. He struck out five and did not issue a walk on 93 pitches.

“I thought the execution got better as the game went on,” Schaeffer said. “Tomo did what he does.”

It was another stellar Sugano outing that garnered him his 12th win of 2026.

The bullpen finished the job

After the sixth inning, Schaeffer turned the game over to the bullpen.

Jimmy Herget handled the seventh. He went 1.0 IP and gave up one hit, but no runs, walks, or strikeouts.

It was another sparkling eighth inning for Brennan Bernadino, who retired all three batters he faced on 13 pitches.

Jordan Romano earned the save by allowing one hit but no runs on 17 pitches.

Up next

The Rockies are now 47-73 while the Diamondbacks are 64-57.

Join us tomorrow for a Game 3 rubber match, which tees off at 1:40 pm.

Rockies starter Ryan Feltner will face Merrill Kelly.

See you then — at the snake farm.

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The Rays looked to make it eight straight against the Sacramento Athletics tonight, as Nick Martinez took the hill for Tampa Bay. Opposite him was 25 year old Mason Barnett, making just his eighth career start at the major league level.

The Rays offense didn’t take long to get things started, as Junior Caminero crushed his 35th homer of the year:

That was the second homer in as many games for Caminero. Dating back to August 5, his last three hits have left the yard.

Things stayed put until the top of the third when the Rays scored their third run on a sacrifice fly by *checks notes* Chandler Simpson. It would only take one more inning before the Rays would tack on two more from another unlikely source, as Taylor Walls hit his first home run of 2026:

But Walls’ moment would last long, as Yandy Diaz stole his thunder, mashing his 17th homer on the very next pitch. After an extended slump, it seems as if Diaz has returned to form, as he has now homered in consecutive games, and hit safely eight times in the last three.

The A’s had an answer in the bottom of the fourth, getting themselves on the board in the form of a two run homer off the bat of Lawrence Butler. Brady Basso came in to relieve Barnett. He would pitch a scoreless fifth, but ran in to the absolute buzzsaw in Walls, this time homering from the right side:

Believe it or not, this is the second time in his major league career he has homered from both sides of the plate, the first Ray to achieve this feat twice. Diaz wouldn’t steal his thunder a second time, though.

Victor Mesa, Jr. added to the home run barrage in the seventh, this time off of Elvis Alvarado, for his 10th of the year. Mesa, Jr. has made good on his first run at extended major league playing time, raising his wRC+ to a 106 mark:

Walls wasn’t the only Ray of the night to hit his first home run of the season, as Carson Williams wasted no time going deep pinch hitting for Caminero in the eighth, blasting a 420 foot bomb to right center. Hopefully, this is the swing that gets Williams’ bat going.

Martinez would go the distance, but not before the A’s scored two more in the bottom of the ninth. For the Rays’ starter, it was just the second complete game of his major league career. Additionally, it was his fourth consecutive start without allowing a walk, and just his third start this year allowing more than three runs.

Tomorrow the Rays go for their ninth win and their third sweep in a row, as ace Drew Rasmussen takes the ball opposite Jack Perkins in a Wednesday matinee.

Among 59 outfielders who had seen at least 10 opportunities in center this season, Trent Grisham ranked 59th in sprint speed. 

By the same metric, which measures a player’s top running speed, Spencer Jones entered play Tuesday No. 39 of 521 major leaguers, an elite athlete who would be one of the faster center fielders in baseball if he were a center fielder. 

Yet Grisham was back in center for a 97th time this season, having played zero games in a corner, as the Yankees won the series opener 4-1 over the Mariners in The Bronx while Jones, who has moved all around the grass, was in right field. 

“Feel like that’s the best way to go,” manager Aaron Boone said of an arrangement that speaks to the club valuing Grisham’s know-how over Jones’ sheer ability at one of the most demanding positions to play. 

Grisham has only played center in three seasons with the Yankees after establishing himself at the position with the Padres, with whom he won Gold Gloves in 2020 and 2022. 

But in those days his foot speed was an asset, ranking 18th among all major leaguers in sprint speed in 2020, when he averaged 29.1 feet per second in his fastest one-second window. 

That number is now down to 26.6. Like a safety who can diagnose opposing offenses but lacks closing speed, Grisham’s limitation is most on display when he has to backpedal or race behind him for balls over his head, where the 29-year-old ranked dead last among center fielders according to Outs Above Average. 

“He’s been having trouble going back,” said outfield coach Luis Rojas, who also pointed at the hamstring injuries over the past few years that may have taken a toll. “He knows about it. He’s working hard on it. 

“But you can see, he’s really good coming in. He finishes plays coming in. … He’s got a really good athleticism as an outfielder to bend and make some shoestring catches or diving catches.” 

A strength in charging and route running and a weakness in retreating added up to Grisham ranking 39th of 40 by Outs Above Average. A competing metric, Defensive Runs Saved, saw Grisham rank 58th of 68 outfielders who had logged at least 100 innings in center. 

There is also the eye test, and a number of plays — most recently Thursday’s drive from St. Louis’ JJ Wetherholt, which Grisham could not reach, decided to play off the wall and then watched as it short-hopped the wall and scored two runs — also paint a picture of a center fielder whose legs are holding him back. 

Which is not the only trait Boone considers when writing his lineup. 

“Just really experienced at the position,” Boone said of Grisham, an eight-year veteran who has rarely played a corner in his career. “Generally speaking, routes, ball security, just the nuances of the position, he’s very good at.” 

There are no guarantees that Jones, who most often played center field coming through the Yankees minor league season, would immediately prove as savvy if given runway in center. Boone also pointed to Jones having played “a good amount in the corners” in the minors as contributing to the alignment. 

What it adds up to is the Yankees relying upon a center fielder who is older and slower than most center fielders while hoping that experience matters and speed, even a bit of it, can return. 

Grisham will not be among the fastest in the game again, but it is at least possible there is another gear to reach as he gets further away from his June hamstring strain and feels more comfortable going all out. 

“I think he’s fully healthy,” Rojas said. “But [an injury like that is] always in the back of your head when it happens during the season, and you want to stay in there for your team, right? Grish is a guy who wants to play.”