CINCINNATI, OHIO - APRIL 24: Andrew Abbott #41 of the Cincinnati Reds walks across the field in the third inning against the Detroit Tigers at Great American Ball Park on April 24, 2026 in Cincinnati, Ohio. (Photo by Dylan Buell/Getty Images) | Getty Images
The Cincinnati Reds will take on the Colorado Rockies on Thursday afternoon in Great American Ball Park in the series finale, a rubber match that will determine who claims the series victory. In it will feature former Red Michael Lorenzen on the bump for the Rockies, a mound he’ll share to start with lefty Andrew Abbott.
Abbott has struggled mightily on the back of his All-Star performance in 2025, and this would be an excellent spot to get back on the good foot.
First pitch is set for 12:40 PM ET. Lineups for both clubs are listed below.
Apr 28, 2026; Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, USA; St. Louis Cardinals pitcher Hunter Dobbins (40) throws in the outfield before the game against the Pittsburgh Pirates at PNC Park. Mandatory Credit: Charles LeClaire-Imagn Images | Charles LeClaire-Imagn Images
The St. Louis Cardinals will continue their PNC Park party week on Thursday as Hunter Dobbins will get his first start for St. Louis this season and he will be up against a guy you may have heard of named Paul Skenes who gets the start for Pittsburgh. First pitch is scheduled for 11:35am central time.
NEW YORK, NEW YORK - APRIL 12: Freddy Peralta #51 of the New York Mets throws a pitch against the Athletics during the second inning at Citi Field on April 12, 2026 in New York City. (Photo by Caean Couto/Getty Images) | Getty Images
Mets lineup
Bo Bichette – 3B Juan Soto – DH MJ Melendez – LF Mark Vientos – 1B Brett Baty – RF Marcus Semien – 2B Carson Benge – CF Luis Torrens – C Ronny Mauricio – SS
SP: Freddy Peralta (RHP)
Nationals lineup
James Wood – RF Luis Garcia – 1B Daylen Lile – LF CJ Abrams – SS Jose Tena – DH Jorbit Vivas – 3B Nasim Nunez – 2B Drew Millas – C Jacob Young – CF
SP: Miles Mikolas (RHP)
Broadcast info
First pitch: 1:10 PM EDT TV: SNY Radio: Audacy Mets Radio WHSQ 880AM, Audacy App, 92.3 HD2
BALTIMORE, MD - APRIL 11: Chris Bassitt #40 of the Baltimore Orioles pitches against the San Francisco Giants at Oriole Park at Camden Yards on April 11, 2026 in Baltimore, Maryland. (Photo by Jamie Sabau/Getty Images) | Getty Images
Are you ready for 6+ hours of Orioles/Astros action? Well, too bad. You’re getting it anyway.
Last night’s rainout has set up the Orioles’ first doubleheader of the season. They’ll play their regularly scheduled 12:35 game followed by the makeup game about half an hour after the first one finishes.
Last season the Orioles played five doubleheaders, getting progressively better at them as the year went on. The O’s were swept in the first two, split the next one, and did the sweeping in the last two. The only time the O’s and Astros have ever played each other in a doubleheader was on Sept. 29, 2018, when Houston won both games.
The scheduled starting pitchers from Wednesday’s rainout, righties Chris Bassitt and Peter Lambert, will both take the hill in the first game this afternoon. Lambert, a former Colorado Rockies washout, is back in the U.S. after pitching in Nippon Professional Baseball in 2025. He’s filling in for a more high-profile Japanese import, Tatsuya Imai, who landed on Houston’s injured list after three ineffective starts and reportedly has had trouble adjusting to MLB and American culture. As someone who wanted the Orioles to sign Imai, I’ll admit he probably wouldn’t have improved the Orioles’ fortunes up to this point in 2026.
Opposing Lambert is Bassitt, who finally picked up his first Orioles win in his most recent start, but it certainly wasn’t a good one. He gave up five runs in 5.1 innings in Kansas City and was fortunate that the O’s scored eight runs to support him. Bassitt has a 6.75 ERA in five starts as an Oriole and is now facing a quality offense in the Astros. Yordan Alvarez in particular has crushed Bassitt with five career home runs in just 26 PAs. Chris, please don’t pitch to Alvarez. Game 2 of the doubleheader will feature the Orioles’ Brandon Young against Houston’s Lance McCullers Jr.
Game 1 lineups
ASTROS
SS Carlos Correa LF Yordan Alvarez 3B Isaac Paredes 1B Christian Walker 2B Jose Altuve DH Yainer Diaz CF Brice Matthews LF Dustin Harris C Christian Vázquez
RHP Peter Lambert
ORIOLES
DH Gunnar Henderson LF Taylor Ward C Adley Rutschman 1B Pete Alonso RF Dylan Beavers 2B Jeremiah Jackson CF Colton Cowser 3B Coby Mayo SS Blaze Alexander
On this episode of The Dodgers Post, Jack Harris and Dylan Hernández break down the Dodgers’ surprising series loss to the Marlins, and the recent struggles from their star-studded offense.
They discuss the slow starts the team’s top hitters have gotten off to, and whether it’s cause for concern despite the club’s strong offensive numbers overall through the opening month of the year.
Then, they break down the team’s performance in April, and pick their player, pitcher, disappointment and interaction of the month.
Despite stats that show the Dodgers offense as elite, there are massive issues with this group, led by its star-studded names: Shohei Ohtani, Kyle Tucker and Freddie FreemanGetty Images Despite stats that show the Dodgers offense as elite, there are massive issues with this group, led by its star-studded names: Shohei Ohtani, Kyle Tucker and Freddie FreemanAP Despite stats that show the Dodgers offense as elite, there are massive issues with this group, led by its star-studded names: Shohei Ohtani, Kyle Tucker and Freddie FreemanAP
Finally, they review their latest predictions (not good!) and make more calls for the team’s upcoming trip to St. Louis and Houston.
