Category: Baseball

The Yankees hit three solo shots and the bottom of the order had seven hits as New York extended their winning streak to eight games after an 8-3 win over the Astros on Saturday night in Houston. 

New York used power, contact, good pitching and defense to keep the Astros off the board. They outhit Houston 12-7 and drew 10 walks, while Yankees pitching only allowed two walks.

Here are the takeaways...

-Ryan Weathers returned to the team from paternity leave and faced an uphill climb early. Carlos Correa led off the first with a double and eventually scored from third on a one-out single by Isaac Paredes. 

The young left-hander would settle in, but the long ball would get Weathers in the sixth. Correa launched a solo shot to tie the game at 2-2. The Astros would hit Weathers hard, even on outs, and manager Aaron Boone noticed it, taking out Weathers with one out in the sixth and a runner on for Fernando Cruz. 

Cruz walked Jose Altuve but bounced back to strike out Christian Walker and Yainer Diaz to get out of the inning and put an end to Weathers' night.

The Yankees southpaw tossed 86 pitches (56 strikes) across 5.1 innings, allowing two runs on six hits, no walks and striking out four.

-The Yankees haven't trailed much during their winning streak, but knotted things up in the third via a Trent Grisham solo shot over the Crawford Boxes. The Yankees would then take the lead thanks to a solo shot from Jose Caballero in the fifth. It's the second straight game Caballero has homered. Caballero also extended his hitting streak to seven games with a bunt single earlier in the game. That streak is tied for the longest of his career (2024 with the Rays).

-Austin Wells proved to be an unlikely hero, launching the team's third solo homer of the game, this time in the seventh to give the Yankees a 3-2 lead. The Yankees backstop had just one hit (1-14) over his last five games entering Saturday, and the homer was his first extra-base hit since April 11. 

The Yankees would have a chance to add on. Caballero singled and Grisham walked, but Caballero was caught stealing third for the second time in this game. Ben Rice followed with a single and Aaron Judge walked, setting up Cody Bellinger with the bases loaded and two outs. Bellinger fell behind 1-2, but fought back to draw a walk and push across a big insurance run. Jazz Chisolm Jr. worked a walk as well to give the Yankees a 5-2 lead. 

The Yankees would push across another run in the eighth on a Rice sac fly. The first baseman finished 3-for-4 and now has 21 RBI on the season. He's also leading the team with a .337 batting average. Well had an RBI single in the ninth and finished 2-for-3, his first multi-hit game since Opening Day (March 25). Wells entered the game with just two RBI and doubled it on Saturday.

Ryan McMahon got in on the fun with an RBI single to put the Yankees up 8-2. McMahon finished 2-for-5.

-Jake Bird, who returned to the team Saturday after Angel Chivilli was placed on the IL, was strong in his inning of work. He struck out a batter in a 1-2-3 inning on just nine pitches. Camilo Doval allowed a walk, but pitched a clean eighth. Tim Hill gave up a leadoff homer to Walker, but got the next three batters out to lock down the win.

Game MVP: Bottom of the order

Wells, McMahon and Caballero went a combined 7-for-13 with four RBI.

Highlights

Trent Grisham ties the game with a solo shot! pic.twitter.com/f1BAgIyGvK

— Yankees Videos (@snyyankees) April 25, 2026

Second straight night with a home run for Jose Caballero! pic.twitter.com/IgbmXoWiYG

— Yankees Videos (@snyyankees) April 26, 2026

Austin Wells puts the Yankees back in front! https://t.co/JnA8XBw6GI

— Yankees Videos (@snyyankees) April 26, 2026

Austin Wells brings home insurance for the Yankees! pic.twitter.com/xhbsWe8u98

— Yankees Videos (@snyyankees) April 26, 2026

What's next

The Yankees and Astros wrap up their series on Sunday afternoon. First pitch is set for 2:10 p.m.

Luis Gil (1-1, 4.11 ERA) will take the mound against Spencer Arrighetti (2-0, 2.45 ERA). 

Box Score

Three times in this baseball game, the Brewers—a team that hasn’t homered in almost a week—nearly hit a baseball out of the park to right field. But none of those balls made it over the wall, and while Milwaukee sparred with the Pirates and answered their runs throughout the first nine innings, they lacked the big hit to give them a lead. Then some bad bounces (and questionable management of relievers) went against them in the tenth, and the team’s slide hit four games.

The late dramatics came after a compelling showdown between the teams’ two starters, Jacob Misiorowski and Mitch Keller. Misiorowski had the goods early. His first pitch of the night clocked in at 102.6 mph, and he struck out the first two batters on a total of seven pitches. After Bryan Reynolds turned an 0-2 count into a walk, Miz struck out Ryan O’Hearn on three more fastballs, and he had struck out the side.

Keller’s first inning looked quite a bit different, but the results were similar. Brice Turang was frozen by a 2-2 curveball, William Contreras hit a lazy fly ball to right, and Jake Bauers struck out, too.

Nick Gonzales led off the second with the first hit of the game, a base hit to center on a 1-2 fastball that got too much of the zone. But three pitches later, Spencer Horwitz hit a grounder into the shift that ended up as a 5-4-3 double play. A strikeout of Jake Mangum ended the inning.

Tyler Black led off the bottom of the second and struck out looking on an 0-2 curveball that was overturned on a challenge by Pittsburgh catcher Henry Davis. Garrett Mitchell battled, fouled off a couple of high fastballs (which have given him trouble this year), and then smoked a line drive that almost beheaded Keller, but Konnor Griffin had him positioned perfectly and caught Mitchell’s 108 mph liner on the fly. Sal Frelick became the Brewers’ first baserunner of the night when he drew a two-out walk, but Greg Jones struck out on three pitches to end the inning.

