Category: Baseball

How Joe Torre's lineage and decades of “what ifs” led Phillies to Don Mattingly originally appeared on NBC Sports Philadelphia

Edgar Martinez’s double has lived for more than three decades as one of baseball’s defining postseason moments.

The image remains unmistakable. Joey Cora reached on a bunt single. Ken Griffey Jr. followed with a base hit. Jack McDowell, who’d entered the game for rookie Mariano Rivera, had already struck out Martinez two innings earlier, then got another chance against Seattle’s designated hitter in the 11th inning of a deciding Game 5.

This time, Martinez lined a fastball down the left-field line for a walk-off double. Griffey scored from first. The Mariners won the American League Division Series. The Yankees’ season — and Don Mattingly’s only career playoff appearance as a player — was over. He’d retire that winter.

The play became known simply as “The Double.”

It also may have quietly become the first domino in a story that, 31 years later, reaches the Phillies’ dugout.

That isn’t to suggest Martinez’s swing somehow caused Mattingly to manage the Phillies. Baseball history is never that simple. Careers are shaped by hundreds of decisions, countless conversations and no shortage of luck.

But trace enough of those decisions backward and they repeatedly arrive at the same crossroads.

What if the Yankees had finished off Seattle?

Would Buck Showalter have kept his job?

Would Joe Torre have ever managed in New York?

Nobody knows.

What we do know is what happened next.

The Yankees dismissed Showalter and hired Torre, beginning one of the greatest managerial runs in franchise history. Torre won four World Series, six American League pennants and, without intending to, developed one of baseball’s most influential coaching lineages — Don Baylor, Willie Randolph, Lee Mazzilli, Rob Thomson, Joe Girardi and Don Mattingly all passed through it in one order or another.

Football fans celebrate coaching trees. Bill Parcells’ assistants became head coaches. Mike Shanahan’s staff eventually spread throughout the NFL. Baseball doesn’t get talked about that way nearly as often. But two of Torre’s branches — Girardi and Mattingly — have followed one another through the sport in ways neither could have imagined.

Girardi arrived in New York as Torre’s catcher, already a seven-year big leaguer, and would play for him from 1996 through 1999. Mattingly, meanwhile, had just retired after finally reaching the postseason only to watch his Yankees lose that unforgettable series in Seattle — a manager he never played for at all.

Nearly a decade later, they met again — though it very nearly didn’t happen.

Girardi finished his playing career with the Cardinals in 2003, even attempting a brief spring-training comeback with the Yankees in 2004 before retiring for good and taking a commentator’s job with the YES Network. When 2005 arrived, he was asked to come back to YES and declined. He also turned down the Marlins’ bench coach job that year, a position that would have put him in line to replace Florida manager Jack McKeon almost immediately. Instead, the Yankees hired Girardi as their bench coach under Torre. Mattingly was already in his second season as the club’s hitting coach.

Did Torre realize he had two future major league managers sitting beside him?

Or was he simply building the strongest staff he could?

Years later, Mattingly pointed less to strategy than temperament when describing what he took from Torre.

“Even keel, trust your players,” Mattingly said. “Getting careful with your reactions is huge in a place like this. If a ball gets booted and I’m reacting to it, it’s on TV, they talk about it, it becomes a bigger deal. That’s where you’ve got to keep a good face — any market, really, everything’s on TV.”

The other lesson was about pacing.

“The length of the season, understanding how this thing flows,” he said. “You’re going to go through stretches where it looks terrible, the sky’s falling. Then all of a sudden you go on a run and it looks great. You’ve got to understand the length of the season and not get caught in those waves — and not let your guys get caught in them either.”

Those lessons would eventually follow him to Philadelphia. Before they did, everything changed again.

After that single season together, Girardi left New York anyway, taking the Marlins job in 2006. His Florida club featured a 23-year-old Miguel Cabrera, a 22-year-old Hanley Ramirez and a 26-year-old Dan Uggla, plus 22 rookies on the sport’s lowest payroll — roughly $15 million. The Marlins hung around the Wild Card race deep into the year before finishing 78-84.

Girardi won National League Manager of the Year.

Ordinarily, that would have guaranteed another season.

Instead, a public clash with owner Jeffrey Loria ended his tenure after just one. According to reports at the time, Loria berated an umpire from his seat behind home plate during an August 6 game. From the dugout, Girardi asked the owner to stop. Loria left his seat and confronted his manager after the game in a 90-minute clubhouse meeting. Girardi was fired soon after, becoming only the second manager in history — after Davey Johnson in Baltimore — to win Manager of the Year and be dismissed the very next season.

If Girardi and Loria never clash, is Girardi still managing Florida when the Yankees need a successor to Torre after 2007?

History never offers those answers. It simply presents the next fork.

Girardi spent 2007 back at YES. That June, after the Orioles fired manager Sam Perlozzo, Baltimore offered Girardi the job. He turned it down. Meanwhile, in the Bronx, Mattingly was serving as Torre’s bench coach.

When the Yankees lost to Cleveland in the 2007 American League Division Series — a series that swung in Game 2 when a swarm of midges at Jacobs Field rattled Joba Chamberlain late, Torre elected to leave his team on the field through it, and Chamberlain uncorked two wild pitches that let the tying run score — New York fell in four games. Torre was then offered a one-year, $5 million deal, a pay cut from his previous contract. He declined it.

The most coveted managerial opening in baseball was now available.

The finalists were Girardi and Mattingly.

One had already managed and just won a Manager of the Year award.

One had spent years learning under Torre inside the Yankees’ clubhouse and was the fan favorite, seemingly the favorite from within as well.

The Yankees chose Girardi, citing his experience. That decision sent two careers in opposite directions.

Girardi inherited baseball’s most demanding job.

Mattingly followed Torre west to Los Angeles, as the club’s hitting coach.

Looking back now, Mattingly believes it happened at the right time — and says he wasn’t bitter about it even then.

“I wasn’t even mad about it, looking back,” Mattingly said, reflecting on that interview process. “I wasn’t ready to manage in New York. Not that LA was easier — it was a different environment. I had a few more years, went through the process, Joe helped me. But I probably needed more time. I’m pretty confident I would’ve picked it up, but there would’ve been a learning curve for sure.”

