Category: Baseball

It’s another week here at BCB After Dark: the coolest night spot for night owls, early risers, new parents and Cubs fans abroad. Come on in out of the heat. The music is cool in here. There’s no cover charge. The dress code is casual. There’s no waiting list. The hostess will seat you now. Bring your own beverage.

BCB After Dark is the place for you to talk baseball, music, movies, or anything else you need to get off your chest, as long as it is within the rules of the site. The late-nighters are encouraged to get the party started, but everyone else is invited to join in as you wake up the next morning and into the afternoon.

Last week I asked you to grade the job manager Craig Counsell is doing. There was a real consensus in that 60 percent of you gave Counsell a “B.” Another 23 percent gave him an “A.” I’d probably have given him that A.

So here’s the part with the music and the movies. You’re free to skip that if you want. Or you can enjoy the music and movies and just skip the baseball. Your call.

So I’ve got a little nostalgia going on tonight for us older folks. This is the great jazz guitarist Wes Montgomery covering The Association’s pop single “Windy” on The Hollywood Palace in 1967. You even get Herb Albert introducing Montgomery.

I’m a sucker for “true crime” stuff, even though I know it’s (mostly) bad for me. Movies that are based on true crime stories suck me in more often than they should. Director Richard Fleischer was also a fan of “true crime” stories as he directed four films based on famous murders. I’d seen two of them before. Compulsion (1959) is based on the Leopold and Loeb murder trial and it’s decent, mostly because of a great performance by Dean Stockwell. The Boston Strangler (1968), on the other hand, is a hot mess. So I should have walked into Fleischer’s The Girl With the Red Velvet Swing (1955) with more trepidation. Because while The Girl With the Red Velvet Swing is not a dumpster fire, it does manage to be something that no true crime dramatization should be: dull.

The Girl With the Red Velvet Swing is based on the murder of famous architect Stanford White (Ray Milland) by railroad heir Harry Kendall Thaw (Farley Granger) in 1906. The title character is Evelyn Nesbit (Joan Collins), who was Thaw’s wife and White’s mistress.

If none of these names mean anything to you, I can promise you that you would have known them in 1906. Nesbit was a well-known “Gibson Girl,” by face if not by name. These were the women drawn by illustrator Charles Gibson for magazine covers. They were the turn-of-the-last-century version of supermodels, even if their faces were better known than their names. White was a rich architect, who, among many other things, designed the Washington Square Arch that still stands in New York. Thaw was the heir to an enormous railroad and coal fortune in Pittsburgh. His net worth was estimated to be around $40 million in 1900 dollars. He was also deeply mentally unwell, a fact that his money covered up throughout his life.

Thaw had become deeply obsessed with White. Not only had he “deflowered” Nesbit before she married Thaw, but Thaw was convinced that White had blackballed him from New York high society. (Maybe he did, but if he hadn’t, someone else would have.) One night in 1906, Thaw approached White during a stage performance on the rooftop of Madison Square Garden and shot killed him in front of hundreds of witnesses. He confessed on the spot, shouting that either that White had “ruined his life” or his “wife.” No one was really sure which one he said and probably both were true in Thaw’s mind. Thaw’s resulting murder trial became the first of many “Trial of the Century.”

One thing you need to know about The Girl With the Red Velvet Swing is that Nesbit was still alive in 1955 and served as a paid consultant on the film. As such, the film is far less lurid than the actual details of the case. For one, the film portrays White fairly sympathetically and Nesbit as in love with him. White’s only real crime, per the film, was not wanting the scandal of divorcing his wife any marrying Nesbit would bring. In reality, Nesbit was 16 when she met the 47-year-old White. She also wasn’t the only 16-year-old having an affair with White. The man was the Jeffrey Epstein of his time. Also, while Nesbit admitted that their later sexual encounters were consensual, their first meeting was a clear case of what we’d call date rape today. Thaw is portrayed in the movie as merely controlling and abusive towards Nesbit, but the long trail of payoffs to victims in his life shows him to be a violent psychopath, serial rapist, and a sadist.

Certainly the Production Code probably prevented some of the more lurid details of the story from coming to the screen, I also wonder whether Charles Brackett, who produced the film and also co-wrote the screenplay with Walter Reisch, also toned down the story. I know Brackett mostly from his terrific partnership with Billy Wilder, but I forgot that Brackett refused to work on Double Indemnity, considering it too immoral. Well, the White killing should have made Double Indemnity look like Sesame Street. Instead, we get a love story between a young woman (portrayed as older than she was in real life) and an older man. Then when the older man refuses to leave his wife, she marries her psychopathic stalker because she needs a husband and because he’s one of the richest men in America.

Farley Granger’s Harry Thaw is not nearly crazy enough. Yes, he’s portrayed as having a hair-trigger temper and an obsession with both Stanford White and Evelyn Nesbit, but his true craziness doesn’t come out until the very end of the film. I suppose Nesbit would rather people think she was duped by an abusive man than she knowingly married an abusive man for money and security. I also don’t think she wanted everyone to know that she was carrying on an affair with White at 16, and her age is never mentioned in the film.