All that and more, on this week’s latest episode.
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SAN FRANCISCO, CA - APRIL 23: Logan Webb #62 of the San Francisco Giants pitches during the game against the Los Angeles Dodgers at Oracle Park on April 23, 2026 in San Francisco, California. The Dodgers defeated the Giants 3-0. (Photo by Michael Zagaris/Getty Images) | Getty Images
It’s the first doubleheader of the season! After Wednesday’s game was postponed due to inclement weather, the San Francisco Giants and Philadelphia Phillies will play twice today. It’s a split doubleheader, with the first game starting at 9:35 a.m. PT, and the second scheduled for 2:35 p.m. PT. So you get a two-game gamethread!
Starting the first game for the Giants is their ace, Logan Webb. The 29-year old right-hander is still trying to get his season going through six starts, and is 2-3 with a 4.86 ERA, a 3.31 FIP, and 32 strikeouts against 13 walks in 37 innings. He gave up three earned runs in seven innings against the Los Angeles Dodgers his last time out.
As for the Phillies, they’re also sending a 29-year old All-Star to the mound in the form of left-hander Christopher Sánchez. In six starts this year, Sánchez is 2-2 with a 2.94 ERA, a 2.61 FIP, and 43 strikeouts against 10 walks in 33.2 innings. He got rocked in his last start, giving up six runs in 5.1 innings against the Chicago Cubs.
Things are less clear for the second half of the doubleheader. The Giants have not announced a starter for that game, as they’re mulling their choices between starting Adrian Houser and opting for a bullpen game. Since they don’t have an off-day until next Thursday, they’ll need to go to a bullpen game at some point in the coming days; it’s just a matter of when they want to do it.
The Phillies, however, have named their Game 2 starter: right-hander Andrew Painter. The 23-year old has made four starts, and five total appearances this year, and is 1-2 with a 5.25 ERA, a 3.33 FIP, and 21 strikeouts to six walks in 24 innings. He gave up five runs in 5.2 innings against the Atlanta Braves in his last game.
Per the doubleheader rules, both teams are allowed to add a 27th player to the roster for the day. Both teams have called on a right-handed pitcher from their AAA squad: Trevor McDonald for the Giants, and Nolan Hoffman for the Phillies.
As you know, the collective-bargaining agreement between MLB owners and the MLB Players Association ends on Dec. 1, 2026. The last time such an expiration happened, five years ago, owners began a lockout on Dec. 1, 2021 that ran well into March and threatened the entire 2022 season.
That didn’t happen, though Spring Training 2022 was truncated and after games had been “cancelled,” owners and players agreed to squish a 162-game season into a time frame shorter than normal, largely through playing doubleheaders (the Cubs played six of them, five at Wrigley Field, not much fun for anyone).
So we stand just about seven months from that CBA expiration and Evan Drellich of The Athletic has written an article that covers many of the main points that will need to be addressed in the negotiations. I’m going to hit some of those points here and give a bit of commentary, and later on, I’ll note something that Drellich left out.
First, a bit of the time frame we’re looking at:
In the next couple weeks, MLB and the Players Association are expected to formally start negotiations.
First, the talks will open with a months-long prelude of proposal exchanges. The parties will, naturally, both start out asking for more than they expect to receive.
Last go-around, the sides made opening presentations on April 20, 2021. The players made their first economic proposals in May, and the owners their first in August. A deal wasn’t finalized until March 10, just in time to preserve a full 162-game schedule for 2022.
COMMENT: So, as you see, the time frame of “formal negotiations” will be about the same as it was five years ago. As you can also see, these things move slowly. They are expected to move even more slowly this time because of all the talk, that you have surely heard, about owners wanting a salary cap.
MLB has not confirmed it will make a cap proposal, but Manfred has made many overtures in that direction, and people briefed on ownership thinking who were not authorized to speak publicly say the owners have settled on that approach.
Much will depend, however, on whether owners actually stick by their opening salvo. It’s one thing for MLB to propose a cap at the outset and another to still be fighting for it next spring.
If owners are committed to landing a cap no matter what it takes, the lockout could well cost a season. In that scenario, both sides would try to outlast the other, and historically, little has galvanized players more than attempts to limit their pay.
If the owners eventually back off a cap proposal, preserving some form of the current market system, the 2027 season probably has a better chance to be played in full. The devil would then be in the details of the alternative proposals — and, as always, which side is motivated to outlast the other.
COMMENT: And there we have it, with many owners supposedly being adamant about wanting a cap this time, as opposed to the current “luxury tax” system, a system that some owners (Dodgers, Mets in particular) have shown no interest in limiting themselves to the existing tax levels. The difference, for example, of the Dodgers’ 2026 player tax payroll of $416 million is $337 million more than the bottom-ranking Marlins ($79 million). The difference is more than the entire payrolls of all but two teams (Mets, Yankees).
This is the sort of disparity that concerns many team owners, some of whom feel the only way to stop it is to have a cap. Other payroll-related things, notably the deferred contracts some teams, including the Cubs, have begun to issue, are bound to come up in the negotiations.
So who caves first on this issue, and will we lose games in 2027?
Anything is possible. The damage done to the sport would be to some extent proportional to the number of games missed. Fans would likely more easily forget a missed month than a missed season.
In recent years, some owners have been curious whether players might cave on a cap quickly, or at least, more quickly than expected. This is not a group of players that has been heavily battle-tested, in a labor sense.
