CHICAGO — Playing at Triple A for the fourth straight day, Brandon Marsh exited after six innings on Sunday with a cramp in the right hamstring he strained April 16.
The Phillies will evaluate Marsh back in Philadelphia on Monday but given it’s the same body part that sent him to the injured list, you can bet they’ll be cautious.
“I watched his at-bats yesterday, it looks like his timing’s OK,” manager Rob Thomson said. “We’ll see. (Hitting coach Kevin Long) seemed to like the swings, the timing, the balance. But I don’t know where we’re at now with the hammy.”
Sunday was the first day Marsh was eligible to return from the IL but the Phillies wanted to extend his rehab assignment until he looked right at the plate. Marsh is just 4-for-42 (.095) on the season with 16 strikeouts so this has also been a chance for him to find a rhythm away from hundreds of thousands of eyeballs.
“I think it’s good for him, sure, because you could see the sawdust coming out of his hands as he was up at the plate,” Thomson said Saturday. “He was just trying to do too much. It’s a process and it takes time.”
They’ll find out Monday whether Marsh needs to sit back down for a few days.
Johan Rojas continues to start every day in center field in Marsh’s absence with Cal Stevenson backing him up. Edmundo Sosa has played a bit of center as well this year for the first time but the Phillies feel most comfortable playing him there during the day.
Suarez whiffs eight
Ranger Suarez threw 78 pitches over 4⅔ innings Sunday for the IronPigs, striking out eight and throwing a first-pitch strike to 18 of the 20 hitters he faced.
Suarez has been sharp in all four rehab starts. The Phillies will determine Monday or Tuesday whether he makes one more to extend to 85-95 pitches or joins their big-league rotation.
“It’s great if he’s pitching like Ranger can pitch and it looks like he has been,” Thomson said. “When he’s good, he’s one of the best in the league.”
Suarez has been out since early March with a lower-back injury. He couldn’t have more incentive to pitch well — free agency looms after the season and it’s been nearly a year since he opened 2024 with a 1.75 ERA through 15 starts.
Sanchez throws bullpen session
Cristopher Sanchez threw a bullpen session Sunday afternoon at Wrigley Field, five days after leaving a start early at Citi Field with left forearm tightness.
Sanchez has been examined by the training staff in the days since and felt normal. He, too, will be reevaluated Monday morning to determine the date of his next start. The Phillies will pitch Zack Wheeler on Tuesday against the Nationals but the rest of the week is currently TBD pending the statuses of Sanchez and Suarez.
SAN FRANCISCO — Perhaps the most fitting ending the Giants could have asked for.
With no outs, nobody on and the score tied 2-2 in the bottom of the ninth, Heliot Ramos dribbled a ball between third base and the pitcher’s mound, and thanks to a pair of throwing errors on the play, circled the bases to deliver a thrilling walk-off little-league-style home run that capped a 3-2 win on Sunday at Oracle Park.
“Honestly, I remember when I got to second, and then after that I blacked out and kept running,” Ramos told reporters postgame. “I saw [third base coach Matt Williams] waving me and I saw the ball and I turned and just kept running.”
Ramos initially stopped as he pulled into second base before he realized where the ball was. Giants manager Bob Melvin pointed out after the game, that had Ramos kept running instead of hesitating, he likely would have eased into third without a throw and the ensuing second throwing error that allowed him to score would not have happened. Although, with how the team has performed in high-leverage situations, it’s fair to assume he eventually would have found his way home.
“For whatever reason, it all worked out about as good as you could … sometimes things happen for a reason, and the theatrics were pretty cool there at the end,” Melvin told reporters.
It wasn’t pretty. And boy, was it exhausting. But it got the job done. The same could be said for a lot of the Giants’ wins on their stretch of 17 games without a day off.
The two-and-a-half-week marathon was a gauntlet. First, a three-game series against the reigning American League champion New York Yankees (17-11). Then four against the perennially-championship-contending Philadelphia Phillies, followed by three against (at the time) a hot Los Angeles Angels squad before consecutive home series against the Milwaukee Brewers and Texas Rangers, two teams off to slow starts, but more than capable of winning their respective divisions at the end of the season.
What do the Giants (19-10) have to show for it? A 10-7 record in those 17 games and first place in the National League West.
Not too shabby.
“I think it was great, and we had a lot of guys playing every day, too,” Melvin said of his team’s performance on the stretch. “So to be able to post up, day games, night games, travel, East Coast, West Coast. It was pretty significant, and these guys just continue to go out there and fight and our best work is usually done at the end. So I think they handled 17 in a row really well.”
“I think it was pretty good,” Ramos added. “I think New York was the toughest for us, it was pretty cold and rainy. I think this stretch, all the wins that we got, playing as a team, it’s going to help us throughout the season with this momentum.”
Again, it wasn’t perfect. The Giants feel as if they should have notched another win or two. But all things considered, they not only kept their heads above water, but proved they have what it takes to contend with the game’s best.
“We don’t have many of those stretches, so it’s important that whenever we have the tougher ones that we come out on top with a winning record,” Giants starting pitcher Jordan Hicks said. “I think we handed it really well. There were some that we probably would have liked back, but at the same time, 10-7 is pretty good.”