The other problem is that while a young Joan Collins looked a lot like a young Evelyn Nesbit, her American accent is all over the place. Milland just rides with his mid-Atlantic accent that works well for upper-class people on both sides of the pond, but Collins needed a more standard lower-class American accent. Sometimes it’s good, but sometimes it just slips and sounds off. Her portrayal of Nesbit is also quite passive. Maybe that’s how the real Evelyn Nesbit was (I don’t know), but it certainly makes her a less-than-intriguing protagonist.

I did like the CinemaScope photography and the colorful look of early 20th-Century New York a lot. The sets and the costuming are first-rate.

The Girl With the Red Velvet Swing takes a really incredible true crime murder story and tries to reduce it to a lame love triangle story. It’s not a terrible film, but a crime like this one deserves much better.

The trailer for The Girl With the Red Velvet Swing.

Welcome back to everyone who skips the music and movies.

As part of our Draft Week coverage, tonight we’re asking you who was the greatest first-round pick in Cubs history.

The MLB Draft only dates back to 1965 and honestly, the Cubs were mostly terrible at it for the first two decades. It can’t explain the first twenty-five years of the pennant drought after 1945, but it certainly does go a long ways towards explaining much of the next twenty-five. Things have gotten much better since around 2007 and certainly Cubs draft picks after that played a huge role in the 2016 title, either as players or as trade bait for other players.

If you go to Baseball Reference and look at the top Cubs players of all-time as ranked by bWAR, only one of the top ten were Cubs draft picks. To be fair, seven of them were from the era before the draft. Two were acquired in trades and only number ten, Rick Reuschel, was a Cubs draft pick. However, Big Daddy was taken in the third round, so he can’t be the Cubs’ best first-round pick.

The drafted player who is second on the Cubs’ career bWAR behind Reuschel is Mark Grace, who is 15th. However, Grace was taken in the 24th round in 1985. Again, not a first-round pick.

The Cubs best draft pick was Greg Maddux, who was taken in the second round in 1984. But he only had about a third of his total value as a Cub before leaving as a free agent. Still, just Maddux’s Cubs career would put him ahead of pretty much everyone except Reuschel and Grace among Cubs draft picks.

So when you look at the list of first-round draft picks in Cubs history, there is one player whose career bWAR is head and shoulders above everyone else. Unfortunately, that player is Rafael Palmeiro, who just 258 games for the Cubs before he was dealt. Second on the bWAR list is Josh Donaldson, who never even played for the Cubs.

I’m ruling that the greatest Cubs picks of all time can’t be people who played for other teams. I suppose if Palmeiro had been traded for Ken Griffey Jr., he could be the greatest Cubs draft pick of all time, but he wasn’t. So I’m calling Palmeiro and Donaldson as ineligible. Same goes for Jon Garland. To be the greatest Cubs first round pick, you have to have contributed to the Cubs.

So who was the greatest Cubs first-round draft pick who delivered the most value to the Cubs? You don’t have to go by bWAR in their time with the Cubs. In fact, I suggest you don’t. There’s more to baseball than just scoring on a metric. But the following players are first-round picks who starred with the Cubs and made a major impact.

I don’t think I need to tell you much about any of these players. But I will put two number to help you pick, The first is the player’s career Wins Above Replacement as calculated by Baseball Reference as a Cub. The second number is the player’s career bWAR.

Obviously all of these players, other than Wood, are still active. So you can include numbers that you think the player will do throughout their career if you want.

1995; Kerry Wood. Cubs—25.5. Career—26.8

2011: Javier Báez. Cubs—21.8. Career—26.9

2013: Kris Bryant. Cubs—28.0. Career—27.3

2015: Ian Happ. Career—24.2

2018: Nico Hoerner. Career—23.1

I could have included Kyle Schwarber, but other than his World Series heroics, Schwarber only returned 5.4 bWAR before he was non-tendered. And because of his poor defense, his career bWAR is below all five of these players, even with all those home runs.

So who was the greatest Cubs’ first-round pick of all-time?

Thank you for stopping by. We’re always glad to see a friendly face. Please get home safely. Recycle any cans and bottles. Tip your waitstaff. And join us again next week for more BCB After Dark.

In the span of a week, Cam Schlittler registered polar-opposite outings.

The Yankees' 25-year-old right-hander pitched New York (50-40) to Monday's 5-1 win at the Tampa Bay Rays with one of his early career's best outings after last Tuesday's season-worst start against the Detroit Tigers -- a result that Schlittler took personally.

"Yeah, I mean, again -- last week was tough, right?" Schlittler said. "They want to say that there's f--king regression because I had one bad outing. So, again, it was personal to go out there and just have a dominant start and put this team in the right position."

Schlittler (9-5, 2.01 ERA) went a season-high-tying eight innings at the Rays (52-36), striking out eight while allowing one run on four hits and throwing 101 pitches (72 strikes) after surrendering six runs in four frames during last week's 9-3 loss to Detroit.

