Category: Baseball

First Pitch (CT):12:05
TV: Twins.TV
Radio: TIBN/Audacy App
Know Yo’ Foe: Over the Monster

Lineups

Offense, offense, and more offense — that’s been the name of the game for the South Siders this spring. The White Sox rolled into Wednesday’s action having smacked the most hits of any MLB team, sitting first in runs, doubles, and RBIs. So far, the Good Guys have prioritized contact over patience. While that aggression has kept the walk total at a modest 21, it’s also keeping the strikeouts down. At just 38 punchouts, they’re sitting in the bottom half of the league in K’s, ensuring they put the ball in play more often than not. It’s all added up to a team that currently sits atop the league in batting average, OPS, and slugging.

Leading that charge is catcher Edgar Quero, who’s slashing .667/.714/.833 and tops the squad with five RBIs. Quero, an offensive-first backstop, told CHSN’s Chuck Garfien last week that he spent his winter working on framing and defense, but we saw a bit of a lapse yesterday when he blew a rundown at third and threw it over Lenyn Sosa’s head. It’s exactly the kind of fundamental breakdown that has plagued this team for the last several years, and while Spring Training is for working out kinks, that’s the specific stuff that needs cleaning up.

Then there’s Swiss Army Knife Brooks Baldwin, who’s basically forcing his way onto the plane to Chicago at this point. Sporting a massive 1.143 SLG, he isn’t just making contact; he’s making noise. With that kind of production, Skipper Will Venable is going to have a hard time finding a reason not to pencil him into the 26-man roster come March.

As far as prospects are concerned, keep your eyes on William Bergolla. He’s 4-for-6 with two doubles and a bag. He doesn’t strike out, he plays solid middle infield and he’s got wheels. The 21-year-old came over in the Tanner Banks trade at the 2024 deadline. He’s the type of “high floor” contact hitter this lineup has desperately missed.

On the mound, it’s not all doom and gloom, though the contrast is noticeable. While the 3.43 ERA is solid enough for a top-five spot, the 1.52 WHIP shows the pitchers still shaking off some rust. However, the hurlers are at least missing bats, tied near the top of the pack with the Cubs at 49 strikeouts.

Today, we get the first Cactus League start for Davis Martin, the “glue guy” who is now the longest-tenured player on the team following the Luis Robert Jr. trade. Martin is coming off his first full year as a starter, having tossed 142 2/3 innings in 2025 with a 4.10 ERA. This season, we’re looking for his six-pitch mix to generate a few more “red” circles on the Statcast chart.

The Sox will face off against Nick Lodolo, who makes his spring debut for the Reds. Lodolo hasn’t quite hit those 7th-overall-pick expectations yet, but he’s coming off a strong 3.33 ERA season and features a heavy four-pitch arsenal. He has a pretty good curve and sinker that can really tie up hitters.

Here’s how the managers line up their teams this afternoon.

For your Chicago White Sox:

And for old friend Terry Francona’s Cincinnati Reds:

Now for the bad news: it’s a lean day for media coverage. The only way to follow the live action is through an MLB.TV or MLB+ subscription. If you’ve got one, you can tune into the Reds’ radio broadcast at 2:05 p.m. CST to see if the Sox bats can keep the heater going.

Today’s Jays’ game is not on TV, one of the few that aren’t on TV. The game is at Lakeland, Florida in the Tigers’ spring park, Publix Field at Joker Marchant Stadium which has to be up there on the list of longest ballpark names, as well as getting two sponsor names into it. It isn’t on MLB TV either. If you are really interested Sportsnet will carry a radio broadcast on their site (two minutes of thinking of subtle insults for anyone who would listen to a spring game on radio and I settle on interested. I have no imagination this morning). It has a 1:00 Eastern start time.

The Jay are sending a bunch of regulars to Lakeland. Google maps tells me that it is an hour and a quarter drive from Dunedin to Lakeland, which likely means it will be a 2 to 3 hour drive on the way back.

Today’s lineups:

It is too bad that we aren’t going get to watch it, I want every chance I can to see Kazuma Okamoto play third. I also like any chance to watch Jonatan Clase play center field.