Griffin started the third with a base hit to right, but Davis flew out to right and Misiorowski struck out Oneil Cruz and Brandon Lowe for the second time each, and for the second straight inning, a leadoff Pirate baserunner did not advance past first base.

David Hamilton tried to drop one of his patented bunts-for-hits down to start the bottom of the inning, but Gonzales was ready for it and threw him out by a half-step. Joey Ortiz drew a one-out walk (on a 3-2 pitch that might’ve been successfully challenged had the Pirates not lost one in the previous inning), and Turang hit a ball hard to center field but Cruz made a nice catch running back on the warning track on Turang’s 106 mph fly ball. Contreras struck out looking on a front-door sweeper, and Milwaukee still didn’t have a hit after three innings.

Miz’s first pitch of the fourth inning was a curveball that got away and hit Reynolds on the thigh. O’Hearn followed with a single to center, and the Pirates had two on and nobody out in the fourth. Gonzales hit a ball to Turang at second and he tagged O’Hearn for the first out but it wasn’t hit quite hard enough to turn two. Horwitz was the batter with runners on the corners and one out, and Miz got ahead 1-2 but Horwitz went up and got to a 100 mph fastball that was even just a little bot up out of the zone and hit an RBI single to center. Another fielder’s choice that was nearly a double play gave Misiorowski the second out, but Griffin came through with another RBI single and the Pirates had a 2-0 lead. Davis flew out to end the inning, but a struggling Brewer offense now had to come to Misiorowski’s aid.

A couple of bloopers gave the Brewers life in the bottom of the fourth. Milwaukee’s first hit of the game came when Bauers flipped one into no-man’s land in left center. But Magnum misplayed it, and Bauers ended up at second. Black was next, and he got jammed on the first pitch and hit one weakly down the left-field line that landed just out of the reach of a diving Magnum. Bauers, who had to wait to see if it would be caught, only made it to third, but Black was on second with a double and the Brewers were in business with nobody out.

Mitchell again managed to not strike out on a couple of high fastballs again, and a productive groundout middle got Black to third and scored Bauers for the Brewers’ first run since the seventh inning on Thursday. A sacrifice fly from Frelick tied the game, and Milwaukee’s offense had mustered a response to Pittsburgh’s two runs in the top of the inning. Jones scalded a ball at 109 mph with two outs but hit it right at Lowe, who was able to knock it down and throw him out to end the inning. Through four innings, the Brewers had three balls hit at 106 or higher that all went for outs, while their two hits came off the bat at 74 and 71 mph, respectively. Baseball.

Misiorowski responded nicely with a clean fifth inning in which he needed only ten pitches to get two groundouts and a strikeout to retire the top of Pittsburgh’s order. Turang picked up a two-out single in the bottom of the inning to break an 0-for-15 streak, but Contreras grounded out weakly on the first pitch and the score remained knotted at two as we headed to the sixth.

For the second time in three innings, Misiorowski hit the first Pirate batter of the inning, O’Hearn, with a pitch (though this one needed a replay review to confirm that), and just like in the fourth, the next batter, Gonzales, singled to follow that up. To make matters worse, a wild pitch with Horwitz at the plate moved both batters into scoring position with nobody out. Horwitz hit a fly ball to left that was deep enough to score O’Hearn, and an ill-advised throw to the plate by Jones also allowed Gonzales to move up to third with just one out. Misiorowski got a needed strikeout of Mangum, and another one of Griffin ended the inning, but Pittsburgh had retaken the lead.

Once again the Brewers were searching for an answer, and once again Bauers led off the inning with a hit, this time a single in between the shortstop and second baseman, and once again, Black followed with a blooper that landed in the outfield, this time for a single. Milwaukee had runners on first and second this time with nobody out, and that was it for Keller, who was pulled after five-plus innings and 93 pitches in favor of the righty Isaac Mattson.

Mitchell went after Mattson’s first pitch and hit a ground ball to second, which was not hit hard enough to turn a double play, so Milwaukee had runners on the corners with one out for Frelick. For the second straight at-bat, Frelick came through with a sac fly to right that tied the game. Jones, who continued to have some rough luck, hit a solid line drive to center but Cruz caught it and the inning ended. For the second time, though, the Brewers answered the Pirates, and the game was again tied as it headed to the seventh.

Misiorowski was taken out of the game after six pretty good innings; the two HBPs didn’t help him and he gave up a few poorly timed somewhat tough-luck hits, but he only walked one, he struck out nine, and he completed six innings for just the second time on the season. Aaron Ashby was the chosen arm out of the bullpen, and he quickly got the first two outs before Lowe singled to center. No trouble, though, as Ashby struck out Reynolds looking to end the inning.

Luis Rengifo came off the bench to hit for Hamilton to counter lefty Mason Montgomery in the bottom of the seventh. He got a couple of good fastballs to hit but could merely foul them off, then he struck out on a 2-2 breaking pitch. Ortiz grounded out, but Turang drew a two-out walk to give Contreras an opportunity versus the lefty. Contreras got into a hitter’s count and drove one deep to right… but it held up just in front of the wall for Reynolds, and Montgomery escaped the inning.

Ashby kept going in the eighth and struck out O’Hearn looking to start the inning, with an assist from Contreras and the ABS challenge system. Gonzales struck out, too, and Ortiz made a nice pick on a hard one-hopper from Horwitz to end the inning.

