Category: Baseball

The Mets open a three-game series against the Brewers at Citi Field in Game 1 of a doubleheader on Wednesday at 1:10 p.m. on SNY.

Here's what to know about the game and how to watch...

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Mets Notes

• Juan Soto is hitting .330/.476/.742 with 12 homers, four doubles, 26 walks, 22 RBI, and 27 runs scored over his last 29 games
• Jeff McNeilhas an .859 OPS in 43 games dating back to May 7
• Edwin Diaz has a 0.41 ERA over his last 22 games

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Giants notes: Bob Melvin patching third base together until Matt Chapman returns originally appeared on NBC Sports Bay Area

PHOENIX — Giants veteran Wilmer Flores smiled on Tuesday afternoon and shrugged. He didn’t have a lot of answers to give, and that was understandable. 

Flores found out early in the day that he would be starting at third base for the first time in 14 months, and he figured he would probably have to borrow a glove from Matt Chapman, who is on the IL. Flores said returning to third might be a little uncomfortable, but added he had to be comfortable with being uncomfortable. The Giants needed him at third, and he was up for it. 

“We probably have a week to try to get by,” manager Bob Melvin said.

The Giants expect Chapman back when they return home next week, although given how fast he’s progressing and how poorly the team is playing, it wouldn’t be a shock if he talked his way into the lineup this weekend.

Melvin said Chapman has been in his ear constantly about speeding up the rehab process, but the Giants want to make sure Chapman doesn’t do anything that leads to concerns in the second half. Already, he is ahead of schedule. 

Melvin said Chapman was “letting it go” in the cage on Tuesday and looked good. He also went through a full workout defensively.

“But we also have to stay on what we feel is the right timetable,” Melvin said. “We take direction from the training staff and try to calm him down along the way, as well.”

Until Chapman returns, it’ll be Flores and Brett Wisely at third base. Melvin resisted starting Flores at first base when LaMonte Wade Jr. struggled because there’s concern about wearing him down physically, but the Diamondbacks didn’t test him Tuesday. Flores didn’t touch the ball until the seventh, when he smoothly fielded a grounder. Only one Diamondbacks hitter even pretended to bunt on Flores, who was playing back all night. 

The Giants have talked about putting Rafael Devers back at his natural position, but he’s dealing with groin and back tightness. He still has not even played first base for his new team.

“He’s not yet physically ready to play first, so third would be the same thing,” Melvin said. “Once he’s able to play in the field, he has told me he’s open for anything.”

Tough Timing

Casey Schmitt went down with an injury during the best stretch of his big league career, and the same thing happened to Christian Koss, who had been starting at third. He had a five-game hitting streak going and was 9-for-19 with three doubles in five starts at third base, but he went on the IL on Tuesday with a left hamstring strain that he suffered in Monday’s loss. 

The Giants did not give much detail about the severity of the hamstring injury, but Melvin said it might be a while. The active roster spot went to Luis Matos, who had a .770 OPS and three homers in 20 games back in Triple-A. Matos doubled to left in his first at-bat back. 

What Went Wrong?

The Diamondbacks scored three unearned runs on Tuesday after a pair of passed balls by Patrick Bailey. One in the third allowed a runner to advance, and he scored on a two-out single. In the fifth, Bailey couldn’t hold onto what would have been an inning-ending strike three; the next batter hit a two-run homer. 

Bailey is on his way to a second consecutive Gold Glove Award, but there have been quite a few dropped balls this season, and it’s not hard for the staff to figure out why it’s happening.

“He’s one of the better framers in the game, but that was three runs there,” Melvin said. “There has to be a period or an area where you can’t go after that — you’ve just got to catch it. At least tonight, the ramifications were big.”

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For the Chicago White Sox, it was not a question of whether Shane Smith was the best pitcher they had to offer against the Dodgers — he was very likely their best.