What’s their reward? A day off in beautiful San Diego before two big games against the Padres (17-11), one of their division foes, along with the vaunted Los Angeles Dodgers (18-10), who trail them in the standings.
“I can’t wait,” Ramos, with a big grin on his face, said about the day off. “It’s going to be great. A great off day, for sure.”
“Last year was always fun battling those guys, you know what you’re going up against,” Hicks said of the Padres. “Pretty elite lineup and solid pitching as well. It should be fun. It’s always a good environment and one of my favorite stadiums. I get to watch the games, watch [Logan Webb] dominate and hopefully come out with two [wins].”
After their quick stop in Southern California, the Giants then have three games against the MLB-worst Colorado Rockies (4-23) before another tough series against the NL Central-leading Chicago Cubs (17-11).
Then, a much-more favorable month of May that the Giants could use to position themselves quite well for a second-half playoff push.
SAN FRANCISCO — At long last, the marathon has ended, and the Giants should feel very good about how it went.
Monday will be San Francisco’s first day off since April 10. The 17-day, four-city gauntlet against some of MLB’s best teams taught us a lot about the 2025 Giants, who entered Sunday’s series finale against the Texas Rangers at Oracle Park alone in first place in the National League West and held onto it at least for one more day — thanks largely in part to a Little League home run by Heliot Ramos in the bottom of the ninth.
It also taught us a lot about Jordan Hicks, who toed the rubber against young Rangers righty Jack Leiter on Sunday as San Francisco secured its sixth series victory of the 2025 MLB season.
Here are three takeaways from the Giants’ thrilling 3-2 walk-off win, the second in as many games.
Recovered Nicely
Hicks struggled in his three previous starts, but if you take away three of his 27 1/3 total innings before Sunday’s start (ND, 5 IP, 7 H, 2 ER, 0 BB, 3 K), his numbers on the season would look pretty good.
Five of the seven earned runs Hicks surrendered in a start against the New York Yankees on April 12 came in the fifth inning alone. All five of his earned runs against the Philadelphia Phillies on April 17 came in the first inning, while three of his five earned runs against the Milwaukee Brewers on Tuesday came in the third inning, before Hicks departed in the middle of an eight-run top of the sixth in an eventual 11-3 loss.
His outing on Sunday followed that same trend. Fortunately for Hicks and the Giants, it was just a two-run top of the first inning before four scoreless frames.
As a reliever, one rough inning likely would spell doom for his team on any given day. That’s much less likely to be the case for Hicks in his role as a starter.
Procrastination At Its Finest
The Giants entered Sunday’s game with four walk-off wins this season, the most in the majors. The last time the Orange and Black had four walk-offs in their first 12 home games was in 2011.
Patrick Bailey delivered the pinch-hit, game-winning single in Saturday’s 3-2 victory over Texas, and on Sunday, it was Ramos. Well, kind of …
With the game tied 2-2 in the bottom of the ninth, Ramos led off with a dribbler up the third-base line into no man’s land between the mound and third base. Rangers reliever Luke Jackson, a former Giant, threw an off-balance throw up the right-field line, which allowed Ramos to advance all the way to third before first baseman Jake Burger overthrew third base and Ramos scored a Little League homer to win the game.
San Francisco had a .761 OPS in what Statcast defines as high-leverage situations this season before Sunday’s game, which was the fifth-best in baseball.
The Giants also now have 16 walk-off wins dating back to last season, which, unsurprisingly, is the most in the majors.
Bird(song) Is The Word
Hayden Birdsong, who has been nothing short of a revelation for the Giants out of the bullpen this season, continues to show impressive poise in his new role.
With the score tied 2-2 in the top of the sixth inning, old friend Joc Pederson roped a leadoff triple into the gap in right-center. Not a problem for the 23-year-old.
Birdsong then struck out Adolis García before getting Marcus Semien and Nick Ahmed to ground out and pop out, respectively, to end the inning. He was awarded an additional inning in the seventh, another scoreless frame. And then a third in the eighth, also another scoreless frame.
Light work.
The three scoreless frames lowered Birdsong’s ERA to 1.13 on the season. It’s unclear what the future might hold for the young righty who still hopes to reprise his role as a starter, but for right now, he provides an already elite Giants bullpen with another very, very exciting weapon.
“The good news for Devin is, he has everything to get through this and come out better from the other side. That’s my expectation," Boone said, via MLB.com's Bryan Hoch. "Right now, it’s best for everyone to pull him out of that role and try to start building some good rhythm, confidence, and momentum.
"I fully expect him to be a central figure for us moving forward.”
Williams, a two-time All-Star and twice named the Trevor Hoffman National League Reliever of the Year, was acquired in an offseason trade with the Milwaukee Brewers, looking to give the Yankees another lockdown closer in their storied history.
But the 30-year-old's start in New York has been nightmarish, with the right-hander pitching to an 11.25 ERA and a 2.375 WHIP with only eight strikeouts and seven walks in 8.0 innings of work.
With the Yankees preparing for a Sunday doubleheader with the Blue Jays in the Bronx, the team got some good news on the injury front, with right-hander Luis Gil set to start his throwing program, per YES Network's Meredith Marakovits.
The reigning AL Rookie of the Year was originally scheduled to resume throwing earlier this month as he recovers from a lat strain, but the Yankees decided to push the date back by 10 days to give Gil some extra time, following an MRI.