What amounted to one pitch after Contreras flew out to the wall in right, Bauers did the same to lead off the bottom of the eighth, on the first pitch against the new Pittsburgh pitcher Dennis Santana. Black popped out, but with two outs Mitchell nearly gave the Brewers a late lead. He hit a fly ball that hit just below the yellow line on the top of the wall in right-center, but had to settle for a double. Frelick had an opportunity to put the Brewers ahead with his third RBI of the night, but he was walked on three pitches (intentionally after the third), and it came down to Jones. Santana spammed sliders until Jones struck out on the seventh pitch, and sixth slider, of the at-bat.

Anxious to end a three-game slide, the Brewers went to Abner Uribe in the top of the ninth. Uribe’s first pitch, to Mangum, was grounded to second for an easy first out. Griffin struck out looking (and burned Pittsburgh’s second challenge in doing so), and Davis flew out to Frelick in right. Pittsburgh sent lefty Gregory Soto to the mound to try to get the game to extra innings. Rengifo flew out to left, Ortiz popped out, and Turang struck out looking. Soto succeeded.

Even though Uribe had only thrown eight pitches in the ninth, it was the struggling Ángel Zerpa to face the lefty-heavy top of the Pirates’ order in the tenth. Cruz did Zerpa a favor by swinging and missing at a 2-0 pitch that was quite a ways inside, and Zerpa came back to strike Cruz out after that. Pittsburgh countered the Zerpa move by pinch-hitting Marcell Ozuna for Lowe, and Ozuna drew a walk (and was pinch-run for by Nick Yorke). Not the end of the world, as it set up a double play with one out, and Zerpa did get a ground ball, but Reynolds hit it where there weren’t any fielders, and Pittsburgh took a 4-3 lead. A chopper back to the mound bounced too high to get a double play—or even a lead runner—but Zerpa did get the second out. Pat Murphy opted for Grant Anderson to face Gonzales, and it did not work; Gonzales hit a 1-1 single that plated both runners and made it 6-3. A fly ball to right ended the inning, but the Brewers, who were just a couple of luckier bounces or a couple of better pitches from getting it to the bottom of the tenth tied, were facing a daunting task.

The Pirate pitcher was Yohan Ramírez (remember him?). The Brewers went quietly, as Contreras grounded out and Bauers and Black struck out.

It’s been a rough week for the Brewers. Go get ‘em tomorrow, I guess. Black did have two hits including a double, which was nice, though both of those hits were softly hit. Mitchell made good contact a couple of times tonight, but his evening will be remembered for just missing a go-ahead homer. Bauers had a couple of hits. Misiorowski was mostly pretty good, but still couldn’t escape that one big inning that tends to plague him. Ashby and Uribe pitched well out of the bullpen.

Milwaukee will look to salvage a game tomorrow at 1:10 p.m., when Carmen Mlodzinski faces Kyle Harrison.

The Colorado Rockies will play a double-header tomorrow to wrap up their series against the New York Mets after an unexpected off-day thanks to a rainy day in Queens.

Since there was no baseball game today, I thought we could play a little game instead. It’s time to remember some guys who played for our Rockies.

In this exercise, the goal is to come up with a lineup of players for your favorite team—in this case, the Rockies—comprised of players who posted between 20 and 40 wins above replacement (WAR) according to Baseball Reference. This spread cuts out the team’s Hall of Fame players like Larry Walker (72.7 bWAR) and Todd Helton (61.8 bWAR), but still includes players who overall had strong careers.

The other stipulation is that players selected must be retired. For the Rockies, that means that DJ LeMahieu—their all-time second baseman—isn’t currently on the list.

For a team as young as the Rockies I found it both interesting and challenging. For older teams there are certainly a lot more players to choose from. However, I ultimately was able to come up with a full 10-player lineup, including designated hitter. For this lineup, I did not necessarily take into account how they performed with the Rockies, especially since they usually only played one or two seasons here. Instead, I went with their career WAR.

Lineup:

• Catcher: Charles Johnson, 2003 (22.6 WAR)
• First Base: Andrés Galarraga, 1993-1997 (31.7 WAR) 
• Second Base: Mark Ellis, 2011 (33.5 WAR)
• Third Base: Jeff Cirillo, 2000-2001 (34.6 WAR) 
• Shortstop: Juan Uribe, 2001-2003 (22.6 WAR) 
• Left Field: Ron Gant, 2001 (34.1 WAR)
• Center Field: Charlie Blackmon, 2011-2024 (21.5 WAR) 
• Right Field: Carlos González, 2009-2018 (24.5 WAR) 
• Designated Hitter: Justin Morneau, 2014-2015 (27 WAR) 

I decided to take things one step further and come up with a five-man starting rotation and a four-man bench.

Rotation:

• LHP Mike Hampton, 2001-2001 (28.2 WAR) 
• RHP Pedro Astacio, 1997-2001 (25.6 WAR) 
• LHP Denny Neagle, 2001-2003 (22.4 WAR) 
• RHP Bill Swift, 1995-1997 (20.7 WAR) 
• RHP Ubaldo Jiménez, 2006-2011 (20.4 WAR)

Bench:

• INF Marco Scutaro, 2012 (22.1 WAR)
• UTIL Howard Johnson, 1994 (22.2 WAR)
• OF Matt Kemp, 2020 (21.6 WAR)
• INF Ronnie Belliard, 2003 (20.8 WAR)

Of course, the methodology has some flaws. For example, this list of Rockies has no backup catcher. Chris Iannetta failed to make the cut with just 14.9 career bWAR. The WAR criteria also makes building a bullpen impossible. I discussed it with a few friends, and we decided that for a bullpen we could select players that had at least 10 career WAR. In true Rockies fashion, this leaves us with a bullpen that has only one lefty.