Among White Sox pitchers with 10 or more starts, the rookie right-hander had the best strikeout-per-nine inning rate (8.2), as well as the lowest earned-run average (3.38) entering the game. Smith had been respectably good on a young White Sox roster that has been anything but.

Yet, Smith couldn’t make up the gulf in quality between the best-in-the-National-League Dodgers (54-32) and the worst-in-the-American-League White Sox (28-57). The Dodgers would make sure of that in quick fashion. A four-run, two-out rally in the first inning separated the teams quickly in a 6-1 victory to begin the six-game homestand.

“I think we’re really pitching well,” Dodgers manager Dave Roberts said. “We’re getting a lot of contributions from guys in the middle to the bottom of the order which is huge. We’re getting timely hits.”

“Obviously, that gauntlet of going through 26 games of some really good opponents record-wise, getting through that, not letting down, staying on the gas — I think that’s good, and finishing strong going into the break.”

Whereas Smith was chased from the game in the fifth inning, Yoshinobu Yamamoto was excellent again. A week after being pulled after five innings in Denver — because of a lengthy rain delay — Roberts called on the sure-to-be All-Star to pitch with an extended leash.

Yamamoto gave up one run, a two-out RBI double to Lenyn Sosa in the fourth inning, but twirled his way through an otherwise overmatched White Sox lineup, retiring the final 10 batters he faced. The right-hander tossed seven innings, gave up one run and three hits, while striking out eight, walking one and bringing his earned-run average down to 2.51.

“Any given night, a big league team can get you,” Roberts said, “and I was just happy that he was still aggressive and using the split, putting hitters away, but he's doing what he needs to do."

Across his last 12 innings, Yamamoto has given up just four hits.

“I think I’m pitching with really good form,” Yamamoto said through his interpreter after the game. “I think it’s becoming very clear what I have to do.”

White Sox first baseman Miguel Vargas — the former Dodgers top prospect who the franchise parted ways with at the 2024 trade deadline in exchange for Michael Kopech and Tommy Edman — represented the heart of the Chicago lineup, batting cleanup with his .229 batting average and 10 home runs entering the game.

Vargas, who failed to bring the power in an 0-for-4 effort, received a 2024 World Series ring from Roberts and general manager Brandon Gomes during pregame batting practice. Yamamoto set him down his first three times at the plate Tuesday.

“Yoshinobu did spectacular work today,” Shohei Ohtani told NHK, a Japanese television station, after the game.

Of more promising White Sox prospects, rookie Chase Meidroth faced a potential NL Cy Young award candidate. In the third inning, Yamamoto struck out Meidroth with a three-pitch combo: 95-mph fastball on the edge of the strike zone, a 92-mph cutter on the outside corner and a splitter down and in, forcing a swing more than a foot above where the pitch landed.

Read more:Clayton Kershaw and 3,000 strikeouts: A partnership built on a consistent three-pitch mix

Andy Pages struck two run-scoring hits — a double and a single — en route to a two-for-four day at the plate. The 24-year-old Cuban slugger sits in sixth in the most recent NL All-Star outfielder voting, and ended Tuesday with a .294 batting average and 57 RBIs, the latter statistic being the best on the Dodgers.

"He's earned it,” Michael Conforto, who struck the two-RBI single that capped off the four-run first, said of Pages’ All-Star candidacy. “What you may or may not see is just how hard he works… really just doesn't seem to take days off.”

Ohtani, who was not a part of the Dodgers' hit parade that led to their first five runs across three innings, joined the run-scoring effort in the fourth with a no-doubt solo home run — 408 feet and 116.3 mph, halfway up the right-field pavilion — off of Smith, his 30th this season. As fireworks unexpectedly shot up from the Dodger Stadium parking lot during the ninth inning — it was a reminder that Wednesday could bring fireworks on the field as Clayton Kershaw takes the mound three strikeouts away from being the 20th MLB player to reach the 3,000-strikeout milestone.

Etc.