The Yankees missed the postseason in 2008 for the first time since 1993, closing out the original Yankee Stadium before the move next door. That winter, they committed more than $400 million to CC Sabathia, Mark Teixeira and A.J. Burnett. In Girardi’s second season, the Yankees won the World Series.

Ironically, they’d beaten Philadelphia in the Fall Classic.

Girardi owned four World Series rings as a Yankee — three as a player across four seasons, one as a manager, having edged out Mattingly for the position in the first place. Mattingly, despite 14 seasons as a player in pinstripes, reached the postseason only once and never appeared in a World Series.

Yet the rejection in New York ultimately worked in Mattingly’s favor. When Torre retired after the 2010 season, Mattingly took over as Dodgers manager. He spent five seasons in Los Angeles, winning the NL West in each of the final three — though 2014 and 2015 both ended in Division Series losses — before he was fired.

It wasn’t a straight handoff, either.

“I interviewed — it came while I was working under him, a couple teams were calling,” Mattingly said. “The Dodgers said ‘we really want you here.’ But there’s still a process, no guarantees. At that point I was just one of those names — someone people thought was going to be a good manager.”

Had the Yankees chosen Mattingly instead of Girardi in 2007, though, would any of this happen?

Does Mattingly ever spend those years beside Torre in Los Angeles?

Does he eventually become the manager the Phillies hired nearly two decades later?

History, once again, offered no clean answer — just the next fork in the road.

Girardi’s road eventually curved, too. After 2009, the Yankees reached the playoffs in three straight years but came up short of the pennant each time, then missed the postseason in both 2013 and 2014, lost the 2015 Wild Card Game to Houston, and missed again in 2016 — the same year Mattingly resurfaced as manager of the Marlins, the very franchise Girardi had led a decade earlier.

In 2017, with Aroldis Chapman re-signed after being traded away the year before, and a roster that no longer featured Carlos Beltran and Brian McCann — both dealt the previous season — it looked like a rebuild. Instead, the Yankees got a 52-homer rookie season from Aaron Judge and the emergence of Luis Severino as their ace. New York pushed all the way to Game 7 of the American League Championship Series as a Wild Card team — and lost to the Astros.

What if the Astros never stole signs?

Years later, Major League Baseball concluded Houston had operated an illegal electronic sign-stealing scheme throughout that championship season.

Had New York advanced to the World Series — or won it — does Girardi return in 2018?

Girardi’s contract expired after 2017 anyway, and the Yankees moved on to Aaron Boone, a postseason legend and the son of longtime Phillie and All-Star Bob Boone.

Mattingly, meanwhile, spent seven seasons in Miami. He crossed paths there with Derek Jeter, who was named the franchise’s CEO in September 2017, but the club traded away Christian Yelich, Giancarlo Stanton and Marcell Ozuna all in the same offseason, and the Marlins made the postseason just once during his tenure. Jeter stepped down in February 2022, ahead of what turned out to be Mattingly’s final season with the club.

Back in Philadelphia, Gabe Kapler had been hired to replace Pete Mackanin and managed the Phillies in 2018 and 2019. Then, ahead of 2020, the Phillies hired Girardi — who brought Rob Thomson with him, a Yankees organizational man since 1990 who’d climbed from coach to bench coach and had also come up on Torre’s staff. Kevin Long, Girardi’s longtime hitting coach in New York, left Washington after the 2021 season and joined the Phillies’ staff for 2022.

Without ever intending to, the Phillies had imported another branch of Torre’s baseball family.

With Bryce Harper, who’d signed before the 2019 season, leading the way, the Phillies went 132-141 under Girardi from 2020 through early June 2022. After a 22-29 start, Dave Dombrowski fired Girardi and turned the club over to Thomson.

Philadelphia immediately caught fire, going 65-46 the rest of the way, reaching the postseason for the first time in 11 years and advancing all the way to the World Series.

Thomson shed the interim tag and remained the Phillies’ manager for the next four seasons. His first three clubs reached October, but each postseason ended earlier than the last. The 2025 campaign proved especially frustrating, as the Phillies fell to the Dodgers in the Division Series after a series of bullpen decisions came under heavy scrutiny.

The front office wanted a more experienced voice beside him.

Mattingly became that voice.

After seven seasons managing the Marlins, he joined Toronto’s staff as bench coach in 2023 and helped the Blue Jays reach the 2025 World Series — the first Fall Classic Mattingly had ever experienced in any capacity. Toronto lost in seven games to the Dodgers, but Mattingly once again found himself viewed as one of baseball’s most respected veteran baseball minds.

That winter, the Phillies hired him as Thomson’s bench coach.

The move wasn’t made with another managerial change in mind. Philadelphia wanted experience in the dugout. It also didn’t hurt that Mattingly’s arrival could strengthen the club’s pursuit of free-agent shortstop Bo Bichette, who ultimately signed with the Mets instead.

Then history repeated itself.

The Phillies stumbled to a 9-19 start.

Dombrowski initially pursued Alex Cora, fresh off his departure from Boston and a manager whose own career intersected with the 2017 Astros. Cora declined.

Instead, Dombrowski turned to the experienced hand already sitting beside Thomson.

Mattingly.

The parallel to 2022 was impossible to ignore.

Four years earlier, Dombrowski had fired a former Yankee manager for a different longtime Yankees baseball man shaped by Torre’s organization. Now he’d fired Thomson and promoted Mattingly, yet another Torre protégé whose managerial path had crossed Girardi’s for more than two decades.

Different circumstances.

Different managers.

The same baseball lineage.

Third baseman Alec Bohm has lived through all three managers in that chain. He came up with the organization in 2020, meaning he’s played for Girardi, then Thomson, and now Mattingly.

Asked what stands out to him about Girardi and Mattingly specifically, Bohm’s answer had less to do with strategy than with how each carries himself with players who’ve lived the job he once lived himself.

