Category: MLB

False alarm. Former Dodgers star Chris Taylor is not retiring, after all.

A day after Major League Baseball’s transaction log stated that Taylor was retiring — and the league’s official social media account even put out a post recognizing his career — Taylor changed his mind on the decision and instead went on the injured list with the Angels’ Triple-A affiliate in Salt Lake City, a source confirmed to The California Post.

Taylor had not played since being hit by a pitch in his left arm earlier this week in a Triple-A game. He is going on the minor-league IL now with a forearm fracture, as MLB.com’s Rhett Bollinger first reported.

Taylor, 35, has been in the Angels’ organization ever since the Dodgers released him in the final year of his contract last May.

He played 30 games with the Angels at the big-league level over the second half of last season, batting .179 while missing time with a fractured hand.

He re-signed with the Angels on a minor-league deal this spring and has spent the entirety of the year in Salt Lake, where he was hitting .255 in 32 games this year.

News of Taylor’s supposed retirement on Friday night was met with a wave of gracious reactions from Dodgers fans online. Dodgers manager Dave Roberts also praised Taylor’s contributions in Los Angeles, where the utilityman was a two-time World Series champion and a 2021 All-Star selection over a productive 10-year stint.

Turns out, such plaudits were premature.

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According to a source, Taylor told the Angels’ organization he was planning to retire this week, leading the club to file official paperwork to the league Friday.

By Saturday, however, he changed his mind, electing to keep his career active and go on the minor-league IL instead.

Athletics (26-25) at San Diego Padres (30-20), May 23, 2026, 6:40 p.m. PST

Watch: Padres.TV

Location: Petco Park – San Diego, Calif.

Listen: 97.3 The Fan

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One step forward, two steps back. 

The Mets’ offense appeared to have found their footing in recent games, but they’ve quickly returned to their feeble ways down in Miami. 

New York struck against Marlins righty Eury Perez on a Juan Soto homer in the first inning of Friday’s series opener, but managed just three baserunners the rest of the way. 

They followed that with an even worse showing on Saturday. 

Max Meyer had just about everything working as he held the Mets to three walks and a 64 mph opposite-field single across his seven shutout innings of work. 

New York was held to only that hit until a Tyrone Taylor pinch-hit double in the ninth, followed by a Mark Vientos RBI single that finally got them on the board. 

That was the Mets’ first at-bat with a runner in scoring position over the first 18 innings of this weekend set, and it was quickly wasted as A.J. Ewing grounded out to end the game. 

They now have just two runs on six hits and four walks in the pair of losses. 

“We’re better, we’ve seen that,” Carlos Mendoza said. “We’ve ran into two pretty good arms the past couple of days.”

“Obviously we haven’t done what we’ve wanted at the plate, but you gotta give credit where credit is due,” Vientos added. “The pitchers we’ve faced have been doing their thing.”

Both Perez and Meyer were certainly at their best, but this continues a season-long skid in which the Mets have managed to score one run or less in a league-worst 14 games.

With these last two, they’ve now dropped four of their last five. 

Now 1.5 games back in the basement of the NL East, though, they know they have to turn the page quickly. 

“You can’t sit here and feel sorry for yourself,” Mendoza said. “You gotta keep going.”

“Once 12 o’clock hits tomorrow, it’s a new day,” Vientos added. “Today is in the past and we have to focus on tomorrow and come back and win the game tomorrow.”

Apparently, if the sun is out, all you have to do to beat the White Sox is hit pop-ups. Or hope they bring in Jordan Leasure.

The Giants took a 3-0 lead in the fourth thanks to Jarred Kelenic misplaying a Luis Arraez fly ball into a triple, which a sac fly and four singles followed, all off sorta starter (after a Bryan Hudson opening performance), Erick Fedde. Kelenic tried to atone by leading off the fifth with a double, which was followed by singles by Tristan Peters and Drew Romo and a shot by Sam Antonacci that drove in a run on a fielder’s choice, but it would have been more were it not for a great play by Willy Adames.

That made it 3-2. Munetaka Murakami then K’ed, but Miguel Vargas doubled Antonacci home to tie the game.

That would be the last point of the game where Vargas didn’t want to bury his head in the warning track.