We are going to get to see a lot of the prospects and the guys on the edge of making the Jays roster, later in spring training, because there are seven Jays going to the World Baseball Classic, as well as five minor leaguers. The Jays players will be spread across 11 WBC teams.

The players:

• Andres Gimenez (Venezuela)
• Leo Jimenez (Panama)
• Ernie Clement (United States)
• Alejandro Kirk (Mexico)
• Vladimir Guerrero Jr. (Dominican Republic)
• Kazuma Okamoto (Japan)
• Yariel Rodriguez (Cuba)

Minor leaguers (well, Yariel is a minor leaguer too:

• Adam Macko (Canada)
• RJ Schreck (Isreal)
• C.J. Stubbs (Israel)
• Will Cresswell (Great Britain)
• Ismael Munguia (Nicaragua)

The WBC starts on March 5th and runs til the 17th.

The Jays are bringing Trey Yesavage along slowly this spring. He won’t pitch in a spring game until next week. Trey threw a lot more innings last year than he had before and, not surprisingly, they want to be careful with him. Or at least as careful as you can be, while asking someone to throw a rock as hard as he possibly can, while making it spin as much has he possibly can.

I do often wonder how so many of them can make it through a season without injury.

As well, Ricky Tiedemann ‘experienced’ elbow soreness last year and will take a week off from throwing. MRI didn’t show any damage. A pitcher coming back from Tommy John will have some soreness, I wouldn’t worry too much about it. But it does show why there the team tries to grab up as many potential MLB pitchers as possible.

We weren’t expecting Tiedemann to break camp with the team or anything like that, even if there were to be a rash of injuries to our starting pitchers. I won’t worry unless they shut him down during the season.

Before spring training, I would have said said that Eloy Jiménez had almost no chance of making the Jays out of spring training. But, he’s looked terrific (in two games), he’s a right-handed bat and our outfield is fairly lefty heavy.

If he could play center, I’d say he had a good chance, because I’d rather have his bat than Myles Straw’s. But since he can’t, he’d have to beat out Davis Schneider and that would be tough. Schneider does have options left.

But would you rather have Eloy than Nathan Lukes? Lukes has an option year left. And we have Jesus Sanchez in front of him on the left-handed hitting corner outfielder depth chart. But then, Lukes can play center.

Jiménez can also play first base and will get some time there while Vlad is at the WBC.

Anyway, I’d have guessed Jiménez had about a 1% chance of making the team, before the start of spring, he must have a 30% chance now. Of course, he would have to make it through spring training without an injury and injuries have been his downfall.

After being shown Bo Bichette video of him booting some balls, early in spring training, I liked seeing this great play:

Texas Rangers lineup for February 25, 2026 against the Cleveland Guardians.

We have another spring training game. Woo hoo!!!

The lineup:

Haggerty — 2B

Jansen — C

Helman — CF

Duran — SS

Wade — RF

Canha — LF

Bride — 1B

MacIver — DH

Martin — 3B

Nathan Eovaldi is the starter today.

It’s Spring Training Game Thread time. Wooooo.

It’s the very “fun” matchup of Paul Skenes and Bryce Elder, but really, it’s an early Grapefruit League tuneup for both arms.

This game is one of the Spring Training games broadcast on Gray TV, and should be available via MLB.tv as well, regardless of where you are.

The Braves will start the regulars in a home game, as is their wont. The Pirates have kind of a half-and-half lineup as some of their starters are making the trip to North Port. The Braves will get their first look at Marcell Ozuna wearing Pittsburgh’s colors this afternoon.

Is it on TV?

Yes, it’s on NESN at 1:05 PM.

What’s the lineup?

What should we watch for?

It’s always fun when you get a first look at a new pitcher. It’s especially fun when that pitcher is a 6’6” beast of a man. And it’s even more fun when that beast of a man gets his size from his mother: “My mom is huge. I feel like I kind of got that from her. She’s like 5-11 I think but she’s like big and wide and huge legs. She’s a monster of (a) woman.”

1903
Though under contract to the White Sox, shortstop George Davis made it known he intended to go to court in order to break it and return to the New York Giants (“May ask courts for release; Davis has novel idea for jumping contract with White Stockings despite peace” read one headline, with the “peace” referring to the battle for players between the new American and established National League.)