“They’ve been in a player’s shoes, and they know how difficult the game can be,” Bohm said. “They have that radar — like, ‘I can see this guy’s going through it right now, I’m gonna give him a day.’ They see more of the human element of playing it, instead of just, ‘here’s your numbers, this is what’s expected of you every day.'”

The personalities, he’s quick to note, aren’t identical.

“Different people, different personalities. But every manager I’ve played for has kind of come from a similar coaching lineage. The manner of the clubhouse has stayed pretty much the same since I’ve been here, no matter who’s managing.”

Even as the sport leans further into analytics, Bohm says that hasn’t been the emphasis in Philadelphia’s clubhouse.

“In an era where baseball’s getting super analytical, I think here it’s stayed focused on the field — with the staff, the clubhouse. Less about trying to beat the game with a formula, more about playing the game the right way, the little things. Showing up to work, doing the baseball stuff.”

Few expected Mattingly to manage again.

Instead, the Phillies have gone 47-30 under him, climbing from 10 games out in the National League East to firmly back in the postseason race.

And with the Yankees facing off against the Phillies, just think about that 11th inning in the Kingdome and the overall impact it has had on the game’s history.

A butterfly effect, per se.

The Red Sox, who surged up the standings and are back in playoff contention three months after firing Alex Cora, added to their infield ahead of the trade deadline.

Boston acquired third baseman Curtis Mead from the Nationals in exchange for Connelly Early, a 24-year-old with just 21 MLB starts on his ledger, on Saturday night, The Post’s Jon Heyman confirmed — parting with a talented young arm to stock up for an American League East race that also includes the Yankees and the Rays.

The Nationals ended Saturday night one game over .500 (53-52) and just two games back of the Diamondbacks for the final wild-card spot in the National League, and the addition of Early — who’s currently injured and recovering from left elbow inflammation — gives them a young arm in their rotation, too.

Mead, 25, started his career with the Rays before spending the end of the 2025 campaign with the White Sox, and this season, he has collected an .856 OPS — on track to serve as the best of his career — and 17 home runs, along with 48 RBIs.

His addition and ability to play third base could force Caleb Durbin to shift to second base, something he acknowledged that he’s willing to do, according to the Boston Globe.

Early collected a 3.44 ERA across his first 17 starts this season, though he hasn’t pitched since June 30 while dealing with elbow inflammation.

The Nationals planned to recall Brady House from Triple-A Rochester to take Mead’s spot, according to The Athletic.

Boston, which fired Cora one month into the season, revived its trajectory for the 2026 campaign with a 15-game winning streak, and the Red Sox — after a 6-0 loss to the Blue Jays on Saturday — possessed the second wild-card spot in the AL and sat six games behind the Yankees.

And in the race for the American League crown, it’ll be on the Yankees and general manager Brian Cashman to respond.

They have needs to address — from catcher to perhaps another bullpen arm — and are in search of a jolt to an offense that has struggled without Aaron Judge and just lost outfielder Cody Bellinger to a hamstring injury Saturday, too.

The Mets are planning to get Jorge Polanco plenty of at-bats over the next month in the wake of Juan Soto’s left calf strain.

Interim manager Andy Green said Polanco will get the bulk of the designated hitter reps moving forward and even suggested he may play some first base at some point.

“We’re still trying to get him back on the field and into rhythm,” Green said before the Mets fell to the Dodgers 4-3 in Queens. “In the last week, Juan’s obviously taken quite a few of the DH at-bats, and I think that’s kind of stunted [Polanco’s] ability to find some rhythm. He’s a guy we believe a lot in. And then hopefully as time goes on, we’ll get him to first base and we’ll see how the DH at-bats get divided up at that point.”

Brought in during the offseason to help replace Pete Alonso, Polanco has been a major disappointment.

He missed a ton of time with left Achilles bursitis and a right wrist contusion and hasn’t produced at all offensively.

Since coming off the IL in early July, Polanco is 4-for-35 (.114).

On the season, he is slashing a dreadful .156/.208/.233 with a .441 OPS in 24 games.

The strikeouts are piling up for A.J. Ewing.

He fanned twice Saturday night and has now whiffed 16 times in the past nine games.

The rookie outfielder is also in a 3-for-22 (.136) skid.

“Him getting back to what his strength is, which is dominating the strike zone, [is important]. When he first showed up, it was laying off pitches outside the zone,” Green said. “It’s really easy when you get into a situation where you’re striking out more than you’re comfortable doing, to just feel like you have to swing, which typically makes it worse. He’s going to punch back, and he is going to be fine.”

Clay Holmes will throw a bullpen session Sunday.

The Mets will determine his next step after that. Holmes threw 51 pitches in a rehab assignment with Triple-A Syracuse on Thursday.

Mets great David Wright was in attendance for the game. … Eric Wagaman was called up from Syracuse to replace Soto on the active roster.

San Diego Padres (52-53) at Miami Marlins (52-53), July 25, 2026, 10:40 a.m. PST

Watch: Padres.TV

Location: loanDepot Park – Miami, Fla.

Listen: 97.3 The Fan

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The Red Sox traded Connelly Early to the Nationals today in a trade that may or may not prove to to be a good move. That’s right: I’m not afraid of the hot takez!

It’s hard to say farewell to Early. A homegrown left-handed starter is the single most valuable commodity in baseball. But, moreover, he seemed like a genuinely great dude, one who burst onto the scene in memorable fashion last year, and, judging by the picture below, had already started production on a 1997 TBS sitcom called South Pause about two rookie pitchers who quit baseball to become small town detectives.

But for as much as the fans loved him, he had plenty of question marks in his game. Never a highly pedigreed prospect, Early’s home run rate started to tick up at an alarming rate this year and his FIP is a full run higher than his ERA right now. And, oh yeah, he’s injured, but that goes without saying in light of the fact that he’s a Major League pitcher.

Still, whenever you give up a young lefty who has already had big league success, you better get a good return.

So… is Curtis Mead good?

He has been this year. He’s shown real pop in his bat, and it’s of the right-handed “this guy would crush at Fenway” variety. He’s been getting on base, with a .351 OBP that will trail only Willson Contreras and Connor Wong when he joins the Red Sox lineup. And he’s hit righties nearly as well as he hits lefties.

