Category: Baseball

There have been a lot of words spilled about the Mets and the Giants and the Blue Jays and the Red Sox potentially ending their October dreams, well, already. Seeing things like “only 3% of teams playing this poorly have gone on to make the playoffs” makes it sound like a done deal. But for most of baseball history making the playoffs was hard. Really hard. And the Red Sox are making it as hard as possible as they open the season going 9-14.

Until 1968 only two teams made the postseason. They played in the World Series. When the Yankees talk about “27 rings” remember that 20 of those were won via a single round of postseason play. (Yes that applies to the Red Sox too, but no other team is chanting their total titles.) The winner of that series won the World Series. No random chance 84-win team sending their ace in a coin-flip game. No Wild Card Series. No Division Series. No Championship Series. There was none of that when Cy Young, pictured above, was pitching in October, which was in fact, September in the beginning.

The 1951 New York Giants finished with a final record of 98-59. They started the season 9-14, just like the 2026 Red Sox. If the ‘51 Giants sound familiar to you it’s because they, like the 2026 Mets, lost 11 straight. During the opening 23 games. At least the Sox haven’t combined their record this year with the Mets losing streak. It’s partially sequencing, of course, as the Mets have only been a tad worse (7-16) than Boston so far, but it does feel better to know there is, like the Sarlacc pit, a new definition of pain and suffering.

Those Giants are the only team to start 9-14 and make the playoffs in this era. But keep in mind these were the two-team, straight-to-the-World-Series years.

From 1969 until 1993 the playoffs doubled in size from two to four teams. With expansion to 24 teams (12 and 12) and splitting each league into two divisions the playoff push became more difficult. But double the teams entered the competition! The 1969 Mets and 1979 Pirates even win the World Series after their slow starts. The 1984 Royals, 1987 Tigers, 1989 Blue Jays all make it into the playoffs, losing in their Championship Series to the Tigers, Twins, and Athletics, respectively.

This is not even half as much time as the World Series era but the slow starting 9-14 teams have five playoff appearances just by going from two to four teams.

Before the 1994 strike canceled the end of the season and the playoffs, baseball was set to debut a new postseason format. Expanding from two division into three with East, Central, and West divisions in the American and National leagues, MLB added two new playoff seats as each divisional champion would receive an invitation. And as they said in the As Seen on TV Ads of the ‘90s but wait there’s more! Two new Wild Cards – one per league – would be added as well. The team with the best record that wasn’t a division winner, across the entire league, would also make the playoffs. From four teams to eight.

The first team to go 9-14 and make the playoffs? The 2005 Yankees. The 2006 Twins, 2007 Rockies, 2007 Yankees, and 2009 Rockies would all go on to do this as well. That ‘05 Yankees team won 95 games! The Twins won 96. The ‘07 Yankees won 94.

Outcomes can be unlikely but still possible. Heck, just look at batting averages. It’s cliche but it’s true.

2012 would bring another tweak: the Wild Card would become a one-game playoff. We’re now at ten teams or one-third of the league. There will be a one-year sixteen-team playoff tournament in 2020 due to, well, everything. And then from 2022 to at least 2026, a twelve-team bracket. In all of these Wild Card expansions there has been only one slow starting team in October: the 2014 Pirates. They started at 9-14 but finished at 88-74. The 2014 Mariners would go on to win 87 games but not make the playoffs.

Since then the slow starters have maxed out at 82-80, the 2025 Kansas City Royals.

But the takeaway is not that it’s impossible or that it’s likely to happen. But that over time, as MLB expands the playoffs, teams can make bigger mistakes, start slower, and not necessarily be punished. It doesn’t’ matter that 3% of teams doing X, Y, or Z made the playoffs from 1901 until 2025. What really matters is from 2022 onward. In four seasons, yes, there hasn’t been a team that started 9-14 in the playoffs. And last year’s Royals finished 5.0 games back from even the expanded Wild Card. But the Tigers made it in with 87 wins. Not starting 9-14, but the Cincinnati Reds made it into the Wild Card with 83 wins. 83!

The Red Sox are frustrating. But it’s not over yet. Maybe 90 wins is impossible. But if they win 87 and Garret Crochet is healthy and cruising, Roman has 20 home runs, and Chapman has a pile of saved games, do you think that team couldn’t win 2 out of 3 in the postseason? Or 3 out of 4? I’m not sure I really want mid-or-low-80s teams to have a possibility of the playoffs, even if it’s my team, but in a 12 team bracket that’s possible. The longer MLB runs with 12 teams (or more!) in the postseason the more likely it is that these “no team has ever” records fall away.

Meet the Mets

The Mets lost their twelfth-straight game 5-3 to the Twins, despite a three-run home run from Francisco Lindor and a strong start by Nolan McLean.

Choose your recap: Amazin’ Avenue, MLB.com, Newsday, New York Daily News, New York Post, The Athletic

Plenty has been said about who or what may be at fault for the Mets’ losing ways, but the Mets offense has been the worst in the league during their eleven game skid.

It’s only April, but questions have already been being raised about whether or not the 2026 Mets can be salvaged.

Kodai Senga’s start will be pushed back, with Christian Scott being called up to start Thursday instead, and David Peterson will remain in the bullpen.

Juan Soto will be activated for today’s game, but his workload will be managed in his return.

Soto may have more than just the Mets record on his back in his return—he could be responsible for his manager’s job security as well.

The Mets are breaking new ground for early season disappointment, at least when it comes to hyper-specific records.

Around the National League East

MLB and the Phillies revealed the festivities for All-Star Week, which coincides with the celebration of America’s semiquincentennial.

The Braves made a bevy of moves, with pitcher Raisel Iglesias landing on the injured list and Sean Murphy and Spencer Strider having their rehab assignments moved.

Zack Wheeler will be making his much anticipated (and needed) return to the Phillies rotation on Saturday against the Braves.

The Marlins fell to the Cardinals 5-3, with Chris Paddack giving up all five runs in 4.2 innings, with eight hits and seven strikeouts.

The division leading Braves were smacked around in an 11-4 loss to the Nationals. Reynaldo López lasted just one inning, giving up four runs on five hits and three walks.

The Cubs continued their hot streak against National League East teams, beating the Phillies 7-4. Jesús Luzardo pitched well for the Phillies, giving up just one run in 4.2 innings.

Around Major League Baseball

Craig Counsell criticized the two-way hitter designation with regards to Shohei Ohtani, and Dave Roberts responded.

MLB has no plans to have the ABS call every ball or strike…yet.

Recently released Met Luis Garcia found a new home, signing with the Mets current opponent, the Minnesota Twins.

Yesterday at Amazin’ Avenue

It’s been about a month of minor league baseball, and as such Steve Sypa delivered the fourth 2026 group of Mets Minor League Players of the Week.

Linus Lawrence looked back on the worst losing streak in Mets history, which was unsurprisingly in 1962, losing 17 straight from late May to early June. We’re getting closer!

This Date in Mets History

56 years ago, Tom Seaver received his 1969 Cy Young Award plaque and proceeded to strike out 19 batters in a 2-1 win over the San Diego Padres.