Kopech returned to the 15-day injured list — of which he recently returned from on June 7 — with right-knee inflammation. He said before Tuesday’s game that he wasn’t sure what caused the injury, and would characterize the ailment as discomfort rather than pain.

Roberts said there isn’t a timeline for Kopech’s return, but said it was a short-term issue. The 29-year-old, who received a cortisone shot in his knee, had yet to give up a run in eight scoreless appearances out of the bullpen.

Read more:More than the glasses: How a lightbulb moment made Max Muncy a 'complete hitter' again

In pitchers on their way back from injuries, Tyler Glasnow (right shoulder inflammation) will throw his third rehabilitation with triple-A Oklahoma City on Thursday. The expectation is that Glasnow will pitch five innings/75 pitches, Roberts said.

The Dodgers manager added that Blake Snell (left shoulder inflammation) and Blake Treinen (right forearm sprain) will throw to live hitters Wednesday, the next step in their recovery progression.

“Hopefully we're starting to turn the corner a little bit,” Roberts said.

Next Ohtani start

Ohtani will next start on the mound Saturday against the Houston Astros — a 4:05 p.m. start — and southpaw Justin Wrobleski will again piggyback off the two-way star’s opening effort.

Sign up for more Dodgers news with Dodgers Dugout. Delivered at the start of each series.

This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.

When things aren’t going right for a ballclub, theplays on defense that should be made but aren’t get magnified because they seem to be so often swiftly punished. That was again the case for the Yankees' infield on Tuesday as they let a few miscues snowball into a 12-5 loss at the Toronto Blue Jays, their 12th defeat in the last 18 games.

In the loss, two big moments cost them runs. One on another catcher’s interference by JC Escarra and a play on a ball to third that Jazz Chisholm Jr. couldn’t complete for an out. 

“We obviously got to play a little bit better,” manager Aaron Boone said of his defense. “We have the people capable of doing that, and we’ll continue to work hard at it. We’ve got to play better overall, we understand that, we know that.”

With Chisholm still playing at a below-average clip at third and DJ LeMahieu appearing very limited at second, the skipper was asked about swapping the infielders: “We’ll talk through that stuff,” he said.

Is it the best alignment the way it is now? “I think both guys are really talented defenders wherever they line up,” Boone said. “But, we’ll continue to look at things like that.”

Speaking to The Athletic's Chris Kirschner after the game in Toronto, Chisholm said that he had "only worked at second base" during offseason drills and that the Yankees explicitly told him he would be their second baseman. That was the position where he began the year, before he was moved to third base, a position he only played last year after arriving in The Bronx in a deadline deal with Miami, when LeMahieu came off the IL in mid-May.

“Everybody knows I’m a second baseman,” Chisholm told Kirschner. “Of course, I want to play second base, but whatever it takes to help the team win. If that’s what the team chooses, that’s what I gotta do. I don’t write the lineups. You feel me?

“I’m playing every day, so it’s hard to be upset. Yes, I know I’m a second baseman. Yes, I know I’m better at second base, but at the end of the day, I still have to play third. I just have to deal with it.”

LeMahieu has minus-1 outs above average through 288 innings at second base. Chisholm has a minus-2 OAA in 198 innings at third base, while he is a plus-3 OAA in 251 innings at second.

For his part, Chisholm said he would be a “team guy” when he was asked to move back to third when he came off the IL at the beginning of June.

"[Boone] told me he wanted me at third base. He really wanted me at third base. I'm a team guy. I'm here to win a ring. I'm not here to fight over positions," Chisholm said in late May. "We've got some of the best players in the world on our team… I'm just here to help us win."

On the play in question Tuesday, with two down in the fourth and the Yanks up 2-1, Davis Schneider hit a slow chopper to third that Chisholm didn’t play too aggressively. After letting it take an extra hop, he fielded and threw off target to first. The official scorer credited the Blue Jays outfielder, who is in the 50th percentile in sprint speed, with an infield hit. After Max Fried issued a walk, he served up a three-run homer to Andres Gimenez to put Toronto ahead.