The problem is that he’s shown these abilities for only the last three months. In the parts of three seasons Mead had played coming into 2026, he put up a total of -0.2 bWAR, with just 5 home runs and an OBP that sat right at .300. And if you’re wondering whether he made up for that black hole of a bat with production on other areas of the diamond, he didn’t; Mead has below average speed and is a butcher of an infielder whose natural position is DH. If Mead is coming over here to play in the infield, he’s mostly likely going to slot in at third, pushing Gold Glove-caliber fielder Caleb Durbin to second and, thus, downgrading two positions at once. Not great.

Of course, Mead could just be a bit of a late bloomer. He did come out of Australia, after all, where he didn’t even focus on baseball until giving up Aussie Rules Football as a teenager. And he showed enough talent stateside to crack the rankings of every major prospect list at one point or another, topping at #36 for Baseball America, #33 for MLB Pipeline, and #16 for Baseball Prospectus. Moreover, the numbers under the hood this year don’t point to luck, as he has an expected wOBA of .350 compared to his actual wOBA of .371. The Red Sox have pitching depth, even if it’s being majorly tested right now. They don’t have enough pop in the lineup. Dealing from strength to address weakness is what you’re supposed to do… as long as the deal isn’t too lopsided.

Sometimes players take some time to adjust to big league baseball. Sometimes players have flukey runs of good production and then turn back into whatever the Australian version of a pumpkin is. Craig Breslow is making a major bet that Curtis Mead fits into the former category.

Braves News

Curt took a look at Grant Holmes’ performance as a starter and what it says about Atlanta’s rotation as a whole.

Eli White left Saturday’s game early after a very strange injury. It’s unclear what he actually injured or what the likely return timetable will be.

The Braves lost a tight game due to lackluster offense and some poor defensive play (mostly coming from Jim Jarvis).

MLB News

Shohei Ohtani’s return to pitching was delayed again, as his knee seemed to flair up a bit during his last bullpen.

The Rangers placed third baseman Josh Jung on the IL with a calf strain.

Twins’ starter and potential trade target Joe Ryan will skip a start, as he is dealing with arm fatigue (at a really bad time for the Twins, this close to the trade deadline.

The Mets placed Juan Soto on the IL with a calf strain, as he is expected to miss over a month of what is a miserable season in Flushing.

Mets pitching prospect Jonathan Santucci continues to throw well down with Double-A Binghamton.

Santucci was spectacular again on Saturday night. 

The left-hander out-dueled Red Sox top pitching prospect Anthony Eyanson, battling through five scoreless innings to pick up his third win of the season. 

It wasn’t all smooth sailing for Santucci, though, as he did have to fight through some traffic. 

He walked the first batter of the night on four pitches, but was able to strand him in scoring position after he advanced to second on a wild pitch. 

The southpaw issued two more walks and a two-out single to load the bases in the top of the second, but again danced his way out of it with help from a fly out. 

Santucci struck out a pair in a scoreless third inning of work, before stranding another man in scoring position after a single and wild pitch in the fourth. 

He finished his outing with a 1-2-3 fifth, closing his line with two hits, three walks, and eight strikeouts. 

The 23-year-old has stuck out 8+ in each of his four July outings, giving him a team-high 39 for the month.

With a spectacular run spanning over his last 10 outings, he's lowered his ERA to 3.57 for the year. 

Clifford, Mauricio lead the way for Syracuse

Syracuse also picked up a win on Saturday, but their victory was spearheaded by a monster offensive night.

Two of the Mets’ top young sluggers made their mark. 

Ronny Mauricio continues to excel back down in the minors, leaving the yard for the second straight night, lifting a two-run shot to open the scoring in the top of the first. 

Mauricio went hitless over his next three at-bats but struck in a big way again in the top of the ninth, ripping a 1-2 sinker to deep right for his second long ball of the night. 

The slugger has now cracked double-digits in homers, and has a .963 OPS with Syracuse this season. 

Ryan Clifford has had an up-and-down year at the plate, but he also enjoyed himself a big night, reaching three times across his five plate appearances. 

Clifford lifted a pair of doubles, drove in a run with a single, scored twice, and stole a base. 

Nolan McLean had a chance to continue his recent string of success on Saturday night, but his final line ended up being sunk by some shoddy Mets defense.

McLean started his night by setting down the first six Dodgers he faced in order.  

That stretch and his unearned run streak was quickly ended in the third, though, as he served up Kyle Tucker’s second homer in as many night’s leading off the inning.

“I wanted the fastball in that spot,” McLean said. “I got it pretty much where I wanted it to be, he just made a good swing on it and was able to hit it out.”

The right-hander gave up a one-out single two batters later, then the Mets failed to turn a pair of potential inning-ending double plays, which led to another LA run on the board. 

A Brett Baty throwing error off the runner’s helmet was crucial in that stretch. 

“That’s not an easy play for any first baseman,” interim manager Andy Green said postgame. “It’s one that looks easy, but it gets messed up with what the runners are doing.”

Then after a Freddie Freeman single pushed runners to the corners, Francisco Alvarez allowed his eighth passed ball of the season to force in the third run of the inning. 

“It was just a tough luck inning for him with the bad defense,” Green said.

McLean allowed another run in the fifth and was in danger while running on fumes in the sixth, but a Francisco Lindor unassisted double play helped him escape a bases loaded jam.

He took home the loss in the 4-3 defeat, but did log his fifth straight quality start -- finishing with four runs (two earned) on seven hits and two walks while striking out seven batters across six innings.

“My stuff felt pretty good overall,” the 25-year-old said. “Obviously it’s a really good lineup, I thought I had some tough luck early in the game and late, wish I could’ve salvaged it a bit better and made some pitches.”

This game was one of the tougher watches I’ve had this season. The offense was beyond lifeless as they mustered just 5 hits with 8 strikeouts to 1 walk. This offense is not really capable of surviving Chase DeLauter rest days right now. The 1-2-3 of Kwan, Ramirez, Bazzana had 4 combined hits, the rest of the lineup went 1-19, that certainly is not a recipe for success.

