Category: Baseball

Okay, so this was a strange one. As was noted in 1AZFan1’s recap of last night’s shutout loss, our offense has been completely AWOL for several days now. This is something we’ve seen happen plenty over the last several years, but these multi-day offensive outages get exponentially more concerning when, as I and others have expended a lot of words on already this year, our pitching staff, both in the rotation and in the bullpen, is very much constructed of chewing gum, baling wire, and whatever found objects Mike Hazen was able to salvage from the local bins on garbage night. Having to rely primarily on our pitching does not fill me with confidence. Like, ever.

And yet.

This game, like all baseball games (at least the ones that don’t involve one or both teams using the “opener” strategy and therefore deciding in advance that it’s going to be a bullpen game), is first and foremost a contest between two pitchers. This was not a game where any openers were used. Bryce Elder was starting for the Atlanta Braves; Michael Soroka was going for the Diamondbacks. Usually, the team whose starter pitches the better game wins the baseball game. This is not always the case of course—the baseball gods are cruel and fickle and often whimsically malicious. But more often than not, that is the case.

So let’s break down the two pitchers’ performances. Both pitchers pitched well today, let’s get that out of the way right up front. Each starter only surrendered four hits over the course of the ballgame. Both bullpens, once they got involved, put up zeroes and allowed no baserunners. It was, by all measurements, a very well-pitched game on both sides.

Pitcher A threw 90 pitches over the course of seven innings of work. As noted, he gave up four hits. He walked one. He struck out eight. He surrendered zero earned runs. He faced the minimum in six of the seven innings he worked.

Pitcher B threw 91 pitches over the course of five innings of work, only giving up four hits and allowing one earned run. He walked three, and hit a batter, and struck out three. He allowed runners in every inning that he worked, not recording a single clean inning.

Naturally, you might expect that Pitcher A was Michael Soroka, given the fact that by the numbers it’s the far better performance, and as you gleaned from the headline, the Diamondbacks emerged from the contest with the victory.

You would be wrong. Remember, the baseball gods can be, after all, cruel and fickle and whimsically malicious. Also, the numbers don’t always tell the entire story. Pitcher A was in fact Bryce Elder. PitcherB was, in fact, Soroka. And yet we won.

So here’s how it happened. This will be necessarily short, because today as much as just about any game recently, our offense was pretty much entirely absent. Both Soroka and Elder worked a scoreless first, though Soroka tossed 17 pitches and walked Atlanta first baseman Matt Olson with two outs, while Elder sat down Ketel Marte, Corbin Carroll, and Geraldo Perdomo in order, only needing 10 pitches to do so.

It all comes down, really, to the second inning. Soroka walked former Giant Mike Yastrzemski to lead off the top of the second. Ozzie Albies followed with a grounder to the right side of the infield that advanced Yastrzemski to second. Michael Harris flew out to center, and then Dominic Smith, perpetual journeyman and currently the Braves’ designated hitter, swung at a full-count Soroka pitch that was up and outside, well out of the strike zone, and slapped it into left field to score the runner from second. 1-0 Atlanta

In the bottom of the second, however, it was our turn. Gabriel Moreno led off the frame with a ground ball single into center field. Adrian Del Castillo, who was functioning as our “designated hitter” (and, as it turned out, sinkhole of suck) today, struck out. Nolan Arenado grounded his own single to center, putting runners on first and second for everyone’s favorite dark horse rookie and Savior of the Lineup(TM), Jose Fernandez, who was manning first base this afternoon. Fernandez, somewhat surprisingly, squared up and bunted the first pitch he saw up the third base lane. It was supposed to be a sacrifice, but, well, instead this happened:

So, yeah, that sure was wacky. Throwing error by Elder that rolls up the line, Arenado runs through a J.R. House stop sign, the bunt is scored as a single, and two Diamondbacks runs cross the plate. Neither run was earned, so this game also earns the fun distinction in the box score of us scoring two runs but zero runs batted in.

I tell ya, you gotta love baseball sometimes. 2-1 D-BACKS

And that is also the last time the Braves pitchers faced more than the minimum three in an inning. That was in part thanks to the Diamondbacks grounding into two 3-6-3 double plays: one in the third off the bat of Perdomo to erase a one-out Corbin Carroll walk, and one by Del Castillo in the fourth to erase Gabriel Moreno’s leadoff single.

Seriously. The offense was not in the building today, once again. Which is both disappointing and concerning, but what can you do?

Meanwhile, Soroka pitched around more traffic in his remaining three innings of work—doubles, walks, singles, hit batsmen, all kinds of good stuff. But somewhat miraculously, while it felt, at least to me, like he was flirting with disaster the entire time, he nevertheless managed to escape again and again and finish his day with only the one run allowed.

Of course, when the starter exits after five frames, that means that the bullpen has to get involved, which tends to produce acid reflux responses in the Diamondbacks faithful, and with good reason. There was, however, no need to worry today. Wonders truly will never cease.

Taylor Clarke threw 12 pitches in a scoreless sixth, allowing no Braves to reach base. Jonathan Loaisiga threw 10 pitches in a scoreless seventh, allowing no Braves to reach base. Juan Morillo threw 14 pitches in a scoreless eighth, allowing no batters to reach base. Paul Sewald struck out two of the three batters he faced while throwing 21 pitches to redeem himself for last night’s implosion and nail down the save without any Braves hitters reaching base.