Rangers 5, Pirates 1

• Hey, that was fun!
• Texas got down two batters into the game. Oneil Cruz had a leadoff single, stole second and ended up on third when Danny Jansen’s throw ended up in center field, and scored on a Ryan O’Hearn single.
• Oh no!, we all thought, Kumar Rocker doesn’t have it today! We are going to have to use Cal Quantrill for multiple innings!
• Kumar Rocker did have it, though. As you can infer by the final score, no more Pirate runs scored the rest of the way. And after those first two leadoff singles, Rocker allowed just two hits and one walk. Rocker logged a Quality Start, striking out five. Way to go, Kumar!
• There is, however, a huge asterisk on that final line. An Evan Carter shaped asterisk.
• After the O’Hearn single, Rocker faced thirteen straight batters and got thirteen outs, with the one single he allowed erased on a double play ball. With one out in the fifth, Rocker was cruising.
• Jake Mangum then hit a first pitch single. Konnor Griffin hit a grounder in the hole at shortstop. Corey Seager was only going to have one play, at first, but he ended up bobbling the ball, resulting in two on, one out. A Henry Davis (hey, remember him?) tapper in front of the plate moved the runners to second and third with two outs, bringing up Oneil Cruz with the Rangers up 2-1.
• Here’s what happened next:

• Evan Carter made a spectacular leaping catch at the wall, stealing a go-ahead homer from Cruz.
• When Carter was going back to the wall, I was sure the ball was gone. I just knew that Carter would get there, leap, and the ball would be five feet over his glove. The Pirates had taken the lead.
• But no…Carter got there, timed it perfectly, and made the catch of the year for the Rangers.
• The Rangers added onto their lead in the bottom of the fifth, and things never felt in doubt after that. The Pirates didn’t get a runner past first base over the final four innings, with Cole Winn, Jacob Latz and Jakob Junis all responsible for an inning apiece.
• I thought Latz would be asked to finish things out when he came into the game for the eighth inning, though with Robert Garcia day-to-day with a sore left shoulder, Latz appears to be late inning lefty #1 right now, and thus limited to shorter outings.
• The bats put up crooked numbers in the second and the fifth. A Joc Pederson single, Josh Jung double, and Evan Carter single tied the game, with Josh Smith hitting a sacrifice fly to give the Rangers a lead that they would never surrender.
• If Game Winning RBIs were still a thing, Josh Smith would have gotten one for that.
• The other three runs came in the fifth when, energized by Evan Carter’s catch, the Rangers chased Pittsburgh starter Carmen Mlodzinski thanks to a Smith double, an Ezequiel Duran double, and a Corey Seager single. A Jake Burger single and a Joc Pederson walk loaded the bases up, and we all hoped the suddenly super-hot doubles machine that is Josh Jung would blow things open. We settled for an RBI groundout.
• Duran, incidentally, was in the game in place of Wyatt Langford, who walked and stole a base, but left the game due to forearm soreness he felt swinging the bat in his second plate appearance. Langford is getting an MRI on Wednesday, and hopefully, he is fine. If not, well, I guess it is Alejandro Osuna Time.
• Kumar Rocker’s sinker topped out at 95.5 mph, averaging 93.9 mph. Cole Winn hit 96.2 mph with his fastball. Jacob Latz reached 96.1 mph with his fastball. Jakob Junis topped out at 91.7 mph with his sinker.
• Joc Pederson had a 109.4 mph single. Corey Seager had a 109.0 mph groundout. Josh Smith had a 108.1 mph double. Brandon Nimmo had a 106.8 mph fly out. Jake Burger had a 104.9 mph single. Josh Jung had a 103.5 mph double and a 101.0 mph groundout. Evan Carter had a 103.3 mph single and a 100.6 mph groundout.
• Texas started the homestand off on a good foot. Let’s keep it going.

It’s bad enough that the Red Sox are struggling out of the gate. But we are also constantly hearing complaints from fellow fans that the 2026 Red Sox are no fun to watch. It’s hard to blame them. They only managed to score four runs in three games over the weekend! They are nearly being out-homered by Yordan Alvarez alone! They were just brought to heel by the Yankees’ worst pitcher!

So, yes, the 2026 Red Sox are no fun so far. No argument from me. But what would it take for them to become the least enjoyable team of your lifetime?

For me, I’m not sure I’ll ever hate a team more than the 2001 Red Sox. That team, unlike this one, started great, sitting at 17-9 on May 1, after an offseason in which we spent dreaming about finally breaking the curse. But this was the year that we began to see cracks in Nomar’s armor (he didn’t even play his first game until the end of July after the aggravated his wrist in February). This was the year that the team was briefly led by the worst manager of my lifetime (yes, even worse than Bobby Valentine): Joe Kerrigan, who took over for a tired Jimy Williams and was clearly in way over his head. This was the year they lost 13 of 14 games at the end of August and start of September.

Use this space to talk about teams you’ve hated and whatever else you want and, as always, be good to one another.

By beating the Houston Astros, the Guardians are now 14-11 and hold a 1-game lead over the 12-11 Twins.

For a while, it looked like the Guardians were going to blow their chance to face Houston’s terrible pitching, but a 6-run 8th inning saved the day. Chase DeLauter came up with the bases loaded and tripled home all three runners. Deborah has your recap here.

Franco Aleman has yet to give up a hit or a run in Columbus. Just in case Chris Antonetti was thinking we might need some bullpen help.

Houston fell to 9-16, banging into the floor of the trash AL West division. The A’s are now in first at 13-11.

Around baseball

The Mets are trying to rebound from a losing streak like the 2025 Guardians once did. Theirs is at 12 after the Twins came back to beat them yesterday.

The Royals and White Sox won. The Tigers lost.

These five words will never cease to amuse me: Shohei Ohtani made history, again.

Although the Dodgers suffered their third defeat on this current road trip— dropping Tuesday’s contest to the San Francisco Giants 3-1— Shohei Ohtani was able to extend his on-base streak to 53 games, tying Shawn Green for the longest such streak in Los Angeles Dodgers history. Ohtani is still five games off from tying Duke Snider for the longest in franchise history.

Ohtani is slated to pitch against the Giants for Wednesday’s game, and the Dodgers intend to have Ohtani resume his two-way duties after opting to only pitch in his previous start, notes Sonja Chen of MLB.com.

“I think that it makes a lot of sense that if you’re … hitting while pitching, it takes a little bit of a toll,” Roberts said. “He certainly has managed it really well, but if it makes sense, I’ll have that conversation with him.”

Now that the Dodgers are in the midst of their first season with Shohei Ohtani performing his two-way prowess for a full season, Mike Petriello of MLB.com writes about Ohtani potentially unlocking a new gear that the baseball world has yet to see.

Links

The Dodgers had their new bona-fide star closer for all of three weeks before landing on the injured list.

Edwin Díaz will miss the next three months after being diagnosed with loose bodies in his right elbow, which now raises a question about which Dodger reliever will take over as the team’s de facto closer. As for what Dave Roberts forecasts, per Bill Plunkett of the Orange County Register, the initial candidate is Tanner Scott but the decision will vary day-to-day.

“If I had to guess … I would say probably Tanner,” Roberts said. “And that could change. I honestly don’t know. I mean, Tanner can pitch in the seventh tonight, and Blake can get the save. So honestly, it’s kind of day to day. It really is.”