Tanner Bibee had an OK outing, allowing 3 runs in 6 innings pitched. Will Dion looked awesome striking out 4 batters in 2 hitless innings of relief.

The Guardians offense is in a dark place right now. They desperately need not just one but multiple hitters to get hot soon or we could very well be talking about the Guardians selling off a few pieces at the trade deadline. The Guardians will look to avoid the sweep tomorrow. It will be Parker Messick vs Drew Rasmussen at 12:15 pm ET on Peacock.

A.J. Ewing took the league by storm, playing his game to open his rookie campaign.

After raking through the minors, the 21-year-old quickly settled in at the big leagues, establishing himself as a regular in the Mets’ outfield and atop their lineup. 

He did so by utilizing his speed and being his usual on-base machine.

Like every rookie, though, Ewing was bound to go through his fair share of tough stretches at the plate as the grind of the regular season stretches on. 

That’s been the case for the youngster of late. 

With an 0-for-5 showing in Saturday night’s loss to the Dodgers, he is now hitless across nine at-bats over the first two games against the defending champs. 

Ewing was also punched out two more times, giving him a whopping 26 this month. 

He’s currently tied with Francisco Alvarez for the second-worst K-rate on the team (26.7), trailing Brett Baty by percentage points for the highest (26.8). 

Despite the rough stretch, interim manager Andy Green isn’t concerned. 

“Every hitter goes through situations where things happen in bunches,” he said. 

“It’s just about getting back to his strength -- when he first showed up it was laying off pitches out of the zone -- but it’s easy when you get into a situation where you’ve struck out more than you’re comfortable you think you just have to swing, which typically makes it worse,” the skipper continued.

“But he’s going to be fine -- he has more punchouts than I know he is comfortable with right now, but he’s learning and that’s part of it -- I see him plenty capable that he’s going to respond, but at this moment it’s time to punch back.”

The Mets certain need Ewing to punch back soon after losing a massive piece in the middle of their lineup this weekend, with Juan Soto landing on the IL due to a Grade 2 left calf strain. 

For a moment, it looked as if Sean Burke was really going to be the star of the show again.

To an extent, he was. A six-inning performance yielding just two earned runs is nothing to sneeze at. But when you put up an offensive performance like the White Sox did in tonight’s 4-1 loss to the Astros — eight shutout innings followed by an ultimately meaningless scratch run in the ninth — it was never going to matter.

It’s an especially heartbreaking result considering how genuinely lights-out Burke was for most of the night. He induced 19 swinging strikes, which is tied for the second-most in any game this season for a Sox starter, and wound up with 10 punchouts, the second time this month he’s reached double digits. He threw almost 70% of his pitches for strikes. Of the 12 balls that the Astros put in play against Burke, just three broke the “hard hit” threshold of 95 mph.

Just like yesterday, the Sox starter was absolutely cruising through five innings. Just like last night, an impeccably timed series of walks and ground balls finding holes turned the sixth inning into a multi-run nightmare that proved to be the difference in the ballgame.

The elevated stuff that Burke has shown lately, and continued to show tonight, can’t be faked. But when I noted in today’s gamethread that Burke has also been the beneficiary lately of extraordinarily good BABIP and LOB% luck, I was thinking that it was only a matter of time before some things like this happened.

The luck turned first when Jeremy Peña helped get a rally going by hitting a weak ground ball on a great pitch that nonetheless resulted in a single:

That was followed by a walk to Yordan Alvarez, because of course you walk Yordan Alvarez: He has 34 homers before the last week of July. I wouldn’t want to mess around with him, either. But then things happen like this Isaac Paredes single, which was hit a little bit harder than Peña’s but also came on a pretty good pitch that probably results in an out eight or nine times out of 10, if you played it over and over again — much less the extra two runs scored on a brutal misplay from the typically-solid Braden Montgomery in right field:

Unfortunately, that’s all there really was to it. For one of the first times this season, Astros starter Hunter Brown showed the form that earned him a top-three finish in Cy Young balloting last year, completely blanking the Sox offense over a season-high seven innings of work. After allowing more than a walk per inning over his last three starts, Brown didn’t issue a single free pass tonight, aggressively staying ahead in the count and forcing hitters to swing at more pitches out of the zone than they’d ever be comfortable with.

Tristan Peters landed a single to lead off the third inning, and Munetaka Murakami did the same in the fourth. Nobody else was able to do anything at all, much less drive them in. Those were the only baserunners the Sox saw until the latest stages of the ballgame.

The Sox did actually manage to get on the scoreboard, but it wasn’t until the ninth inning, when Miguel Vargas singled, advanced on an error, and scored on a Colson Montgomery single to cut the Astros lead to 4-1, with the extra Houston tally coming courtesy of another RBI single from Paredes. Reliever Trevor Richards allowed that extra run but was otherwise solid in his two innings of work, while Tyler Schweitzer completed an uneventful ninth inning to close out the Sox pitching line for the evening.

It’s not yet prevalent enough to be a point of concern, but the growing volume of lackluster offensive showings since the All-Star Game is noteworthy. These are the kinds of games that, at their best, we know this team finds a way to win. Burke wasn’t perfect tonight, but he did more than enough to keep them in the game. The scratch-and-claw scrappiness that won these imperfect games and set the tone for this season is certainly still there, but it simply hasn’t made itself felt as much over the last week or two as it’ll probably need to be if they want to hold their first place lead deep into the season.

It’s the first time they’ve lost a Burke start since he began his red-hot run on June 18, and it’s officially their first series loss since their three-game sweep at the hands of the Red Sox a week before the All-Star break. Avoidance of another sweep will be in the hands of Erick Fedde on Sunday, which is not as confidence-inspiring as we might like. But Fedde has been serviceable enough, and Houston’s Ronel Blanco should prove a vanquishable opponent in just his second start of the year. It’s a matinee battle, with first pitch at 1:05 p.m. CT, and we’ll see you there!