In the bottom of the fifth, Arraez singled, and Casey Schmitt went deep to make it 5-3. Then with two outs Matt Chapman popped out behind third to end the inning, only Colson Montgomery didn’t chase it and Vargas lost it in the sun, so it went for a double. Fedde then walked the bases loaded, bringing up the only batter he’d had no trouble with, Harrison Bader.

Naturally, after Fedde proved he could handle Bader, Will Venable went to the freshly recalled Jordan Leasure, who served up a gopher ball after Miguel Vargas lost yet another pop-up — this one foul. The grand slam made it 9-3 and sent John Schriffen, Gordon Beckham, and Connor McKnight spiraling into an extended riff on Alcatraz, sharks, seals, kayaks, and just about anything besides baseball. Hard to blame them.

That was about it for anything interesting, except when Rafael Devers hit a pop-up, the wind blew fair in front of the plate, and Devers just stood and watched while Murakami lost that one in the sun and dropped it and ended up thrown out thanks to a nice stretch by Chase Meidroth.

Adames hit a homer in the eighth to make the final 10-3, but by then, the announcers were scheduling their kayaking for tomorrow. Again, can’t blame them.

Eight of the Giant runs were on Fedde’s tab, with Leasure only charged with Bader himself and not the guys Fedde put on the bases, and Trevor Richards tagged for the last run. In true hyper-inefficient White Sox fashion, despite only walking three and striking out six, the four pitchers needed 161 pitches to get through eight innings — Giants pitchers only needed 147 for nine, and they struck out 12 Sox, which takes more throws.

The Sox did have 10 hits, two each by Peters and Vargas, who were probably only about a net minus-five runs for the day.

The loss puts the Sox record at 26-25, with the series by the bay wrapping up tomorrow at 3:05 Central, Noah Schultz matching up against veteran lefty Robbie Ray, who’s fresh off being absolutely clobbered by the Diamondbacks.

The Dodgers and Brewers finish off their weekend series in Milwaukee with Yoshinobu Yamamoto on the mound on Sunday.

Yamamoto is coming off a tough-luck loss on Monday in San Diego, in which he allowed a solo home run in the first inning and otherwise mostly nothing else in his seven innings. This is the right-hander’s third career start against the Brewers, all of which will have been in Milwaukee. The first two were on opposite extremes of results.

Last July 7, Yamamoto didn’t get out of the first inning and allowed five runs (three earned), in his only truly bad start of 2025. He made up for that and then some with a complete-game win in Game 2 of the National League Championship Series, the Dodgers’ first postseason complete game in 21 years.

Right-hander Brandon Sproat starts Sunday for the Brewers.

Sunday game info

• Teams: Dodgers at Brewers
• Ballpark: American Family Field, Milwaukee
• Time: 11:10 a.m. PT
• TV: SportsNet LA
• Radio: AM 570 (English), KTNQ 1020 AM (Spanish)

In this series, pitching has mostly ruled the day despite the two highest scoring teams in the league squaring off. That was especially true today. The Nats and Braves were locked in a pitchers duel. In the end, two solo home runs from Dylan Crews and Jorbit Vivas proved to be the difference. 

While the game started on time, there was an absolute downpour in the second inning, which led to a half hour delay. Both Grant Holmes and Jake Irvin seemed unaffected by the delay, and were absolutely dealing. Irvin was the better of the two though. He threw five scoreless innings, retiring 15 of the 16 batters he faced.

This was the best Irvin has looked all season. His fastball was sitting at 94 MPH and the curveball was absolutely dancing. Irvin’s curve has been a great offering for him all season, and this was the best it has looked all year. He got 11 of his 14 whiffs on the big hook.

Unfortunately, Irvin seemed to have tweaked something at the end of his fifth inning of work. He tried to give it a go in the 6th, but he could not even make it through his warm up pitches. It would be a real shame if Irvin was hurt after this dominant outing. The results have not always been there for Irvin, but he has been one of the most dependable starters in the big leagues the last few years. I do not believe he has missed a start in his career to this point.