Players, too, have differing interests. Some are close to free agency, some are far away, others might never get there. Maybe more of them find a cap appealing today than they did 30 years ago, although there’s no indication of that so far. Stars such as Bryce Harper, Manny Machado and Brent Rooker have spoken out against the change.
“It remains to be seen whether the union can do better by the rank-and-file players than they have in recent years,” Harry Marino, a former MLBPA lawyer who challenged union leadership during a 2024 mutiny, recently told The Athletic. “Do I think that that can be achieved without a salary cap? I do, but the priority of the union has to be the well-being of every single member.”
COMMENT: Drellich is right about a missed month as opposed to losing an entire season. A missed month could mean some games made up; in 1995, for example, coming off that tremendously damaging labor dispute, a 144-game schedule was agreed to. Thirty-one years later, no one really blinks an eye at the 18 games that were missed that year, though it’s possible the missed games cost Albert Belle, who hit 50 home runs that year, a chance at 60.
More important than just missed games is the perception of missed games. Baseball seems to be riding a high right now in popularity. Attendance was up last year. TV ratings are good, and the recent World Baseball Classic got huge audiences compared to previous such events. MLB, per the Drellich article, had about $12 billion of revenue in 2025 and could touch $13 billion in 2026. Do owners really want to risk that, especially because of this?
The league office also has to soon negotiate new national TV deals for 2029 and beyond, and missed games will not help the haul.
If regular-season games wind up canceled, the outcry would be immense. Pressure to end the lockout would fly in from all angles, including TV networks and cable companies and sponsors. Fans would vilify all involved, from the owners who bought teams with hope of being beloved public figures, to the superstar players who are otherwise adored.
COMMENT: No question, Drellich is right about this. MLB hasn’t had a labor dispute that cost games in more than 30 years (the 1994-95 strike). Even in 2022, as noted above, all the “cancelled” games were eventually played, every MLB team played a full 162-game schedule that year.
You can bet that team owners are concerned about those TV deals. As of last year, 49 percent of MLB revenue came from TV deals, about 26 percent from national TV and 23 percent from local. That’s especially important because of this desire of Commissioner Rob Manfred:
Manfred wants to revise the sport’s media-rights structure and the way teams share TV money between themselves — revenue sharing, as it’s called. Manfred believes the answer to the local-media problems is to divide local TV revenues more evenly and to ultimately sell more games nationally.
A cap makes it easier for the commissioner to get all his owners on board with such changes. Large-market teams probably won’t be willing to share significantly more TV money with small-market teams unless a cap arrives.
Indeed, what revisions Manfred could build owner support for in the media-rights and revenue-sharing buckets without a cap is one of the most fascinating questions entering bargaining.
COMMENT: There’s the crux of things right there. With potentially $6 billion (or more) of revenue at stake, Manfred and team owners don’t want to anger TV partners to the point where they don’t want to make deals offering more money.
Would a cap do what Manfred wants? Would it persuade owners of teams like the Cubs, Dodgers, Mets and Yankees, all of whom own their own local RSNs, to go in with MLB Local Media, which now controls the rights for 14 of the 30 teams (and also handles streaming for six others)?
This is not the only reason owners want a cap, but it is one of the most important. Manfred thinks the league could make more in TV revenue if he could offer the entire package — national and local rights — as one thing. He could be right, although the cautionary tale is the very public divorce between MLB and ESPN last spring, which cancelled the last three years of that deal, about $550 million a year. Eventually, the two kissed and made up and signed a deal for about the same money — but MLB had to sell off MLB.TV as a result. That’s all fine and good for the league, maybe not so much for fans, who by next year are likely going to have to spend more money to get MLB.TV.
Same as it ever was, I suppose.
That leads to the bottom line here:
March 2027 is the month to circle, because if a deal isn’t reached then, it’s impossible to hold even a truncated spring training ahead of a full 162-game schedule. Not without drastically altering the schedule, anyway.
Could the sides reach a deal a bit later, maybe in April 2027, and push back the regular season and the playoffs while still playing 162? Maybe, but it’d be a logistical nightmare. For example: Fox, a league broadcast partner, would have to be open to moving the World Series.
If the lockout ultimately extends beyond March, the end date becomes anyone’s guess.
COMMENT: Unless something truly unusual happens, there will be a lockout Dec. 1. Manfred has all but said that will be the case. That means the sport completely shuts down — no Winter Meetings, no free agent signings, no trades, likely no Cubs Convention.
So things would be quiet, as they were in the 2021-22 offseason, until March. Last time, it almost appeared we were going to lose the entire season, with games being “cancelled,” until suddenly, there was a deal. Let’s hope it’s not as messy this time.
I said there was one thing left out of Drellich’s article, and that’s the idea of a salary floor to go along with a cap. I don’t think a cap works without a floor. If MLB had a system like that — and a guaranteed percentage of league revenue going to players — players might be willing to do that, if the percentage was high enough. This article says it’s probably not:
MLB players received 47% of total league revenues in 2024 (figure does not include the estimated ~$800mm in annual expenses that go toward minor league players represented by the MLBPA). By contrast, NFL, NBA, and NHL players all share ~50% of their respective leagues’ pie.
It is estimated that baseball’s players association has left ~$2.5bn on the table over the last three years by failing to tie compensation to revenues (assumes 50/50 split).
As the old saying goes: “A billion here, a billion there, soon you’re talking about real money.” Players are the game. No one goes to a MLB game, or watches one on TV, to watch owners own teams. In a $13 billion industry, the people who produce the value — in this case the players — should get at least half of league revenue. Do that with a cap and floor and now you might have the basis for a deal. In practice, what that would mean is that teams that don’t spend now (Marlins, Guardians, White Sox, Rays are the bottom four in payroll this year) would have to. Some mid-range free agents (Lucas Giolito, maybe?) would be signed for more money than they’re making now.