“I think he went at it, and I think it’s a little bit of just not always playing on turf,” Boone said. “It’s kind of an in-between. So it kind of messed with his rhythm of the throw, so the throw was inaccurate. It’s probably because the hop kind of took him up a little bit, so it wasn’t as smooth. 

“But I chalk that up to more just not getting the right hop and probably a little bit of the turf thing.”

It's been a rough two days in Toronto for Yankees catcher J.C. Escarra.

The New York backup backstop has burned his team with catcher's interference calls that cost the Yankees the first two games of their pivotal four-game set against the Blue Jays.

After his catcher's interference loaded the bases in the sixth inning of a tie game on Monday -- which led to Vladimir Guerrero Jr.'s go-ahead two-run single in the Yankees' loss -- Escarra was caught sticking his glove out a little too far again on Tuesday.

In a 4-4 game in the seventh inning, pinch-hitter Addison Barger checked swung and was called out on strikes for what seemed to be the second out of the inning, but a replay review caught Escarra's catcher interference and gave the Blue Jays a bases-loaded situation once again. What followed was a single and a grand slam that blew the game open as Toronto eventually defeated the Yankees, 12-5.

"It’s on me. I intend to get as close as possible, but not let that happen. I was too close today," Escarra said after the game. "Didn’t help my team win today or yesterday. It’s something I can control."

Escarra later said, "It gave them bases loaded, and the big hit came. I could have prevented it. It was in my control."

Escarra now has three catcher's interference calls on him this season, which is tied with Houston's Victor Caratini for the most in baseball.

"We’re incredibly diligent on trying to eliminate that as much as possible," manager Aaron Boone said of the catcher interference after the game. "It is something that we lean into every hitter, who we’re vulnerable with, who we are not, and we do that accordingly with our catchers. It’s something we continue to lean into and eliminate as much as we can and leverage the strikezone as much as we can."

Boone added that he believes catcher's interference shouldn't be called on a check swing, although he admitted that the Yankees benefited from a similar call last season. And Luke Weaver, the Yankees' high-leverage reliever who was on the mound when Tuesday's catcher's interference was called, echoed his skipper's sentiment.

"That was a confusing one. That’s one I didn’t see in real time…it’s pretty devastating, honestly," Weaver, who allowed the grand slam to George Springer, said. "That’s a really unfortunate part of our game, and I don’t personally think it belongs in our game. I understand there are moments where it’s very egregious and they hit the glove on a full swing. I feel like you earned something there, and it was taken away from you. That’s out of my control at that point. Just a really silly thing to happen."

Escarra does agree with Boone, but still, put the onus on himself for being too close to the batter and continues to put Tuesday's loss on himself.

"He wasn’t going to swing. But at the end of the day, I shouldn’t have been too close like that," he said. "Going forward, I really got to make it a priority not to get too deep in there."

The Yankes (48-37) are now just one game ahead of the Rays and Blue Jays in the AL East standings. The loss also dropped the Yankees' AL East record to a measly 10-14, which is the worst in the division.

Every day catcher Austin Wells isexpected to return to the starting lineup Wednesday after getting tested for his circulatory issues in his catching hand. Hopefully, that reset will allow Escarra the time to adjust his pitch-framing and prevent any more extra baserunners from his catcher's interference.

Former New York Rangers defenseman Ryan Lindgren has signed a four-year, $18 million contract.  Lindgren will earn $4.5 million per season as part of this deal. 

After spending nearly seven seasons with the Rangers, Lindgren was traded to the Colorado Avalanche at around the time of the 2025 NHL Trade Deadline. 

With Lindgren set to become an unrestricted free agent after the 2024-25 season and the Rangers falling out of the playoff picture, the team decided to trade the veteran defenseman. 