When the Yankees announced they were giving Gil more time, manager Aaron Boone said Gil's rehab is going “fine,” but the team wanted to see a higher level of healing before he resumed throwing.
“It’s just the level of healing. So it’s got to get to, I don’t know, 80 percent,” Boone explained. “When they start, there are checkmarks of when you start the throwing program. It’s going how it should, it’s just, we need another 10 days.”
Gil made 29 starts for the Yankees last season, pitching to a 3.50 ERA with a 1.193 WHIP and 10.1 strikeouts per nine innings.
The Mets announced on Sunday morning that left-hander reliever A.J. Minter has been placed on the 15-day IL with a left lat strain.
In a corresponding move, right-hander José Ureña has been called up from Triple-A Syracuse.
Minter entered Saturday's win over the Nationals in the eighth inning, but threw just nine pitches before exiting with the training staff. While the initial diagnoses was triceps tightness, further testing showed the injury to be a lat strain.
"I can't remember what pitch it was, but about two pitches or a pitch before you can see me move my tricep a little bit, it tightened up," Minter said on Saturday. "I'm just glad it wasn't my elbow. That's what I was happy about. We're probably looking at an IL stint. Come back, get this thing fixed and continue to help the team."
Coming off of offseason hip surgery, Minter has been outstanding for the Mets, pitching to a 1.64 ERA in 13 games.
Ureña, 33, has been well-traveled in his major league career, as the Mets will become his seventh team he's pitched for, including six seasons with the Miami Marlins. Overall, Ureña has a career 4.76 ERA in 232 career games.
Ronny Mauricio's rehab assignment begins
The Mets also announced that infielder Ronny Mauricio is beginning a rehab assignment with Low-A St. Lucie.
Mauricio, the No. 8 prospect in the Mets' system according to Joe DeMayo, initially tore his ACL playing Winter Ball after the 2023 season, and a second procedure was needed to remove scar tissue last August. Not long after that second surgery, Mauricio dealt with inflammation that stalled his recovery a bit, and he was not able to get into a game during spring training or the first few weeks of the regular season.
The Mets (19-8) continue their series with the Washington Nationals (12-15) in DC on Sunday at 1:35 p.m. on PIX11. Here's what to know about the game and how to watch...
Mets Notes
Both of Sunday's starting pitchers have been excellent in the early going, with Tylor Megill posting a 1.09 ERA, while Nats starter Mitchell Parker isn't far behind at 1.39
With three more hits on Saturday, Francisco Lindor is on an absolute tear. In his last seven games, Lindor has a slash line of .448/.484/.759 with three home runs, six RBI, and seven runs scored
The Mets are a perfect 3-0 in Sunday games this season
Brandon Nimmo has yet to get going this season, hitting at a .200 clip overall
METS
NATIONALS
Francisco Lindor, SS
CJ Abrams, SS
Juan Soto, RF
James Wood, LF
Pete Alonso, 1B
Luis Garcia Jr., 2B
Mark Vientos, 3B
Nathaniel Lowe, 1B
Starling Marte, DH
Josh Bell, DH
Brandon Nimmo, LF
Dylan Crews, CF
Luis Torrens, C
Jose Tena, 3B
Luisangel Acuña, 2B
Alex Call, RF
Tyrone Taylor, CF
Riley Adams, C
How can I watch the game online?
To watch Mets games online via PIX11, you will need a subscription to a TV service provider and live in the New York City metro area. This will allow fans to watch the Mets on their computer, tablet or mobile phone browser.
Despite taking a loss Friday against the Pittsburgh Pirates, Yoshinobu Yamamoto entered Saturday ranked first in the National League in ERA (1.06), fourth in strikeouts (43) and sixth in innings pitched (34). (Wally Skalij / Los Angeles Times)
“Those two guys, that’s how it should look when you pitch,” Kershaw said a few days later. “The fluidness, the effortlessness, the way it comes out of your hand. That’s how you should throw. DeGrom and Yama are two of the best that just, like, make it look really easy.”
For deGrom, a two-time Cy Young Award winner and four-time All-Star, such plaudits are nothing new. But for Yamamoto, the second-year big leaguer blossoming as one of the sport’s best starters, it was a sign of how far — and how quickly — his young MLB career has progressed.
“He’s learned his way really well,” Kershaw said. “And honestly fast, for what it was.”
Last year, as a rookie with massive expectations following his record-breaking $325-million signing out of Japan, Yamamoto was good. Great at times, even. He went 7-2 with a 3.00 earned-run average. He struck out 105 in just 90 innings. He was the Dodgers’ Game 1 starter for the National League Division Series.
And yet, it often felt like something was missing. Like there was another level he couldn’t consistently reach.
“As we can all expect or imagine, there was a lot of uncertainty,” manager Dave Roberts recalled this spring of Yamamoto’s acclimation process. “I wouldn’t say anxiety. But [he was] new somewhere. And there’s expectations that everyone has.”
Entering Year 2, those expectations still were present. And one month in they’ve easily been met — if not surpassed.
Through six starts Yamamoto is all over statistical leaderboards, entering Saturday ranked first in the NL in ERA (1.06), fourth in strikeouts (43), sixth in innings pitched (34) and top-10 in both walks plus hits per inning pitched (1.00) and batting average against (.190).