Dang. What a genuinely strange baseball game. 2-1 D-BACKS FINAL

Win Probability Added, courtesy of FanGraphs

Superfriends: Diamondbacks pitchers (9 IP, 4 H, 1 ER, 3 BB, 7 K, +64.6% WPA)
Boy Wonder: Jose Fernandez (3 AB, 1 H, +15.1% WPA)
Suicide Squad: Diamondbacks hitters other than Fernandez (23 AB, 3 H, 1 BB, 9 K, -29.7% WPA)

It was a pretty quiet Gameday Thread today, which is understandable given how the first two games of this series went, and also that the NCAA Final Four was underway while the game was going on. At time of writing, we’re looking at 126 comments. A number went Sedona Red (or what passes for it these days), because we were apparently feeling generous with our rec’s today. By popular acclaim, this one goes to Snake_Bitten, who was not present in the Thread but was doing their part by being at the game in person, and also invoking the grace of the baseball gods to ensure Soroka’s success against his former team:

So despite the inauspicious beginning to the series, we find ourselves going into tomorrow’s game with the opportunity to salvage a series split! Brandon Pfaadt goes for us, lefty Michael Perez goes for Atlanta. This one will feature our home team broadcasters, which will be nice after two days of national broadcasts of varying quality. First pitch is scheduled for 1:10pm AZ time. Hope you can drop by!

As always, thanks so much for reading my maunderings, and as always, go Diamondbacks!

The way the season has begun for the Yankees, one step back has been accompanied by two steps forward.

For the first time this season, they could not rely upon supreme pitching, the club’s historic run thwarted with Ryan Weathers and later Camilo Doval on the mound.

It did not matter. The Yankees turned to Giancarlo Stanton and a multi-pronged offensive attack that helped them score nine of the final 12 runs to seize a wild and ugly game from the Marlins.

The Yankees dug a four-run hole, climbed back on top, blew that lead and then surged back ahead on the back (and legs) of Stanton in a roller-coaster, 9-7 victory in The Bronx on Saturday night. The 44,150 shivering fans on hand were rewarded for not leaving early on a night when the wind chill (in the 30s) and early deficit (trailing 4-0 after 4 innings) made the notion appealing.

With the comeback, the Yankees (7-1) matched their best start through eight decisions in franchise history, just the second time in the past 23 years they have won seven of their first eight.

Victory No. 7 was created differently. Yankees pitching had allowed eight runs over the first seven games, matching the 2002 Giants and 1993 Braves for the fewest in MLB history.

Weathers then allowed three runs before the end of the second inning and did not escape the fourth. Doval allowed two more in a wayward, lead-costing eighth.

But the Yankees lineup — which was outhit 15-6 but drew 10 walks and scored creatively rather than emphatically — was the difference-maker.

“Cold, windy, behind early,” manager Aaron Boone would say, “and the quality of at-bat just never went away.”

The biggest moment belonged to Stanton, who watched Doval struggle in the top of the eighth and then stepped up with two outs and the bases loaded in the bottom of the inning with the game tied.

Known for blasts, Stanton fought a seven-pitch battle against righty Michael Petersen before poking a single through the left side that plated the two go-ahead runs for a lead that would hold up.

The Yankees hope this season ends differently in part because they believe they will be less reliant on the long ball and can jump-start their offense using various means. Stanton — and his teammates — demonstrated as much during the comeback:

• In the fifth, the four-run deficit was cut in half when Aaron Judge singled and Cody Bellinger crushed a Max Meyer slider over the wall in right-center for a two-run shot.

• In the sixth, small ball and substitutions were the key. A pinch-hitting Paul Goldschmidt walked before José Caballero was drilled. Trent Grisham chopped an RBI single through the left side for one run before Judge snuck a single down the first-base line for another to tie it. Needing contact, the Yankees found it again with Bellinger, who lifted a fly ball to left that was just deep enough to score Grisham from third as he angled a slide and dragged his foot across home plate.
• Insurance arrived in the seventh in a fashion that the Yankees probably cannot count upon ever happening again. Stanton — whose last steal came in the pandemic season of 2020 — walked, took a lead, took a bigger lead as he was not being held on the base and then took off for a sneak-attack steal.

“Awesome,” Boone said.

“The boys were fired up,” Bellinger added.

“If they’re going to give it to me,” Stanton said, “I got to go get it.”

He moved to third on a groundout and then scored on a two-out passed ball, one of the slowest runners in baseball single-handedly manufacturing a run that made it 6-4.

That lead disappeared in the eighth, when Doval — who struggled last season after coming over from the Giants — allowed three hits that turned into two runs.

But further hiccups from Doval did not matter. Neither did a misplay from Jazz Chisholm Jr. in the ninth, which created more work for David Bednar (fourth save). Neither did the issues of Weathers, who let up three runs on six hits in 3 ²/₃ innings.

A Yankees offense that scored every which way made sure of that.

“It seems like everyone had a big at-bat tonight in some way, shape or form,” Boone said, “to allow us to score a bunch of runs, which obviously tonight we needed.”

The Yankees offense woke up from their slumber to score six unanswered runs. But after the bullpen coughed up the lead, Giancarlo Stanton's two-run single in the eighth lifted New York to a 9-7 win on Saturday night at Yankee Stadium.

The Yankees had just six hits and were 3-for-13 with runners in scoring position -- with nine left on base -- but they took advantage of their 11 walks, the second consecutive game in which they had that many, and the Marlins' mistakes.

Here are the takeaways

-Ryan Weathers wasn't long for this game as he labored early and often. In the first inning, a one-out walk and a two-out bloop single put runners on the corners before Heriberto Hernandez split the outfielders with a triple that plated two. Weathers would get out of the inning without further damage, but it took the young southpaw 31 pitches.

The second inning wasn't much better. Back-to-back singles (one of the infield variety) to lead off the inning put Weathers in another jam. Weathers got a slow roller to Jazz Chisholm Jr., but he and Jose Caballero couldn't complete the double play. Austin Wells caught the runner trying to steal second for the second out, but Weathers could not get the third out. He walked the next batter and allowed an RBI single to Agustin Ramirez to put the Yankees behind 3-0.

Weathers struggled in the third but escaped without allowing more runs and got the first two batters out in the fourth before he was pulled.