Bullpen:

• RHP LaTroy Hawkins, 2007/2015 (17.8 WAR)
• RHP Steve Reed, 1993-1997/2003-2004 (17.6 WAR)
• RHP Adam Ottavino, 2012-2018 (14.9 WAR)
• RHP Houston Street, 2009-2011 (14.5 WAR)
• RHP Dave Veres, 1998-1999 (12.9 WAR)
• RHP Greg Holland, 2017 (12.4 WAR)
• RHP Curtis Leskanic, 1993-1999 (12.1 WAR)
• LHP Brian Fuentes, 2002-2008 (10.5 WAR)

Overall this gives us a complete “remember some guys” 26-man roster! What names are you surprised to see? Who are you surprised to see not make the cut? Let us know in the comments. Feel free to come up with your own lineup or roster for either the Rockies or a different team as well!

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

There’s no time for Alex Cora to file for unemployment.

He might not even have time to get back to Fenway Park to clean out his office.

Cora, who was fired Saturday by the Boston Red Sox, is going to be managing again, and quickly.

Who knows, he could be managing the Philadelphia Phillies by the time they return home Tuesday to face the San Francisco Giants, and yes, former Red Sox slugger Rafael Devers.

The Phillies, of course, already have a manager in Rob Thomson.

They also have a team that’s grossly underachieving, with the worst record in the National League, and on a 10-game losing streak entering play Saturday night against Atlanta.

It was a bit of a surprise that the Phillies kept Thomson after last season when they were knocked out in the first round of the playoffs again, signing him to an extension through 2027.

The Phillies didn’t think it would be fair to dump him. He led the Phillies to the postseason four consecutive years. He is well-liked. He is respected by the players and front office.

And Cora was still employed by the Red Sox.

The Texas Rangers scored four runs while the Did You Know They Were Originally From Philadelphia? Athletics scored three runs.

Against the AL West-leading A’s tonight, the Rangers looked like they were about to finally succumb to the dreaded below .500 record while guaranteeing themselves a series loss only for their April hero to save them again.

Texas has been playing hot potato with .500 ball for weeks now hanging on the precipice of falling back down below the mark only to rise to the occasion when a losing record stares them in the face several times over.

In fact, since April 5 when the Rangers were 4-5 for their only day below .500 this season, they’ve faced five games with an even record and won all of them. However, on the flip side, since that date they’ve only risen to a highwater mark of two games above .500 and have also lost five games that immediately put them back at .500.

It’s been quite the roller coaster and that’s exactly what tonight’s game was too.

Rangers’ starter MacKenzie Gore started things well with a 1-2-3 first inning, all on strikeouts. But then he struggled to finish off A’s hitters as they collected a two-out RBI in the top of the second to take an early lead. A messy top of the third finished with the A’s up 3-0.

But the bats came through in the bottom of the inning with their own messy rally to put two runs on the board off left-handed former Ranger Jeffrey Springs. The two runs scored despite only two singles from Texas with Corey Seager’s two-out RBI lefty-on-lefty hit proving to be a big moment.

The game stayed at 3-2 and it seemed like maybe the third inning flareup would be all we’d see at the offense-adverse Shed, but then Josh Jung stepped up to the plate with a man on.

There’s really no Ranger you’d rather see in such a situation right now, and Jung delivered again with an opposite field two-run shot to the Texas bullpen on a ball that just kept carrying and carrying.

The superlative relief arms for the Rangers finished things off from there with four, one-hit shutout innings and the Rangers once again find themself above .500.

Player of the Game:

Up Next: The Rangers and A’s close out this series with a rubber match that will see RHP Kumar Rocker take the mound for Texas against RHP J.T. Ginn for Someday Vegas’ squad.

The Sunday afternoon first pitch from The Shed is scheduled for 1:35 pm CDT and will be covered by the Rangers Sports Network.

The San Diego Padres found themselves down by four runs after starter German Marquez struggled to get the third out of the second inning against the Arizona Diamondbacks at Estadio Alfredo Harp Helu in Mexico City. The Padres mounted their comeback and scored six unanswered runs to set Mason Miller up to get his 10th save of the season with another scoreless ninth inning, giving him the franchise record for most innings pitched (34.2) without allowing a run, to give San Diego a 6-4 win over Arizona.

Miller came in for the bottom of the ninth inning after Ty France gave the Padres a two-run lead in the top of the inning with his second home run of the game. It was fitting that France, who opened the scoring for San Diego with a solo home run in the top of the fifth inning. also drove in the final run of the game. The right-handed closer continued his dominance with another three-up, three-down inning that saw him get an east flyout to left field for the first out before finishing with back-to-back groundouts.

Marquez seemed to be unable to stop the bleeding in the bottom of the second. However, he returned to the mound in the bottom of the third and pitched well enough to keep the Diamondbacks from adding on. Marquez completed six innings, allowing four runs on six hits with one walk and two strikeouts. Perhaps the most important fact was Marquez allowed just one home run, a two-run shot, to Alek Thomas.

The Padres offense started sluggish once again. They faced Zac Gallen to open the game, but he exited in the top of the fourth inning after he was struck by a line drive off the bat of Freddy Fermin. Brandon Pfaadt came in for Arizona and pitched well until the top of the seventh inning. Jackson Merrill opened the inning with a leadoff walk and was followed by Manny Machado who singled and Xander Bogaerts who walked to load the bases.

Taylor Clarke replaced Pfaadt and faced Gavin Sheets, who came through once again for San Diego. Sheets hit a two-run single that scored Merrill and Machado and pushed Bogaerts to second base. France then reached on a fielder’s choice and an error. Fermin hit a sacrifice fly to score Bogaerts to make the score 4-4 before Jake Cronenworth was hit by a pitch to load the bases. Ramon Laureano, who did not have a hit in the game, hit a sacrifice fly to right field which allowed Sheets to tag up and score to complete the comeback and put the Padres in front 5-4.