If a cap/floor system happens, one thing that would have to go along with it is grandfathering existing contracts until they end. This is one reason, I believe, that teams signed players to long-term extensions this spring (including the Cubs, with Nico Hoerner and Pete Crow-Armstrong). They did so to get cost certainty in a possible cap system.
Lastly, for the Cubs the 2027 All-Star Game is at stake — the photo above is of Manfred at Wrigley announcing the ‘27 ASG awarded to the Cubs last August. The Cubs have reportedly been told that if a labor dispute wipes out the ‘27 ASG, they’d get it in ‘28 or ‘29. Clearly, though, with planning already in progress, the Cubs would like for the All-Star Game to be played as scheduled at Wrigley Field in July 2027.
Much has to be done, obviously, before there’s a deal. Both owners and players have an interest in not losing any 2027 games to a labor dispute. Let’s hope they can put together a deal that’s good for everyone — including fans.
KANSAS CITY, MISSOURI - APRIL 20: Lucas Erceg #60 of the Kansas City Royals pitches during the game against the Baltimore Orioles at Kauffman Stadium on April 20, 2026 in Kansas City, Missouri. (Photo by Jamie Squire/Getty Images) | Getty Images
Lucas Erceg has been…something less than good so far this year.
When the Royals traded for him in 2024, he immediately became the team’s best reliever and locked down the closer role. More than that, though, he seemed like a shutdown reliever in the vein of Kelvin Herrera, Wade Davis, and Greg Holland. It’s almost impossible to have three relievers of that quality at the same time – the Dodgers tried and ended up with bupkis last year – but a team with playoff aspirations probably should have at least one of them*, and Erceg figured to be the Royals’ answer to that need after his terrific debut.
*Though, again, look at the Dodgers. Sometimes, you can get by with a really good starting pitcher who is willing to do crazy things.
Unfortunately, since the end of 2024, Erceg has simply not been the guy the Royals hoped for. In a lot of ways, he appears similar, and he still had a 2.64 ERA last year. But this year, through the season’s first month, he’s wielding a 4.38 ERA and, even more concerning, he has a 5.36 SIERA, suggesting that he may actually have been lucky to pitch even that well. So what the heck is going on?
There are two primary theories I considered: either he’s tipping pitches, or he’s throwing too many non-competitive pitches. Now, normally, the first place you should go to research a pitcher is TJStats.ca. It’s a fantastic website with gobs of data that takes what’s present on Baseball Savant and expands on it, but also makes it easier to comprehend. If you’re willing and able to pony up for a subscription, you can get even deeper analysis. Fortunately for you all, I’ve traded in some of my Pop-Tarts, and so I can offer you this comparison image of Lucas Erceg in 2026 and 2024.
Now, if you just go to the bottom row of the pitch tables, he doesn’t seem all that different. He’s throwing nearly as many strikes as before, and the xwOBACon (a stat that estimates how much damage should have been done based on contact quality) is pretty similar to 2024. But the chases and whiffs are WAY down. That would seem to be a point in favor of pitch tipping. But hold on a second… let’s look at things pitch by pitch. He’s actually throwing far more strikes with his sinker and changeup than before, but missing with his four-seamer and slider at truly awful rates for those pitch types. The problem is especially bad with his slider.
So I decided to do an extra deep dive in the slider. I went on Baseball Savant, and I watched literally every slider he’s thrown this year, and I came to an incontrovertible conclusion. The problem isn’t that he’s tipping pitches, and it’s not even that he’s not throwing his slider in the zone often enough. It’s that too few of his sliders ever even look like strikes.
Location, location, location
There’s a concept in pitching where you can describe the movement of a pitch by whether it starts as a strike or ball and ends as a strike or ball. So, if a pitch appears to be a strike upon release and ends up outside of the strike zone, that would be called a strike-ball pitch. Vice versa is ball-strike. And in the same vein, you can describe a pitch as a strike-strike or a ball-ball. This description format shows its weaknesses for some kinds of pitches, of course:
That pitch is technically a ball-ball. But it would be better described as a ball-strike-ball. It starts off outside, passes through the area that would be the strike zone if the strike zone were a cylinder, and then ends up low. For the purposes of today’s discussion, I classified such pitches as strike-ball pitches because I was primarily concerned with whether the batter had any reason to consider swinging. If you’re curious, he only had one other ball-strike-ball pitch.
Far too many of Lucas Erceg’s sliders are ball-ball pitches. He has thrown a total of 65 sliders so far this year, and 49 of them have ended up outside the zone. Now, sure, he should probably throw a few more in the zone. But by far the biggest problem is that, of the 49 sliders that have ended up outside the zone, 25 of them look a lot like this:
This has led to only one swing and one check swing on those pitches. Which makes sense. A slider succeeds based on its ability to convince a batter that it’s a fastball before diving off course. But those 25 pitches start off outside the strike zone, so batters don’t even really need to consider whether they might be fastballs or sliders. And the one swing he got was Gunnar Henderson on a pitch that looked like it was headed back toward the zone*:
*One thing I discovered during this process is that Erceg has two different slider actions. You’ll note that this one is breaking back armside, sometimes referred to as a wrong-way slider or a goofy slider. That’s why, if you refer back to Erceg’s comparison tables, it looks like his slider doesn’t break horizontally, it averages out to near nothing because some of them break glove-side and some break arm-side. This is neat and weird, but it has always been true of Erceg, so it isn’t the cause of his current troubles.
On the other hand, of the 24 sliders Erceg has thrown strike-ball, he’s gotten swings on 12 of them, along with 3 check swings. Of those swings, only two have been put in play, and three have been fouled off. So if you could reduce his sliders to just the ones he’s thrown strike-ball, he has a 50% chase rate and a 58.3% whiff rate. Those are staggeringly good numbers. He doesn’t need to throw more sliders in the zone to succeed; just more sliders that look like they might be strikes.