The southpaw tossed 88 pitches (53 strikes) in 3.2 innings pitched. He allowed three runs on six hits, three walks, while striking out four batters. In his first two starts of the season, Weathers has now allowed four runs in 7.2 innings pitched.

It's the first time a Yankees starter allowed more than two runs this season.

-The Yankees offense struggled early on against starter Max Meyer, but they had their chances. Their best chance came in the third. The first two batters reached for Aaron Judge, but the reigning MVP hit a deep drive to center that the center fielder ran down. After Cody Bellinger walked to load the bases, Ben Rice struck out swinging before Stanton popped out to the catcher to end the threat.

New York had one hit through the first four innings, but then Judge hit a two-out single and Bellinger launched his first home run of the season to cut the Marlins' lead to 4-2. The Yankees would get two more batters on, but Chisholm struck out swinging to strand two more.

The Yankees had another chance in the sixth after the first two batters got on. McMahon struck out looking before Trent Grisham singled home Paul Goldschmidt -- who pinch-hit for Wells. Judge followed with an opposite-field single down the first base line to tie the game. Bellinger hit a sacrifice fly to give the Yankees their first lead of the game.

-The Yankees' sixth run of the game came in an unexpected way. Stanton led off the seventh with a walk, and then stole second as the Marlins weren't holding him on. He moved to third on a groundout and came home to score on a wild pitch. It was Stanton's first regular season stolen base since 2020. But Stanton wasn't done. In the eighth, with the score tied at six apiece, Stanton muscled a two-run single with the bases loaded to put the Yankees up for good. Rice scored from third on a wild pitch, the second run scored this way of the night.

- Paul Blackburn was the first arm out the bullpen, but would allow an unearned run thanks to some poor defense. Blackburn gave up an infield single and then Jakob Marsee singled to left field, but Bellinger's throw to third base was not caught by Ryan McMahon or Blackburn -- who was covering -- allowing Ramirez to score from third.

Blackburn rebounded to get a few more outs before Tim Hill and Fernando Cruz locked the Marlins down. However, Camilo Doval came on in the eighth and allowed a single and a double to lead off the inning. He struck out a pinch-hitting Owen Caissie, but Javier Sanoja doubled to tie the game at 6-6. Brent Headrick replaced Doval and got the final two outs of the inning without further damage.

David Bednar came in and after an infield single thanks to Chisholm's double clutch, the Yankees closer delivered a one-out walk to bring the tying run to the plate. Xavier Edwards singled to cut the Yankees lead to 9-7. Caissie and Griffin Conine struck out swinging to end the game.

Here's the bullpen breakdown:

• Blackburn: 1.2 IP, 1 R, 3 H, 2 K
• Hill: 1.0 IP
• Cruz: 0.2 IP, 1 K
• Doval: 0.1 IP, 3 H, 2 ER, 1 K -- he's now allowed four runs in his last two outings 
• Headrick: 0.2 IP, 1 BB
• Bednar: 1.0 IP, 3 H, 1 ER, 1 BB, 2 K

Game MVP: Giancarlo Stanton

Stanton's bat and feet were the difference in this game.

Highlights

Cody Bellinger cuts the deficit in half with a 2-run shot 💪

It’s his first home run of the season! pic.twitter.com/zgU2Gh1HQp

— Yankees Videos (@snyyankees) April 5, 2026

2-RBI single for Giancarlo Stanton and the Yankees have the lead! pic.twitter.com/otewPouxq1

— Yankees Videos (@snyyankees) April 5, 2026

What's next

The Yankees and Marlins complete their three-game series on Sunday. First pitch set for 1:35 p.m.

Max Fried will take the mound for the third time this season. Miami, meanwhile, is set to start Chris Paddack.

Giancarlo Stanton has hit well this year, but with just one homer on the season.

He decided to make up for that with his legs during Saturday’s 9-7 win.

Yes, the player who has been plagued by lower body injuries for much of his time with the Yankees, basically manufactured a run by himself in the seventh inning against Miami in The Bronx.

G feels the need… the need for speed. pic.twitter.com/1hoYA6BxNk

— New York Yankees (@Yankees) April 5, 2026

He walked to lead off the bottom of the seventh and then stole second base with J.C. Escarra at the plate.

It was Stanton’s first stolen base in a regular season game since 2020 — although he did have one in the postseason two years ago, when he swiped second in Game 3 of the 2024 ALDS against the Royals.

Stanton’s move goes along with the Yankees’ plans towards “aggressive” baserunning.

He then moved to third on Escarra’s groundout to shortstop, which set up an insurance run, as Stanton raced home on a passed ball by Agustin Ramirez. 

It gave the Yankees a 6-4 lead. 

The injuries are piling up for the Blue Jays. 

All-Star catcher Alejandro Kirk was placed on the injured list Saturday after dislocating and breaking his left thumb, which he suffered on a foul tip during Friday’s game against the White Sox. 

He is set to meet with a specialist to determine if surgery is needed. 

After the game, Kirk was feeling about as one would expect.

“He’s all right, as [Kirk] can be,” Toronto manager John Schneider said, per ESPN. “He’s pissed, obviously. Tough news for us and for Kirky for sure.”

Kirk has been one of the best backstops in baseball, making two All-Star appearances and winning the 2022 Silver Slugger since taking over full-time behind the plate for the Blue Jays four years ago. 

Last season, Kirk hit .282/.348/.421 with 15 homers in 130 games. 

He was one of the Blue Jays’ biggest bats during their American League pennant-winning run in October, hitting .254/.349/.493 with five long balls. 

Tyler Heineman and Brandon Valenzuela are expected to split time at catcher in Kirk’s absence. 

Kirk’s thumb issue adds to a long list of injuries the Blue Jays are dealing with during the early going of the 2026 season.

The team began the year with starting pitchers Shane Bieber (right elbow inflammation), José Berríos (right elbow stress fracture) and Trey Yesavage (right shoulder impingement) on the injured list.