Davis’ decision kicks off a tug-of-war over the superstar that lasted more than eight months. He would in fact report to New York, who paid him but flouted his White Sox contract in only four instances (games on June 26-27, June 30, and July 1 before a court injunction took him off of the field for the Giants).

Only when New York formally waived any rights to Davis, in November, did the shortstop re-join the White Sox to resume his Hall of Fame career.

1917
In an ill-fated move that would stain two pennants and one title over the next three seasons, the White Sox purchased Chick Gandil from Cleveland for $3,500 (close to $100,000 in today’s dollars). Gandil was the ringleader of two scandals involving baseball bribery: the Black Sox in 1919, as well as the lesser-known (and unpunished) payoff of the Detroit Tigers late in 1917 to help ensure the pennant.

Ironic in the Gandil saga (he, of course, was banished form the game along with seven teammates for throwing the 1919 World Series) is that he was a terrible player by the time he came back to the White Sox for a second tour. (Gandil made his MLB debut with the White Sox in 1910.) After strong seasons from 1913-15 with Washington (13.5 WAR, 116 OPS+), his 1916 in Cleveland was poor for a full-time player (1.2 WAR in 602 PAs). With the White Sox, he was even worse, with just 3.6 WAR over 1,562 PAs — not much better than a replacement player.

1946
The White Sox create what is regarded as the first media guide, handed out to beat writers.

Now, clearly there were programs and even media guides published before 1946, even by the White Sox themselves. However, those were often (always?) Spring Training and/or player rosters-only. The guide, written by Marsh Samuel and running 17 pages, actually just triggers a deeper, more interesting story … that the White Sox were once forerunners of the metrics revolution!

According to researcher Alan Kornspan at Cleveland State, beginning in 1946 and following in the footsteps of some other innovative figures (Branch Rickey, for one), Samuel began tracking advanced statistics, likely of his own creation but resembling some of what we see in the metrics world today. Cleveland owner Bill Veeck got wind of what Samuel was doing — and hired him away! At that point, Sox successor Ward Stevens took the reins and continued the work, which was still merely siloed in the PR department — not player evaluation.

However, once Frank Lane was hired as GM — at this time, no one wanted the White Sox GM job, as the team was in hock and possessed a woeful roster — he added Earl Flora as both publicity director but also statistician.

Lane’s pet stat, tracked as a child rooting for the Cincinnati Reds, was RBI with RISP. Under Lane’s direction, Flora started tracking reach percentage (i.e. on-base percentage), base runs (both bases advanced by runners, as well as bases a batter’s hit moved runners) and GWRBI. In fact, Lane felt so strongly that RBIs were an overblown stat that he created his own offshoot: OBR (Opportunities to Bat in Runs), the percentage of time batters drove in RISP.

Without extending this too long, Flora returned to sports editing, to be replaced by future White Sox GM Ed Short, a tireless worker who drove statistical analysis on the South Side to new heights.

But that is a story best continued on another Day in White Sox History.

1997
After a one-season spurt with the White Sox, 34-year-old free agent outfielder Danny Tartabull signed with the Philadelphia Phillies for $2 million. Tartabull had been acquired before the 1996 season to add some punch to an already-formidable White Sox lineup, and punch he did: 27 homers, 101 RBIs and a slugging percentage of .487. However, Tartabull’s defense was so poor in right field as to earn him just 0.6 WAR on the season, so with Albert Belle signed for left field and Dave Martinez coming off of a 4.8 WAR season as a supersub ready to step into right, Tartabull was not re-signed.

And that turned out to be a solid move, because a broken foot limited Tartabull to just three games in 1997, and he never saw the majors after that. Thus the final home run of Tartabull’s 262-dinger career came in a White Sox uniform, at the Metrodome, on Sept. 27, 1996.

Hatfields and McCoys. Dominos and Pizza Hut. Coke vs. Pepsi. None of these rivalries hold a candle to the red-hot intensity that awaits in The Battle of Camelback Ranch, as the Dodgers face the White Sox, their spring co-tenants, on Thursday afternoon.