For the majority of his time in New York, Lindgren was paired alongside Adam Fox. During Lindgren’s last season with the Rangers, the longstanding duo was split up and didn’t consistently play together. 

The Rangers signed defenseman Vladislav Gavrikov to a seven-year, $49 million contract, and he will likely replace Lindgren as Fox’s permanent defensive partner.

Rangers Receive Young Defenseman And Two Draft Picks In Exchange For K'Andre MillerIn exchange for K’Andre Miller, the New York Rangers have reportedly acquired defenseman Scott Morrow, a conditional 2026 first-round pick, and a 2026 second-round pick. 

Lindgren now joins fellow former Rangers teammate Kaapo Kakko in Seattle.

The Yankees fell to the Toronto Blue Jays by a score of 12-5 on Tuesday afternoon, and have now dropped three of their last four games and have just six wins in their last 18 games.

New York fell to 48-37 on the year. Toronto improved to 47-38 with back-to-back wins to start the four-game series.

Here are the key takeaways....

-A pivotal moment came in the bottom of the seventh, as Luke Weaver appeared to strike out pinch-hitter Addison Barger looking on a check swing in a 4-4 game. However, the Blue Jays challenged that J.C. Escarra committed catcher's interference, and that turned out to be the case, loading the bases with one out. Next up, Ernie Clement atoned for an earlier error by bouncing a single just off of Anthony Volpe's glove, giving Toronto a 5-4 lead.

Next up, George Springer launched a grand slam to left-center, and his second homer of the game blew things wide open at 9-4. While two of the runs were charged to Mark Leiter Jr., Weaver came into the game with the score tied and exited with the Yankees trailing by five runs.

Springer would come through with another big hit, a two-run single in the eighth, as the game turned into a laugher.

-MaxFriedhas been the stopper for the Yankees all season, coming into the game with a 0.93 ERA in 10 starts following a Yankees loss this season. He lived up to that billing early, retiring eight straight hitters after a Springer first-inning walk.

The first hit -- and run -- allowed by Fried came on a Springer home run in the bottom of the fourth, and that turned out to be the start of a disastrous inning for Fried, who later allowed a three-run homer to Andres Gimenez, just over the wall in center field.

Fried went 6.0 innings, and while he only allowed three hits, two of them were homers, as he allowed four earned runs while striking out two and walking two.

-The Yankees took advantage of an early opportunity against Kevin Gausman. After the right-hander loaded the bases by allowing a single and a pair of walks, Jasson Dominguez delivered with a single up the middle, scoring a pair of runs and giving the Yankees an early 2-0 lead. Dominguez added an RBI groundout in the top of the ninth to finish 1-for-5 with three RBI.

-The Bombers had a chance to add on in the fourth, as a Paul Goldschmidt double (his second hit of the afternoon) put runners at second and third with two outs. This time, though, Gausman was able to get out of the jam, as Cody Bellinger flew out to deep right-center to end the threat.

Again, in the fifth, the Yankees had traffic on the bases, but couldn't find a way to push any runs across. Gausman's afternoon ended there, as he turned in 5.0 innings, allowing two earned runs on six hits with four walks and three strikeouts.

-Finally, the Yanks delivered with runners in scoring position in the top of the seventh, with some help from the Jays. With runners on corners and one out, Giancarlo Stanton hit a chopper to third that ate upClement, and the error allowed the Yanks' third run to score on what should have been an inning-ending double play. Next up, Dominguez chopped a ball to Vladimir Guerrero Jr. at first, who was poised to throw home, but the ball bounced out of his glove, allowing the tying run, at that time, to score.

-Aaron Judge finished the day 2-for-2 with a double, three walks, and two runs scored. He raised his slash line to .358/.466/.722 for a 1.188 OPS.

-As a team, the Yankees went just 2-for-17 with runners in scoring position and left 11 runners on base. Toronto, on the other hand, went 5-for-7.

Game MVP

Springer, who finished with a pair of home runs and seven RBI.