"It was huge," said Yankees manager Aaron Boone. "You know, I'm not surprised. I'm not surprised he bounced back from arguably his toughest outing of his young career so far against the Tigers, so he was great, he was dominant, he was efficient and, yeah, great way to get the road trip started."

The Yankees had lost nine of their past 10 games before they ultimately got back on track Monday with Schlittler giving a boost and returning to form.

"It's frustrating, right?" Schlittler said. "You want to stop the bleeding. I just wasn't able to do that. So, I feel like I dedicated myself this week to just kind of being more locked in and, again, trying to go out there and put the team in a position to win against the first-place team in our division is good.

"So, I think we played great ball tonight and we've got three more to go."

Box Score

The Brewers got a quality start from Shane Drohan and, paired with a four-run seventh inning, were able to sneak away with a series-opening victory in St. Louis on Monday night, moving them to a season-high 23 games over .500 at 56-33.

After Dustin May set the Brewers down in order in the first, Drohan got through his half of the inning with a two-out walk to Jordan Walker but nothing else.

Milwaukee picked up a pair of one-out singles from Jake Bauers and Garrett Mitchell, with both advancing on an error by center fielder Nathan Church to put a pair of runners in scoring position. Unfortunately, the Crew couldn’t cash in, as Sal Frelick went down looking (and lost a challenge while doing it) before Cooper Pratt hit a liner right at JJ Wetherholt at second.

Drohan worked around another baserunner in the bottom of the inning, giving up a double to José Fermín but stranding him at third with a pop out and a pair of groundouts.

After the Brewers had another 1-2-3 inning in the third, the Cardinals put together an offensive threat in the bottom half. Pedro Pagés singled and Wetherholt reached on a misplay by Brice Turang, but Drohan bounced back to induce a pop-up from Iván Herrera. He then walked Walker for the second time on the night, loading the bases with one out for Nelson Velázquez.

Velázquez hit a chopper to David Hamilton at third, and the Brewers were able to get the out at second but were unable to turn two, allowing St. Louis to take a 1-0 lead. Fermín followed with his second hit of the night, bringing another run in for a 2-0 advantage.

With runners still at the corners for Masyn Winn, Fermín got into a rundown between first and second, and Velázquez was caught off third base for the third out. After review, however, the call was overturned, and runners remained at the corners. It wouldn’t matter, though, as Winn struck out to end the rally.

May continued rolling in the fourth, setting the heart of the Brewer lineup down in order. Drohan had a nice bounce-back inning in the fourth, allowing a leadoff single before the runner was caught stealing and a pair of groundouts for a roundabout 1-2-3, 10-pitch inning.

The Brewers got a pair of two-out singles in the fifth, and that marked the end of May’s day, as Justin Bruihl entered in relief. He induced a groundout from Yelich, and the Cardinals held their 2-0 lead at the halfway point.

Drohan worked another quick inning in the fifth, getting Wetherholt, Herrera, and Walker on just six pitches. Thanks to those two quick innings, he got another frame in the sixth, though he allowed St. Louis’ third run on a Velázquez double, Fermín sac bunt, and Winn RBI single to make it 3-0.

The Brewers, in a late hole, finally broke through in the seventh.

With Bruihl still on the mound, Mitchell started things with an infield single, as Bruihl came up grimacing after the play and exited to make way for Ryan Fernandez. He did not fare well, allowing a ground-rule double to Frelick before Pratt reached on a fielding error by Fernandez, loading the bases with no outs for Hamilton.

Hamilton, who quickly fell behind 0-2, worked his way back to a full count before lining the eighth pitch of the at-bat into the right-center gap, scoring both Mitchell and Frelick while moving the tying run in Pratt to third and the winning run into scoring position. Oli Marmol replaced Fernandez with Ryne Stanek, while Joey Ortiz took Hamilton’s place at second base after the double, as Hamilton came up grimacing. It was later reported he exited with left hamstring tightness, so something to monitor in the coming days leading into the All-Star break — hopefully nothing too serious.

Yelich drew a walk against Stanek, and Chourio followed with a groundball that allowed the Cardinals to get the out at the plate, keeping the bases loaded but also giving St. Louis an out. That wouldn’t matter, though, as Turang looped the first pitch he saw into left field for a two-run single, flipping the scoreboard to 4-3 Brewers.

While the Brewers couldn’t do anything else offensively, Chad Patrick took over for Drohan in the seventh and worked a pair of perfect innings, including two strikeouts. Trevor Megill then took the ninth and shut things down, working around a leadoff single by Winn to pick up his 14th save of the year and striking out a pair in the process.

Drohan worked six innings, even if it may not have been the prettiest start. Due to Turang’s error in the third, though, just one of his three runs allowed was earned, as he allowed six hits and two walks while striking out a pair. He also lowered his ERA to 2.97 for the year.

Offensively, Hamilton and Turang led the way with two RBIs each, and Hamilton was also one of two players to pick up a pair of hits (the other being Mitchell, who had two singles and a walk). The Brewers went 2-for-8 with runners in scoring position, and they made those hits count in this one.