It’s the first of two meetings this spring between the two teams who have called Camelback Ranch home since 2009, with another encounter on the docket for Saturday, March 14. On Thursday, the Dodgers are the home team.

Tyler Glasnow is on the mound for the Dodgers, making his first spring start. Left-hander Sean Newcomb starts for Chicago.

Thursday game info

• Teams: Dodgers vs. White Sox
• Ballpark: Camelback Ranch
• Time: 12:05 p.m. PT
• TV: SportsNet LA
• Radio: none

The Dodgers are back on the road Wednesday to play the Arizona Diamondbacks at Salt River Fields in Scottsdale. Here are the active players for the fifth game of the Dodgers’ spring, including Roki Sasaki making his first Cactus League start this year.

Lineup

Hyeseong Kim CF
Santiago Espinal 3B
Dalton Rushing C
Alex Freeland 2B
Ryan Ward 1B
Nick Senzel DH
James Tibbs III RF
Zach Ehrhard LF
Noah Miller SS

Kim starts in center field after two starts this spring at second base. Freeland makes his second start at second base to go with his other two starts at shortstop.

Other pitchers

Edwin Díaz will make his 2026 Cactus League debut on Wednesday, and River Ryan will see his first game action in 563 days after Tommy John surgery in 2024.

Will Klein and Ronan Kopp will each make their second appearances this spring, as will non-roster invitees Chris Campos and Garrett McDaniels.

Other active pitchers on Wednesday are Waytt Crowell (wearing uniform number 01), and Joseilyn Gonzalez (04), Christian Suarez (90), Payton Martin (91), and Cody Morse (93) up from minor league camp.

Other position players

Mike Siani is the other active player from the 40-man roster.

The daily active player group of non-roster invitees Ryan Fitzgerald, Josue De Paula, Zyhir Hope, Kendall George, and Chris Newell are all making the trip, as are catchers Griffin Lockwood-Powell, Nelson Quiroz, and Eliézer Alfonzo.

Up from the minor league side on Wednesday are outfielder Damon Keith (06) plus infielders Sean McClain (44), Jake Gelof (05), and Logan Wagner (96).

Mets lineup

1. Carson Benge – RF
2. Juan Soto – LF
3. Francisco Alvarez – DH
4. Mark Vientos – 1B
5. Hayden Senger – C
6. Christian Arroyo – 3B
7. Vidal Brujan – SS
8. Cristian Pache – CF
9. Grae Kessinger – 2B

Jonah Tong – RHP

Cardinals lineup

1. JJ Wetherholt – SS
2. Jose Fermin – 2B
3. Nolan Gorman – 3B
4. Nelson Velazquez – RF
5. Leonardo Bernal – C
6. Nathan Church – CF
7. Joshua Baez – DH
8. Blaze Jordan – 1B
9. Chase Davis – LF

Richard Fitts – RHP

Broadcast info

First pitch: 1:10 PM EST
TV: PIX11
Radio: Audacy Mets Radio WHSQ 880AM, Audacy App, 92.3 HD2

The Tampa Bay Rays top overall prospect will make his spring debut this afternoon, getting the start against the Baltimore Orioles.

There isn’t any radio coverage today, but the Orioles are broadcasting the game so it can be seen on MLB.tv.

First pitch is at 1:05 at Ed Smith Stadium

Pittsburgh Pirates vs. Atlanta Braves, February 25, 2026, 1:05 p.m. ET

Location: CoolToday Park, Venice, FL

How to Listen: KDKA-FM 93.7

The Pittsburgh Pirates are on the road against the Atlanta Braves, where they will try and pick up another win.

Please remember our Game Day thread guidelines.

• Don’t troll in your comments; create conversation rather than destroying it
• Remember Bucs Dugout is basically a non-profanity site
• Out of respect to broadcast partners who have paid to carry the game, no mentions of “alternative” (read: illegal) viewing methods are allowed in our threads
• The commenting system was updated during the summer. They’re still working on optimizing it for Game Day Threads like ours. If you don’t like clicking “Load More Comments”, remember that the “Z” key can be your friend. It loads up the latest comments automatically.