Dodgers pitcher Yoshinobu Yamamoto celebrates with teammates in the dugout after throwing six scoreless innings against the Chicago Cubs on April 11. (Jayne Kamin-Oncea / Associated Press)
And that was after arguably his worst start of the season Friday night, a loss to the Pittsburgh Pirates in which he gave up three runs (one earned) on five hits and a career-high four walks over five innings in another high-profile pitchers' duel against Paul Skenes.
“Certainly there's a lot of talent,” Roberts said of Yamamoto. “But it just speaks to how great he wants to be, his own expectations, the work that he puts in to continue to stay at the top of this game."
Beyond the work, Yamamoto’s transformation has, in the view of many around the team, also come down to a few simple things: more confidence in himself, more comfort in his surroundings and more conviction on the mound.
“Today’s stuff was obviously a little bit of a struggle,” Yamamoto, ever-modest, said through interpreter Yoshihiro Sonoda after Friday’s start. “But if I evaluate my stuff up to this game, it [hasn’t been] bad.”
Getting there required last season’s growing pains. But now he's blossoming into one of the best pitchers.
“It’s just human nature,” Kershaw said. “If you’ve been somewhere for a year, you get more comfortable, you get more acclimated. And when you have success, you gain confidence.”
After the Dodgers’ postseason opener last year, Kiké Hernández simply had a feeling.
While sitting in the dugout that night as an unused bench bat, the veteran utility man watched Yamamoto’s start against the San Diego Padres closely, trying to understand why a pitcher with so much talent had looked so out of sorts in a three-inning, five-run struggle in his postseason debut.
Hernández had long been convinced of Yamamoto’s potential, wowed by the pinpoint command of his upper-90s fastball and seemingly unhittable movement of his breaking pitches. Hernández had seen the proof of concept too, when Yamamoto blanked the New York Yankees over seven spectacular innings in the Bronx in June.
After that outing, however, Yamamoto suffered a shoulder injury that sidelined him for almost three months. And though he was healthy again by the time of his Game 1 start in the division series, Hernández couldn’t help but feel like the 26-year-old lacked the swaggering — or, at least, assertive — demeanor of a bona fide big league star.
“He was kinda down after Game 1,” Hernández said.
So, during the team’s day off in San Diego following Game 2, Hernández sought out Yamamoto for a one-on-one conversation — meeting with him and an interpreter from the Wasserman Media Group (the agency that represents both players) for almost two hours at a Starbucks on the ground floor of the club’s hotel.
“I just wanted to pick his brain,” Hernández said, “and know where his head was at.”
What Yamamoto shared was illuminating, expressing uncertainty about who he was as a big league pitcher and how to best deploy his arsenal against opposing lineups.
“I felt that he wasn’t very convicted with the pitches he was throwing,” Hernández said. “And he just mentioned that he was feeling a little overwhelmed.”
It was an understandable dilemma. Virtually all rookie pitchers — even those with previous professional experience in Japan — go through such an acclimation period, trying to refine raw talent into tangible results. That learning curve can be particularly steep with a club like the Dodgers, as pitchers have to balance their own personal preferences with the highly detailed game-planning information that goes into the team’s advanced scouting reports.
“When you’re throwing pitches that you don’t want to throw,” Hernández noted, “your conviction is not the same as when you are throwing a pitch that you are committed to throwing.”
Yamamoto’s season being shortened by injury to just 18 starts also detracted from that process. His language barrier with the coaching staff was yet another complication.
“I feel bad for these guys,” bench coach Danny Lehmann, a key voice in the team’s game-planning meetings, said of the challenges Yamamoto and other Japanese imports face early in their MLB careers. “The language barrier, the culture, all that stuff is just a lot. Especially going straight to the big leagues.”
Hernández, however, offered simple encouragement as the two finished coffee: Commit to throwing his best stuff and trust his premium talent would play no matter who stood in the batter’s box.
“I was like, ‘You are already one of the best pitchers on the planet,’” Hernández recounted. “But it still felt like there was more in there. And in order for him to come out and bring his best, he needed to be committed to the pitches he was throwing.”
“I owe my performance today to my teammates,” he said.
And ever since, Yamamoto hasn’t looked back.
Around the same time Yamamoto met with Hernández, he also had a breakthrough with the coaching staff.
The playoffs, Lehmann said, afforded the team’s so-called “run-prevent department” to take a deeper dive with each starting pitchers. They honed in especially close on Yamamoto, concerned he might have been tipping his pitches in his Game 1 defeat.
From that process, Lehmann recalled, “we got to get to know him a little bit better, and what he wants to do.”
“We just had more time to sit down and watch videos, like, ‘Here’s how your pitches play’ … Even the way his pitches play off each other,” the bench coach recalled. “I think he had a better sense of what we’re spewing at him, and how to decipher it.”
After his Game 5 gem, Yamamoto was solid again in Game 4 of the NL Championship Series (4⅓ innings, two runs, eight strikeouts) and terrific in Game 2 of the World Series (6⅓ innings, one run, four strikeouts), serving as the backbone of a shorthanded, championship-winning pitching staff.
“He was a different animal,” Hernández said.