Highlights

The Martian knocks in 2 👊 pic.twitter.com/Ro2HVHzXi1

— New York Yankees (@Yankees) July 1, 2025

Ernie Clement can't come up with it and the Yankees get a run! pic.twitter.com/uNv0heYl9F

— Yankees Videos (@snyyankees) July 1, 2025

Upcoming schedule

The Yankees and Jays continue their four-game set on Wednesday at 7:07 p.m.

Will Warren is scheduled to face Jose Berrios.

Giants' Hayden Birdsong baffled by ‘annoying' struggles after latest rough start originally appeared on NBC Sports Bay Area

PHOENIX — Hayden Birdsong is 23 years old and made just 38 starts in the minor leagues before the Giants called him up last season. They felt strongly that he was one of their best 26 this spring, so when he didn’t make the rotation initially, they kept him in their bullpen. 

The right-hander is inexperienced and learning at the big league level, but sometimes, the fix is not an easy one. 

Birdsong briefly skidded off the rails Tuesday night, and that’s become a theme since he returned to the rotation. He threw 10 straight balls to open the fourth inning, and when he got back in the zone, he gave up a three-run homer. The Diamondbacks pulled away from there, winning 8-2 to get within 1 1/2 games of the Giants in the NL West standings. 

“It’s the same thing every single time,” Birdsong said of his struggles. “I don’t know what it is. It almost feels like a forcefield. I don’t know why, it’s the same mindset, arm feels good — I’ve just got to find something. I don’t know what it is, but we’ll find it.”

Birdsong has allowed 21 earned runs in 37 1/3 innings since returning to the rotation, with 18 walks being the main culprit. After striking out five in the first three innings, he opened the fourth with back-to-back four-pitch walks. Afterward, he had no explanation for why his command occasionally just completely disappears. 

“It needs to flip soon,” Birdsong said. “It’s getting annoying.”

"It almost feels like a force field."

Hayden Birdsong reacts to another rough start tonight against the D-backs pic.twitter.com/SJVCzf33Pm

— SF Giants on NBCS (@NBCSGiants) July 2, 2025

Birdsong’s stuff still is good, and his fastball velocity was back in his normal range six days after he saw a slight dip. He said he feels right mechanically, but he’ll sit down with the staff and look at that to see if there’s something wrong that he’s not seeing.

Manager Bob Melvin said the issue might be something else entirely. He feels Birdsong’s blips are “more mental than anything.”

“He’s got to get through it,” Melvin said. “He’s got to just keep pitching through it. We’ve seen this guy (be) really good, we’ve seen him pitch really well out of the bullpen, come in late in games. Yeah, it’s been a little bit of a tough period for him, for whatever reason.”

The same is true of the whole team, but it’s not hard to pinpoint why the Giants keep losing, or why they went down so easily Tuesday. The lineup scored just two runs and has nine in five games on this trip. Patrick Bailey had two costly passed balls, the result, Melvin said, of trying too hard to frame pitches. 

The loss was the seventh in eight games and came a few hours after a very public vote of confidence from president of baseball operations Buster Posey. The front office picked up Melvin’s 2026 option, a move that was popular in the clubhouse, and Melvin said the energy in the dugout after the two early runs was as good as he has seen all year.

“Then we just, for whatever reason, didn’t play good baseball after that,” he said.

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What we learned as Giants' freefall continues with ugly loss to Diamondbacks originally appeared on NBC Sports Bay Area

• BOX SCORE

PHOENIX — The Giants briefly moved into a tie for first in the NL West two and a half weeks ago. At the moment, their biggest concern is trying to avoid a drop to fourth place.

Another night of offensive ineptitude was matched by poor pitching and sloppy defense, leading to an 8-2 loss, the seventh in eight games. The Giants are now just four games above .500 and only 1 1/2 games ahead of the Arizona Diamondbacks. Any longshot hopes of contending for the NL West title are gone; they’re 8 1/2 back of the Los Angeles Dodgers all of a sudden. 