BD community, this is your thread for today’s game. Enjoy!

After months of waiting, the Kansas City Royals are back on the field. Granted, it’s for Spring Training games, but still–you can watch professional baseball players in actual games against other teams. The Royals last played a game on September 28, 2025, so it’s been almost five months since diehard Kansas City baseball fans were able to watch their team. 

We all know that baseball is a marathon, which is part of its charm. The National Football League plays 17 regular season games a year. The National Basketball Association plays 82 regular season games a year, with the National Hockey League moving to 84 games a year soon. Major League Baseball? MLB blows them out of the water with 162 regular season games a year.

Nick Kappel, the Royals’ director of media relations, posted this, which really puts into perspective what is about to play out over the coming months:

The Royals played their first game a few days ago on February 20. Their last scheduled game is on September 27. That means that, outside the four-day All-Star break, Kansas City will have played a baseball game in nine out of every 10 days for over seven consecutive months. 

Don’t get me wrong–I’m glad the Royals are back to playing baseball. I prefer when it’s baseball season to when it’s not baseball season. But at the same time, I wonder if MLB’s total number of regular season games has surpassed the point of diminishing returns, and that a return to the 154-game regular season is the way to go. 

From 1904 through 1960, MLB had a 154-game season except for a few outlier seasons like immediately following World War I. The league only shifted to 162 games coinciding with the American League’s 1961 expansion. So many legendary MLB players played all of or most of their careers before the 162-game season, from Babe Ruth to Jackie Robinson, Ted Williams, and Stan Musial. 

The argument for a 154-game season is that it maintains baseball’s unique cadence while eliminating the “filler” that happens in a 162-game season, and we can think of this on two core axes. 

The first axis here is simply player quality. You want your best players to play all your games, but a 162-game season is grueling and very few players play in the whole thing. Last year, only 6 hitters played in 162 games, and only 22 starting pitchers made 32 or more starts. Every time one of the clear best players in the league doesn’t play, they are replaced by a less talented and less exciting player. Meanwhile, there were 51 hitters who played in 154 games, and 54 starting pitchers who made 30 or more starts–all of whom would have played every possible game in a shorter season.

The other axis here is game quality. There are some games that are just not attractive for fans or teams alike, and those games are early-season weekday games. That’s when the weather is the most questionable, when school is in full swing, and when teams haven’t built up excitement in the product. I took a look at the five least-attended home games for each of the AL Central teams last year, and the results are just about what you’d expect for those 25 games:

• 19 were April games
• 5 of the non-April games happened when teams were 9+ games behind first place
• 24 were Monday-Thursday games
• 0 were Saturday/Sunday games

You can’t just cut eight Monday-Thursday games in April and call it a day. But you can do some of that, and also cut weekday games throughout the year to provide more off days. 

While it seems unlikely that the union or the owners would want to cut 120 games off the books, it can be balanced in two ways. First, increase the divisional series to seven games to get multiple high-revenue playoff games on the books. Second, timing it alongside an expansion from 30 to 32 teams would increase the total games played from 2,430 to 2,464. 

Baseball will never get to a truly short season, and it shouldn’t. However, cutting just a few games from the calendar could have a knockdown effect that gives everyone a breather and just might result in a better product.

Here are the lineups. For the Phillies:

For the Tigers:

Let’s talk about it.

In the responses to our last question, it seemed that people were generally expecting there to be a lockout at the end of this season, when the current Collective Bargaining Agreement expires. The duration and impact of that lockout is considerably less certain. But to follow up on that, today I wanted to get your opinions on what the impact of that lockout might be – in particular, with regard to the Diamondbacks.

What would a lockout do to this team? Which players or plans get derailed the most?

There are a whole number of levels at which you can look at this. Obviously, there will be a loss of revenue, and while the players may be on strike, that does not mean that all expenditure goes down to zero for the D-backs. On the roster level, it’ll potentially be a year lost for players under contract. But also a year gained for player development (albeit without formal competition, young prospects will still get older and stronger, and can gain experience outside of minor-league settings). Let’s presume the entire 2027 season is lost. Where will the team sit at the end of that year?