It carried into spring training, when Yamamoto became an immediate standout with his renewed poise and consistent daily work ethic.
"I think it's just human nature. If you've been somewhere for a year, you get more comfortable, you get more acclimated. And when you have success, you gain confidence," said Clayton Kershaw of Yoshinobu Yamamoto, here embracing one another following Yamamoto's performance in Game 2 of the World Series. (Robert Gauthier / Los Angeles Times)
“The way Yama throws long toss is amazing,” Kershaw said.
And over the opening month of this season, Yamamoto’s confident mound presence has been mirrored behind the scenes, the pitcher becoming more vocal in game-planning meetings and assured in his clubhouse demeanor.
“You just see, like, his body language, the way he carries himself this year, there’s so much more security in himself,” Hernández said. “When you have that confidence that, ‘Hey, I can do it. I can do it at the highest level.’ That’s what it looks like to me. He’s just so much more confident in his entire routine. He just seems very, very comfortable in his own skin.”
It was all reflected in the pride he took from last week’s duel against deGrom, outpitching the Texas Rangers star with seven shutout innings and a career-best strikeout-to-walk ratio of 10 to 0.
“He elevated his game to another level,” Roberts said. “You could see that he was going against one of the game's best in deGrom, and he obviously matched him pitch for pitch.”
It was evident again in the disappointment Yamamoto felt following Friday’s loss to the Pirates, when lacked his typical command while getting bested by Skene’s 6⅓ scoreless frames.
“I was falling behind in the count, and then I couldn’t establish my rhythm,” Yamamoto said. “I couldn’t grind through and get myself out of trouble.”
It was another lesson, but this time in a different context. No longer is Yamamoto looking for validation at the big league level. Now it’s about polishing the rest of his rapidly improving game.
“I don’t think it’s rocket science,” Kershaw said. “That’s just like life in any business, or any avenue. You get more comfortable, you get more confident, as you have success and do it.”
Then, thinking back to Yamamoto’s start against the Rangers, the future Hall of Famer paid Yamamoto one of the biggest compliments he could.
“The way he throws,” Kershaw said, “is how I think you would teach it.”
PHOENIX — Arizona Diamondbacks slugger Eugenio Suárez has had an all-or-nothing type of season.
It's safe to say that his performance Saturday night falls squarely into the “all” category.
Suárez became the 19th player in Major League Baseball history to hit four homers in a single game, accomplishing the feat in an 8-7 loss to the Atlanta Braves in 10 innings. The third baseman is the first player in the big leagues to do it since J.D. Martinez - also for the D-backs - in 2017.
“What can I say - obviously it's awesome,” Suárez said. “I never thought in my life that I would be able to hit four homers in a game.”
Suárez came into the game batting .167 with six homers and 15 RBIs. After Saturday, he has 19 hits this season, including 10 homers.
The 33-year-old Suárez hit a solo shot in the second, a two-run homer in the fourth and two more solo homers in the sixth and the ninth to finish with five RBIs. His fourth homer off Braves closer Raisel Iglesias tied it at 7 as the home crowd of more than 43,000 at Chase Field roared in disbelief.
D-backs manager Torey Lovullo admitted he couldn't believe Suárez had done it again.
“I thought there's no way he goes deep. When does that happen?” Lovullo said. “It's like a fairy tale. When it happened, I just was shaking my head. I couldn't believe it. He turned around a pretty good pitch. ... It's one of those magical nights. It's hard to describe.”
The four baseballs traveled a combined 1,655 feet, with the longest being a 443-foot shot to center for his third homer. The first three homers came off Grant Holmes.
The Braves rallied in the 10th to win after Matt Olson scored on a wild pitch.
“Mixed feelings right now because we didn’t win the game,” Suarez said. “But this is baseball, that’s why this game is so special. I just want to glorify God with this for the game today. It’s a gift and I don’t take it for granted.”
The Venezuelan-born veteran has hit 286 homers over a 12-year career with the Reds, Mariners and Diamondbacks.
Dodgers pinch-hitter Kiké Hernández, right, celebrates with Will Smith, left, and Tommy Edman after hitting a three-run home run in the eighth inning of an 8-4 win over the Pittsburgh Pirates at Dodger Stadium on Saturday night. (Gina Ferazzi / Los Angeles Times)
The Dodgers entered Saturday night's game against the Pittsburgh Pirates on a three-game losing streak with hits and runs increasingly difficult to muster.
Home runs, however, are a different matter, especially when they come from batters named Hernández.
A blast by Teoscar Hernández to begin the eighth inning that put the Dodgers ahead and a pinch-hit, three-run shot by Kiké Hernández later in the inning were the difference in an 8-4 victory at a sold-out Dodger Stadium.
How bad had it become? Even after Saturday's barrage, the Dodgers are batting .233 — 20th in baseball — with a subpar .312 on-base percentage. Yet they rank fifth with a .431 slugging percentage because they lead baseball with 43 home runs.
Teoscar Hernández, whose home run was his seventh this season and 199th of his career, said he doesn't think about hitting the ball out of the park.
"Just narrowing the strike zone, trying to get a good pitch, a better pitch, [make] that strike zone little so we cannot make mistakes swinging out of the strike zone," he said. "I don't think anybody is going up there looking to hit a homer. If you put a good swing on it, the ball's going to go."