San Diego will complete their two-game series with Arizona on Sunday at 1:05 p.m.

It had been 715 days since Missouri baseball had last tasted a Southeastern Conference victory at Taylor Stadium. 1,491 days marked the last time the Tigers had bested Arkansas. Both of those streaks ended in Mizzou’s 6-0 victory on Saturday afternoon at Taylor Stadium.

Another monkey off the Tigers’ back? Their recent nine-game losing streak, which included eight losses in SEC play and one to in-state opposition, SIUE, reached its ultimate conclusion.

Based on this series alone, it would be easy for Tigers fans to anticipate or even triangulate what could go wrong after the first inning. After all, the Tigers’ 5-4 defeat in the series opener came after an early inning that included a pair of homers from Jase Woita and Blaize Ward. This game was different.

Right out of the blocks, Missouri’s offense sprinted out like Usain Bolt, starting with back-to-back singles from Woita and Durnin. A walk surrendered to Blaize Ward loaded the bases with nobody out, and Mateo Serna was hit by a pitch, which was not the most conventional way to put the first run of the game.

Kaden Peer reached base on a fielder’s choice, and Donovan Jordan’s groundout drove two more runs across the plate, giving the Tigers more hits and runs than they accumulated all of Friday evening against the Razorbacks pitching.

SEALS AND MAISONET MAKING IMPACT IN STYLE

The second inning came along, starting with an infield single by Eric Maisonet. Then walked up Pierre Seals. It had been one month and three days since the last time he had gone yard. That changed two pitches into his at-bat against Colin Fisher.

Seals watched, stood, and flipped his bat, and he slowly moved down the first-base line, knowing he had gotten much more than enough of the ball for it to travel out of Taylor Stadium. 425 feet over the left field wall to be exact, giving Mizzou a 5-0 cushion in the bottom half of the second.

“We all come up with all of these cool celebrations to do, and that’s great,” Jackson said. “The thing that was most important for me, he finally got the barrel on it. He’s a guy who’s constantly hitting things to the backside. When you have that power that he does and the bat speed he does, if he can get the barrel out more consistently, you’re gonna see more of that.”

As Jackson pointed out post-game, Seals, despite having hit four homers this year, has proven to be a power bat for the Tigers in Blue, Memphis. 10 home runs, 65 hits, and 33 RBI prove Seals can be a potent hitter when aggressively hitting towards the middle of the field.

On a day where the Tigers broke lots of negative streaks, Seals’ home run drought ended, as well as collecting a hit a piece over the last two games. after previously going hitless in his previous five.

“[Hitting the homer] was definitely big, because I feel like I’ve been hitting balls hard in the past couple of weeks and I didn’t have anything to show for it,” Seals said. “I kept going and kept my approach, and it was good to see it pay off.”

Eric Masionet, who wasn’t necessarily high in the home run column for Missouri this season coming into Saturday afternoon, made his mark in the bottom of the fourth. After connecting on a 1-0 pitch from Gabe Geckle, which admittedly didn’t look like it was leaving the yard, kept carrying.

Damian Ruiz jumped at the left field wall, the ball hit the top of the padding, and then the left field scoreboard. The Tigers were well and truly in the driver’s seat, up 6-0 in the bottom half of the fourth and hitting like a team that hadn’t been at the plate in nine games. No trepidation in the box, aggressive and having nothing to lose and everything to gain from besting a top-25 team in the country.

GONZALEZ AND VILLAREAL PUT UP ZEROS OVER 7.2 INNINGS

Gonzalez and Villareal stepped up not to the plate, but to the mound after an early re-aggravated injury occurred to Missouri’s starting pitcher JD Dohrman in the top of the second inning. 

“Its a groin injury,” Jackson said. “If it’s something you keep messing with it’ll never heal and he wasn’t quite feeling 100 percent so it’s better for us to pull him out and try to continue to put him on that rehab stretch and get him completely healed.” 

Gonzalez took Mizzou fans back to his outing earlier this month against an offensive powerhouse in Missouri State. Similar to his performance against the Bears, Gonzalez allowed zero earned runs and struck out a multitude of batters.

Gonzalez also became a U.S citizen earlier in the week and earning the victory after tossing five shutout innings capped off the series of good events for the right-hander.

“Its been a long process, Gonzalez said ”I came from Cuba, and, you know, got here to United States, and it was a long process, but being able to become a US citizen, it’s great. This country’s giving me everything, so I’m super happy and proud.“

Villarreal took over for Gonzalez after the sixth inning and continued the dominant outing from the Tigers relief staff. Villareal struck out three Razorbacks and pitched into the bottom of the ninth inning before surrendering a run and the bases being full of runners.

Jackson made the switch to the right-hander Sam Rosand, who’strikeout officially ended the long negative runs but not the work of playing more consistent baseball for Jackson.

“The relief for me is that we played good baseball, ”That’s the relief, regardless of if we would have not won or, like, I felt good on Thursday night because I thought we played good baseball. For me its ultimately it did we play good baseball, and by playing good baseball, can we continue to play good baseball… Yes I’m glad the streak is over but at the end of the day you can’t control whether you win or lose. If we do this consistently we’re going to win more than we lose.“

In five games, few pitchers in baseball have been better than Nolan McLean the first two times through an opposing order.

Among 116 qualifiers entering play Saturday, when the Mets were rained out, his .143 batting average against ranked fifth, his .211 on-base percentage against sixth and .248 slugging percentage against ninth with a 2.67 ERA.

The third time through the order, however, one of the best pitchers in baseball morphs into one of the worst in the early going.