MVP
Sean Burke: 6 IP, 4 H, 3 R, 2 ER, 1 BB, 10 SO

Runners-Up
Tristan Peters: 1-for-2, BB
Andrew Benintendi: 1-for-4, RBI

Cold Cat
Braden Montgomery: 1-for-4, 2 K, E that cleared the bases

Runners-Up
Andrew Benintendi: 0-for-3, 3 K
White Sox offense: five singles, one walk, 10 Ks

Welcome to SB Nation Reacts, a survey of fans across the MLB. Throughout the year we ask questions of the most plugged-in Arizona Diamondbacks fans and fans across the country. Sign up here to participate in the weekly emailed surveys.

There’s no doubt that pitching has been the Achilles’ heel of the Diamondbacks for a number of years now. The last time Arizona posted an ERA+ of even 100 over a full season, was back in the BC era (that’s “Before COVID” of course), when the 2019 D-backs were at a modest 105 ERA+. Since them it has been six consecutive years of below average pitching. This season might end the streak: going into play today, the D-backs had an ERA+ of 103, and the raw ERA figure of 4.20 is the lowest for a year since 2018. If there’s one man responsible for this, it’s Eduardo Rodriguez. who finished the first half with a 2.29 ERA, one of the lowest all-time at the break by a D-back.

It’s therefore no great surprise that he dominated voting for our first half MVP award. Here’s how the numbers came out in the poll.

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It’s going to be interesting to see if Rodriguez can keep it up over the full season. The last D-back to win the end of year SnakePit award for MVP was Zac Gallen in 2022 – I think it’s fairly safe to say he will not be repeating that victory this year. For E-Rod, there is some cause for concern, due to his peripherals all being significantlyhigher. His first-half FIP (based on K, BB and HR rate) was 4.11, His xFIP (K and BB, with a “normal” HR rate) was 4.54. And his xERA (Statcast data like launch angle, exit velocity) was a whopping 5.09. While none of that changes what’s already in the books, you do have to wonder if it’s sustainable.

Certainly, E-Rod’s first start of the second half was a rough reality check. He couldn’t even get through three innings, being tagged for seven hits, two walks and five earned runs. His second outing was better, back to the quality start we expected, although a K:BB ratio of 4:3 won’t have helped his peripherals. The gap has closed a little bit though: Rodriguez’s ERA is up a decent chunk to 2.64, while the peripherals mentioned above are now sitting at 4.16, 4.58 and 4.99 respectively. But there’s still definitely the potential for further regression. If it happens in games the D-backs still win, like the comeback against St. Louis, that would likely be optimal!

New York Mets owner Steve Cohen famously claimed he wanted to turn the club into the East Coast version of the Los Angeles Dodgers when he took over the team. Unfortunately for Cohen and the team’s fan base, that goal remains far away from reality.

The Mets couldn’t make it happen against the defending-champion Dodgers Saturday night in Queens, losing 4-3 despite another strong outing from starting pitcher Nolan McLean as the team inches closer to selling at MLB’s August 3 trade deadline.

Tyrone Taylor came through in the eighth inning with a pinch-hit two-run double to cut the deficit, but New York was once again unable to get over the hump. Taylor’s clutch hit made an ugly third inning from the Mets defense even harder to swallow.

McLean cruised through the first two innings with efficiency, but the relentless Dodgers lineup put pressure on the Mets in the game-deciding third inning. Kyle Tucker bashed a home run off the right-field foul pole, snapping a streak of 19 consecutive innings without an earned run by McLean. Dalton Rushing singled before Shohei Ohtani hit a double-play ball that the Mets couldn’t handle. Brett Baty’s throw to second bounced off Rushing’s helmet, allowing Rushing to advance to third, and Ohtani to reach first safely.

Lindor was charged with the error after failing to snag the ball after it bounced off Rushing. Andy Pages hit another double-play ball that the Mets once again couldn’t turn, allowing Rushing to score. A passed ball from Francisco Alvarez then scored Pages and put the Dodgers up 3-0. Max Muncy struck out to mercifully end the hideous frame.

Starting pitcher Yoshinobu Yamamoto pitched six innings with five strikeouts to boost the Dodgers. Yamamoto’s good start and Tucker’s dinger added insult to injury, as both players were high-profile free agent targets for the Mets in recent years before both picked the Dodgers. Tucker has had a disappointing first season in Los Angeles, but seems to be trending up this weekend, homering for the second straight game against the Orange and Blue.

The Dodgers added on in the fifth inning with some well-placed hits. Teoscar Hernandez put in a ball just out of the reach of the diving Carson Benge, with the ball bouncing away from the rookie, allowing Hernandez to advance to second. Pages singled down the right-field line to score Hernandez.

McLean was solid overall, registering his fifth quality start in a row with seven strikeouts. The infield defense and Alvarez’s passed ball made him work hard. However, an unassisted double play by Lindor in the sixth inning helped seal McLean’s line.

The Mets entered the game going 7-for-72 with RISP over their last 10 games, and that trend continued for most of Saturday night. New York briefly threatened in the first inning with two outs. Bo Bichette and Benge each singled off Yamamoto, but Luis Robert Jr. struck out swinging on a full count to end the inning.

With two outs in the fifth inning, Bichette poked a broken-bat single to score Baty from third, putting the Mets on the board. The team had been 0-for-5 with RISP in the game before Bichette’s hit.

New York had life in the eighth inning against Dodgers reliever Edgardo Henriquez after he hit Benge with a pitch and walked Robert Jr. with no outs. Henriquez struck out Jorge Polanco and Marcus Semien before being replaced by Tanner Scott. Mets interim manager Andy Green pinch-hit Taylor for Baty, who smoked a ball down the left-field line off Scott to score Benge and Robert Jr. Scott settled down to strike out AJ Ewing and end the threat.

Lindor, Bichette, and Benge went down in order in the bottom of the ninth as the Mets fell to 43-62 on the season. The Mets are 7-12 in July as this bleak season trudges along through the dog days of summer.

New York will try again in Sunday’s series finale at 1:40 PM EDT.

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Box scores

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Win Probability Added

Fangraphs.com

What’s WPA?