It turns out there’s nothing wrong with his slider’s deception, just his accuracy. Now, unfortunately, I can’t tell you why he’s throwing so many non-competitive sliders. It could be a mechanical issue, but if it were, I’d expect to see them consistently missing in the same way; instead, some of them end up spiked while others end up looking like something Ricky Vaughn would throw.
It could be that he’s afraid of hanging them in the zone, so he’s making sure to miss out of the zone if he misses at all. But, as you can tell from the graph earlier, he really doesn’t seem to need to worry about batters making contact. A. 158 xwOBACon is fantastic. Overall, his average exit velocity against is 88.8 MPH with an average launch angle of 8 degrees. In other words, the most likely batted ball you’d expect is a routine groundout. He’s only given up 10 hits in 12.1 innings, it’s the 10 walks in the same span that have often doomed him.
He’s only given up two hits on sliders this year, weirdly, both against Milwaukee on April 5. Meaning he hasn’t given up a hit on a slider outside that game. The first was a center-cut slider that resulted in a 94-MPH line drive off the bat of Jake Bauers with an XBA of .510 that Bauers turned into a hustle double. Basically, he threw the worst slider he could, the batter put a really good swing on it, and he still probably should only have given up a single, if that. The second was his other ball-strike-ball slider; Brandon Lockridge managed to bloop it into center and scored an RBI single on a ball with an XBA of only .350. A coin flip and a 1-in-3 chance are the best anyone’s been able to get off of Erceg’s slider when he lets them make contact with it.
The fix is simple, though if it were easy, I imagine he’d have done it by now. Lucas Erceg just needs to get his sliders aimed at the strike zone. If he could do that more often, he might immediately return to being the Lights Out Lucas we remember from 2024.
PHILADELPHIA, PA - APRIL 28: Philadelphia Phillies second baseman Bryson Stott #5 and Philadelphia Phillies first baseman Bryce Harper #3 look on during the game between the Philadelphia Phillies and the San Francisco Giants on April 28th, 2026 at Citizens Bank Park in Philadelphia, PA. (Photo by Terence Lewis/Icon Sportswire via Getty Images) | Icon Sportswire via Getty Images
Here are the lineups for game 1 of today’s double header against San Francisco. Let’s discuss.
Apr 29, 2026; Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, USA; Home plate umpire Laz Diaz (63) gestures to the Pittsburgh Pirates dugout against the St. Louis Cardinals during the seventh inning at PNC Park. Mandatory Credit: Charles LeClaire-Imagn Images | Charles LeClaire-Imagn Images
There is a story in the Wall Street Journal called ‘In Defense of Umpires’ in which the author complains about the ABS Challenge System, which kind of surprised me. Of course, there are people who will complain about anything, but I’ve liked the challenge system. I’ve been surprised at how quick it is, I was worried that it would be a long break in the action, but it fits in an at bat fairly seamlessly. It is a lot quicker than having the manager and pitching coach yelling at the umpire.
And, I think, it has made life better for umpires. As much as we think they should get every pitch right, that’s not possible. But they seem somewhat better at making calls this year and when they get one wrong it can be corrected. No one is going to be perfect, but this allows baseball to fix the very imperfect calls.
But the story in the WSJ starts with “There is nothing good that can’t be ruined by technology.” I don’t know, my baseball fandom has improved with the ability to watch every game, not just one game a week. And that I can share my fandom with others around the country/planet, not just the few friends I have that also are baseball fans (or will pretend to be because I’m going to talk about baseball all the time anyway).
I know I’m supposed to be old and hate everything new and I do have some of that in me. But I’m a fan of the ABS system.
But Jonathan Shapiro says:
ABS, however, stops the game in its tracks and destroys the pace of play. And it does so for the spectacularly uninteresting purpose of conducting a spot audit of the umpire’s competence. This shifts the crowd’s focus away from where it should be, on the contest between hitter and pitcher, and redirects it to an artificial and irrelevant contest between umpire and robot.
I was thinking maybe it might just be me, so I thought I’d put up a poll.
BALTIMORE, MD - APRIL 28: Christian Walker #8 of the Houston Astros hits a double in the eighth inning during the game between the Houston Astros and the Baltimore Orioles at Oriole Park at Camden Yards on Tuesday, April 28, 2026 in Baltimore, Maryland. (Photo by Alyssa Piazza/MLB Photos via Getty Images) | MLB Photos via Getty Images
As a result of last night’s rainout, the Houston Astros (11-19) and Baltimore Orioles (14-15) will play a traditional doubleheader today at Camden Yards.
Game One: RHP Peter Lambert (1-1, 3.27 ERA) will make his 3rd start of the season as he takes on Orioles RHP Chris Bassitt (1-2, 6.75 ERA). Today will be Lambert’s 1st career appearance vs. BAL.
TODAY’S GM 1 STARTER: RHP Peter Lambert will make his 3rd start/app. of the season today.
He was stellar in his last start on 4/22 at CLE, allowing just 3 hits in 6.0 scoreless innings with 8 strikeouts (16 whiffs) in the Astros 2-0 win.
Lambert joined the Astros via free agency this offseason after pitching last year for the Tokyo Yakult Swallows in the NPB, posting a 3.98 ERA (55ER/124.1IP) with 111 strikeouts in 23 appearances in Japan. He began this season at Triple A Sugar Land (1.84 ERA in 3 app. (2 GS) before being called up for a start on April 17 vs. STL.