Among 100 pitchers who had logged at least four innings of work against an order a third time through, his .348 average against ranked 88th, .375 OBP against 78th and .609 slugging percentage against 91st with a 10.80 ERA.

The next step for McLean’s ascent has become obvious: He needs to maintain his stuff and keep opposing hitters guessing deeper in games.

“At the end of the day, I just got to execute pitches a little bit better,” McLean said Tuesday. “Maybe do a little more homework on how guys are adjusting to me.”

The 24-year-old, technically a rookie, was speaking after taking a perfect game into the sixth inning — for a second time this season — in a matchup with the Twins, who then began to figure him out.

In the sixth, Minnesota recorded its first hit, a Matt Wallner single, before turning the order over.

Leadoff hitter Byron Buxton, in his third time seeing McLean, smacked a two-run homer.

Further trouble awaited McLean an inning later, when a Kody Clemens double and RBI single from Luke Keaschall ensured that on a night McLean’s stuff was excellent, his stat line (6 ²/₃ innings, three runs) was ordinary in what became a loss.

Every pitcher becomes more hittable the more he sees an opponent, whether due to familiarity or fatigue.

McLean — whose breaking pitches often seem inhuman, such is his ability to spin a baseball — can begin making his adjustments when he pitches Game 1 of the doubleheader against the Rockies at Citi Field on Sunday.

“These [opposing] guys are getting paid to play baseball for a living, too,” McLean said last week. “… But I’ve got to execute better at the end of the day.”

Sunday’s single-admission doubleheader will begin at 1:40.

Game 2 will start 30-45 minutes after the end of Game 1.

Tickets to Saturday’s game are not valid for admission to the makeup doubleheader.

Fans holding a ticket in their account for Saturday’s game will receive a digital voucher that will be accessible Sunday morning.

Perhaps the most memorable thing about this game from a White Sox perspective is that, according to the TV folks, it was only the second time since 1901 that four switch-hitting catchers appeared in the same game. Not much to that, you say? Well, it’s better than considering what happened on the field.

Want another anomaly? In the sixth inning, the Sox struck out not once, not twice, not thrice, but four times, the first a case of Miguel Vargas getting on via a third strike passed ball.

Noah Schultz pitched well, but not well enough. He did a terrific job getting out of a jam in the third, following a leadoff walk and double with two strikeouts and a grounder to short. But when Schultz started the fourth with two more walks and a wild pitch, both runners scored on a single by .179 hitter Nasim Nuñez to give Washington a 2-0 lead.

Schultz made it through six innings on a (very short) career-high 85 pitches, giving up four bases on balls and an equal number of hits and just the two runs while striking out a (very short) career-high eight. Meanwhile, though, Jake Irvin, who came into the game with an ERA of 6.00, was even better, walking none and allowing four hits and no runs while whiffing 10. He even had the first three K’s of the four-whiff inning.

Three Sox relievers kept it close, including new call-up Tyler Davis, who got two strikeouts in his first major league appearance. He did walk one, but maybe he just wanted to be part of the group. The fourth Sox reliever? Uh, well, we’ll get to that.

Nationals relievers did their best to try to hand the game back to the Sox via walks and hit batters and misplaying a bunt, which was to no avail until the eighth. It was then that Mitchell Parker walked Vargas and hit Colson Montgomery. Ex-Sox Gus Varland came in to give up an RBI single to Everson Pereira.

Chase Meidroth followed with a sac fly to knot the game, 2-2.

The Sox got two on via walks in the ninth — another attempted gift by the Nationals pen — but Montgomery struck out to end the threat. No matter how many gifts you’re offered, going 1-for-12 with runners in scoring position won’t help you much.

Then we arrive at the 10th, with Jordan Leasure on the mound. This is an apt time to scream, as usual, “Oh, no! Not him!” Leasure issued a walk and a single to load the bases, Manfred Man pushed to third. A passed ball by Drew Romo (just up from Charlotte to replace the DFAed Reese McGuire), on what looked like a cross-up from Leasure, let in one run. An intentional walk loaded the bases again. Leasure then walked Joey Weimer to force in a second run and make it 4-2, then gave up a two-run single to Nuñez, giving the shortstop (and No. 8 hitter) four RBIs on the afternoon.

Down 6-2, the Sox scored the free runner without any Washington effort to stop him, and 6-3 it ended.

It was a jammed house despite very cold weather thanks to a really cool jacket giveaway, but by the bottom of the 10th everybody had headed for warmth.

Thus, the White Sox are 11-16 and the series is tied at 1-1, with the decider at 1:10 p.m. Central tomorrow, Sean Burke and lefty Foster Griffin the scheduled starters.

For the last few weeks, the Nationals offense has been heavily reliant on James Wood and CJ Abrams. However, with Abrams out of the lineup, and Wood not having the best game, it was on the supporting cast to get the job done. Led by Nasim Nunez, the Nats were able to put six runs on the board and win the game in extra innings.

Nasim Nunez does a lot of great things on the baseball field. He is an incredibly smooth defender and is one of the best baserunners in the league when he gets on base. However, he is not known for his bat, and has gotten off to a pretty dreadful start at the plate. Even after this game, he is just hitting .195 with a .505 OPS. 

The great thing about this Nats offense though is that different guys have stepped up when needed. Today was Nunez’s time to shine. He drove in four runs on two ultra-clutch hits, including one in the 10th inning to break the game open. 

There have been times this season where Nunez seemed like he was trying to do too much. After shockingly hitting four home runs last September, Nunez may have fallen in love with his power too much. You could tell during some at bats that he really wanted to lift the ball. Today, he was not trying to do too much, which is when he is at his best. 

Nunez should be trying to get on base whatever way he can. Whether that is bunting or selling out for contact, putting the ball in play should be Nunez’s main focus. He still struck out twice today, but in the biggest moments, Nunez was staying within himself.