Most years a healthy portion of the long balls would be courtesy of Max Muncy. But the malady afflicting much of the Dodgers lineup seems to have infected the third baseman with a particularly virulent strain. If antibiotics were the cure, he'd be taking a handful. Rest isn't really what he'd prefer.
How bad is it for a slugger who hit 35 or more home runs in four of his previous seven Dodgers seasons?
Another Max Muncy, a promising rookie infielder with the Athletics from Thousand Oaks High, was sent back to triple A a few days ago after batting .176 with one home run in 68 at-bats. That's better than the Dodgers' Muncy, who has zero homers and four runs batted in while batting .167 over 78 at-bats. His characteristically low batting average — career mark: .225 — normally is palatable because he walks a ton, Muncy sporting a .350 career on-base percentage. But this season, seemingly emboldened by his power outage, pitchers have walked him only 12 times in 25 games.
"You know what's interesting is there are some balls barreled that aren't going out, but also there's still a lot of swing and miss," manager Dave Roberts said. "So it just, it's all sort of, right now, pretty puzzling, but I know he's trying to find his way out.
"But yeah, I mean, to think through April he hasn't hit a homer, I think that surprises everyone."
Teoscar Hernández hits a go-ahead home run for the Dodgers in the eighth inning Saturday. (Gina Ferazzi / Los Angeles Times)
A couple of other Dodgers seemed to get well quickly against Pirates pitching. Shohei Ohtani hit two doubles and a triple. Andy Pages had three hits for the second game in a row. L.A. outhit Pittsburgh 11-8.
"The energy overall offensively was really good," Roberts said. "I thought the at-bats were good. I thought there was a lot of compete in the at-bats, aggressiveness, kind of imposing your will in the batter's box.
"Obviously, Teo is a big hit, Kiké is a big hit off the bench, but I thought Andy had some really good at-bats. And again, Shohei was really good tonight, and so just up and down the lineup, I thought we did a really nice job."
Dodgers rookie Roki Sasaki, in his sixth start, recovered the velocity that diminished in his previous outing, consistently throwing his fastball 96 mph. The right-hander pitched a creditable 5-2/3 innings, giving up three runs and two hits while striking out four and walking two, leaving with the score tied 3-3.
"My delivery feels pretty in sync," Sasaki said through an interpreter. "And even the pitches I don't really necessarily command, I feel pretty good about so long as my, you know, if I get my velo up a little bit, I think I'll be able to pitch the way I want to."
ONeil Cruz crushed Sasaki's first pitch, an elevated fastball, over the center-field wall, but he retired 11 of the next 14 batters before the Pirates added two runs in the fifth on three hits. Sasaki retired the next four batters before hitting Ke'Bryan Hayes with a pitch, prompting Roberts' hook.
It marked the third consecutive start of five or more innings for the 23-year-old Sasaki, who still is seeking his first MLB victory after posting a 30-15 record for Chiba Lotte of the Japanese League.
Dodgers pitcher Roki Sasaki delivers against the Pirates on Saturday. (Gina Ferazzi / Los Angeles Times)
The Pirates took a 4-3 lead in the seventh against left-hander Jack Dreyer, who gave up two singles and a walk to load the bases with none out. Bryan Reynolds drove in the run with a fielder's choice ground ball to first baseman Freddie Freeman before right-hander Evan Phillips came on the retire the next two batters.
The third out came on a diving play by Freeman, the third notable play made by the Dodgers. Center fielder Pages robbed Reynolds of a home run in the fifth inning and Teoscar Hernández threw out Joey Bart at the plate after charging a fly ball and throwing on the run in the second.
The Dodgers scored two in the first when Ohtani and Teoscar Hernández both doubled and Hernández scored on a throwing error by second baseman Todd Frazier. They tied the score 4-4 in the seventh on Ohtani's ringing double to left-center that scored Pages.
Ohtani and Pages had been among those struggling until recently. Roberts delivered a message that several slumping Dodgers seemed to heed at just the right moment.
"It’s not about the number of pitches you see, it’s about getting your pitch and doing something with it," he said. "That’s the message for everyone. Not trying to chase how many pitches you can accrue in an at-bat.
"A quality at-bat for me is, you get a good pitch to hit, your pitch, and you hit it hard. And we’ll take whatever results from that."
All the better when the result is eighth-inning home runs by Hernández and Hernández.
Tony Gonsolin ready for season debut
Dodgers starting pitcher Tony Gonsolin delivers against the Chicago White Sox in June 2023. (Gina Ferazzi / Los Angeles Times)
It's been a long wait for Tony Gonsolin, who is expected to start for the Dodgers on Wednesday against the Miami Marlins. Gonsolin has been sidelined with a litany of injuries since August 2023, when he was shut down because of an ulnar collateral ligament tear in his right elbow that required Tommy John surgery.
Gonsolin missed all of last season and might have opened this season on the active roster but he tweaked his back while lifting weights near the end of spring training. In four triple-A rehab appearances, he has a 3.86 earned-run average over 14 innings while striking out 16, giving up 12 hits and six walks.
Roberts said Gonsolin threw a bullpen Saturday and that making his first start Wednesday "makes a lot of sense."