Earlier this week, starter Cody Ponce went down with an ACL injury while trying to field a ground ball, which is expected to sideline him for a significant amount of time. 

The Blue Jays are sitting at 4-3 on the season heading into Saturday’s play despite the injuries.

The day started poorly, but by the time we had finished things were looking a bit brighter. Let’s talk about the afternoon game first.

Luinder Avila got his first major league start and, at times, you could see why the Royals are still so high on him as a starter. His stuff is electric, especially the fastball and curveball. But he can have some difficulty locating them. He only managed to go 3+ innings thanks to is inconsistent ability to throw strikes. Over that span he gave up five runs on eight hits and three walks. Garrett Mitchell did most of the damage with a two-run double in the first inning and a three-run home run in the third. He gave up some hits on some good pitches, but also threw too many pitches that were too easy to hit.

If the Royals could have cut the game off after the third inning and started over, it would have been a very different story. The bullpen didn’t allow any runs. Daniel Lynch IV and Alex Lange each pitched very effective two-inning relief appearances combining to strike out seven while allowing only one walk and two hits. John Schreiber gave up a couple of walks in the eighth, but didn’t give up any runs. With last night’s rainout, Steven Cruz was able to pitch in a third straight game and had a clean ninth.

The Royals’ offense put runners on base all day long but had extreme difficulty bringing them home. They had eight hits and six walks on the day but went 2-for-13 with runners in scoring position. Popups continue to plague the team. In the third inning with runners at first and second with one out, Bobby Witt Jr. and Salvador Perez each popped up. In the fourth, with runners at second and third with one out, Nick Loftin popped out and Kyle Isbel had a shallow fly to left. The Royals scored both of their runs in the eighth when Loftin led off with a wall, Lane Thomas pinch hit for Isbel and smashed an RBI double, and Bobby Witt Jr. about took Brice Turang’s head off with a groundball to bring home Thomas. Vinnie Pasquantino struck out and Salvador Perez popped out to end the threat.

The Royals came into the day leading the league in popups and its unlikely that’s changed as they had several other popups even when runners weren’t in scoring position. I don’t necessarily expect that to continue to be an issue all year, but it’s certainly hurting them now. Last year, among batters with at least 400 plate appearances, the Royals had two players in the top 25 in popup percentage – Jonathan India and Isbel – and two more in the top 100; Witt and Pasquantino. So it wasn’t not a problem last year.

Now let’s talk about the second game.

It started off great with Seth Lugo keeping the Brewers off balance, though they were fouling a lot of balls off. In the second inning Salvador Perez led off with a single, one out later Jonathan India singled, and Carter Jensen hit a 2-RBI double in his first at-bat since the sleeping fiasco. His bat has been a bit quiet early this season, maybe the extra sleep did him some good.

Unfortunately, Seth Lugo could not put up a shutdown inning. He gave up a single, struck out the next two, and then Brice Turang swatted an RBI-triple to left and scored on a Garrett Mitchell double. If you’re keeping track at home, the Brewers scored all of their runs in both games with two outs. Fortunately he got Christian Yelich out on a soft liner to Maikel Garcia to end the threat. He struggled through two more innings but didn’t give up any more runs.

The Royals bats went quiet until the sixth inning, but when they woke up, they got loud.

Salvy smashed a one-out solo shot to left center to give the Royals the lead. Caglianone struck out on a filthy fastball at the bottom of the zone, but now it was the Royals’ turn to do some two out damage. India hit another single, then Carter Jensen singled, then Isaac Collins singled to give the Royals an insurance run. The Brewers brought in left-hander Jared Koenig to face the Royals hottest hitter to start the year, Kyle Isbel. Isbel was not deterred and drove in another run with a single. Maikel roped a double to left for another run. The Brewers intentionally walked Bobby, and then Jake Bauers booted Vinnie’s grounder to first for the Royals’ seventh run. A wild pitch allowed Garcia to score and led to Salvy also getting an intentional walk. Jac Caglianone had the ignominious distinction of being both the second and third out in the inning when he grounded out sharply to short. Just like that, the Royals went from a tense tie game with a malfunctioning offense to a big lead and their best relievers not having appeared since Wednesday and Thursday.

Nick Mears pitched a clean sixth to earn the win. Eli Morgan, the Royals 27th man, finished things off with a three-inning save. He struck out five while allowing only one walk and a hit. Really impressive stuff from him to protect a bullpen that had been burned by Wednesday’s mess and a doubleheader. The bullpen combined for 10 scoreless innings across the double-header. Just really good stuff all around.

Miscellaneous

• The Royals have guaranteed a .500 homestand
• The Royals have been a feast-or-famine offense; they’ve scored between 3 and 8 runs only once.
• Jac Caglianone has the second-hardest hit ball of the year with one of his singles in the first inning. Don’t look now, but he’s slashing .333/.429/.417/.846

The Royals have a chance to go for the series victory tomorrow. The game will feature a battle of southpaws. Kyle Harrison will go for Milwaukee and Kris Bubic will pitch for KC. The game will start at 1:10 Royals time and be aired on Royals.TV.

Iowa Cubs

The Iowa Cubs burned the Louisville Bats (Reds), 8-6 in a game that ended in the sixth inning because of rain.

Jaxon Wiggins had a rough start today, going four innings and giving up four runs on five hits. Wiggins walked three and struck out four.

Luke Little didn’t pitch any better, but got the win because Wiggins didn’t go five and Little was the only other pitcher in the game. Little pitched 1.2 innings and allowed two runs on one hit and three walks. He struck out three.

Iowa got on the board with a solo home run by DH BJ Murray Jr. It was Murray’s third home run already this season.

Murray was 1 for 3.

Third baseman Pedro Ramirez tied the game up 3-3 with a two-run home run in the third inning. It was also Ramirez’s third home run this year.

Ramirez was also 1 for 3.