The Dodgers will shoot down trade talks involving the red-hot Dalton Rushing unless the return haul lands them something huge in return, reported Ken Rosenthal of The Athletic during his latest appearance on the Foul Territory podcast.

“At the deadline, anything is possible, but I can’t see the Dodgers entertaining this unless it was a major deal— unless they were getting something huge in return— and I’m not sure what that would be at this point.”

Good morning, baseball fans!

The San Francisco Giants are back in action at Oracle Park this week. I’m actually going to be attending a game this weekend, too. And I will be taking one of my best friends to her very first game at Oracle Park. So that got me thinking about what the most important things to see and do at the ballpark are if you’ve never been there.

As someone who has been going to the ballpark regularly since it opened in April of 2000, I think I’ve started to take it for granted a little bit. Of course it’s a stunningly gorgeous ballpark with a ton of things to do and see. But I’ve seen and done most of the things more times than I can count. I’ve seen every inch of that ballpark, sat in nearly every section, visited the clubhouse, dugout, press booth, suites, eaten all of the must-eat foods.

So it’s kind of fun to view it in this light. What would a first-time park-goer absolutely need to see?

What are your favorite places to visit at the ballpark? What would you show a fan attending their first game? Sound off in the comments!

What time do the Giants play today?

The Giants continue their series against the Los Angeles Dodgers tonight at 6:45 p.m. PT.

Blazing out of the gate, rookie first baseman TJ Rumfield looked like the spark the Colorado Rockies needed in 2026.

After all, a strong campaign in spring training earned him the starting job at first base on Opening Day, and he’s been a staple in the lineup since. While the sample size is still small, it’s worthwhile to check in on the early returns on Rumfield to see what’s going well and what needs adjustment as he continues his development at the big-league level.

What’s Going Well

A glance at his stat line paints a quality picture for Rumfield. In 23 games entering Tuesday, he is slashing .253/.310/.405 with a double, a triple, three home runs, 11 RBI, and seven runs scored. Additionally, he has 15 strikeouts and seven walks in 87 plate appearances.

It’s the plate discipline that immediately stands out for Rumfield upon further inspection and is the proof of the pudding as to why Paul DePodesta and Josh Byrnes pulled the trigger on bringing him in. Sporting a 17.2% strikeout rate, Rumfield ranks with the second-lowest on the team, just behind Tyler Freeman (15.0%). On the flip side, he has slotted in at a league average 8.0% walk rate, which is a massive positive considering his seven walks rank third on the team behind Kyle Karros (14) and Edouard Julien (8).

The zone awareness has also been highlighted and helped Rumfield maintain some consistency at the plate. Per Baseball Savant, Rumfield’s 92.7% zone contact rate tops the Rockies, which correlates with his 22.3% whiff rate that ranks third-lowest on the team. Add in the fact that he doesn’t chase excessively and you’ve got a player with a veteran approach that can adjust to big league hitting.

Equally impressive is that Rumfield is showing a capability of handling the fastball, something that can’t always be said about young hitters, especially for the Rockies over the last few seasons. Rumfield is batting .294/.317/.559 against heaters with two home runs and just three strikeouts. Seeing a fastball 41.7% of the time, Rumfield has just a 6.7% whiff rate. Eliminating the fastball’s deadly tendencies, Rumfield is forcing pitchers to utilize other tools in their arsenal to attack him rather than binge on heaters.

Quality at-bats, due to awareness of the zone, have reminded me of the start of a former Rockies first baseman, you may recall, who is in the Hall of Fame.

Rumfield is nipping at the heels of Todd Helton’s first 35 career games, and still has a whole season ahead of him, something Helton didn’t have back in 1997. His approach at the plate is quite reminiscent of Helton’s, and his ability to handle his position defensively also echoes “The ToddFather.”

There is a lot to like about Rumfield so far, but like any player, there is always work to be done to take the next step.

What Needs Work

Perhaps the biggest thing that Rumfield will need to continue working on is adjusting to secondary pitches. Because of his ability to hit the fastball, pitchers have begun throwing more pitches low and out of the zone.

Breaking balls generally haven’t given him too many fits as he is slashing .265/.260/.353 while seeing breaking balls at a 39.3% clip. Still, he has a 35.9% whiff rate against breaking pitches, specifically sliders (48%). Rumfield has a 50% strikeout rate against the slider with a .231 AVG against it. Offspeed pitches have also been a bothersome pitch, although he doesn’t see them as often since the change in speed isn’t as effective against his contact abilities as a severe breaking pitch is.

Learning to adjust to and combat those secondary pitches will be Rumfield’s greatest challenge. He certainly can make that adjustment, and a greater sample size will give a clearer idea of what he can do over the next month of games.

Another of the great challenges facing Rumfield is something plaguing all left-handed batters: left-handed pitching. In just 14 plate appearances against southpaws, Rumfield is slashing .143/.143/.143 with two hits. Again, it’s a small sample size, but the fact that he puts the ball in play is something since he has just one strikeout against left-handed pitching.

The fact of the matter is that the things Rumfield needs to work on are getting into nitpicking territory, which is a good problem to have. The well-rounded nature of his bat gives him a good base that can translate to success and growth in multiple areas, and the chance to develop against big league pitching is what is best for him.

As time rolls on and the at-bats stack up, Rumfield will be put to the test. The early signs show a promising end result, and once he can string together a couple of multi-hit games consistently, it’s going to be hard to deny that Rumfield is a legitimate big-league bat that can help the Rockies in the climb back to relevance.

On the Farm

Triple-A: Albuquerque Isotopes @ Sacramento River Cats (POSTPONED)

The rain picked up in California, moving the series opener to Wednesday. The game will be made up as part of a doubleheader on Saturday, April 25.

Double-A:Hartford Yard Goats 9, Portland Sea Dogs 7

The Hartford Yard Goats rebounded from an early deficit and held the lead, staving off a rally in the bottom of the ninth to win the series opener. Jake Brooks made the start, working four innings and allowing four runs on six hits. The middle relievers allowed just one run, while Sam Weatherly escaped the ninth with two runs allowed to secure the victory. The Yard Goats managed nine hits in the game, matching Portland. Bryant Betancourt had a three-hit night with a pair of doubles, while Jose Torres belted a solo shot in the second inning. Roc Riggio also drove in a pair of runs in the game.

High-A:Everett AquaSox 5, Spokane Indians 2

Runs were hard to come by in the game until the AquaSox broke the seal in the bottom of the sixth. Yujanyer Herrera tossed three scoreless innings to start the game for Spokane, followed by Bryson Hammer, who performed admirably, allowing just one run in four innings of work, but had to take the loss. Things got out of hand in the bottom of the eighth when Hunter Mann was tagged for four runs on three hits. The Indians managed two runs in the top of the ninth courtesy of a two-run home run from Jacob Humphrey. The offense managed just three hits in the game while striking out 14 times with two walks.

Low-A:Rancho Cucamonga Quakes 5, Fresno Grizzlies 4

After allowing five runs in the first two innings, the Fresno Grizzlies had to play catch-up and couldn’t overtake the Quakes. Marcos Herrera started on the mound and took the loss after giving up all five runs in 1.2 innings alongside four walks. The bullpen, led by Austin Emener’s 3.1 innings, performed well the rest of the way, allowing just two hits the rest of the way. Tanner Thach continued his hot stretch, contributing a pair of hits while Roldy Brito had a triple and drove in a pair of runs in the game.