While Irvin was dealing, the Nats offense was mostly quiet. They had a tough time dealing with Grant Holmes’ breaking balls. The slider and the curve were both there for the mustachioed right hander. However, Holmes did make a couple mistakes and the Nats made him pay.

The first one came on an 0-2 count to Dylan Crews, who looked all out of sorts on the first two pitches. However, Holmes gave him a hanging slider, and the former LSU star did not miss it. Crews hammered his first home run of the season into left field, and gave the Nats a 1-0 lead.

Crews has been up and down since coming back from the minors, but seeing him homer was nice. It does feel like he falls into 0-2 counts far too often though. Hopefully this homer can be the start of something for Crews. It would be amazing if the Nats could get him going.

The Nats other home run also came from an unlikely character. Jorbit Vivas had really been struggling at the plate, especially with runners in scoring position. However, with nobody on, Vivas ambushed a Grant Holmes fastball on the first pitch that just left Truist Park. It was a huge homer that gave the Nats much needed insurance.

The pitching is what ruled the day though. After Irvin departed, Brad Lord came in and delivered three scoreless innings. He was able to navigate a Vivas error to strand two Braves in the 7th. As usual, Lord was fantastic in his bulk relief role and helped the Nats save their bullpen. He is such a key piece to this Nats pitching staff and is a true glue guy.

In the 9th, Richard Lovelady came in the game to face the middle of the Braves lineup. The fiery lefty retired Michael Harris, Matt Olson and Ozzie Albies without incident to secure the Nats a 2-0 win. It was a pitchers duel in Atlanta, and the Nats got the upper hand. The 3 Nats pitchers only allowed one hit and dominated a very good lineup. That sets up a rubber match tomorrow, weather permitting of course. 

Recap

Jovani Moran had the responsibility to keep the Twins in check for the first inning in order to provide a soft landing for Brayan Bello in his bulk-pitching era. Well, today wasn’t that day: Moran allowed hits to the first three Twins batters, then a run-scoring sacrifice fly immediately after that. Despite needing all the help he could get, Bello entered the game with a 2-0 deficit.

Bello twice got into a bases loaded jam and threw 20+ pitches.

The Sox bats were silent until the fourth. This inning also featured a clearing of the benches as the inning ended, after Willson Contreras ran through Twins catcher Victor Caratini but didn’t beat the throw.

The fifth inning featured Contreras’ first error of the season, and an extremely close play at the plate that was challenged but ultimately didn’t go the Sox way. Bello didn’t do himself any favors in the inning either, loading the bases for the second time (albeit with help from Contreras’ E) in another high-pitch inning. He also thoughtlessly deflected a ball in play, which looked like it was headed toward being cleanly fielded by Mayer, but scored a run instead. Two more runs crossed the plate, 4-1 Twins.

Though Bello didn’t melt down, it wasn’t a good outing. That will probably be classified as progress for him, but it’s not enough, friends. Not enough.

The Sox were unable to capitalize on an error and walk that opened the seventh inning.

But wait! Things got interesting in the bottom of the ninth. Chad Tracy pulled all the levers, leaving just one player on the bench. Caleb Durbin came in as a pinch runner and took second on “defensive indifference.” This said a lot about this game, I thought, but some drama arrived in the form of three walks, including one that brought in a run. With the bases still loaded, it was very close to happening again, but Jarren Duran ultimately struck out to end the game. He threw a Hail Mary ABS challenge at the problem, but lost the challenge…and the Sox, the game.

This last-minute flurry of excitement masked what was a really lackluster game overall.

Studs

Relief pitching not named Brayan Bello

In their three combined innings of work, Tyler Samaniego and Ryan Watson gave up one hit and no runs, with three strikeouts thrown in (all Watson). This may look more like damning them with faint praise rather than covering them with glory, but this was the high-water mark today. They needed to stabilize after Bello and offer the offense the opportunity to wake up. They did their part, but the offense didn’t come through.

Fenway First

A woman—Jen Pawol—umpired home plate for the first time.

Duds

Offense

The common refrain for the 2026 season. There was nothing particularly egregious, simply not enough base runners or movement on the basepaths. 5H, 11 SO, 6 BB on the night—and the Sox got lucky in the ninth with some big nerves by the Twins relievers. Blah.