Next up, right fielder Kevin Alcántara went back-to-back with his third home run. This tremendous blast went 440 feet and left the stadium.

After Louisville tied the game up 4-4 in the bottom of the third, Iowa took the lead for good with a four-run top of the fourth. Left fielder Justin Dean singled in a run to break the tie. He was 1 for 4 with one run scored.

Later in the fourth, first baseman Jonathon Long hit a two-run single. Long was 2 for 3 with a walk and one run scored.

Knoxville Smokies

The Knoxville Smokies were subjugated by the Birmingham Barons (White Sox), 6-2.

Luis Martinez-Gomez started and gave up a two-run home run in the top of the first inning. That was enough to give him the loss as he allowed two runs on four hits over four innings. Martinez-Gomez walked two and struck out four.

Rehabbing Seiya Suzuki played the entire game as the designated hitter and was 1 for 4.

Left fielder Jordan Nwogu was 2 for 4.

South Bend Cubs

South Bend is still waiting to play their first game this year, as their game this afternoon was called again for unplayable conditions.

They will try to play a doubleheader tomorrow.

Myrtle Beach Pelicans

The Myrtle Beach Pelicans kenneled the Charleston RiverDogs (Rays), 4-3.

Starter David Bracho allowed just one unearned run on two hits over three innings. Bracho did walk three while striking out one.

Edwardo Rodriguez didn’t allow a run or a hit over the next two innings, but he did walk four. Rodriguez struck out one.

Last year’s 11th-round draft pick Eli Jerzembeck made his professional debut over the final 3.1 innings. He gave up two unearned runs in the ninth inning to make it close after the Pelicans committed two fielding errors in the inning. But he ended up closing out the game and picking up his first professional win. The final line on Jerzembeck was two unearned runs on one hit over 3.1 innings. He struck out three and walked no one.

DH Edward Vargas singled in a run in the top of the second inning to open the scoring. He had another RBI single in the third inning. Vargas went 2 for 4 with the two RBI.

Second baseman Jose Escobar was 2 for 4 with an RBI single in the third inning. He also scored a run in the second inning on a sacrifice fly by right fielder Josiah Hartshorn. Hartshorn was 1 for 4 with the sac fly.

Center fielder Alexey Lumpuy went a perfect 3 for 3 with two walks and four steals.

Here are all four RBI.

Box Score

The Brewers and Royals played a game with a lot of baserunners but not a lot of action tonight, except for one big inning. The Royals busted the game open with a five-run, two-out rally in the sixth, an inning full of sloppiness on Milwaukee’s part, a Royals inning that felt almost Brewers-y. The Brewers, meanwhile, weren’t able to muster much offensively, and ended up settling with a split of today’s doubleheader (here’s the recap of the first game, if you would like some happier reading). Hopefully, the game was the only thing the Brewers lost tonight, as Sal Frelick became the latest Brewers position player to deal with an injury when he exited the game after hitting a single in the fourth inning.

Royals starter Seth Lugo was on his game early tonight, and retired the first six Brewer hitters. Logan Henderson, Milwaukee’s 27th man and tonight’s starter, wasn’t quite as sharp. In the first inning, Maikel Garcia led off with a single but was erased when trying to steal second on a perfect throw from Gary Sánchez.

In the second inning, the Kansas City leadoff hitter reached again when Salvador Perez walked. Jac Caglianone flew out for the first out, but Jonathan India hit a single and Carter Jensen put the first runs on the board with a two-run double into the right field corner. Henderson retired Isaac Collins and Kyle Isbel to end the inning and limit the damage, but in a flip of the early game, it was the Royals, not the Brewers, who led 2-0 through two innings.

David Hamilton was the first Brewer baserunner following a great at-bat to lead off the third: he fouled off four straight 1-2 pitches before knocking a single through the infield on the eighth pitch he saw. Blake Perkins battled with Hamilton on first and made Lugo throw nine more pitches, but he struck out. Joey Ortiz struck out, too, but Brice Turang hit a fly ball into a good spot in left that Collins couldn’t catch on a dive, and Turang ended up at third base with an RBI triple.

Garrett Mitchell was next, and Lugo left a mistake right over the middle, a hanging sweeper in a 2-1 count, that Mitchell laced it into the right field gap. Mitchell had a double, his third run-scoring extra-base hit of the day (after two in the day game), and Turang scored to tie the game at two. Lugo got Christian Yelich to end the inning, but the Brewers had two big two-out RBIs, and Lugo was all the way up to 63 pitches through three innings.

Henderson, who isn’t fully stretched out and threw only 45 pitches in his one start at Triple-A Nashville earlier this week, was done after two innings and 35 pitches (and a long layoff in the top of the third). The originally scheduled starter, Brandon Sproat, was on against the top of the Royals’ order. He got Garcia to strike out and then made Bobby Witt Jr. look like a much worse baseball player than he is with a nasty sinker that Witt swung over for strike three. A Vinnie Pasquantino walk extended the inning, but Perez hit a harmless grounder to short, and the inning was over.

Sal Frelick hit a two-out single in the top of the fourth, but he appeared to wince as he got to first. After a visit from Pat Murphy and the team’s athletic trainer, Frelick was removed in favor of Brandon Lockridge. Hopefully the Brewers don’t have a third injury-list addition early this season, but we’ll keep an eye out for updates (Sophia Minnaert later reported “left side tightness”). Lockridge, the injury replacement, stole second, and Hamilton had another long plate appearance before drawing a walk to put runners on first and second. Perkins walked, too, and — gasp — Ortiz was up with the bases loaded. Unfortunately, he struck out, looking a bit foolish on a 2-2 slurve off the outside of the plate. The game remained tied, but Lugo was all the way up to 91 pitches through four.

Sproat’s second inning didn’t go quite as smoothly, but he contributed to getting himself out of it. After Caglianone walked to start things, India struck out, and then Sproat picked Caglianone off at first base. A Jensen flyout to left ended the inning with no damage.