Colorado Rockies claim Blas Castaño, DFA Luis Peralta | Purple Row

The Rockies made a waiver claim on Tuesday. Renee Dechert gives a quick overview of the new right-handed.

Paul DePodesta’s Rockies move: ‘Moneyball’ at a midlife crisis or Colorado’s best bet? ($)

Brittany Ghiroli wrote out a deep dive into Paul DePodesta’s time with the Cleveland Browns and his quest to bring the Rockies back to relevance.

Affected by Altitude Episode 207: Gone Fishin’ | Rocky Mountain Rooftop

This week, Evan Lang and I talk about the early struggles of Willi Castro before moving on to talk about the home and road splits for the club. Also, is there something fishy about the Rockies’ swinging aggression?

Please keep in mind our Purple Row Community Guidelines when you’re commenting. Thanks!

The Milwaukee Brewers’ offense is hanging on by a thread at the moment. Brice Turang and William Contreras are doing what they can, and Jake Bauers and Gary Sánchez have offered some early season boom-or-bust help. But without any of Jackson Chourio, Christian Yelich, or Andrew Vaughn in the lineup, the lineup is struggling. Sal Frelick hasn’t hit well. Joey Ortiz is still, unfortunately, a zero. Milwaukee has gotten very little from any of Brandon Lockridge, Blake Perkins, Greg Jones, or David Hamilton. Luis Rengifo can be added to that group, too, even if he’s come around a bit in the past week.

But there is one other player who has been helping to keep the offense afloat during this tough stretch: Garrett Mitchell. He’s already had some big moments. An extremely concerning spring raised a lot of questions around whether Mitchell was any sort of answer at all in the outfield, much less a long-term one. Many of those questions still remain, but Mitchell has also quietly raked this season; as of the start of play Wednesday, he has a 148 OPS+, leads the Brewers (along with Brice Turang) with 18 RBIs, and—I’m not making this up—leads the National League with a .437 on-base percentage.

But what can we learn from Mitchell’s odd start to the season?

When it’s hit, it stays hit

Mitchell’s Statcast page currently lights up like a Christmas tree. He ranks 90^th percentile or better in average exit velocity, barrel percentage, hard-hit percentage, launch-angle sweet-spot percentage, bat speed, chase percentage, and walk rate. We should be extremely encouraged by all of this. Mitchell is being very selective, he is swinging hard, and he is crushing the ball when he makes contact. These are major harbingers of success.

But that Statcast page also lights up in a bad way. Mitchell is in the bottom-three percentile in squared-up percentage and is crucially in the very bottom percentile leaguewide in whiff percentage and strikeout percentage. As encouraging as the good stuff is, the bad stuff is perhaps even more worrisome. Mitchell swings and misses a ton. His strikeout percentage sits at 38.8%; last year, the worst K-rate among qualified hitters was Ryan McMahon at 32.3%. Mitchell is way beyond that, to a point that probably isn’t sustainable; the highest single-season K-rate in the last five years was when Joey Gallo struck out 34.6% of the time in 2021, and the all-time record for a hitter in a full season (that wasn’t 2020) was Chris Davis at 37.2% in 2017. At 38.8%, Mitchell is approaching Keston Hiura levels — Hiura struck out in 40.6% of his plate appearances during his last two seasons in Milwaukee.

Given that data, it’s fair to ask whether Mitchell is even a viable major leaguer if he continues to strike out that much. He is doing damage when he hits the ball, and the Statcast data in that regard is good. But Mitchell is also rocking a BABIP of .522 right now; the highest BABIP ever recorded (since the dawn of the American League in 1901), according to FanGraphs, was 99 points lower than that. It was in 1923, and the guy’s name was Babe Ruth. The highest BABIP in a full season in the last 50 years was Rod Carew at .408 in 1977. Just one of the greatest pure hitters of all time in a season in which he hit .388, had 9.7 WAR, and won the MVP.

Mitchell has always been a high-strikeout player; in the 141 games he’d played prior to 2026, he held a career 33.9% strikeout rate. Even that would be too high, but Mitchell has always managed to be relatively productive despite a large number of strikeouts. When you add his other skills to that, it helps too — Mitchell is very fast and he’s a very good fielder. As for decreasing the strikeouts, a glance at the “Zones” page on his Statcast profile tells you what you need to know: he can’t hit pitches up in the zone. Pitchers are spamming fastballs in the top third of the zone, and Mitchell is missing them. Until he fixes that, they’ll keep doing it. It’s not a mystery what needs to be done here, but that’s extremely easy for me to say.

An everyday option?

If Mitchell can work on the strikeout issue, though, he could offer the Brewers something that they need: an outfielder who can play every day, no matter who is pitching for the opposition.

The Brewers have protected Mitchell a bit versus left-handed pitching this season, and he’s only got 16 plate appearances, but he’s hitting .300 with five walks in those 16 plate appearances, good for a .533 OBP and .833 OPS. He’s doing damage against righties — all of his extra-base hits this year are against right-handed pitching — but Mitchell is using his patience as a strength against lefties.

This isn’t a one-year blip, either. Mitchell is certainly a better hitter against right-handed pitching in his career (.792 OPS in 422 PA), but he’s not bad against lefties. Mitchell has a higher batting average and a higher OBP in his career against lefties (.264 versus .253 and .349 versus .346). His career OPS versus lefties is lower (.697 in 88 plate appearances), but that split between lefties and righties isn’t nearly as dramatic as some other players on the Brewers, and that .697 OPS versus lefties is certainly playable.

If Mitchell can find a way to cut down his strikeouts and get some of the power he shows against right-handed pitchers into his profile against lefties, he could become a downright offensive weapon. Again, that’s easy for me to say, and of course we all know the dangers of putting too much faith in Mitchell and his health.

But there’s a good player here, one who is already helping to prop up a struggling Brewer offense. Remember, before the 2025 season there were those who were predicting an All-Star appearance for Mitchell. (Me, I was one of those.) There are some major issues with his game right now, and his career is sort of teetering in a place that could go either direction. But the goal is clear, and if Mitchell can put it all together, the Brewers could really have something.

Happy Wednesday, everyone! Did you know the Cubs are in the most interesting division in baseball? Of course, we always knew that, but it seems like the NL Central is getting a lot of attention this week. Other things on people’s minds? The Phillies, Mets, and Astros are the talk of the town, and it’s largely because of how bad they’ve been. Not bad? Astros’ slugger Yordan Alvarez. Likewise, Japanese star Munetaka Murakami might be striking out a lot, but he’s still exactly what the White Sox hoped for.

We’ve got all that and more—including goats—in today’s news brief, so let’s just jump right into it.