This game was not all about Nunez though. The other big hero was Jake Irvin, who had his best start of the season. Coming into this game, Irvin had an ERA of 6.00, but I thought he was pitching a lot better than he was last year. Today, the results matched his improved stuff. He had 16 whiffs, the most he has had in a game since June of 2024.

Seeing those whiffs is a great sign for Irvin. When he was at his best in the first half of 2024, he was getting solid whiff numbers. He was not overpowering, but he had enough in the tank for hitters to respect him. Irvin has actually been a big strikeout guy to start this season, with 34 in 29.2 innings. He was not even striking guys out like that in his big first half a couple years ago.

Today, his curveball was a whiff monster. He got 11 of his 16 whiffs on the hook. You do not see a ton of big slow curve’s like Irvin’s anymore, but they are so nice to watch. Irvin’s command of the curveball was absolutely outstanding today. He was putting it right at the bottom of the zone or putting it slightly out of the zone. It was just too much for hitters not to swing at and he had White Sox batters fishing all afternoon.

Honestly, I think Blake Butera’s hook for Irvin was pretty quick. After a disastrous sequence from Keibert Ruiz turned a strikeout into having a guy on second, Irvin buckled down. He got two more strikeouts, but Butera had seen enough. With a lefty coming up, he went to Mitchell Parker. While Parker got out of the inning, I would have preferred to see Butera stick with his starter.

It was another shaky game for Butera today. He stuck with Mitchell Parker for a bit too long and Cionel Perez almost gave me a heart attack. However, I do like that he went to Brad Lord for a single inning high leverage spot in the 10th inning. Lord is more than a long man, and should be treated as such.

It was a gritty win for the Nats. They drew 10 walks, and consistently had guys on base. The floodgates did not truly open until the 10th inning, but the Nats pressure eventually paid off. It was a nice win, and now they will go for the series win tomorrow.

HOUSTON — Giancarlo Stanton avoided an immediate placement on the injured list after leaving Friday’s game with a tight right calf.

That hardly means he is in the clear.

As of Saturday afternoon, the Yankees were trying to give Stanton more time to see if he could improve enough to steer clear of the 10-day IL, though landing on it still seemed like the most likely scenario just to make sure it did not turn into a longer-term injury.

“I feel better than [Friday],” Stanton said before the Yankees’ 8-3 win over the Astros on Saturday night. “I’m going to try to get to 24 hours or maybe [Sunday] to see where we’re at and then decide what to do.”

Stanton had not yet undergone any tests on his calf, though he could in the coming days. In the meantime, he was spending his day in the training room getting treatment.

“It’s not ideal,” Stanton said. “That doesn’t mean great or terrible.”

Manager Aaron Boone acknowledged that the Yankees could err on the side of caution and put Stanton on the 10-day IL to give him time to recover, even if the calf injury does not rise to the level of a strain.

“And G’s on board with that too, but we also don’t want to race to the IL 12 hours after when hopefully something isn’t too serious,” Boone said. “We’ll be smart about it, G knows that, that we don’t want this to turn into a long-term situation. So we’ll proceed accordingly.”

• CHECK OUT THE LATEST MLB STANDINGS AND YANKEES STATS

As of two hours before first pitch Saturday, the Yankees did not yet have a player on the way from Triple-A Scranton/Wilkes-Barre just in case, though Jasson Domínguez would be the likely candidate to be called up if Stanton ends up on the IL. In that scenario, it may just be a temporary call-up until Anthony Volpe is ready to return from the IL, likely at some point next week.

The 36-year-old Stanton, who is all too familiar with lower-body, soft-tissue injuries, sustained the calf tightness on a trip around the bases in the sixth inning Friday. He said he felt it while jogging from first to second on a walk by Jazz Chisholm Jr.

“It felt weird,” Stanton said. “Then my secondary [leads] at second kept feeling weird.”

While at second base, Stanton motioned to the dugout in an attempt to get attention and exit the game, though it did not happen until he got to third base on J.C. Escarra’s single off the left field wall.

“If I felt weird, let’s [not] wait and sprint and make it feel worse,” Stanton said. “So I just wanted to get out [of] there before any more hard steps to set me back if it was something.”

Boone remained hopeful that Stanton caught it before it turned into something more severe.

“Whether that turns into a day-to-day situation or a short IL, we’ll see,” Boone said. “We’ll let the next several hours play out and see where we’re at.”

Stanton, meanwhile, quickly shut down any talk of him being frustrated about another injury despite doing everything in his power to try to avoid this.

The Yankees had been giving him regular days off in an attempt to keep him healthy – which worked last season after he missed the first two and a half months to deal with tennis elbow in both arms, which he is still managing on a daily basis.

“None of that matters, really,” Stanton said. “It’s just, what’s the deal with me and then decide what’s best for the team.”

A potential IL trip would allow the Yankees to push back a decision on whom they would remove from the roster to make room for Volpe when he finishes his rehab assignment, which could come by the time they return home next Friday.

But the more pressing concern was Stanton’s health.

“I’m sure there’s a part of him that’s ticked off about it,” Boone said. “But there’s also, one of the great things about G is he’s very honest and deals with what’s in front of him. He’s very good at compartmentalizing everything. Regardless, hopefully this is something that’s a short-term thing.”

The Mets have been hit hard by injuries, but not in their rotation.

Consider their starting pitcher options: the four currently in the group; David Peterson, who finds himself in a kind of rotation purgatory; Sean Manaea; Tobias Myers (if stretched out); a just-optioned Christian Scott; and Jonah Tong, whose swing-and-miss stuff has begun to tick up with Triple-A Syracuse.