A SWING AND A MISS: In his 2 starts this season, RHP Peter Lambert has induced a combined 39 swing-and-misses. The 23 whiffs he induced in his April 17 start vs. STL are the 3rd-highest total by an AL pitcher in 2026 and T-5th highest in the Majors:
Most Whiffs in a Game (2026)
1. 27 –Cole Ragans (4/25)
2. 26 – Shota Imanaga (4/15 at PHI)
3. 25 – Jacob Misiorowski (3/26 vs. CWS)
4. 24 – Dylan Cease (3/28 vs. ATH)
T5. 23 – Peter Lambert(4/17 vs. STL)
T5. 23 – Jesus Luzardo (4/4 at COL)
T5. 23 – Yoshinubu Yamamoto (4/14 vs. NYM)
T5. 23 – Kyle Harrison (4/26)
TODAY’S ROSTER MOVES: The Astros have placed RHP Ryan Weiss on the Paternity List.
To take his place on the active roster, the Astros have reinstated RHP Cody Bolton from the 15-day IL.
The Astros have also added RHP Jason Alexander to the roster as the 27th man for the doubleheader.
VS. THE O’S: Today’s doubleheader will wrap up this 3-game series vs. the Orioles.
The Astros were 4-3 vs. BAL in 2025 with a 3-1 mark here at Camden Yards, Aug. 21-24. The two clubs will next meet for a 3-game set at Daikin Park, July 17-19.
PLAYER OF THE MONTH?:Yordan Alvarez is a strong candidate for the AL Player of the Month Award as he has had a torrid start to his season, hitting .355 with 11 HR and 26 RBI.
Alvarez leads the AL in OPS (1.199), RBI (26), SLG (.736), OBP (.463) and Total Bases (81) while ranking 2nd in batting avg. (.355) and WAR (1.9). Additionally, Alvarez’ current 13-game hitting streak is tied for the longest active streak in the AL (Kevin McGonigle-DET) and matches his career-best, done May 2-16, 2023.
HISTORIC HOMERS: Yordan Alvarez is off to one of the most prolific starts in franchise history. His 11 HR through the club’s first 30 games of the season are the 2nd-most in franchise history. Below is a breakdown:
Most HOU HR Thru 30G:
1:Lance Berkman: 13 (2002)
T2: Yordan Alvarez: 11 (2026)
T2: Lance Berkman: 11 (2006)
Most HOU HR Thru 31G:
1. Lance Berkman: 13 (2002)
T2: Y. Alvarez: 11 (2019, 22)
T2: Jeff Bagwell: 11 (2003)
T2: Lance Berkman: (2006)
ROAD WARRIOR: In 9 road games (6 starts) this season, Brice Matthews is 7×21 (.333) with a HR, 6 RBI and 6 BB, slashing (.333/462/.619) for a 1.081 OPS.
In his young career, Matthews is hitting .289 in 16 road games (12 starts) with 5 HR and 15 RBI with a .396 OBP and a .689 SLG (1.085 OPS).
CAMDEN CRUSHER: Jose Altuve has a .366 (60×164) career avg. at Camden Yards with a 1.029 OPS in 39 games. His .366 avg ranks T-2nd-best all-time, using a minimum of 150 ABs vs. The O’s.
Additionally, Altuve has a .315 career avg. (94×298) vs. the Orioles overall. He has posted a .300+ career batting avg. vs. 15 opposing teams.
CLIMBING THE CHARTS: With 238 career HR, Jose Altuve needs one more to tie Lou Whitaker for 7th place all-time among 2nd basemen.
Altuve also needs 3 RBI to become the 5th player in franchise history to reach 900.
WALKER, TEXAS HAMMER:Christian Walker is hitting .429 (12×28) in his last 7 games (since 4/20) with 3 HR and 7 RBI.
Among The Leaders: For the season, Walker enters today ranked T-3rd in the AL in RBI (23), 4th in SLG (.579), T-6th in TB (62), 5th in OPS (.956) and T-6th in doubles (9).
HAPPY HEAVENLY BIRTHDAY: To Phil Garner, who would have turned 77 years old today.
TODAY IN ASTROS HISTORY: 1982 – At Three Rivers Stadium in Pittsburth, Phil Garner hits a 3-run HR on his 33rd birthday to help defeat the Pirates, 4-3. Garner, who was voted into the Astros Hall of Fame earlier this month, had played for the Pirates (1977-81) prior to being traded to HOU on Aug. 31, 1981.
1979 – At Busch Stadium in St. Louis, Terry Puhl’s 2-run HR in the top of the 9th lifted the Astros to a 6-5, comeback win over the Cardinals. The Astros had entered the 9th, trailing, 4-2. Puhl’s HR capped a dramatic, 4-run 9th-inning rally.
Game Info
Game Date/Time: Thursday, April 30, 11:35 a.m. CDT
Location: Oriole Park at Camden Yards, Baltimore, MD
TV: Space City Home Network
Streaming: SCHN+
Radio: KBME 790 AM & 94.5 FM HD2; TUDN 102.9 FM HD2 (Spanish)
ATLANTA, GA - APRIL 26: Eli White #36 of the Atlanta Braves high fives Jorge Mateo #2 of the Atlanta Braves after hitting a two-run home run in the second inning during the game against the Philadelphia Phillies at Truist Park on April 26, 2026 in Atlanta, Georgia. (Photo by Jack Casey/Atlanta Braves/Getty Images) | Getty Images
Michael Harris II was seen favoring his ailing quad during last night’s win over the Tigers, and as such, it’s not surprising to see him get another breather in a short turnaround matinee game, especially given that Framber Valdez throws with his left hand. The absence of Harris is part of a wholesale rejiggering of the bottom of the order on getaway day: Kyle Farmer starts at DH and hits seventh, Jorge Mateo is in at shortstop and hitting eighth while Mauricio Dubon moves to left field, and Eli White will man center and hopefully not have another nightmarish miscue that directly leads to a loss.