Lugo kept going in the fifth, which he may not have done had today not been a doubleheader. But Lugo struck out Turang, and he got the second out after Mitchell appeared to have an infield hit but was called out upon review. On the next pitch, Lugo’s 103rd, Yelich grounded out to end the inning.

Sproat again walked the leadoff batter, Collins, in the bottom of the fifth. After a visit from Chris Hook, Milwaukee got the first out when Kyle Isbel bunted Collins to second. Garcia hit a sinking line drive into left that looked destined for the grass, but Lockridge — quite a luxury in left field — came out of nowhere and made a sliding catch for the second out. Sproat still needed to get Witt to get out of the inning, but he needed only three pitches to strike him out for the second time. The game remained tied heading to the sixth.

Old friend Nick Mears was on the hill for Kansas City in relief of Lugo, and he had no trouble putting Jake Bauers, Sánchez, and Lockridge in order. Sproat did get the leadoff hitter in the bottom of the inning, which is good, but Perez got him with one out and hit a first-pitch curveball out to center field. Sproat recovered to strike out Caglianone (an at-bat that featured two challenges by Caglianone, the second an unsuccessful one on a 3-2 pitch), but India and Jensen hit back-to-back two-out singles to put runners on the corners. Collins was up for what felt like a momentous at-bat, and he delivered an RBI single up the middle on a 2-2 pitch that increased KC’s lead to 4-2.

That was the last pitch for Sproat, who was replaced by Jared Koenig. Koenig fell behind the nine-hole-hitter Isbel 3-0 before serving up a 3-1, 92-mph sinker right down the middle that Isbel lined into center for another RBI single. Garcia, up next, also got a pitch right down the middle — this one a changeup — and hit a double down the left field line that scored another. After an intentional walk to Witt, Pasquantino hit a chopper at Bauers, which he couldn’t snag. The team’s first error of the year (!) resulted in another run, and a wild pitch scored another, and after another intentional walk (this one to Perez), Caglianone finally grounded out to end the inning. Between Caglianone’s strikeout for the second out and his groundout to end the inning, eight straight Royals reached, five of them scored, and the Brewers were in an 8-2 hole.

Sproat looked better today, but he was still fighting his control. The stuff is certainly intriguing — he throws hard, and it moves. The issue right now is that he doesn’t really seem to know where it’s going to go. He didn’t get much of an assist from Koenig today, but his final line was four runs allowed in 3 2/3 innings on four hits, three walks, and four strikeouts.

With one out in the top of the seventh, Perkins hit a fly ball down the left-field line that should have been caught, but it bounced out of Collins’ glove (apparently in fair territory), and Perkins ended up at second on a two-base error. The next batter, Ortiz, hit a ball up the middle that India fielded but on which he had no throw, so Milwaukee had runners on the corners with one out for the top of the order. But Turang struck out on three pitches, and Mitchell struck out on four, and the Royals’ 27th man, Eli Morgan, had a zero on the board.

DL Hall worked around a four-pitch walk and two wild pitches to put up a zero in the bottom of the seventh. Luis Matos made his Brewers debut to lead off the eighth (he replaced Yelich, who was removed merely for blowout purposes), and he drew a four-pitch walk. But one pitch later, Bauers grounded into a fielder’s choice that erased Matos, then Sánchez struck out, and Lockridge grounded out to third.

Hall remained for Milwaukee in the bottom of the eighth. He gave up a leadoff single to Garcia (his third hit tonight), but picked him off — the second Brewer pickoff of the game! A pitch later, Witt grounded out to third, and after a bit of a battle, Pasquantino popped out to end the inning. Morgan, in his third inning of work, cleanly retired the bottom of the order, and the game was over.

Henderson, Sproat, and Koenig all struggled to varying degrees tonight. Hall wasn’t perfect, but he at least managed to put up a couple of zeroes, something no other Brewer pitcher accomplished tonight. The offense was only able to muster five hits on the evening, with the only extra-base hits being the triple and double that Turang and Mitchell hit back-to-back in the third.

The Brewers and Royals will decide this series tomorrow afternoon. That’s a 1:10 p.m. start and will feature a lefty pitching matchup of Milwaukee’s Kyle Harrison and Kansas City’s Kris Bubic.

Coming into this game, the Braves had exorcised a lot of their 2025 demons with their 6-2 start, but one remained conspicuously absent: the one-run loss. Well, in their ninth game of the season, they finally had a one-run decision, and, in somewhat-reminiscent-of-2025 fashion, it was a loss that probably could have, and at times begged to, go a different way. In brief: Bryce Elder was outstanding, but his own defensive miscue doomed the Braves, who couldn’t find the hits that have made the start of their season a success thus far.

Elder was, as noted, really good — but former teammate and Braves Country favorite son Michael Soroka was… not. Still, as we’ve seen repeatedly in the first few games of this season, a pitcher’s performance is only part of the equation as far as the box score is concerned, and that disparity didn’t matter in the end result here.

Soroka ended up with a 3/3 K/BB ratio in five innings of work. The Braves plated a run in the second on a leadoff walk by Mike Yastrzemski, a groundout that moved him to second, a barreled out (sigh), and then Dominic Smith rolling a seeing-eye grounder through the infield for a two-out RBI. The Braves then shot themselves in the foot (shades of 2025) in the third — Ronald Acuña Jr. drew a leadoff walk but then was thrown out trying to steal, which sucked because Matt Olson crushed a double that would’ve easily scored Acuña a few pitches later. In Soroka’s final inning, the Braves seemed almost destined to score: Mauricio Dubon “singled” on a ball that actually went through shortstop Geraldo Perdomo’s glove, Drake Baldwin was grazed by a pitch after Acuña popped out, and then Olson avoided a double play when Soroka dropped the relay throw at first. That brought up Austin Riley, but for the third time in game, he failed to come through (the WPA vortex is already looming large for him), hitting a routine grounder to short.