Play of the Game

The Twins’ Larnach scored on a sacrifice fly. Connor Wong thought he had him at the plate but none of the camera angles definitively cleared up the mystery, and the challenge was unsuccessful. Why is this the play of the game? Because it provides a glimpse of the frustration of this game; there were no heroics, nothing to truly admire…just several screwy moments that might have gone a different way, and this is one.

Willson Contreras was at the center of yet another on-field dust-up Saturday.

During the sixth inning against the Twins at Fenway Park, the Red Sox first baseman attempted to score from first base on a hit by Ceddanne Rafaela.

The throw beat Contreras to the plate, leading to a collision between him and Minnesota catcher Victor Caratini.

Caratini held onto the ball for the out, but the fireworks didn’t stop there.

CEDDANNE RAFAELA GETS THE RED SOX ON THE BOARD AND BENCHES EMPTY! VICTOR CARATINI IS NOT HAPPY WITH WILLSON CONTRERAS! pic.twitter.com/UUwJCFiW0X

— Tyler Milliken (@tylermilliken_) May 23, 2026

The backstop followed Contreras, who ran straight through Caratini rather than pulling up before the tag or sliding, toward the Red Sox dugout, and the pair exchanged words as both benches cleared.

After a short delay, the two teams returned to their dugouts without any punches thrown.

Contreras, who was acquired by Boston in a trade with the Cardinals in December, has been no stranger to in-game altercations since arriving in Beantown.

Earlier this season, the three-time All-Star appeared to exchange words with Brewers right-hander Brandon Woodruff after being hit by a pitch.

After the game, Contreras — who has a history of getting plunked by Milwaukee pitchers, having been hit by pitches 24 times against the franchise, including six by Woodruff — issued a stern warning to the Brew Crew.

“They always say, ‘I’m not trying to hit you,’” Contreras said. “That gets old. So next time they hit me again, I’m going to take one of them out. That’s the message. That’s the message.

“I took exception to it. I knew my brother was behind me [as he went to first base]. I was like, ‘OK, you hit me … see what happens next.’”

Last August, Contreras had to be restrained by coaches and was ejected from a game after being called out on strikes by home plate umpire Derek Thomas.

Willson Contreras was so mad at this umpire that he threw a bat that hit his own coach and then launched a bunch of Hi-Chew onto the field pic.twitter.com/fslJY71FS6

— Jomboy Media (@JomboyMedia) August 26, 2025

That tirade continued into the dugout, where he tossed a bucket of Hi-Chew candy onto the field.

A month before that, Contreras sparked a dugout-clearing incident after the Padres’ Nick Pivetta hit him with a pitch.

It’s an understatement to say the Atlanta Braves’ run support didn’t show up in today’s matchup against the Washington Nationals. Falling 2-0, they just couldn’t find a way to rally late and get on the board with only one hit managed.

Coming off a rain delay in the middle of the second inning, both teams remained scoreless until the top of the fourth inning, where Nationals’ Dylan Crews hit a homer, followed by Jorbit Vivas in the fifth with one of his own.

On the bright note, Grant Holmes delivered a quality performance, getting nine of his 10 strikeouts through the first four innings and accumulating 18 whiffs off his five-pitch arsenal. He pitched for a total of five innings and gave up those two solo shots as his only earned runs, six hits and two walks with a total of 87 pitches. The Braves’ bullpen helped carry out their end on defense by limiting any more runs from Washington.

Not the result Holmes wanted from his offense, but today was his best outing of the year so far, with his highest number of strikeouts recorded since July 2025.

An overall disappointing ending for game two, not because the Nationals’ offense was that good, but because the Braves couldn’t find a good pitch against Jake Irvin, who’s now boasting a 5.23 ERA.

The Nationals responded to being walked off by the Braves in game one, but didn’t have to dominate the game to do so.

You know what that means: time for the Braves to bounce back in the finale with Martín Pérez on the mound.

Stay tuned to see if they’ll finish the job tomorrow.

Texas Rangers lineup for May 23, 2026 against the Anaheim Angels: starting pitchers are Nathan Eovaldi for the Rangers and WWalbert Urena for the Angels.