Big Mets winner: Tyrone Taylor, +18% WPA
Big Mets loser: AJ Ewing -23% WPA
Mets pitchers: -11% WPA
Mets hitters: -39% WPA
Teh aw3s0mest play: Tyrone Taylor double, +17.6% WPA
Teh sux0rest play: Kyle Tucker home run, +11.9% WPA

This game had all the makings of a prototypical 2026 Colorado Rockies outing. To their credit, they held their own against one of the league’s best teams in the Milwaukee Brewers. Colorado was in the mix early and found a way to rally late, but that middle portion is what did them in. The Rockies mustered some offense, but just in streaks. By the time they were fighting back, they were trying to make up too many runs thanks to their starting pitching trailing off and their bullpen letting things get away. After keeping things neck-and-neck through the first few innings, the Rockies fell behind 8-2 before tacking on a few more in an 8-5 loss.

Gasser hits the gas against the Rockies offense

The Colorado offense struggled early, unable to muster much the first time through the lineup. Robert Gasser kept the Rockies’ offense in check out of the gate, sitting down the side in the first and second innings. The Rockies notched their first hit with two outs in the third with an Ezequiel Tovar single, but Tovar was left stranded. Gasser struck out three of his first 10 batters faced, rendering the others ineffective with pop outs and ground outs.

The Rox finally got something going in the fourth. Kyle Karros hit a leadoff single, followed by a Cole Carrigg double. With runners on second and third, Hunter Goodman singled to left field to score both. Gasser worked through the rest of the inning to hold things at 2-2.

After that, Gasser didn’t have much trouble putting away the Rockies. He gave up a single to Tyler Freeman to start the fifth inning before working through Tovar, Jake McCarthy, and Karros with relative easy. He came back in for a 1-2-3 sixth inning before his day came to a close. He finished after 6.o IP, giving up two runs on five hits, lowering his ERA from 4.91 to 4.71.

Gasser relied primarily on his four-seam fastball, throwing that for 31% of his pitches. He hit an average velocity of 92.8 MPH with his fastball and got it past Rockies batters consistently with a 31% whiff rate on the pitch. Coming off his best outing of the season in his last start, he proved effective and efficient again today.

Feltner better early, but falters late

After a shaky performance in his last outing, Feltner was more settled to begin Sunday evening and limited the damage despite some early threats. Despite giving up some early hits and runs, he was able to keep things close into the deeper innings before things, unfortunately, started to snowball.

Milwaukee got after Feltner quickly with a pair of singles from Jackson Churio and Brice Turang on one out in the first. Feltner held steady with runners on first and second and got William Contreras to ground into a double play.

Things went more awry in the second inning. Jake Bauers walked to start things off before swiping second. Two batters later, Luis Lara hit a sacrifice fly that scored Bauers. Then, Bernie Brewer got to make an early trip from his chalet down his slide after Cooper Pratt took a high fastball deep for his second career home run.

In the fourth inning, Bauers and Lara each notched singles. With two outs, Pratt hit a ball that just got by Willi Castro. What would’ve been an inning-ending out gave the Brewers the lead again at 3-2.

Bauers would be a thorn in Feltner’s side again in the sixth. Following a Contreras single, Bauers logged another hit. Juan Mejia had been warming up, and with runners on first and second and with Feltner at 82 pitches, Warren Schaeffer would make the change. Feltner’s day ended after 5.0 IP with five runs given up on nine hits, plus four strikeouts and a walk.

After the game, Feltner noted that he was “happy with (his) stuff,” but pointed to areas where he can improve, including not being “sharp at the top of the zone at times” and “uncompetitive changeups.” He mixed in a decent arsenal of pitches, throwing four-seam fastballs (30%), sliders (26%), and changeups (23%), as well as sinkers, curveballs, and sliders to a lesser extent.

In addition to his feelings about his changeup control, he had a weird day with the fastball. Despite posting a 28% whiff rate, none came on fastballs (zero whiffs on 12 swings). He also gave up six of his hits (with all of those being hard-hit) on his fastball.

A sixth inning collapse

Mejia entered with Feltner’s two runners on and immediately added one of his own, walking Garrett Mitchell to load the bases with no outs. That’s not a recipe for success. Lara connected on a bloop double to short left that took enough of a hop to get past McCarthy and score two runs to put the game at 5-2. Pratt would add another run on a sac fly to left.

David Hamilton would single next to crowd the basepaths with runners on first and third. It went from bad to worse. Hamilton took off to steal second. Braxton Fulford pump faked towards the base before throwing towards third to pickoff Lara and sailing the ball high. The error allowed Lara to put the Brewers up 7-2.

Hamilton moved up to third but would stay there with a Chourio ground out. Unfortunately, the damage was already done, and the Brewers would ride that five run lead into the closing innings of the game.

A late rally, but from too deep of a hole

Colorado’s offense made a little noise in the eighth, but it was all for not. Lance McCullers Jr. took the mount to try and put things away. With two outs, Karros and Carrigg each drew walks. Goodman came to the plate with a chance to cut into the lead, but hit an infield pop out to end the inning.

Kicking the Rockies while they were down, the Brewers stole another base and added another run in the bottom of the eighth. Pratt, who took first on a fielder’s choice and stole second, was brought home on a Christian Yelich sacrifice fly to center field, bringing the game to 8-2.

The Rockies had one little spark left in them, giving McCullers Jr. some more trouble in the ninth inning. TJ Rumfield drew a walk to lead off the inning. Thanks to an error by Bauers, Brett Sullivan moved Rumfield to second and reached base himself. With two outs, Tovar logged a strong at bat and drew a walk on a 3-2 count to load the bases. Before you knew it, a McCarthy single scored two runs to make it 8-4. That would be enough to chase McCullers Jr.

Trevor Megill entered for Milwaukee with two on and two outs. A Karros line drive to center cut further into the lead, bringing the game to 8-5. Just when hope was building, Megill called game and bested Carrigg with a strikeout.

Final Thoughts

This was one of those weird games where the final score makes things feel better than they actually were throughout. At the same time, however, it was one where a few sloppy defensive plays allowed things to get out of control.