The latest loss looked like so many others in recent weeks. Willy Adames hit an early homer and the Giants took a 2-0 lead — and then went completely silent against right-hander Zac Gallen, a longtime ace who has had a down year and entered with a 5.75 ERA.

Willy wallops one outta here 💥 pic.twitter.com/GKREmZRzVB

— SF Giants on NBCS (@NBCSGiants) July 2, 2025

Hayden Birdsong gave up four runs and Carson Seymour allowed four more, although both young right-handers had unearned runs on their line after Patrick Bailey passed balls. 

The Giants have scored just nine runs in five games on this road trip. Over their last 41 games, they have scored four runs or fewer an astounding 30 times.

Here are the takeaways from the Giants’ fourth consecutive loss:

Roller Coaster

The first time through the order, Birdsong allowed just one baserunner and struck out five. The second time through, he put six on base and struck out none. 

It was a strange outing for the young right-hander, who showed his normal velocity a week after a slight dip but also dealt with serious command issues. Birdsong threw 10 consecutive balls to open the fourth inning, and when he grooved one at the top of the zone, Jake McCarthy took a massive swing and hit a three-run homer. Birdsong didn’t come back out for the fifth.

Rake McCarthy pic.twitter.com/tOq889rhU4

— Arizona Diamondbacks (@Dbacks) July 2, 2025

The start was Birdsong’s eighth, and his return to the rotation hasn’t been smooth. He has allowed 21 earned runs and walked 18 in 37 1/3 innings, and he has given up at least four runs in each of his past three starts. 

Second Time Out

Seymour had some bad luck in his debut in Chicago, and that carried over to his first inning out of the bullpen Tuesday. Bailey couldn’t handle a low pitch that would have been an inning-ending strikeout, and the next batter blasted a two-run homer to left. Because of the passed ball, both runs were unearned — but there was nothing flukey about the two runs in the next inning. Seymour elevated a sinker and then hung a slider, and both left the yard.

We're goin' back-to-back! pic.twitter.com/GX9Rjp06YA

— Arizona Diamondbacks (@Dbacks) July 2, 2025

Seymour went three innings out of the bullpen and allowed four runs — two earned — on five hits. His sinker reached 97 mph, but he also gave up two homers on the pitch. 

Back At The Corner

Coming into Tuesday, Wilmer Flores had played third base just twice since the Giants signed Matt Chapman. The last time came 14 months ago, and he smiled Tuesday afternoon and admitted he would be uncomfortable, but that that was fine. Flores figured he would borrow a glove from Chapman and give it his best. 

The Diamondbacks have plenty of speed in their lineup, but they didn’t even try to test Flores, who hasn’t even played that much first base this season. He didn’t touch a ball until the seventh, when Lourdes Gurriel Jr. hit a hard chopper that Flores fielded smoothly for the final out.

Flores will be the primary third baseman until Chapman returns in a week or so. Manager Bob Melvin doesn’t want to strain him too much physically, but on Tuesday, that wasn’t an issue. Mostly, he just watched fly balls soar over his head and into the seats in left. 

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Tuesday's game between the Mets and Brewers at Citi Field has been postponed due to weather.

The game will be made up as part of a split doubleheader on Wednesday.

First pitch for Game 1 is set for 1:10 p.m, while Game 2 will begin at 7:10 p.m., both games will be broadcast on SNY.

Clay Holmes (8-4, 2.97 ERA) was set to start Tuesday's series opener against Milwaukee. Freddy Peralta (8-4, 2.90 ERA) was the scheduled starter for the Brewers.

Mets manager Carlos Mendoza announced Holmes will pitch Game 1 but has not decided who will take the mound for the nightcap.

The Mets (48-37) enter their three-game series with the Brewers amid a three-game losing streak. The Phillies, who are two games ahead of the Mets in the NL East standings, also had their game against the San Diego Padres rained out.