Few pitchers have shown the knack for notching wins that Gonsolin has since debuting with the Dodgers in 2019. He is 34-11 (.756 winning percentage), including a sparkling 16-1 mark in 2022 when he sported a 2.14 ERA and gave up only 79 hits in 130-1/3 innings over 24 starts.
The Dodgers would welcome a return to even an approximation of that effectiveness. The fifth spot in the starting rotation has been a problem all season, with young starters Landon Knack (7.27 ERA), Justin Wrobleski (14.40) and Bobby Miller (18.00) pitching poorly.
Times staff writer Benjamin Royer contributed to this story.
CLEVELAND — Jarren Duran barely had time to catch his breath after tripling in the third inning. It didn’t matter, he had already made up his mind to run again.
Duran pulled off Boston’s first straight steal of home plate in exactly 16 years, scoring on the next pitch from Doug Nikhazy as the Red Sox beat the Cleveland Guardians 7-3 in the second game of a doubleheader Saturday night.
“(Third base coach Kyle Hudson) heard him tell the umpire that he was working from the stretch, so I decided I was going to go on the first pitch,” Duran said. “It was just to keep the offense going and cause a little chaos. I knew I had it.”
As Nikhazy went from the windup, Duran broke for home. He slid headfirst and slapped his right hand on the plate ahead of Bo Naylor’s tag. Umpire Brock Ballou’s safe call was upheld in a video review.
“Under the new rules, he’s kind of the perfect player,” Boston manager Alex Cora said of Duran. “We saw a window there and he took advantage of the situation.”
It marked the first straight steal of the plate by the Red Sox since Jacoby Ellsbury against the Yankees on April 26, 2009. Duran’s two previous thefts of home were part of double steals last season at Tampa Bay on May 21 and at the White Sox on June 7.
“It was really a cool play and a cool sequence of events there,” Red Sox pitcher Walker Buehler said. “He’s one of the most exciting players in baseball. After watching him from afar, it’s been fun to see him up close this season.”
Nikhazy, a 25-year-old left-hander, was making his major league debut and had already allowed five runs in 2 2/3 innings. With Rafael Devers in the batter’s box, he said he took “a peek” at Duran before delivering the ball.
Guardians manager Stephen Vogt praised Duran for making “a head’s up baseball play” because third baseman José Ramírez was off the line, but his starting pitcher blamed himself.
“He had taken a big jump and he took off immediately,” Nikhazy said. “In the moment, I chose to make the pitch as opposed to stepping off. Ultimately, when I saw him, I should have stepped off.”
Duran went 3 for 5 with three runs and two RBIs in the nightcap. He was hitless in four at-bats in the first game, which Cleveland won 5-4.
It didn't take long for Francisco Alavrez to reestablish his presence in the Mets' lineup with a clutch hit. He only needed five at-bats, to be exact.
In his second game since returning from the injured list, the slugging catcher delivered some opportune power on Saturday, smacking a two-run home run that served as the Mets' only offense in a 2-0 road win over the division-rival Nationals.
Blame the lineup's lack of rhythm on the weather, as the afternoon at Nationals Park featured two rain delays that irked fans in attendance and at home. What mattered was the pop from Alvarez, who's hoping to prove that his surgically-repaired left hand is fully healed and overall approach at the plate yields the long ball.
"It means a lot. I've worked a lot on my hitting, on all facets of my game," Alvarez said of his homer after the win. "To be able to have a day like today means a lot because I put a lot into my game as a player."
The two-run blast from Alvarez came in the second inning, facing Nationals starter Brad Lord. With two outs and Jesse Winker on first, the 23-year-old jumped on a high 0-1 slider and watched it slice down the right field line and land inside the bullpen near the foul pole. The homer turned out to be ample support for the Mets' pitching staff.
Only time will tell how long it'll take Alvarez to once again find his groove as a lineup fixture. The Mets are obviously hoping that the young backstop resembles more of his 2023 rookie self, who produced 25 homers and 12 doubles across 382 at-bats. They have reason to believe that his 2024 power outage was largely due to an early-season thumb injury.
"When he's able to hit a ball out like that, pretty impressive," Mets manager Carlos Mendoza said of Alvarez. "Off the bat, I didn't think that ball was going to go, and it just kept going. He's got the ability to use the whole field and drive the ball with authority. That's what makes him a special player."
Kranick answers the call... again
When the Mets were forced to pull Edwin Diaz due to a hip injury in Thurday's extra-inning win over the Phillies, Max Kranick played the role of hero in relief by registering two huge outs in a 10th-inning jam. So, naturally, he was thrust into a similar emergency situation on Saturday.
This time when the bullpen phone rang for Kranick, he took over for A.J. Minter, who exited with one out in the eighth with a tricep injury. Once again, the chaotic moment didn't faze him -- after allowing a walk, he induced a strikeout and popout to collect his second hold this season.
It's been an impressive April for the 27-year-old right-hander, who didn't see any big league action during the 2023 and 2024 seasons. Kranick now owns a 2.70 ERA with 10 strikeouts in 16.2 innings, and Mendoza is thrilled with the confidence and composure he's seeing from him during high-leverage moments.
"That's back-to-back [games] now where he has to come in and warm up on the game mound. That's not easy to do," Mendoza said. "He continues to attack, make pitches, get outs. He's been solid for us... Calm, poise, confidence. There's a lot to like. The more he pitches out of the roles, the more he continues to get outs... He knows he's got elite stuff."