The Tigers are largely starting familiar faces, though the well-hitting Dillon Dingler will get a rest as Jake Rogers takes over with the tools of ignorance. It remains a fairly terrifying top half of the lineup for Detroit that Bryce Elder will have to navigate — Martin Perez and JR Ritchie did okay-ish, so we’ll see if Elder can do his part.
There’s not very much familiarity here between Elder and the Detroit batters. Only five batters in the lineup have faced him, none have more than six PAs, and the collective line is a .224 wOBA and .297 xwOBA in a whopping 17 PAs. Ho-hum.
On the flip side, the Braves have a fair bit of familiarity with Valdez given his veteran status (plus, Mauricio Dubon was his teammate for a while). Matt Olson, White, Mateo, and Ozzie Albies all have double-digit PAs against him — Albies has crushed him with a .553 wOBA / .400 xwOBA. Really, there’s mostly good history here among everyone except Dubon and Drake Baldwin (who haven’t faced Valdez yet), with a collective .344 wOBA and .330 xwOBA in 79 PAs. Austin Riley, Albies, and Farmer have also gotten some key knocks off Valdez in their shared postseason history.
As a bit of personal amusement, this will be Kyle Farmer’s first start of the year. He has 10 PAs so far this season, with a 92 wRC+ that comes from outhitting his xwOBA a bit.
Boston, MA - October 6: Boston Red Sox manager Alex Cora, chief baseball officer Craig Breslow and President/CEO Sam Kennedy listen to a question during the Red Sox end-of-season press conference with team leadership at Fenway Park on October 6, 2025. (Photo by Jessica Rinaldi/The Boston Globe via Getty Images) | Boston Globe via Getty Images
Red Sox Hit Piece Week rolls on, everyone! Today it’s Alex Speier, arguably the current dean of the Red Sox beat, who has a big piece diving into the ways that the relationship between Craig Breslow and Alex Cora slowly fractured over the past few years. The juiciest nugget in this one? “Breslow contemplated significant changes to the coaching staff and especially the hitting group (including Fatse ― beloved by players: ‘Top, top hitting mind and work ethic in the hitting world,’ said one) both during and after the 2025 season… [W]hen Breslow raised the idea of staff change to Cora, the manager made his feelings clear: If Breslow wanted to do so, he’d have to fire Cora.“ (Alex Speier, Boston Globe)
And it’s clear that Breslow’s desire to fire the coaching staff last season wasn’t merely a case of a CBO wanting to bring in his own guys — there were meaningful conflicts about how best to do the job: “At one point last year… Breslow asked the Red Sox coaching staff to begin documenting every pregame hitting and defensive drill done by each player, which some coaches found excessive and time consuming, further fueling a perceived lack of trust between the staff and the front office.” Moreover, one unnamed player credits Alex Bregman with, at one point, stepping in to defend the hitting coaches and protect their jobs. (Jen McCaffrey, The Athletic)
Following his dismissal, Cora was given a chance to pen a farewell email to the Red Sox staff. Here it is. (Chris Cotillo, MassLive)
Many of the players appear to still be taking the dismissals hard. And that doesn’t just apply to Alex Cora. Connor Wong spoke out about losing Jason Varitek, who he says was “like a dad” to the whole team. (Christopher Smith, MassLive)
Given the age discrepancy, it would be pretty weird if Terry Francona said Varitek or Cora were like dads to him, but he did say that Alex Cora is “one of my favorite people in the world.” (Connor Ryan, Boston.com)
We have no idea how John Henry feels about Alex Cora, because John Henry continues to refuse to acknowledge the general public that funds his baseball team. But Sam Kennedy defended his boss’s silence: “John Henry is deeply engaged with this organization… he doesn’t always do it in the most public-facing way. He’s very selective in terms of how he engages with the media, but that should not ever be confused with a lack of involvement or care.” (Scott McLaughlin, WEEI)
With all of the former Red Sox players speaking out (though anonymously in many cases), you may have thought that Mookie Betts would get involved. But, naturally, Mookie is too smart for that:
Mookie Betts said he hasn’t spoken to Alex Cora:
“That ain’t got nothing to do with me and I stay out of that.”#Dodgers#RedSox
Meanwhile, there is still baseball to be played and the Red Sox didn’t exactly cover themselves in glory up in Toronto this week. That certainly applies to Brayan Bello, who was demonstrably upset about being removed from the game by Chad Tracy yesterday. (Christopher Smith, MassLive)
Besides Tracy, here’s a look at some of the other new faces in the Red Sox dugout (Amin Touri, Boston Globe)
NEW YORK, NY - UNDATED: Mike Schmidt #20 of the Philadelphia Phillies hits a home run during a game against the New York Mets at Shea Stadium in the New York City borough of Queens, New York on an unspecified date. (MLB Photos) | MLB via Getty Images
As fans continue to digest the news of Rob Thomson’s dismissal as Phillies manager, at least one legendary member of the franchise isn’t wild about the idea of firing a manager so early in the season.
Speaking to me on Monday, prior to Thomson’s firing, for my Hittin’ Season podcast, powered by WHYY, Hall of Famer Mike Schmidt said, as a player, letting go of the skipper at this juncture of the season is a bad look for the players in the clubhouse.
“I think letting the manager and coaches go is an embarrassing thing to the players,” Schmidt said. “They feel bad enough. And Rob, I think Rob is a fantastic manager.”
Thomson was let go after parts of five seasons as the Phils’ manager, coming off back-to-back NL East championships but also a string of disappointing postseasons and a 9-19 record and the worst run differential in Major League Baseball. Schmidt says the players are acutely aware of their role in this situation.