Meanwhile, Elder was really good, but to little avail in the end. After a 1-2-3 first, the Diamondbacks got a couple of singles off him in the second, though the second would’ve been an easy double play had the infield been playing Nolan Arenado up the middle. Then, Jose Fernandez dropped down a surprise bunt, and Elder ill-advisedly threw it to first. Even if the throw had been on target, it wouldn’t have been on time. It wasn’t on target either, though, and Arenado ran through a stop sign while Acuña failed to come up throwing. Just like that, it was 2-1 in favor of the home team, and that’s how the score would stay.

Elder kept dealing, though. He faced the minimum after his own error, thanks to a couple of double plays. He finished with an 8/1 K/BB ratio — his best start since that 12-strikeout performance against the Giants in San Francisco while the Braves’ 2025 season slipped away from them. He threw a bazillion pretty well-located sliders and the Diamondbacks had few answers, if they were even aware Elder was posing a question to them. But, in the end, his throwing error stood.

The Braves did nothing against a procession of Arizona relievers in the one-run contest — they went 12 up, 12 down. There was the hope that they could stun Paul Sewald again, but no dice. Last night, both Ozzie Albies and Olson homered on in-zone fastballs after seeing and not offering at some sweepers; tonight, Sewald basically threw sweeper after sweeper, and got strikeouts of Yastrzemski and Albies. Michael Harris II battled for a while, but ultimately hit a routine flyout on a hanging sweeper to end the game.

Ah, well, you can’t win them all. It’s just a shame to waste such a great Bryce Elder performance like this. Maybe the good times will keep rolling tomorrow — winning a four-game set on the road without Chris Sale pitching would still be pretty good, and better than expected. Hopefully the Mets and Phillies lose, too.

Cody Bellinger has had himself an action-packed past two days.

It started with his circus catch in left field in Friday’s win, when he somehow snagged a ball he’d already dropped.

And it continued in Saturday’s 9-7 win, as Bellinger was first involved in a costly slapstick play that cost the Yankees a run before he made up for it with a homer that helped get them back in the game.

He finished it off with a sacrifice fly in the sixth.

It was Bellinger’s first home run of the young season and sparked a comeback that saw the Yankees erase what had been a four-run deficit.

“It gave us that spark we needed,’’ Giancarlo Stanton said. “It turned us on a little bit. We started getting on base a lot more from there.”

Before that, though, there was an uncharacteristic blunder.

Already trailing 3-0 in the top of the fourth — and with Paul Blackburn having replaced the ineffective and inefficient Ryan Weathers — Agustin Ramirez reached on a two-out infield single to third.

Jakob Marsee followed with what seemed to be a relatively harmless flare single to shallow left off Blackburn, but that’s when things got interesting.

José Caballero and Ryan McMahon both chased after the ball before it landed in front of Bellinger.

Bad defense from the Yankees allows another Marlins run to score, it's 4-0 pic.twitter.com/9kLINmxP55

— Talkin' Yanks (@TalkinYanks) April 5, 2026

With no one covering third base, Ramirez raced toward the bag, as McMahon tried to recover and get back. Still on the run, McMahon tried to catch Bellinger’s throw — which was off the bag — and it went into foul territory as the Yankees scrambled after it.

Ramirez scored on the play — no one was at the plate, either — to give Miami a four-run lead, with Marsee moving to second.

“Just an awkward play with the shift on,’’ Bellinger said. “[McMahon] had to run a long way to third and my ball sailed.”

Blackburn whiffed Otto Lopez to avoid further damage.

It was an ugly anomaly for the Yankees, who had played relatively strong fundamentally to get off to a strong start to the season.

And then Bellinger got the offense going.

The Yankees had just one hit against Miami right-hander Max Meyer before Aaron Judge’s two-out single in the fifth.

Bellinger followed with a shot to right-center to cut the Yankees deficit to 4-2 and get Meyer out of the game.

“Meyer was throwing the ball well and all of a sudden it was a shot in the arm and we were right back in the game,’’ Aaron Boone said.

The Yankees then feasted on Miami’s bullpen and held on for another victory.

The Texas Rangers didn’t score but the Cincinnati Reds scored two runs.

Kumar Rocker had a wait some tens days to make his season debut and he was immediately greeted with perhaps the worst defensive inning by the Rangers so far this season, and that includes a game in Philadelphia where a dropped easy popup nearly cost them a win.

After a ground out to start the evening, Rocker allowed a hard hit single off the bat of Matt McLain that Josh Jung couldn’t field with McLain moving to second on a wild pitch. McLain scored the game’s first run when Elly De La Cruz dropped a broken bat single just beyond the reach of Corey Seager before he himself scored from first on a single to right field.

De La Cruz is one of the planet’s fastest humans, and he was moving on the pitch, but the sequence that saw him score seemed like a preventable play as right fielder Brandon Nimmo tossed the ball into second base as De La Cruz just never stopped running.

One batter later, Eugenio Suarez reached via an error by Josh Smith and the Rangers were lucky that the Reds didn’t add to their early 2-0 lead as Rocker got out of the inning with two outs on the next three pitches.

An infuriating start to the game only became an infuriating rest of the game as the leather-aided two runs proved all Cincinnati would need as their own fielders were all doing their best Roberto Clemente and Brooks Robinson impressions with solid plays all over the field to snuff out hard contact from Texas.

In the end, the poor defense cost the Rangers but they also scored zero runs and had a total of four hits. Welcome back to The Shed indeed.

Player of the Game: Despite the loss, Rocker allowed just the two first inning runs on six hits, a walk, and three strikeouts over five innings. While he was only given 80 pitches to work with after sitting around for basically two weeks, Rocker did well in his season debut.