The Rangers look to rebound from yesterday’s disappointing outing. Alejandro Osuna is the cleanup hitter today, which is interesting.

The lineup:

Pederson — DH

Nimmo — RF

Jung — 3B

Osuna — LF

Burger — 1B

Carter — CF

Duran — SS

Foscue — 2B

Higashioka — C

9:05 p.m. Central start time. Rangers are -142 favorites.

The Twins have won five of their last six series after bringing home a near-heartbreaker on Saturday afternoon, 4-2 over the Boston Red Sox.

It was another great early start for the Twins, who knocked around opener Jovani Moran with a two-run first, logging hits in each of their first three at-bats, and seeing RBIs from Austin Martin (his 8th double of the year) and Josh Bell (a sacrifice fly deep enough to make it 2-0.)

From there, the Twins handed the ball off to Taj Bradley, who was very solid in his ease back to in-game action. Pulled after five innings and 75 pitches, Bradley did not allow a hit until the fourth, when old friend Mickey Gasper singled his way aboard and came home on a Ceddanne Rafaela double. The most interesting portion of the play was not the run scored, however; it was the fact that Willson Contreras was on first when the double was hit. Contreras had uniquely factored his way into the game already, crowding the plate in response to a brushback in his first at-bat and sliding into Kody Clemens’ cleats on the infield single that put him aboard.

When Rafaela duobled home Gasper, it was Contreras attempting to score behind him that led to a minor benches-clearing incident — the throw had Contreras dead to rights, which he used as an opportunity to lightly shoulder-check Victor Caratini standing up at home plate. Caratini had one of the funnier reactions to such a play that I’ve ever seen, choosing to put his arm around Contreras in a fatherly sort of manner and walk him back towards his own dugout.

The Twins got two more home in the fifth, as the Red Sox immediately began booting the ball around (Contreras was karmically charged with a ground-ball error that loaded the bases.) Trevor Larnach scored with a brilliant slide on a sac fly that held up post-review, and Orlando Arcia singled off the pitcher to make it a 4-1 Twins lead.

From there, Kendrys Rojas turned in an outstanding day of work with a three-inning relief appearance, allowing just one hit and one walk against three strikeouts, in a rare noteworthy bullpen performance by an Arm Barn that has demonstrated a recent ability to at least lock in a little bit. But when Andrew Morris came in for the home ninth, the usual relief demons reared their head.

Contreras led off with a single, and Rafaela walked to brign the tying run immediately to the plate. After a flyout precluded a pinch-hit groundout by Masataka Yoshida, it looked like Morris might be able to finish his outing clean — but back-to-back walks in front of an energized Fenway crowd made it a 4-2 game and put the winning run as close as first base. Taylor Rogers’ grizzled veteran closer arm was summoned, and even though it took the Sox losing a full-count challenge, he was able to strike out Jarren Duran to lock down the win.

So, it’s another series victory for the Twins, and another such win against the Boston Red Sox. Now 25-27, the Twins are one good week away from making themselves interesting again. They’ll go for a road sweep at Fenway tomorrow afternoon — see you there!

STUDS:

SP Taj Bradley (5 IP, 3 H, ER, 2 BB, 7 K)

RP Kendrys Rojas (3 IP, H, 0 R, BB, 3 K)

LF Trevor Larnach (4-for-5, 2 R)

RF Austin Martin (2-for-5, R, RBI, 2B)

2B Orlando Arcia (2-for-4, RBI)

DUDS:

NO DUDS! TWINS WIN! TWINS WIN!

The New York Mets’ struggles against the Miami Marlins continued Saturday afternoon in a 4-1 loss, as the Mets couldn’t get anything going against Miami’s starting pitcher Max Meyer.

Meyer pitched seven scoreless innings with eight strikeouts and gave up just one hit as the Mets failed to get a runner into scoring position against the right-hander. Meyer is in the midst of a breakout year, recording his fourth scoreless outing of the season, and New York is 2-8 in their last 10 games against Miami.

The Mets’ lone run came with two outs in the ninth inning when Tyrone Taylor hit a pinch-hit double, followed by an RBI single from Mark Vientos. Taylor’s double represented the first runner in scoring position for the Mets since the ninth inning of Thursday’s 2-1 win against the Nationals.