Just about everything Mets converted starter Clay Holmes is experiencing in 2025 is new, but Saturday was something no one could have predicted.
The start of Saturday's tilt between the Mets and Nationals was delayed about 25 minutes. No big deal, Holmes hadn't started the game yet.
However, after getting one out in the bottom of the first inning, the skies opened up and the officials stopped the game to get the tarp on the field. As baseball fans know, rain delays could spell the end of a starter's outing, especially if it's a lengthy one. For 46 minutes, Holmes had to cool down from the nine pitches he threw, staying loose and then getting warmed up all over again when the delay was over because he had to take the ball immediately.
"Everything is new. This is new for him," Mets skipper Carlos Mendoza said of the delay's effect on Holmes. "As a reliever, you deal with a rain delay, you’re most likely done. We're not even through the first inning... He had to develop a routine and find a way to stay loose, stay warm and give us a solid five, that’s not easy to do. Part of the learning and I’m glad he went through it."
"You try to stay as locked-in as you can, but there's really not much you can simulate like the game speed," Holmes said of the experience. "Try to give what I could there, got through five and was able to make the most of it.”
Holmes pitched five scoreless innings, allowing just four hits while striking out two batters. While that statline may not jump off the page, Holmes was dominating this aggressive Nationals lineup, throwing just 70 pitches in those five innings, and at one point retiring nine straight batters. The right-hander would have gone deeper into the game if it weren't for the rain delay.
"The only thing that stopped him from going deep in the game was an almost 50-minute rain delay," Mendoza said with a chuckle. "He was dealing. Got groundballs and when he’s getting groundballs, lefties, righties, you know he’s on. Pitches were moving, attacking. Everything was in the zone. He was pretty good today. Part of the learning and I’m glad he went through it."
Of the 15 outs Holmes got, 10 came on groundballs thanks to his patented sinker, which he threw 37 percent of the time. His new changeup was thrown at a 20 percent clip, and complemented his other pitches, allowing Holmes to go at least five innings for the fourth straight start, while allowing one or fewer runs in three of those outings.
All in all, the Holmes experiment is working for the pitcher and the Mets. In his six starts this season, Holmes is 3-1 with a 2.64 ERA and considering how much of an unknown he would be in the rotation, the organization will take it.
"I still think there's a lot of room for growth, but overall, it's been, I feel like, pretty good," Holmes said of his season so far. "I think today was good to experience something new, having to deal with those things, but for me, I’ve relied on the people around me. Pitching coaches, the communication we have, the catchers. In that regard, I feel like it hasn’t been all on me; I’ve trusted the people around me. It’s been a group effort that’s been really good."
Francisco Alvarez's first home run of the season was enough for the Mets' pitching staff, as New York shut out the Nationals, 2-0, on Saturday afternoon in Washington, D.C.
The start of Saturday's game was delayed by about 25 minutes before a rain delay in the bottom of the first added another 46 minutes.
Here are the takeaways...
-It took the Mets seven innings to score against the Nationals on Friday, but New York didn't waste much time on Saturday. After a two-out single by Jesse Winker, Francisco Alvarez -- in just his second game off the IL -- went the other way and deposited a Brad Lord slider just inside the right field foul pole to give the Mets an early 2-0 lead.
Alvarez finished with 1-for-3 with a strikeout.
-That Alvarez home run was all Clay Holmes needed on this day, but it was an inauspicious start for the reliever-turned-starter. After getting one out in the first, the heavens opened up and the game was delayed for a total of 46 minutes. Holmes returned to the mound and promptly got the next two batters out to finally complete the first frame. Holmes would settle in after that disrupted first inning, retiring nine straight Nats at one point.
Holmes was never in trouble, cruising through five scoreless innings. He probably could have gone longer, if it wasn't for the long rain delay. The right-hander threw 70 pitches (44 strikes), allowing just four hits and no walks while striking out two. He lowered his ERA to 2.64.
It's the 14th consecutive start a Mets starter hasn't allowed a home run.
-The Mets' bullpen was great after blowing the save on Friday. The combination of Danny Young and Reed Garrett pitched two scoreless innings before A.J. Minter came out to start the eighth. After getting the first out, Minter was in a 3-1 count to James Wood before he had to leave with an apparent injury. Similar to the series finale against the Phillies, Max Kranick was called upon to sub in on an injury. After walking Wood -- which was charged to Minter -- Kranick got the next two Nationals batters to get through the eighth.
Edwin Diaz returned for the ninth inning, his first appearance since leaving Wednesday's game with a hip cramp. He struck out his first batter but threw five straight balls before Alvarez came out to talk to Diaz. Diaz came back to strike out Dylan Crews and Jose Tena to nail down the win.
-Jeff McNeil started in center for the first time this season, and it was his first time playing in that position since 2023. He played six innings in the field without much doing and was 1-for-3 at the plate. Tyrone Taylor took over at center in the seventh inning.
-The Mets had eight total hits and Francisco Lindor had three of them. It was his fifth three-hit game this season, tied for the most in MLB.
Game MVP: Francisco Alvarez
The whole pitching staff should be applauded, but Alvarez's blast gave the Mets enough to come away with the win.