• Ben Clemens looks at how Munetaka Murakami has been exactly what the White Sox hoped he would be.
• Yordan Alvarez swings a hot bat, and it has been a real bright spot for the Astros this season. Story by Jay Jaffe.
• Here’s a first look at the All-Star Week schedule. (MLB)
• The Red Sox and Tigers had a super early game on Monday, but that didn’t stop one fan from drinking a beer out of his shoe. Story by Kyle Koster.
• Stephanie Apstein wonders what the sale of the Padres might mean for other small-market teams.
• Adley Rutschman is back from the injured list. (AP)
• Love it when ballplayers show up for kids like this. (Direct link to the BlueSky post for those reading on Apple News)

• Bad news for the Dodgers, Edwin Diaz is headed for surgery. Story by Jay Jaffe.
• Tim Capurso tries to determine how the Dodgers will handle that closer spot going forward.
• David Adler makes a case for why the NL Central is the best division in baseball right now.
• Kyle Koster looks at what’s going so wrong for the Phillies to start this season.
• How did Will Benson score twice in the same game without ever seeing a single pitch? Stephen Douglas brings us a fun baseball oddity.
• Cam Schlittler makes his return to Boston, where he says he received death threats during last year’s MLB postseason. Story by Madison Williams.
• The Blue Jays had to take an old-fashioned bus ride to get between cities after their plan was grounded. (AP)
• A new Mets curse? (Direct link to the BlueSky post for those reading on Apple News)

• Dan Szymborski wonders if the 2026 Mets can be saved.
• Brian Murphy tries to determine where Mason Miller’s scoreless streak ranks among all-time relievers.
• Daniel Kramer shares what might be one of the best catches I’ve seen all week.
• Tom Verducci looks at how “lab-grown” pitching is impacting baseball.
• On that same note, Jeff Passan looks at the rise of the 100mph fastball, which is becoming more and more common.
• Jayson Stark ponders if MLB will ever go full robot-umpire after testing ABS. (The Athletic subscription required.)
• I always knew those outfield lawns were good for something.

And tomorrow will be a better day than today, Buster. Make it so.

Ben Rice’s playing time has been a topic of some consternation around these parts to the start the season. The 27-year-old has been some metrics the best hitter in baseball thus far, so it’s been frustrating to find him on the bench at times. But rather than ask the question of whether Rice should play every day (which, yeah, probably), perhaps we should be wondering about where Rice should play every day.

And by where, I don’t mean where on the diamond, but where in the batting order. Over the weekend, with the Yankees facing Royals lefty Cole Ragans, Aaron Boone slotted Rice into the leadoff slot in the order for the first time in 2026. Rice handled the assignment with aplomb, walking twice in front of Aaron Judge and hitting his eighth home run of the year.

Should the Yankees cut the shenanigans and just install Rice as their leadoff hitter? Sunday’s result offered a positive data point, but there’s more to the argument than just one strong game. Rice has excelled in the spot before, posting a .910 OPS in 23 games out of the leadoff slot in 2025, and even running an .864 OPS in ten starts as the leadoff hitter in his rookie 2024 campaign (though those figures are propped up a bit by his three-homer game against the Red Sox).

Moreover, the strategic implications of moving Rice into the leadoff spot are compelling. Putting Rice at the top and Aaron Judge at number two is an aggressive manuever that immediately puts pressure on the opposing pitcher. It’s becoming clearer by the day that Rice and Judge are the Yankees’ best hitters; why not ensure that they get the most at-bats, apply the most pressure on the opponent, and protect each other/give each other more opportunities to drive runs in?

The case against lies in keeping Rice’s potent power bat lower in the lineup. Rice has largely worked out of the cleanup spot in 2026, where he’s slugged .722 and driven in 11 runs in 11 games. Putting his name a little lower on the card gives probably gives him more chances to come up with a runner or two on, rather than giving him more chances to get on in front of Judge.

What do you think? Should the Yankees just put their best hitters at the top of the lineup and challenge their opponents to wade through them as many times as possible every night? Or should they take the more traditional route and keep Rice’s power bat closer to the heart of the order?

On the site today, Madison will handle the Rivalry Roundup for last night, and Peter’s entry in our Yankees Birthday series profiles pitcher Jimmy Key. Also, Andrés argues that Austin Wells has shown some promising signs during a nominally slow start, while Michael takes a look at slugger Munetaka Murakami, and wonders whether he provides a blueprint for Yankees prospect Spencer Jones.

Today’s Matchup

New York Yankees at Boston Red Sox

Time: 6:45 p.m. EST

Video: Amazon Prime Video, MLB Network, NESN

Venue: Fenway Park, Boston, MA

This is the first in a series of more informal, discussion-based pieces focused on capturing the staff’s thoughts on the hot topics of the moment. This format, Pressing Questions, will see different writers meeting in real time to discuss questions that are top of mind and pertinent.  This won’t replace our thought-out and researched thinkpieces on these topics at all – to me, that’s where Lookout Landing shines. However, I personally love Pressing Questions as a venue to let disagreements shine and capture more hot topics faster than a piece with a longer lead time can. As always, add to the discussion here in the comments, and let us know if you enjoy this format and want to see more, if you think we’re being lazy and you hate it, and most of all, who’s right. Conversations will be lightly edited for flow and brevity. -NVT

Brendon Donovan has hit the 10-day IL with a groin strain, with INF Will Wilson coming up from Tacoma to fill his roster spot. Leo Rivas is expected to take over starting 3B duties until Donovan returns. 

This spurred the $90 million question: why is Will Wilson coming up to fill this spot instead of wunderkid Colt Emerson?

Grant: So, why the heck isn’t Emerson coming up here? Wilson has 91 MLB plate appearances and has slashed .192/.267/.244. With the extension, there’s no service time reason to keep Emerson down anymore. 

Kate: I would have to assume that they don’t feel like he’s ready yet. Or maybe they want to give him the feeling that he earned his way up rather than being called on in desperation. 

Grant: I just don’t get how he’s less ready than Will Wilson (if that’s even a real name). 

Kate: Wilson is a good defender, he just can’t really hit yet (classic former Angels first-round draft pick). I’m sure he’s up for defense. Anyways this is Leo Rivas now:

Grant: Giving Emerson this contract AND being so hesitant to call him up is baffling, in my opinion. If you don’t think he’s ready, sure, but then you’re guaranteeing him a ton of money before you’re ready to bring him up to the roster. With the other prospects who’ve received these deals, they’ve all been ready to start as soon as they sign. 

Kate: It just isn’t that baffling to me. I think giving him a big chunk of money and thinking he’s ready to start immediately for the 2026 Seattle Mariners aren’t necessarily linked ideas.

Nicky V: I think the idea is that they specifically don’t want him to come up as an injury sub. They want him to come up and stay up, because he is coming up for a permanent job. I think that makes sense especially from a player psychology perspective. 

Kate: Exactly, Nick.

Grant: Isn’t $90m guaranteed enough of a psychological plus?

Kate: Not if he comes up and fails. 

Nick: Not really, I don’t think. He needs and deserves to be called up and given the keys to a starting spot, whether it’s shortstop or 3B or whatever. He should feel that it’s a spot he’s fully earned, it’s his to keep, and it’s not going away any time soon. 

Kate: Do you want Kelenic 2.0? Because this is how you get Kelenic 2.0. 

Grant: That feels like apples and oranges. I’ve heard so much about how strong of a presence he is, would failing for 2-4 weeks be so terrible?

Kate: They’re very different people obviously, but they share an obsession with winning. Colt just knows how to handle that healthily. 