The Brewers are back at it tomorrow, as they’ll play two. Jacob Misiorowski is set to get the ball in the first game, with the Cardinals’ starter listed as TBD. Neither team has announced a starter for game two, though it’s expected to be Robert Gasser for the Brewers and some combo of Hunter Dobbins and Michael McGreevy for St. Louis in the doubleheader. First pitch of the first game is slated for 1:15 p.m., with the second game currently scheduled for 6:45 p.m.

Dustin May returned to form Monday night at Busch Stadium giving the St. Louis Cardinals a strong start against the team they’re chasing down in the NL Central, the Milwaukee Brewers. It would unfortunately not be enough as the Cardinals pen could not support his strong start eventually giving the game away to Milwaukee.

After both teams squandered good scoring chances in both halves of the 2nd inning, the Cardinals finally broke through in the bottom of the 3rd inning against Brewers starter Shane Drohan. Pedro Pagés led off with a single to center followed by JJ Wetherholt reaching base on a rare error by Bryce Turang who couldn’t handle JJ’s grounder. Iván Herrera fouled out to third for the first out without moving runners over, but Jordan Walker lived up to his name drawing a smart walk to load the bases. Nelson Velázquez grounded out to third, but the Brewers were unable to turn the double play allowing Pagés to score giving St. Louis a 1-0 lead. José Fermín came through with a clutch two-out single scoring Wetherholt and doubling the Cardinals lead to 2-0 after 3 innings.

All the while, Dustin May was dealing. Through the first 5 innings, May only allowed 2 Brewers hits, but he was working on a somewhat limited pitch count as the Cardinals were being cautious with him after back discomfort a couple weeks ago and the line drive off of his ankle in his last start. With 2 outs in the top of the 5th inning, Dustin looked into the Cardinals dugout and shook his head “no” in case manager Oli Marmol was thinking of removing him before the 5th was over. Classic. Unfortunately, May gave up back-to-back singles which did result in Marmol removing him from the game, but Dustin deserves a nod for giving the Cardinals the solid start they needed. 4 2/3 innings with 7 strikeouts, no walks and no runs is just what the doctor ordered although this doc would have liked to see 1 more out. Justin Bruihl was brought in to get Christian Yelich out with the two runners he inherited from Dustin May which he did with a groundout to JJ Wetherholt.

Justin Bruihl would also handle the top of the 6th inning where he pitched out of a mild case of trouble after he walked Jackson Chourio and then ran the count to 3-1 on the dangerous William Contreras. He was able to nurse a ground ball out of Contreras which forced Chourio at second, but JJ Wetherholt couldn’t complete the double play on a low throw to Blaze Jordan at first. It didn’t matter as Jake Bauers grounded out innocently to first to end the Brewers 6th.

The Cardinals offense put together a threat in the bottom of the 6th inning when Nelson Velázquez led off by ripping a double into the left field corner. José Fermín laid down a perfect sacrifice bunt to move Velázquez over to third with just one out. Masyn Winn made sure that sacrifice paid off when he rifled a 90 mph cutter into left field for a RBI single making it 3-0 Cardinals.

The Cardinals bullpen ended up in a shaky situation in the top of the 7th when Justin Bruihl seemed to tweak something on a dribbler to the third base side of the mound from Mitchell. He left the game with Oli Marmol and the trainer with a right ankle sprain which meant that Ryan Fernandez was thrust into action because of the potential injury. Sal Frelick turned on the 4th pitch he saw from Fernandez into a ground rule double bouncing into the right field stands giving the Brewers their best scoring chance of the game with runners at 2nd and 3rd with nobody out. Fernandez would make matters worse when he flubbed a ground ball back to the mound by Pratt loading the bases with still no outs. Hamilton made that error by Fernandez hurt as he drilled a double into the right-center field gap scoring 2 and reducing the Cardinals lead to 3-2 with two runners on and still no outs and the top of he Brewers lineup coming up. Oli Marmol brought in Ryne Stanek to try and put out the Brewers fire. He walked Yelich on 5 pitches to load the bases again bringing Jackson Chourio to the plate with the potential to do big bad damage. Instead, Chourio grounded out to José Fermín who got the force at home for the first out. Unfortunately, Turang would slap the first pitch he saw from Stanek into left field for a 2-run single giving the Brewers a 4-3 lead. The only consolation was Contreras grounded into an inning-ending double play to stop the bleeding.

The Cardinals still had 9 outs to turn a Brewers lead into a comeback victory. They did nothing with their 3 outs in the bottom of the 7th inning. After Gordon Graceffo shut down the Brewers in the top of the 8th, the middle of the Cardinals lineup would have their chance. Chances wasted as Jordan Walker struck out looking, Lars Nootbaar flied out to right and José Fermín popped out to end the Cardinals 8th.