A team with many issues — including maximizing what is a talented crew of starting pitchers — does not have a depth issue.

Which is one more reason Kodai Senga needs to figure himself out quickly.

The leash cannot be long for Senga, whose turn manager Carlos Mendoza would not guarantee after his last blow-up, although the club decided to give the right-hander another start and a few more days of rest.

That start will come in Game 2 of Sunday’s doubleheader against the Rockies at Citi Field, where Senga will be under as much pressure as can exist April 26.

The Mets, losers of 13 of 15, cannot continue to trust Senga if the duds keep mounting.

A season that began with hope — two solid outings with better velocity than last season — has quickly derailed, with Senga allowing 13 earned runs in 5 ²/₃ innings in his past two starts.

“We’ve seen flashes from Kodai. We haven’t seen the consistency,” president of baseball operations David Stearns said Friday. “We’re banking on the flashes and him continuing to get into the rhythm of the season, but we need some more consistency.”

The flashes have included those nine strikeouts in six two-run innings against the Cardinals in his season debut.

There are times, even within poor games, that he looks like the All-Star and potential ace he was in 2023. And there are reasons — really, there are — to be optimistic that he is still that pitcher.

Senga’s stuff itself continues to trend the right way.

His four-seamer averaged 95.7 mph when he pitched to a sub-3 ERA in ’23 and 94.7 mph last season.

Through four starts this year, he is registering 96.3 mph with the pitch.

He has pitched to an 8.83 ERA with an expected ERA of 3.92.

That 4.91 ocean of a difference ranked as the ninth highest in baseball entering play Saturday, when the Mets were rained out.

In 2023, opposing hitters averaged an 89.0 mph exit velocity against Senga.

This season, the ball has left their bats at 89.4 mph. Despite the numbers and especially the ERA, he is not exactly getting crushed.

More discouraging, though, is Senga’s recent command and seeming inability to pitch through adversity.

In 5 ²/₃ innings of disasters against the A’s and Cubs, Senga walked five.

With plenty of traffic — made worse by poor fielding behind him in Chicago — a pitcher accustomed to simply turning to his forkball and striking his way out of danger has folded.

Opposing hitters are hitting .333 with a 1.176 OPS against him with runners in scoring position.

• CHECK OUT THE LATEST MLB STANDINGS AND METS STATS

Some of that, surely, is due to poor luck.

Some of that, surely, is on Senga.

“I’m not getting ahead, not getting first-pitch strikes, getting to hitter’s counts,” Senga said through an interpreter last week at Wrigley Field. “It’s obviously not a good sign, but at the same time I am not all that far off.”

The Mets, too, believe he can turn a corner — or else Manaea would have been saved for this turn or maybe Myers would have been stretched out or Tong would have been summoned.

There is a lot riding Sunday for the Mets and a pitcher who is making $15 million this season and $15 million next season.

“This is a guy that’s very meticulous about his work and his mechanics and things like that,” Mendoza said, “but he’s just got to go out there and do it.”

The Civil War that’s been bubbling beneath the surface between Alex Cora’s and Craig Breslow’s philosophies on how to run the Boston Red Sox finally came to a head on Saturday evening. The rumbles started with this tweet from Jared Carrabis …

… And were confirmed within the hour across the baseball universe.

Noticeably not on this list is pitching coach Andrew Bailey, who aligns with the Breslow / Sabermetrics side of the coin.

The timing of this seismic shakeup is very much worth noting. It comes just hours after the club’s most complete win of the year — A 17-1 beatdown over Baltimore — and has shades of the Rafael Devers trade, which occurred right after a sweep of the Yankees last June.

Zooming out a little more, the horrific 10-17 start the Red Sox got off to also feels like the perfect opportunity for those in the front office to clean house of the guys who didn’t see eye to eye with them. Despite all the struggles, the strong starting pitching is still very much in tact, and eventually that’s going to start to matter. So this could be a very tactical move from the front office to time Cora’s departure with what they see as the nadir of the early season. If so, it will be viewed as both brilliant and diabolical, depending on which side of the war you find yourself.

In the meantime, the Red Sox still have another game to play tomorrow in Baltimore, and taking the helm will Chad Tracy, who is getting promoted from his post in Worcester to interim manager. This makes sense as the roster is both filled with young guys who are very familiar with Tracy (Roman Anthony, Marcelo Mayer, Connelly Early, Payton Tolle, ect), and Tracy also seems very dialed into the in game details. Just today in Worcester he caught the Mets batting out of order:

We’ll have much more on this and everything else that comes with it here at Over The Monster in the coming hours and days.

The next big item appears to be a press conference scheduled for tomorrow morning that will include both Sam Kennedy and Craig Breslow. (Have your spiked coffee ready!)

Long-term, only time will tell if today marks the turning point in a fun, memorable season, or the beginning of a total circus act.

With the 2026 NFL Draft coming to a close we head into the undrafted free agency period.

For the Arizona Cardinals there are not a lot of spots where they can add players, as even General Manager Monti Ossenfort said they have space for 6-8 signings.

Yet, the undrafted free agency for the Cardinals has delivered some nice talent throughout the years and hopefully 2026 will be no different.

We will update the names as they come along with hopefully a solid source and keep everyone up to date on what the Arizona Cardinals are doing, and as always, we will do a deep dive into every undrafted free agent after they have officially signed with the team.

Tre Wallace, WR, Ole Miss per Jordan Schultz

Elijah Culp, CB, James Madison per Jordan Schultz

Cameron Robertson, Edge, SMU per Aaron Wilson

Ka’ena Decambra, IOL, Arizona per Arye Pulli

Wydett Williams, S, Ole Miss per Bo Brack