Grant: If he knows how to handle that healthily, then shouldn’t we bring him up now, since he presumably is a better option than Will?

Evan: I would argue these things are not mutually exclusive: they can call him up now technically as an injury sub, but have him keep the job. It’s not like they are short of somewhat expendable fringe infielders with Wisdom on the IL already and now Will Wilson here. 

Grant: Couldn’t you just send down Leo Rivas when Donovan is back?

Evan: Grant and I are thinking the same thing. He can have Brendon Donovan’s job for now and then Leo Rivas’ in a few weeks. 

Kate: But they don’t want that. Leo Rivas’ job isn’t Colt Emerson’s job.

Nick: I understand why you feel that way, Grant + Evan. If it was me playing Out of the Park, he’d be up right now for sure. But the moment matters as much as the timing, in my opinion. He deserves fanfare, a full-time job, the whole nine yards.

Evan: You think it’s more likely that they start him full time at 3B and bounce Donovan around than give him Leo Rivas’ part-time spot?

Nick: 100%, Evan. I do think Donovan could, for example, learn LF and do a better job than Randy has been recently. 

Grant: That’s probably it, Nick – from a pure talent perspective, he’s obviously better than Wilson (I assume). The question is: do we (team + player) all benefit from Emerson coming up for two weeks as the best available option, even if he’s subsequently sent back down? Or would that disrupt his development? 

Kate: In my opinion, the long-term best decision for the Mariners and for Colt is for him not to come up. He’s just getting going at Triple-A and they want him to keep string together good at-bats, but for that, he has to be healthy, and it does sound like he’s going to be down for a couple days with a banged-up wrist. 

John: The health thing definitely seals it, but I do think the extension is a good cause for them to not see him strained by focusing on anything other than trying to improve. I don’t know as much about the mental aspect of it for him specifically, but giving him the security to basically then say “we want to see you improve at this, and we believe in you enough that we’ll pay you upfront to see you make those improvements” speaks to encouraging patience with his development. 

To me, the comparison isn’t Kelenic so much as Zunino, who was infamously called up quickly as an injury replacement. 

Kate: Besides, everyone asking why Wilson and not Colt Emerson is not asking the right question, which is why Wilson and not Brock Rodden.

WASHINGTON – Unlike some of his Major League Baseball peers, Matt Olson does not drain his blood, sip mountain spring water from a green glass bottle to avoid microplastics, nor measure every carbohydrate before sating his hunger.

“No, I’m not the guy,” he tells USA TODAY Sports, “who’s got a chef at home.”

Yet somehow, Olson has outlasted them all.

In this era of load management and general soreness the Atlanta Braves first baseman has not missed a game in nearly five years, stringing together a feat of longevity that can stand up to almost any era. After Atlanta’s 7-3 loss at Nationals Park on April 21, Olson has played in 806 consecutive games, second-longest this century and good health willing, soon stretching into the top 10 all-time.

Barring calamity or bad weather, Olson, on May 10 at Dodger Stadium, will dislodge Gus Suhr from 10^th place all time with his 823^rd consecutive game played. Eight days later, Eddie Yost would cede ninth place when Olson posts up at Miami.

And on Aug. 2, at home against Washington, the great Stan Musial would step aside for Olson’s 896^th straight game and eighth place all time.

No, Cal Ripken Jr. won’t be losing sleep anytime soon: Olson would have to play every day well into the 2037 season to take down the Iron Man’s 2,632-game record. Yet Ripken broke Lou Gehrig’s mark of 2,130 way back in 1995, long before planned days off and nouveau tweaks like oblique tears sent sluggers out of the lineup and onto the injured list.

This is 2026, the fifth consecutive season Olson figures to be one of the two to five players to play all 162 games. Few repeat the feat.

So why Olson, now 32, an age where the body is typically not impervious to a back twinge or a hamstring seizing?

“He’s got a baseball body that’s almost ideal,” says Braves manager Walt Weiss, the bench coach when Atlanta acquired Olson from Oakland in March 2022. “He’s long and rangy. He’s not wound tight.

“Very loose and whippy and all those things and obviously can withstand the rigors of this schedule. He’s a special one.”

And that 6-4, 225-pound frame is putting together what could be another very special season.

Why Matt Olson is ‘star in this game'

Musial was a three-time MVP, Gehrig a two-time winner and Ripken one. They combined to win 11 World Series titles.

Olson can’t make such gaudy claims relative to the men of iron above him on the all-time list. Yet in 2023, the man hit 54 home runs and also led the majors with 139 RBIs. He accrued 7.5 WAR, because he is an excellent defensive first baseman.

Olson has finished first, second or third in defensive runs saved the past six seasons, that rangy, fungible frame that allows his arms to extend in the batter’s box also a fielder’s best friend when a ball is skipped in the dirt toward first.

“The defense doesn’t get the glory that it should – he’s as good a defensive first baseman that you’ll find,” says Weiss. “His wingspan creates a lot of outs for us, with the way he stretches. That’s not something people are locked into, but we notice those types of things.

“He’s a stud. He’s a star in this game.”

Olson could not approach his 54-homer season the following two seasons, yet was metronomic in his production, posting consecutive 29-homer seasons with 37 and 41 doubles and 98 and 95 RBIs.

This year, something special might be brewing.

Olson already has six home runs and ranks second in the major leagues with 16 extra-base hits. His OPS is back over .900, and the 16-8 Braves seem poised to rid the aftertaste of their 86-loss 2025 campaign, which broke a streak of seven consecutive division titles.

Olson takes pride in his consecutive games streak and believes there’s some correlation between his everyday availability and his production – as well as the Braves’ consistent excellence.

Their culture has long revolved around posting, with third baseman Austin Riley playing 159 or 160 games from 2021 to 2023. In 2022, Olson and shortstop Dansby Swanson were the lone major leaguers to go 162.

“The best part of it is no matter how your game goes – great game, awful one – the next day is going to be a good one,” says Olson. “A lot of guys are penciled into the lineup every day. We’re not a big platoon squad and I think it’s good for everyone.

“You know you’re getting four or five, six at-bats every day. It’s going to help you see more pitches and make those bad games particularly easier to flush and know you’ve got a new chance at it tomorrow.”

Continuity is a franchise theme. Olson arrived one year after the Braves’ 2021 World Series title, famously replacing Freddie Freeman at first and signing a $168 million contract extension after the trade from Oakland ensured Freeman’s departure.

After Series-winning manager Brian Snitker retired after 2025, the club poked its head around and gave Weiss, formerly the Colorado Rockies manager, another chance to run the show.

“I think Walt is somebody who kind of respected the chain of command a little bit,” says Olson. “Being bench coach, he was there to help Snit, do his role. Now that he’s the manager, that role and voice expanded a little bit.

“We all don’t have enough good things to say about Walt. Love the way he goes about stuff. Gets us ready, keeps us ready to play.”

Not that Olson needs much in that department.

'It's not easy'

Even as he approaches his mid-30s, Olson needs to ponder a little bit to acknowledge concessions to advancing age. Yet he knows greater treatment, more intensive self-care, perhaps even injury may eventually be inevitable.

He has a simple mental trick to keep that day further into the future.