Gordon Graceffo stayed on the mound for the top of the 9th with a mission to not allow any more runs. He was successful setting down Milwaukee 1-2-3. Graceffo was one of the bright spots out of the Cards pen Monday night as he kept the game from getting out of hand.

What would the Cardinals do in the bottom of the 9th? With Brewers reliever RHP Trevor Megill on the mound, Masyn Winn would lead off the bottom of the 9th by smoking a single into left field becoming the tying run on first. Nathan Church popped out, but Alec Burleson came off the bench as the potential winning run. He had a very successful record against Megill going 3-4 with 2 RBI’s against him so there was still hope. He unfortunately whiffed on a nasty 90 mph knucklecurve. Bryan Torres was the next pinch-hitter representing the Cardinals final hope. He struck out to end the game finishing a disappointing night that could have been so much more for St. Louis.

The St. Louis Cardinals will have their work cut out for them in game 1 of a day/night doubleheader against the Milwaukee Brewers on Tuesday. The St. Louis Cardinals have yet to officially name their starter, but the Milwaukee Brewers are definitely sending likely All-Star game starter Jacob Misiorowski to the mound. First pitch is scheduled for 1:15pm central time at Busch Stadium.

Dodgers and Rockies meet in a battle of southpaws.

Monday’s game info

• Teams: Dodgers vs. Rockies
• Ballpark: Dodger Stadium, Los Angeles
• Start time: 7:10 p.m. PT
• TV: SportsNet LA
• Radio: AM 570 (English), KTNQ 1020 AM (Spanish)

ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. — As has been the case too often during their recent stretch of offensive futility, the Yankees were three-hit Monday night.

But José Caballero and Ben Rice got their money’s worth, and Cam Schlittler made sure they were enough.

Caballero clobbered a pair of home runs, Rice added another and Schlittler delivered a masterful bounce-back pitching performance, the combination lifting the Yankees to a much-needed and clean 5-1 win over the Rays to open a critical four-game showdown at Tropicana Field.

On a night when he dazzled across eight dominant innings, Schlittler made the three home runs stand up to lift the Yankees (50-40) to just their second win in the last 11 games, this one pulling them within three games of the Rays (52-36) for the AL East lead.

Schlitter was nearly untouchable, scattering just four soft-hit singles — all off the bat at 73.6 mph or softer — and no walks while striking out eight.

The right-hander was coming off the worst start of his young career, when he gave up a career-high six runs and four home runs in four innings last week against the Tigers.

“They want to say that there’s f–king regression because I had one bad outing, so again, it was personal to go out there and have a dominant start and put this team in the right position,” said Schlittler, who has become known for using any kind of perceived slight to his advantage.

That is not dissimilar to Caballero, who acknowledged having an extra chip on his shoulder while facing the team that traded him to the Yankees last summer.

“The environment, the people here, facing my old teammates, it’s just the little things that get me going,” said Caballero, who now has two multi-homer games in his career, both against the Rays.

The Yankees needed every bit of juice from Schlittler and Caballero to squeeze out the win and kick off in style about as big a series as July can offer.

They had led the Rays by as many as 3 ¹/₂ games on June 17. It was a three-game lead on June 24, after which the Yankees dropped nine of 10 — including four straight games in which they were three-hit — and the Rays won nine of 11, putting Tampa Bay four games up entering Monday’s series.

“I feel like we dug ourselves a hole a little bit, so it was good to go out there and get the first one,” Schlittler said. “We got a chance to shake things up.”

The night started like so many others have lately for the Yankees, as their first 13 hitters were retired in order against Rays righty Griffin Jax.

But then Jasson Domínguez and Jazz Chisholm Jr. drew back-to-back walks with one out in the fifth inning to bring up Caballero, who drilled a three-run shot to left field — flush with an emphatic bat flip — for the 3-0 lead.

Caballero, starting at shortstop over Anthony Volpe in what Aaron Boone described as a “day-by-day” situation, then took Chris Roycroft deep in the eighth inning — again chucking his bat toward the Yankees dugout — to make it 4-1 on his career-high 10th home run of the season.

“I’m trying to spark the team somehow, some way,” Caballero said. “We’re struggling right now, going through a bad stretch. Something that can get the team going a little bit and get them excited is always good. That’s the reason why [for the bat flips].”

Rice later added his 25th homer of the year in the ninth inning for an insurance run, marking the first time in the modern era in which the Yankees won a game with all three of their hits being home runs. They also became the first team in the modern era to do it while striking out 17 times.

“Obviously a win we needed and felt good to play well,” Boone said. “It’s still a grind for us offensively, but obviously some long balls were huge.”

Caballero translates into “gentleman” in Spanish, but former Rays utility player Jose Caballero was anything but gentlemanly in his return to his former home park this evening with two no-doubt and well-celebrated trips around the bases supplying two of the three hits on the evening for the Yankees in their 5-1 victory.

Through the first four innings of this contest, this appeared to be the pitching duel we had thought we would see between Hunter Brown and Drew Rasmussen in that dreadful Saturday evening loss. Both pitchers had 9 swings and missed through the first four innings with the Rays possessing the only hit coming off a Jonny DeLuca flyball into no-man’s land down the right field line. Then , the fifth inning happened.