“They know what’s going on. The media doesn’t need to tell them. They feel awful.”
Schmist says the team is the victim of a small sample size.
“I looked at the box score the other day with the batting averages going up and down the box score, and they were horrendous, actually. That will all change over time. A month and a half from now, that will change. They can’t continue to lose at this rate. They just can’t. They’ll start winning 2 out of 3, 3 out of 4, and the confidence will come back, the players will start to feel it.
You’ve got to get rid of this sense of focusing on how many they’ve lost in a row and start thinking, ‘I hope we don’t lose another one’ and start thinking about having fun. When you start losing like that, it’s not necessarily fun to go out and play. It’s hard to describe. People would say, ‘Well they’re paying you $25 million a year, you ought to have fun, right?‘ It doesn’t work that way. Something will happen to change this, they’re just too good.
Before you know it you find yourself creeping back, creeping back to .500 and then boom, next thing you know you’re two or three games over, and you have a whole new lease on life.”
One thing the Phillies have in their favor is playing in an era in which getting off to a dreadfully slow start is more permissible. With three wild card teams and three division winners, teams can rally after a rough first couple months. Schmidt, who never played during a time when more than two division winners in each league made the postseason, is not a fan of a larger postseason field.
“I wouldn’t want to play the way they have it now. We had four. And we only played two rounds, the NLCS and World Series. I much prefer that, without question. But the way it is right now, the Phillies are still going to have to get to 90 wins. Maybe 88. It depends on the NL East. And they are some really good teams out west. San Diego, L.A. You get too far behind the other teams, then it’s hard to even grab one of those last playoff spots. But you can’t worry about that, you got to just go grind every day.”
Regardless of how the 2026 season ends, it appears inevitable that the sport is headed for a lockout once the final pitch of the World Series is thrown. Owners appear determined to push for a salary cap and floor to combat the disparity between ultra-spending teams like the Dodgers and Mets, and the under-spending teams like the Reds, Pirates, A’s and Rays.
“I’d assume [The Player’s Association] would hold strong [on a salary cap]. We did back in ‘76 when free agency was on the table. Players are entitled to make what they can make in a free market. I’m assuming it’ll be a rough off-season this year, as a former player.”
Schmidt is currently engaged in a campaign aimed at educating youth sports participants about the dangers of not using sunscreen while playing sports. Schmidt talked at length about his battle with melanoma as an adult, diagnosed in 2013 with Stage 3, undergoing surgery, immunotherapy and radiation to treat cancer that had spread to his lymph nodes. His desire is for parents and kids to avoid those kinds of troubles with skin cancer as an adult.
“Once it gets to the point it was with me, you can’t say that it won’t come back. Cancer is an awful thing. So I joined the Richard David Kahn Melanoma Foundation and it gives me a chance for me to tell my story. To give back and talk to kids and adults about the dangers of the sun’s rays. Try to convince kids and adults they need to wear protection. We decided to bring it up to Philadelphia, I started a 501c3, the Mike Schmidt Initiative.
So many great things are happening with us, and I’m getting an opportunity to tell my story and hopefully affect as many people as we can. Our mission is to stop skin cancer. That’s what we’re trying to do.“
If you would like to learn more about Mike Schmidt’s history with melanoma and his work with young athletes to prevent skin cancer, visit MelanomaFoundation.com.
You can watch the full interview on WHYY’s YouTube page here.
ST. PETERSBURG, FL - APRIL 22: Cincinnati Reds Pitcher Brandon Williamson (55) delivers a pitch to the plate during the regular season game between the Cincinnati Reds and the Tampa Bay Rays on April 22, 2026, at Tropicana Field in St. Petersburg, FL. (Photo by Cliff Welch/Icon Sportswire via Getty Images) | Icon Sportswire via Getty Images
Cincinnati Reds lefty Brandon Williamson exited Wednesday evening’s start against the Colorado Rockies after having thrown just 58 pitches across 3.0 IP. It was the latest in a series of frustrating starts for the 28 year old, who for the season has actually walked more hitters (20) than he’s struck out (19).
After the game, it was announced that he was dealing with ‘shoulder fatigue,’ something that’s 100% within the realm of expectations at this point after he missed all of 2025 while rehabbing from Tommy John surgery (and also dealt with shoulder issues before that). The hope, of course, was that it wouldn’t be serious, though the Reds announced on Thursday that Williamson had been placed on the injured list in the wake.
The #Reds today recalled RHP Zach Maxwell from Triple-A Louisville and placed LHP Brandon Williamson (left shoulder fatigue) on the 15-day injured list.
According to AP reporter Jeff Wallner, Williamson received an MRI and the results showed ‘no structural issues,’ which is obviously a great sign.
Francona said the MRI showed no structural issues with Brandon Williamson's shoulder, which is good news. He received an injection today. Williamson was placed on the 15-day injured list. RHP Zach Maxwell was recalled from Louisville. #Reds
Reliever Zach “Big Sugar” Maxwell was recalled from AAA Louisville to take his place on the active roster, for now.
Maxwell, of course, is a reliever, and he’ll add depth to the relief corps for the next few days alongside the recently recalled Luis Mey for the time being. What the Reds do when Williamson’s spot in the rotation comes back around remains to be seen, however.
Nick Lodolo shined in his first rehab start with the Dayton Dragons in High-A Midwest League action earlier this week, but he’s slated for a second rehab start on Saturday. So, it’s likely that it won’t be him who is called upon to slide into the starting rotation. Chase Petty, however, is on the 40-man roster and already has had his first cup of coffee at the big league level, and he started last night against the Omaha Storm Chasers for AAA Louisville and would be on regular rest to take a turn in the team’s rotation.