“It takes me a little longer to get loose every day,” says Olson, who has 294 career homers, and whose career adjusted OPS of 135 ranks 14^th among active players. “But I try to stay out of the training room as much as possible. I’ve seen people who need it every day to go play, and I feel like that becomes people’s baselines a little bit.

“I want to save that for when I need it. There have been times, there’s going to be times you’re going to need it – you’re going to need to get work done.”

That still belies the maintenance behind the scenes – the weight room work, the extra swings – that keeps Olson on the field and at peak performance.

“The routines he has behind the scenes to keep his body in shape and play the amount of games he does and be as locked in, it’s pretty impressive,” says catcher Drake Baldwin. “Not many people are doing it like he is. It’s all a testament to how much he loves the game and how he goes about it.

“Working out, keeping the body right, to be able to play 162 for however many years he’s done it straight, it’s not easy.”

And the mental approach at the plate is just as crucial.

“He’s still trying to take the next at-bat,” says Baldwin, “and make it the most important of his life.”

Olson is yet another Brave who grew up in the Atlanta area, a laid-back dude very much in his comfort zone. Born one year before Atlanta’s first World Series title in 1995, he was well aware of the club’s standard of excellence, as their string of 14 consecutive division titles stretched deep into his childhood.

It became the standard and he expects no less – especially the bit about showing up, being available, doing your job.

“Since I was a kid, it was the way the Braves went about it,” says Olson. “You got your guys, and the team expects you to play. Fans expect you to play. You should expect to play.

“Ever since I came over here, it’s been exactly that. And I think it’s great for everybody involved.”

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: MLB all-time consecutive games played list: Braves’ Matt Olson is modern Iron Man

MLB.com | Joe Vasile: The New York Yankees and the Hudson Valley Renegades announced yesterday afternoon that pitchers Gerrit Cole and Carlos Rodón will start for the Renegades on Thursday and Friday, respectively, as part of their rehab assignments. Cole will be making his second start, as he began his rehab assignment with the Double-A Somerset Patriots last week, while Rodón will be taking the hill for the first time this season. I’m not saying I feel bad for the Brooklyn Cyclones batters they’ll be facing, but, well, I kind of do.

The Athletic | Brendan Kuty and Jen McCaffrey: With the Yankees and Red Sox starting their first series of the season yesterday, The Athletic’s reporters on the New York and Boston beats teamed up to break down how the two teams have been going in the early weeks of the season. Perhaps unsurprisingly, the starting rotations of both staffs were highlighted: the Bombers need their rotation to cover for a shaky bullpen, while the Red Sox has been overtaxing their bullpen due to underperformance.

ESPN | Jeff Passan: The history of pitching is, in many ways, the search for more and more velocity. Two decades ago, a pitcher hitting triple digits was a rarity. Nowadays, though, so many pitchers — both starters and relievers — reach 100 miles per hour consistently that it no longer seems all that remarkable. Talking to players throughout the league — including Yankees starter/ace-in-training Cam Schlittler — Jeff Passan talks about the rise of the 100 mph fastball over the last few years, to the point where it has become an obsession even among high school students.

And, while Passan doesn’t get into it, probably also the reason for so many arm injuries.

The San Francisco Giants have not developed a reputation for intelligence early this season, but on Tuesday they did something very, very smart. They jumped on Yoshinobu Yamamoto early.

You’re familiar with Yamamoto. You hoped he was as good as everyone said he was when the Giants appeared determined to not be outbid for his services two years ago. You feared that he was as good as everyone said he was when he instead signed with the Los Angeles Dodgers. You confirmed that he was as good as everyone said he was when did his best Madison Bumgarner impression last fall while leading the Dodgers to a second consecutive championship, collecting a World Series MVP award and a top-three Cy Young finish along the way.

So the Giants did the sensible thing. They pounced before Yamamoto had time to realize where he was.

Willy Adames led off the bottom of the first inning with an infield single, and took second on an error by shortstop Hyeseong Kim. Luis Arráez followed by doing the one thing he does better than anyone on the planet: hitting a single.

Yamamoto was just seven pitches in, and found himself both in trouble and unsure what had happened. Lost in a haze of confusion and crisp Bay Area fog, he proceeded to walk Matt Chapman, loading the bases with no outs.

The Giants are not always prepared to capitalize on these situations. You might go so far as to say that they’re rarely prepared to capitalize on these situations.

But they capitalized on this situation.

On the very next pitch, Rafael Devers looked nothing like his old self, as he barely made contact on a get-it-in fastball, ever so lightly dusting a foul tip into Dalton Rushing’s glove.

But on the pitch after that, Devers looked very much like his old self, dipping below the zone to grab a sinker and still smacking it loudly into the outfield, scoring a run.

The Giants had achieved the rare act of capitalizing, and had a rarer act left in their back pocket: adding on.

Casey Schmitt hit next and flew a ball into left field, scoring a run on a sacrifice fly which, it turns out, was the absolute best-case scenario for the Dodgers. Despite it being a fairly routine fly ball for Teoscar Hernández, center fielder Alex Call flew full speed after it, robbing his teammate of catch and instead gifting him a head-on collision. Miraculously, Call hung onto the ball. Even more miraculously, neither player was injured on the type of play that catches an entire stadium’s collective breath.

After the dust from that had settled, Jung Hoo Lee wisely seemed to predict that Yamamoto would be a little out of sorts, and so he jumped on a first pitch curveball that hung up in the zone, and toasted it into right field, scoring a third run.

Just like that, the Giants had put a three-spot on Yamamoto and forced 26 pitches out of him. The ref was counting to 10, and the star pitcher was wobbling his way back to his feet and falling against the ropes.

And then Yamamoto retired the next 10 batters he faced, quickly and with almost dismissive ease, and went around the lineup two full times before giving up another hit.

Things got entertaining when he did finally give up another hit, though. In the sixth inning, the Northern California rain started to come down in droves. But being the grandson of one adverse weather condition apparently gets you in with all adverse weather conditions, as Lee was utterly unbothered by the large amounts of water falling on his face, and again hit a single to right field, this time with two outs and nobody on, giving him his sixth multi-hit game in the last 10 contests.

Heliot Ramos followed and, I’m pleased to report, the swing that he found in Washington D.C. appears to have made the trip back to the West Coast, as he worked the count full before blasting a 108.5-mph single right back up the middle.

Which is where the fun — and pain — began.

Lee, who had a two-out jump, who knew that the wet baseball would be hard to throw, and who had watched for innings on end as none of his teammates could get a hit off of Yamamoto, decided to try to score.

From first.

On a single.

A hard-hit single that was directly to the center fielder.

More accurately, Héctor Borg took all of that into consideration, saw the speed at which Lee was flying at, and watched Call lazily get the ball back in, and decided what the hell, let’s get funky.

Funky indeed.

It didn’t work, but it was fun. And in Borg’s defense, it took a wonderfully-thrown relay by Alex Freeland and a perfect tag by Rushing to retire Lee, and I’d put the odds of that not happening as higher than the odds of Drew Gilbert getting a rain-soaked hit off of the second-best pitcher in the National League when they’re in a flow state that we sports mortals simply cannot relate to.