The frame began innocently enough with Griffin Jax striking out Cody Bellinger on four pitches, culminated by a swinging strike on a sweeper. That was followed up by a six-pitch walk to Jasson Dominquez with four pitches nowhere near the strike zone and a five-pitch walk to Jazz Chisholm Jr with another four pitches well out of the zone. The Yankees lead the American League in walks for a reason, and the back to back walks set things up for Caballero.

Jax got ahead with an ABS-assisted strike before Caballero spit on two sweepers away. A foul ball off a sinker down and in evened up the count and Caballero followed that up by spoiing a fastball on the edge of the zone. Then, Jax and Nick Fortes decided it was the opportune time for the first changeup of the sequence, and this happened:

It would be the only pitch of the 31 pitches Jax threw that inning to be put in play. leaving Jax to return to the dugout and get into a thousand-yard stare trance wondering how did the game get away so quickly:

Jax finished the evening with 10 strikeouts and 16 swings and missed on 81 pitches, but those three consecutive plate appearances evaporated the thin margin for error the Rays had tonight as Cam Schlittler simply overpowered the Rays lineup tonight. Schlitter struck out 8 batters, walked none, while scattering four singles on the evening. His night could be best summed up by how he deposed of Jonathan Aranda the three times he faced him in this contest:

Rays pitchers struck out 17 Yankees while walking two and not allowing any singles, doubles, or triples. The Yankees had three hits on the evening – the two homers by Caballero and a 9th inning solo shot by Ben Rice. The Rays, according to StatHead, are the first team to ever lose such a game as a search for a similar game yielded no results. They are the third team this season to lose a game while striking out 17 or more opposing batters joining the Mariners (5/2/26) and the Red Sox (4/23/26). The last time a team won a game without a single, double, or a triple came back on July 29th, 2023 when the Dodgers defeated the Reds 3-2 on the strength of two homers and three walks.

This was simply an annoying loss because the Rays pitching was great over 27 plate appearances, yet five moments defined this game offensively and the Rays offense could do absolutely nothing to counterpunch set aside a jab run in the 5th. The Rays are not going to win many games when the top four hitters go 0 for 16 with 7 strikeouts as the quartet did tonight. They’ll try again tomorrow against Will Warren and a well-rested bullpen.

The San Francisco Giants welcome the Toronto Blue Jays to Oracle Park tonight to begin a three-game series.

Taking the mound for the Blue Jays will be right-handed former-and-Forever-Giant Kevin Gausman, who enters tonight’s game with a 4.19 ERA, 3.80 FIP, with 100 strikeouts to 24 walks in 101 innings pitched. His last start was in the Blue Jays’ 3-0 loss to the New York Mets on Tuesday, in which he allowed one run on five hits with seven strikeouts and two walks in six innings.

Taking the mound for the Giants will be right-hander Landen Roupp (who I wish was already a former-Giant). He’s rocking a 4.55 ERA and 3.21 FIP, with 99 strikeouts to 40 walks in 89 innings pitched. His last start was in the Giants’ 8-2 loss to the Arizona Diamondbacks last Tuesday, in which he allowed six runs on five hits with four strikeouts and six walks in two and two thirds innings.

Game #90

Who: San Francisco Giants (37-52) vs. Toronto Blue Jays (42-48)

Where: Oracle Park, San Francisco, California

When: 6:45 p.m. PT

Regional broadcast: NBC Sports Bay Area

National broadcast: n/a

Radio: KNBR 680 AM/104.5 FM, KSFN 1510 AM

The Yankees avoided a three-game skid Monday when they started their four-game series at the Tampa Bay Rays with a 5-1 win.

Takeaways

1. Cam Schlittler sure did rebound from last Tuesday's 9-3 loss to the Detroit Tigers. The Yankees' right-handed starting pitcher allowed one run on four hits in a season-high-tying eight innings, striking out eight and throwing 101 pitches with 72 strikes. Not only did Schlittler (9-5, 2.01 ERA) bounce back from surrendering a career-high six runs in his season-low four innings against the sub-.500 Tigers, but he delivered one of his best outings as a Yankee. Entering next Saturday's penultimate start of the first half as the projected starter for the 4:05 p.m. game at the Washington Nationals, Schlittler has returned to form.

2. What would the Yankees do without José Caballero? New York's seventh-batting shortstop homered twice to almost singlehandedly support Schlitter's gem, a 2-for-3 effort that drove home four runs with the fifth inning's three-run shot to end Griffin Jax's no-hit bid and give the Yankees a 3-1 lead. Caballero's eighth-inning-starting solo shot, his 10th homer of the season, gave New York a bit more cushion before Schlittler's scoreless bottom half. Caballero was the hero as he improved to slashing .249/.304/.407 with 16 RBI through 77 games this year.