The Mets had Freddy Peralta on the bump to start the game, but he was unable to match Meyer’s dominance despite getting an extra day of rest entering the game. Peralta gave up two solo home runs to Marlins cleanup hitter Liam Hicks, while completing a season-high seven innings to go with a season-high nine strikeouts. Ultimately, Peralta was let down by an offense that has recorded two runs and six hits in its last two games.

Peralta got through the first inning on six pitches, but ran into trouble in the second. He walked Jakob Marsee on four pitches, then gave up a single to Connor Norby. Juan Soto threw to third base rather than to the cutoff man in a failed attempt to throw out Marsee, allowing Norby to advance to second. Owen Caissie immediately made the Mets pay for the mistake when he knocked in a two-run single. Entering the game, batters had gone 3 for 43 with RISP against Peralta before Caissie’s RBI hit.

In the bottom of the third inning, Hicks hit his first solo home run to put the Marlins up 3-0. Otto Lopez followed up with a double, but Peralta retired Kyle Stowers and Marsee to end the threat.

The Marlins put more pressure on Peralta with a two-out rally in the fourth inning. Graham Pauley singled, Joe Mack walked, then Xavier Edwards hit a slow groundball towards first base that Vientos bobbled. Unable to get Edwards out at first base, he threw home to get Pauley out by a considerable margin.

Hicks hit his second homer in the fifth to cap the scoring. Peralta gave up one hit total in the sixth and seventh innings before being relieved by Jonathan Pintaro in the eighth. Pintaro earned a 1-2-3 inning in his second career appearance in the Majors.

The Mets had a base runner in each of the first four innings, but never got traction against Meyer. Juan Soto earned a two-out walk, but Brett Baty struck out to end the first. Vientos snapped a 0-for-10 streak with a softly hit single to lead off the second inning, but Marcus Semien eventually ground into a double play to cancel out the Mets’ only hit against Meyer. Luis Torrens and Brett Baty were stranded after drawing walks in the third and fourth innings, respectively.

Baty hit cleanup for the 13th time in his career and went 0 for 2 with a walk and two strikeouts. The rookie outfield duo of Carson Benge and AJ Ewing each had three strikeouts. Soto and Bo Bichette combined to go 0 for 7 with a walk and a strikeout. MJ Melendez got the start at DH despite having a .242 OPS since May 8, going 0 for 3 with a strikeout.

The Mets look to avoid the sweep on Sunday at 1:40 PM EDT.

SB Nation GameThreads

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Box scores

MLB.com
ESPN

Win Probability Added

What’s WPA?

Big Mets winner: Mark Vientos, +3% WPA
Big Mets loser: Freddy Peralta, -15% WPA
Mets pitchers: -15% WPA
Mets hitters: -35% WPA
Teh aw3s0mest play: Mark Vientos single in the second, +3.7% WPA
Teh sux0rest play: Own Caissie double in the second, +12% WPA

If the argument for much of Aaron Judge’s career has been that the Yankees have been overly reliant on their Hall of Fame slugger, their recent poor stretch of play is only strengthening it.

Certainly, Judge has gone uncharacteristically cold — in some ways going through one of the worst stretches of his career.

Including Friday’s loss, Judge is in the midst of an 11-game streak without an RBI, the longest such span he’s ever suffered in the majors, according to researcher Katie Sharp.

And in his last 15 games, Judge is just 10-for-56 with three extra-base hits and 21 strikeouts.

Not surprisingly, the Yankees have lost 10 of those games.

Also alarming: After Friday’s hitless night, Judge has just one hit in his last 23 at-bats with 10 strikeouts.

All of it is part of a Yankee offense that has gone from boom to bust, seemingly overnight.

But Aaron Boone, despite his team being held to just two runs against the Rays on Friday, believes the lineup — and Judge — might have turned a corner in the loss.

“I thought we swung the bats well,’’ Boone said after the defeat in The Bronx. “A lot of guys [were] squaring the ball up.”

And Boone singled out Judge, even as he reached base just once in five plate appearances.

“Aaron Judge had good at-bats,” Boone said. 