But Lee was out indeed, and in more than one sense of the word. He walked off the field gingerly, and was replaced two innings later by Jerar Encarnación. Thankfully, the Giants did not sound concerned about the injury, which Tony Vitello described as a banged-up right quad. Unfortunately, the Giants do not have a great track record with expressing a lack of concern in an injury. But that’s an issue for another day.

Yamamoto returned for the seventh inning and struck out Gilbert, Patrick Bailey, and Adames, in order, all looking, capping an exceptional night that had felt impossible just six innings earlier: seven frames, six hits, no extra-base hits, two walks, and seven strikeouts.

But the Giants had not only jumped on him early, but stacked more than half of their baserunners in one inning, using sequencing to get a few runs on the board. And now all that was left was to rely on the pitchers, and hope that they could teach Yamamoto about the glorious and dreadful (but today just glorious) art of The Caining.

It’s funny. When you watch sports with a rooting interest, you inherently see everything through the lens of your team. The old adage that hitters don’t hit home runs, but rather that pitchers throw them, is emphatically true when your team is pitching. And it’s a crock of manure when your team is at bat.

Such it is that when we think of a Caining — or a Webbing, to use the parlance of the youths — we associate it with the Giants hitters being feckless numbskulls incapable of the teensiest shred of offensive life. We never really frame it as a great pitcher showing off their talents at the Giants’ expense. But really, it’s both.

Enter Landen Roupp.

Roupp’s season has been a revelation, and with every start he inches a little further away from “encouraging start to the season” and a little closer to “wait a dang minute, this guy might be really, really good.” But he hadn’t faced a team like the Dodgers this year, and this felt like the test. And it felt like he knew it was a test, and was screaming the answer when he opened the game by striking out Shohei Ohtani, something he would do twice on the day.

It also felt like Roupp was yelling his answer when, after ceding a two-out first-inning walk to Freddie Freeman when Bailey chose not to challenge a pitch that probably was strike three, Roupp calmly took his spot on the mound, glared at the opposing hitter, and needed just two more pitches to end the inning.

But it was the third inning where Roupp really stated his top-of-the-rotation case, when he struck out Freeland swinging, then struck out Ohtani swinging, then struck out Kyle Tucker swinging. That’s a whole lot of hundreds of millions of left-handed dollars (a few even not deferred!) that Roupp mowed down easily, with both a demeanor and a talent that look more and more like Bumgarner with every passing day.

Yet while Roupp’s excellence was the main story of LA’s stuck-in-first offense, it was the fourth inning where the Caining really transpired. That’s the inning where the Dodgers and their fans shook their heads and questioned how this could happen to them, while Yamamoto sat somewhere on the bench wondering why his own teammates hate him so much.

Freeman opened the inning by drawing a walk. Hernández worked three balls before rolling over a pitch, hitting it softly into a fielder’s choice. Max Muncy walked. And then the play that briefly shifted momentum: Rushing took a 3-1 curveball, called for strike two. He challenged, and won by what could generously be described as an eyelash. Suddenly the bases were loaded, and there was just one out.

And then Roupp walked Kim, putting the Dodgers on the board and doing nothing to ease the danger of the situation. But after falling behind to Call 2-0, Roupp battled back and, thanks to an infield defense that lived up to its potential and paycheck, got a gorgeous inning-ending double play.

Roupp’s fifth inning was much cleaner, as he took down the side in order, sandwiching an Ohtani fly ball with Freeland and Tucker strikeouts. It was an outing that, true to the Bumgarner comparisons, was as steeped in grit as it was in talent. He needed a career-high 106 pitches to get through just five innings. He threw just 58 of those pitches for strikes. He walked five batters, including a run home.

But he gave up just one hit — a soft two-out line drive by Kim — and that one run was the only one he would allow.

Against the Dodgers.

Baseball enthusiasts and keen eyes alike will note that Roupp pitching five innings still left four innings unaccounted for, and the Giants were legally required to give those innings to the bullpen, which really added to the Caining/Webbing of the Yamamotoing. No Dodgers fan will sleep well tonight with the thought that the Giants bullpen preserved a lead for four innings, and, armed with that knowledge, you should sleep well tonight.

But Vitello pressed the right buttons, and, more importantly, the arms delivered.

Against an almost entirely left-handed lineup, Vitello turned to lefty killer/killed by righties southpaw Ryan Borucki for the sixth, and it was the perfect time to go in that direction. Borucki easily dismissed of three lefties — Freeman, Muncy, and Rushing — and did so with such comfort that you barely noticed that a righty (Hernández) snuck in there to bop a double that went nowhere (righties are now hitting 8-15 with four extra-base hits against Borucki this season).

Vitello stacked his lefties, turning to Matt Gage in the seventh, who got two quick outs before walking Freeland.

That brought up what was, at the time, the most intriguing bullpen decision by Vitello, and one that you rarely ever see. With his lefty reliever cruising, looking good, and having thrown just 14 pitches, and with a trio of left-handed hitters up next, the Giants skipper trudged out to the mound, took the ball, and brought in a different lefty. The oh-so-rare lefty-replacing-lefty.

But if you know anything about Erik Miller, it’s that no one on earth has proven as capable of getting Ohtani out, and so Vitello turned to his secret weapon. And in a cruel twist of fate, Ohtani hit a soft infield single to keep the inning going.

Just long enough for Tucker to strike out swinging.

Vitello’s decision to turn to Miller was unconventional, but it was both savvy and analytically sound. What happened in the ninth, however, was a bit more controversial.

After a smooth eighth — Miller retired two batters, and left one runner on for Keaton Winn, who absolutely obliterated pinch-hitter Will Smith, with a nasty sequence of sinkers and splitters — Vitello had a choice to make. I assumed it would be a four-out save opportunity for Winn, who has had perhaps the most electric stuff of anyone in the bullpen this year.

But no. Vitello turned to Ryan Walker. The same Walker who was fresh off a blown save in a similar opportunity. The same Walker who has flirted with disaster enough recently that you can hear — even through the TV — the reaction in the stands as the nerves kick in.

Arguably the biggest selling point of Vitello was his ability to manage players and get the most out of them. Bob Melvin lost his job because once the Giants started slumping they simply couldn’t stop, and that wasn’t just a team issue: it happened at the team level because it happened so frequently at the individual level.

That’s why Vitello is in San Francisco where, he admitted before the game, he finally stepped out to enjoy the local culture on Monday night.

I don’t want to give all the credit for good baseball plays to one of the few people in uniform who wasn’t making baseball plays, but I had to wonder: had Vitello’s motivational ways worked some magic on Walker?

He looked fantastic striking out pinch-hitter Andy Pages, who has been one of the best hitters in baseball this year, on just four pitches. Perhaps Vitello’s show of trust was helping him settle in.

He looked excellent getting Call to fly one out to left field, never falling behind in the count. Maybe Vitello, who has refused to name a closer publicly, has said the perfect things privately.

He looked dynamic striking out Freeland with an other-worldly sinker, then unleashed the roar of someone who felt like himself for the first time in a while. Like someone who has made no attempts to hide that they want to be the closer, and that they believe they should be the closer.

The buttons correctly pressed. A Caining on the other foot. Another data point suggesting Roupp is That Guy. Some timely hits. And a bullpen that maybe isn’t so bad, after all.

Most importantly, LA beaten. By a delightful 3-1 margin.