3. For good measure, Ben Rice's ninth-inning-starting solo shot was the Yankees' third hit and added breathing room. While New York's only hits were home runs, will Rice following Caballero wake the bats up? New York struck out 17 times. Rice, who batted second and was the Yankees' designated hitter, is slashing .267/.360/.565 with 25 homers and 57 RBI through 85 games.

4. After losing nine of their past 10 games, the Yankees got a much-needed win that directly helps them in the American League East. They improve to 50-40 and three games behind the AL East-leading Rays (52-36) with three more chances. For New York to gain further ground, though, it will need better performances beyond its starting pitcher and one batter.

Who's the MVP?

Caballero. If it were not for him, the Yankees likely would have suffered a painful loss and completely changed the narrative of this one.

Highlights

A three-run blast for Jose Caballero! 💪 pic.twitter.com/rZg5vra9n4

— SNY Yankees (@snyyankees) July 6, 2026

José Caballero with an EPIC bat flip 🔥 pic.twitter.com/fZSyvrbnnz

— SNY Yankees (@snyyankees) July 6, 2026

JOSÉ CABALLERO AGAIN! pic.twitter.com/cYpCZb2AXC

— SNY Yankees (@snyyankees) July 7, 2026

Ben Rice's 25th home run of the year! 🔥 pic.twitter.com/DO00MIxzWQ

— SNY Yankees (@snyyankees) July 7, 2026

What's next

New York and Tampa Bay continue their series with Tuesday's 6:40 p.m. game.

Yankees right-handed pitcher Will Warren (7-3, 3.73 ERA) is set to start.

Baseball is beautiful, but more importantly it is extremely weird. With how poorly the Yankees have played over the last fortnight, if I had told you they would only manage three hits in Monday’s series opener with the Rays, many of you would have skipped tomorrow’s game out of disgust. They did only get three hits, but that’s the thing about home runs. Four men crossed the plate on two José Caballero swings, and Cam Schlittler did the rest. Ben Rice added a final insurance run and New York takes the first round of this big series, 5-1 your final.

I was starting to get just a little worried the Yankees were going to be on the downside of a perfect game. Griffin Jax looked great and the Yankees looked terrible in their first 13 at-bats — I could be wrong but I believe Austin Wells was the only player to get the ball out of the infield. And then came the fifth inning, and a repudiation of Michael Zeno’s earlier proclamation: The Yankees have stopped walking.

Tell that to Jasson Domínguez and Jazz Chisholm Jr., who both worked their way aboard to ensure we wouldn’t see perfection tonight. Then, former Ray José Caballero stepped in to deliver what felt like the biggest hit the club’s had in a month:

I’ve never consciously felt a fever actually break — generally I fall asleep sick and wake up feeling a little better. This is what I imagine it must feel like though, the venting of an incredible amount of pressure, the knowledge that yes, actually, we can turn things around. This was the first time the Yankees had a three-run lead since June 19. It would remain the only hit Jax gave up, while striking out 10 in five innings, but boy was it a needed one.

Cam Schlittler nearly matched Jax, with his trio of fastballs able to get through four innings without the Rays posing much of a threat. He did surprisingly not manage a shutdown inning in the fifth after getting those three runs of support, where Chandler Simpson hit a worm killer that Ryan McMahon couldn’t barehand. Two batters later baseball’s fastest man came home to score on a single, but that would be the extent of the damage done against Cam.

It took the Yankee ace 76 pitches to get through 6.0 innings, setting him up for a seventh inning that felt significant given how little faith we all have in the bullpen these days. It took him 11 chucks to get through the seventh, and while the leadoff man did reach in the eighth, Taylor Walls’ inexplicable decision to bunt with two strikes led to a foul ball and a key out before the lineup turned over. Cam’s eight inning, one run, 8:0 K:BB performance wasn’t a perfect game but it was pretty perfectly what the club needed.

It felt like this one was personal for the young ace too, after getting his teeth kicked in against Detroit last week. Cam’s been in the majors one year less three days, what an anniversary present to himself.

We gotta show that second Cabby swing:

And Ben Rice notched the third hit, and third homer of the game in the ninth:

Rice gets into slumps when he doesn’t elevate the ball. Getting it in the air is the key to getting him back into form. Let’s hope that swing brings something back, indeed, let’s hope this entire game brings something back to the whole team. We saw this on Friday, the Yankees won against the Twins, everyone felt ok, and then the rest of the series happened. There’s positive mojo around this team for the first time in a while after tonight, they can’t afford to waste it.

Will Warren is the man tapped to follow Schlittler’s performance with one of his own tomorrow, against an as-of-yet-unknown Rays starter (update: it’ll be lefty Ian Seymour). The next Biggest Game of the Year kicks off at 6:40 Tampa time on Tuesday.

Box Score

The last time the Rockies were in Los Angeles to face the Dodgers, it didn’t go so well.

The Dodgers swept Colorado 3-0 and outscored the Rockies 24-10. It also capped off a 2-8 stretch during a challenging stretch in May.

Even though Monday night marks a matchup between the National League-leading Dodgers (59-32) and the last-place Rockies (37-54), Colorado enters the series having won four of its last five and is no longer the worst team in MLB.