He noted Judge “smoked” a ball in the third inning, a 111-mph smash that went right at shortstop Taylor Walls.

And Judge ended the game with a 106-mph shot to left-center that centerfielder Cedric Mullins ran down near the warning track.

Still, it was another game in which the Yankees lost without much production from the top of the lineup.

For the last two weeks, the Yankees have had one of the worst bottoms of the lineup in the majors.

Prior to May 8, their bottom half of the lineup ranked sixth in the majors in OPS, and even hitters seven through nine were 10th in the category.

Since that date, though, they are 24th in OPS from hitters five through nine and next-to-last in the bottom third.

• CHECK OUT THE LATEST MLB STANDINGS AND YANKEES STATS

Perhaps not coincidentally, May 8 was the day they faced — and were overmatched by — Milwaukee’s fireballing right-hander Jacob Misiorowski.

In that game, the 6-foot-7 24-year-old opened the game by striking out Trent Grisham and Ben Rice before Judge flied out.

He threw 10 pitches in that inning — five of which registered as the five fastest pitches recorded by a starter during the tracking era, which began in 2008.

In 13 games since that night, the Yankees have scored six runs in a game just three times.

A major part of that drought is the fact that Judge hasn’t hit like Judge.

His dominance against fastballs remains, but hasn’t been as strong this season, with a .622 slugging percentage on the pitch, compared to .871 last season.

Two years ago, Judge was also in the midst of a rough first six weeks or so to the season before a mid-May heat-up propelled him and the Yankees to a strong season.

The Yankees, a season-worst 5 ½-games back of Tampa Bay, could use another dose of that from their best player — and Judge could also use some help from the rest of the lineup.

Jazz Chisholm Jr. has hit better of late after a brutal start and a healthy José Caballero should help.

If Ryan McMahon continues to be a complete non-factor at the plate, he’ll lose playing time, with Amed Rosario or Caballero at third and Anthony Volpe at shortstop.

And Austin Wells hit two balls hard on Friday — including his first homer since April 28.

Fernando Tatis Jr.’s pockets just got a lot smaller. 

A San Diego Superior Court judge officially dismissed the San Diego Padres superstar’s attempt to void a controversial 2017 agreement he signed with the Big League Advance Fund, a talent investment firm that gave the then teenage prospect a $2 million advance in exchange for 10% of his future earnings. 

The ruling means that Tatis Jr. remains on the hook for tens of millions of dollars, including an immediate $3.2 million already awarded in arbitration and more than $240,000 in the firm’s attorney fees. 

Tatis Jr. was just 18-years-old and a minor league prospect when he made the deal with the firm. 

For Tatis Jr., the dismissal is a brutal legal loss wrapped inside a much larger ongoing fight between how young athletes, especially in other countries, are monetized before they fully understand the business surrounding them. 

Tatis Jr.’s lawsuit painted the company as predatory, accusing former big league Michael Schwimer and BLA representatives of targeting financially disadvantaged teenagers with flashy promises and quick cash. 

According to the court filings, Tatis alleged he was “fraudulently induced” into the deal during a dinner meeting in 2017 where the focus centered on immediate money for him and his family, and not the long-term consequences of the deal. 

When Tatis Jr. signed the deal, he was not the face of the Padres. He was an electric talent with a bright future. Anyone with two eyes could see that he would one day become a star and with baseball’s bloated contracts in a league without a salary cap, 10% of his future earnings was going to be much greater than a $2 million dollar up-front payment. 

However, he is the son of Fernando Tatis Sr., a 14-year major leaguer who made close to $20 million in career earnings. Why on earth would his son need a $2 million advance?

Four years after receiving that advance, Tatis Jr. signed a 14-year, $340 million mega contract that transformed that original agreement into a $34 million payout to Big League advance. Talk about a return on your investment. 

And of course, Tatis. Jr. didn’t want to pay that amount of money to the firm that originally gave him $2 million. But the court ultimately sided with the firm. 

Judge Judy S. Bae ruled the arbitrator’s decision was legally sound, rejecting the arguments from Tatis Jr.’s legal team that the agreement was illegal. Tatis Jr.’s attorneys said they planned to appeal the decision immediately.

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