Schaeffer noted that the game could have flipped the other way and pointed to moments when the team “didn’t take care of our business throughout the game” and that “we were not up to par defensively, and we know that.” A big inning was enough to put the Rockies away – at least until they tried to claw back in it.

Against a division leader, nearly everything has to go right. Today, enough things went wrong, from defensive miscues to jittery pitching to a handful of batters going 0-fer.

Up Next

The Rockies and Brewers meet for the finale of the three-game series on Sunday before getting a day off on Monday. Things are getting started early out in Wisconsin with a 12:10 p.m. MDT first pitch.

The Rockies get another showdown with league-leader and All-Star pitcher Jacob Misiorowski. The last time they faced off back in early June, The Miz got the best of the Rockies, going seven innings and piling up eight strikeouts while only giving up one run in a 7-1 win. He’s racked up three wins and two losses in six starts since then and sits at 10-4 in 19 starts with a 1.57 ERA on the year.

Kyle Freeland starts for the Rox, bringing a 2-9 record through 18 starts. Freeland’s ERA has been north of 7.00 for most of the season, sailing above 8.00 at the end of May, and is currently at 7.28. He started against the Brewers in that June series, giving up just three runs in a non-decision in a 12-4 loss for the Rockies. He took the loss in his previous start last week against the Washington Nationals, giving up four runs in a 7-3 game.

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The world is full of many good things, none of which were contained in today’s Mariners 7-1 loss to the Rangers, but many good things nonetheless. In praise, then, of goodness, of beauty, of things that are not watching the 2026 Mariners continue to fail and frustrate and fail again. (That’s right, readers, we have reached the part of the season where I’m in my Mary Oliver era. It’s a summer benchmark: Solstice parade, Fourth of July, the Mariners play such bad baseball Kate cries into her MFA degree.)

Realistically, this game was over in the first inning, which at least frees up a lot of time for thinking about nicer things, like the life cycle of cicadas or how the beauty of every flower is also a reminder of the fleeting nature of life. Right after Angie opined, very poetically herself, that part of healing is returning to the site of the wound—in this case, the place where Woo’s road troubles began, in big old, mean old Texas—in a flash of poetic injustice, Woo left a fastball right in Wyatt Langford’s kitchen for a one-out double. Ezequiel Duran followed, taking advantage of a sweeper in the same location for an RBI “triple” that was mostly some poor fielding by fill-in center fielder Luke Raley and poorer backup by Dominic Canzone.

Perhaps the game would have taken a different path had Woo been able to cap the damage there, but Woo instead made things harder for himself, losing Brandon Nimmo to a walk despite having him in an 0-2 count. He then gave up a bad-luck ground ball double down the left field line to Evan Carter that allowed Duran to score and pushed Nimmo to third; Nimmo would later score on an RBI groundout to put the Mariners in an early 0-3 hole.

But have you considered: the perfect orb of a bumblebee nosing along in beachside bull thistle? A clutch of tiny wild huckleberries, jewel deep and plump? Or the bright blue of a mussel shell, barnacled and broken but still shining in the summer sun? Or perhaps the inky emerald green of seaweed fluttering gently on the waves, sea-tossed and shimmering? Because these things also exist in the world with the 2026 Mariners, and are much nicer to contemplate.

The Rangers continued to pour it on in the second inning, despite a quick two outs. Joc Pederson singled, and then, humiliatingly, stole second, which allowed him to score on a Langford double, because once again Woo tried to pitch him inside and Langford just pulled it down the left-field line. Duran followed with his second hit of the day, an RBI single to put the Mariners in a 0-5 hole.

A poem should always have birds in it, says Mary Oliver. A person wants to stand in a happy place, in a poem. I do not have a happy place to stand in today’s recap for you, reader, because nothing good happened in this game. But I can offer you a bird from my walk in the park today: a great blue heron, with a fringe of slate blue feathers, elegant pinprick legs perched on driftwood; and better, I can offer you a child looking at the bird, pointing look looklook as the heron opened its wings and rose, sudden and impossible, and a child, at least, standing in a happy place.

I think this is the prettiest world—so long as you don’t mind
a little dying, how could there be a day in your whole life
That doesn’t have its splash of happiness?

The splash of happiness came in the fifth inning when the Mariners scored their only run of the game against Nathan Eovaldi, sitting pretty at under 70 pitches with six strikeouts. Luke Raley hit a solid single and J.P. Crawford – who recorded the Mariners’ first hit in the third – took advantage of a poorly located splitter, smashing it into the right-field corner for an RBI double. That would be the only hit the Mariners would record off the splitter. Eovaldi threw 38 splitters in the game. You can see where the math is going.

In the same poem (“Singapore”) where Mary Oliver talks about poems being full of trees and birds and happy places to stand, she also questions “If the world were only pain and logic, who would want it?” Sometimes you have to be a little illogical about a baseball team. So I am choosing to focus on Colt Emerson coming up with another hit today, and Cole Wilcox pitching yet another solid inning of relief. These things are not clipped on MLB dot com as highlights because they are not highlight to anyone but me. I think Mary Oliver would approve.

To his credit, Bryan Woo did bounce back and manage to give the Mariners five innings when it looked like he might not clear three. Postgame Woo talked about how you have to look at the good things you’ve done and how there’s still a lot of baseball left, which is troubling, because while it is a relief Woo is no longer beating himself up after bad outings, it suggests a certain kind of resignation that this is where we stand now. Not in a happy place.

The additional runs were courtesy of Nick Davila (and Wilcox, since he technically walked one of the runners who scored before being lifted for Davila). The Mariners, for their part, did not do anything against Texas’s bullpen when they finally came on the scene in the eighth. They totaled five hits all game. The Rangers had six hits in the first two innings. With the loss, and the Astros winning, they have now fallen into third place in the division. There is a lot of baseball left, yes, but there is also less baseball left than there was yesterday, and tomorrow, there will be even less baseball left. This, any Mary Oliver devotee knows, is the way of the world.

It’s a pretty world. So long as you don’t mind a little dying.