They are still the Dodgers, though, and Monday’s matchup is a repeat of the May 26 showdown when Kyle Freeland and Eric Lauer when L.A. came out on top 15-6. Freeland (2-7, 7.25 ERA) has been performing better on the mound, helping the Rockies win his last three starts. In his last start, he held Miami to two runs on six hits with seven strikeouts in five innings in a 6-3 win on July 1.

Lauer (4-5, 4.84 ERA) has bounced back and forth between relief and starting roles for L.A. this year, but this will be his 11th start in 14 appearances this season. The 31-year-old lefty is 3-3 with a 4.77 ERA as a starter.

The Dodgers lead the 2026 season series with the Rockies 5-2.

First Pitch: 8:10 p.m. MDT

TV: Rockies.TV

Radio: 850 AM/94.1 FM KOA Rockies Radio Network; KNRV 1150 AM (Spanish)

Dodgers SB Nation Site:True Blue LA

Lineups:

For the Rockies:

For the Dodgers:

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Roster moves

The Arizona Diamondbacks made the following roster moves. The D-backs’ 40-man roster is at 40.

• Reinstated from the 10-day injured list: C James McCann (strained right quad)
• Optioned to Triple-A Reno following yesterday’s game: C Adrian Del Castillo

This is a bit of a surprise, if only because I’d kinda forgotten about McCann. His last appearance was back on May 18, and when he went on the IL the following day, the estimated timeline was 4-6 weeks. It’s been a little longer than the upper end of that – about seven weeks or so. But when you are dealing with a) a catcher, and b) a player who turned 36 while on the injured list, caution is probably no bad thing. Just hope nobody is exactly expecting much offensively. Over 22 games and 62 PA before the injury, McCann hit a paltry .203/.217/.254, with a K:BB of 17:1 and an OPS of .471. That’s somehow below the .555 OPS Del Castillo has posted for the Diamondbacks this season.

The end of the homestand yesterday would make it a good time to check in on the D-backs attendance. In late May, Jack looked at the numbers and found the team’s drop, year-to-year to that point was a massive 5,413 per game – worst in MLB and more than twice the next biggest decline. There were some schedule-related reasons, such as two “home” games in a small stadium in Mexico City, and a preponderance of weekday contests, which will typically draw lower. President Derrick Hall said, “We are right on pace with our projections,” expecting an overall tally around the same as they had in 2025.

The numbers since then do seem to bear that optimism out. With 46 home games now in the book, the D-backs are still behind the numbers from last season. But the previous deficit has been slashed by fifty-nine percent in about six weeks. It’s now 2,194 per game, ahead of three teams. So there has been some progress, although there is still work to be done. The numbers were helped by a weekday four-pack against the Dodgers, which averaged over 35,000 per game, including 42,000 for the finale. Discounting Opening Days, that’s the highest figure for any Thursday contest at Chase since April 2023. Something to keep an eye on, as we progress through the season.

Arizona Diamondbacks (44-45) at San Diego Padres (44-45), July 6, 2026, 6:40 p.m. PST

Watch: Padres.TV

Location: Petco Park – San Diego, Calif.

Listen: 97.3 The Fan

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Evan Phillips was activated from the 60-day injured list on Monday, and if he can pitch the way he did before he underwent reconstructive elbow surgery last year, the Dodgers really might not have to do anything in the month leading up to the Aug. 3 trade deadline.

“More nervous than I expected,” Phillips said.

Phillips, 31, was the Dodgers’ saves leader in both 2023 and 2024. Claimed off waivers in the middle of the 2021 season, Phillips has posted a 2.22 earned-run average in 201 games for the Dodgers.

His return for the start of a three-game series against the Colorado Rockies marked the end of a 13-month journey that started when Dr. Neal ElAttrache repaired his ulnar collateral ligament.

“I’m excited to get back out there. I was here for a live BP a month and a half ago and took a moment then to appreciate being back at Dodger Stadium, but it’s gonna be different tonight, getting back out there in a competitive atmosphere,” Phillips said. “So really exited about that. 

The final stage of Phillips’ recovery included a month-long rehabilitation in triple A. Phillips pitched 12 games for the Dodgers’ Oklahoma City-based affiliate, posting a 1.80 ERA in 10 innings.

Phillips pitched on consecutive days for Oklahoma City on June 24 and 25, the latter appearance marking the start of a four-game stretch in which he didn’t give up any runs or walks.

“Feel like probably the last past two weeks or so really took a good turn on my rehab,” he said. “Started bouncing back even better, pitching more like myself, feeling more like myself.”

Paul Gervase was optioned to clear a spot for Phillips on the active roster. Phillips’ place on the 40-man roster came at the expense of left-hander Jake Eder.

In a separate roster move, the Dodgers added right-hander Carlos Duran to the 40-man roster and designated catcher Chuckie Johnson for assignment. Johnson was optioned to triple A after he was 2 for 23 in eight major-league games with the Dodgers.