A couple of things in particular that were encouraging about Rocker’s outing include the former first-rounder showing a solid changeup that was eliciting weak contact. And, after McLain reached third with no outs in the top of the 5th, following a single and an error on a steal attempt, Rocker buckled down and made some of his best pitches of the night to keep McLain stranded and keep Texas within bloop-and-blast territory.

Unfortunately, the blast never came and the Rangers have their first three-game losing streak of the season.

Up Next: The Rangers and Reds close out this series tomorrow with Texas hoping to avoid a sweep and with RHP Jack Leiter making his 2026 home debut opposite RHP Chase Burns for Cincy.

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

When Jake Bird arrived in a trade from the Rockies at last year’s deadline, he was looking forward to finding out what made the Yankees so good at making relief pitchers better.

One example he was keenly aware of when he was in Colorado was another right-hander who had come to the Yankees and turned his career around: Luke Weaver.

“What Luke had done really stood out,’’ Bird said. “To go from struggling to starring in the playoffs here and then continue to have success, that made an impression, in particular.”

Bird’s time as a teammate with Weaver proved to be quite short, as Bird was almost immediately sent to Triple-A Scranton/Wilkes-Barre after getting to the Yankees because of his ineffectiveness.

“I was excited to pick his brain, but I didn’t get a chance to talk to him that long,’’ Bird said.

Instead, Bird made the most of what turned out to be an extended run with SWB, where he reconnected with the team’s pitching coach, Spencer Medick, whom Bird met briefly when Medick still worked with Driveline.

“I had talked to Spencer about pitch design and knew he was a smart guy,’’ Bird said. “The whole organization is good at finding what makes guys good.”

For Bird, his focus changed after getting sent down to the minors.

“When I first got here, it was kind of ‘Do your thing,’ ” Bird said. “But when I went down, it was more about working on my stuff to at least get back to earlier last season.”

So his shaky performance — or worse — at SWB following the trade didn’t shatter his confidence.

“You never want to [struggle], no matter where you are,’’ Bird said. “But I knew they were helping me build my strengths and improve my weaknesses.”

The results have been excellent so far this year.

After another strong performance in Friday’s win over Miami, Bird entered Saturday having allowed just one hit — and no walks — while striking out five in 4 ¹/₃ innings this season.

“They had thoughts on my repertoire [at SWB] and presented it through a lens of who I was as a pitcher,’’ Bird said.

Bird’s stuff has intrigued teams in the past — which is what led the Yankees to acquire him despite poor overall numbers.

Perhaps he’s now pitching at the level organizations had believed he’d get to and showing what his ceiling could be.

“I don’t think about that,’’ Bird said. “I just want to find out and be the best I can be and have the right approach… It’s been a decent start for me, but I think there’s a lot of room to improve.’’

It’s been a rough couple of weeks for NC State baseball, as you may have noticed. Some close games go the wrong way, you get a bit of a slump at the plate, and next thing you know it’s panic, panic everywhere. Such is baseball season. Fortunately, it’s the first week of April.

NC State put a seven-game losing streak to bed with a 7-3 win over Notre Dame on Thursday night thanks to strong work from Ryan Marohn and Anderson Nance. The Pack clinched the series the next time out with another 7-3 win, this one highlighted by Ryder Garino and Cooper Consiglio out of the pen—they struck out 10, walked just one, and gave up one run in 4-1/3 IP.

Saturday was Dude Day, and he was excellent, throwing 7-2/3 of one-run ball. NC State took a 5-1 lead into the ninth inning, and then promptly gave up five runs because this is just how baseball works sometimes, and then scored two runs in the bottom of the ninth to win the game, because this is just how baseball works sometimes.

Ty Head was the hero.

Scientists have been trying for centuries to explain how baseball works*, but no one can do it. It simply can’t be done. What can you say about this? It’s another result in the middle of a long, grueling season, no more or less definitive than the one that came prior to it. It’s nice to get even in league play, though.

(*Bill James since like 1985.)

Here’s something I never thought I’d say: I am excited to watch Emerson Hancock pitch tonight.

The Mariners look to win their first series of the season Saturday against the Angels. They won Friday’s opener 4-0 in a long, frustrating, 10-inning game that didn’t really get going until the end. The bats did eventually come alive, just in time to ruin the Angels’ home opener.

Hancock will take the mound looking to make it two in a row for the Mariners and for himself. Hancock threw six no-hit innings last week against the Guardians, striking out nine in the process. He seemed to pick right up where he left off after switching to the bullpen at the end of last year, with improved velocity capable of generating a competitive number of whiffs.

One change he made in that first start was lowering his arm slot even further, continuing his trend from his brief days as a reliever. The improved Stuff+ numbers held in his first start of 2026. With three kinds of fastballs, a changeup, and a sweeper — all thrown from a low arm slot — Hancock now has all the makingss of a contemporary starter, even if “just OK” velocity limits him to a mid-rotation arm. There’s still a lot more to prove, of course, but the lack of depth in the Mariners’ rotation last year is what kept them from a more impressive win total. Hancock pitching anywhere above replacement level would be a crucial development early in 2026.

The Mariners will face Angels’ righty Jack Kochanowicz, who Jake Mailhot covered in our series preview. Brendan Donovan is out of the lineup after exiting Friday’s game with a leg injury after stepping awkwardly on first base while trying to leg out a grounder. Leo Rivas takes his place at third, and Luke Raley moves up to the leadoff spot.

Lineups

News

Brendan Donovan has been announced as day-to-day with a groin injury. He got imaging yesterday and the team will review before offering an update. He is not in tonight’s lineup.

Brennen Davis (hamstring) and Victor Labrada (oblique) have been activated in Tacoma. Both are expected to play tonight.

Game Info

First pitch: 6:38 PM PDT
TV: Mariners TV. For how to watch, Kate’s got the details.
Radio: Seattle Sports (710 AM)