Category: Baseball

The Nationals entered the day tied with the New York Yankees with MLB-leading 144 home runs. They hit three against the Rockies on Monday, helping Washington earn a victory and pass New York atop the HR team standings.

Two of their homers came against Kyle Freeland (2-9, 7.28 ERA) and accounted for four runs, which ended up to be enough in the end.

The Rockies were held to six hits on the night. All three of their runs came in the third inning before the offense went cold, despite Denver hitting 100 degrees earlier in the day.

Colorado dropped to 40-62 with the loss, while Washington improved to 51-50.

Nats start off hot

Freeland got in trouble early when he walked the first batter he faced, James Woods, and then gave up a single to Curtis Mead. That set the table for Andrés Chaparro to take advantage of the 90-degree first-pitch temperature and blast a three-run homer 427 feet to left field and put Washington up 3-0.

Freeland recovered and got out of the first without giving up another run.

“Three-run homer three hitters into the game — after that, I thought he pitched angry and he pitched well,” Rockies manager Warren Schaeffer said of Freeland’s performance. “He competed and he kept us right in that ballgame.”

He also got help from an outstanding diving catch by Kyle Karros to leave the third without further damage.

That continued through the fifth inning. In the sixth, Freeland surrendered a solo homer to Jacob Young. The bomb put Washington up 4-3. Freeland held the Nationals at bay in the rest of the inning and through the sixth. He was pulled from the game entering the seventh with a line of four runs on seven hits with two walks and four strikeouts.

“You can do one of two things when you get punched in the face early in the game: You can quit or you can dig down deep and keep your team in the game,” Schaeffer said. “He’s had a lot of experience doing that here in Coors because you all know how Coors operates. So he kept us right in the game and gave us a chance to come back and win it. Great job by Kyle Freeland tonight. He gave us six innings too.”

Freeland credited his catcher in helping with his mental fortitude and his de

“A lot goes to Braxton [Fulford] behind the dish, making sure to keep my head in the game. … He did an incredible job of that tonight,” Freeland said. “The defense tonight was absolutely incredible. Down three early, it’s easy not to cash it in, but know that you have a mountain to climb, but the defense was spectacular. Karros at third, Willi [Castro], Jake McCarthy covering a bunch of ground out there, TJ [Rumfield] picking at first. The guys around me definitely kept me going.”

Here’s one example of the ground McCarthy covered.

Castro comes through on 2nd chance

The Rockies had a chance to strike back in the bottom of the first when they loaded the bases after a McCarthy single and walks by Karros and Hunter Goodman. With Cole Carrigg flying out in between, Rumfield couldn’t capitalize when he struck out. That brought Castro to the plate, but he flied out to right field and the Rockies came up empty.

Luckily, Castro got another chance with the bases loaded in the third inning and he took advantage. This time, singles by McCarthy and Carrigg, along with a Rumfield walk, loaded the bases with two outs. Castro came up and smoked the first pitch he saw to center field, where it hit off the Bridich Barrier for a three-run double to tie the game.

That’s all the Rockies could manage off Washington’s lefty starter Andrew Alvarez, who was pulled in the fifth inning. He gave up three runs on six hits with three walks and two strikeouts in 4.1 innings. The Rockies had their chances with runners on in the fourth, fifth and sixth, but Castro’s hit was the lone tally in a 1-for-8 with RISP performance.

Battle of the bullpens

Antonio Senzatela relieved Freeland in the seventh inning and the Nationals jumped on the righty immediately.

Wood singled and Senzatela seemed to be back in control after striking out Curtis Mead and getting pinch-hitter Daylen Lile to ground out in a fielder’s choice, but CJ Abrams had other ideas. He sent a low curveball 420 feet to right-center field for his 22nd homer of the season. The shot gave Washington a 6-3 lead.

Juan Mejia threw a scoreless eighth despite giving up a leadoff single to Young. But Young was erased when he tried to steal second and Brett Sullivan threw him out on a safe call the Rockies had to challenge and successfully overturned. He also notched a strikeout.

In the ninth, Victor Vodnik also gave up a leadoff single, but then quickly got two outs. But Lile tripled for an insurance run that seemed to take the sails out of any would-be comeback for the Rockies.

The Nationals, on the other hand, used four relievers over the final five innings and they held the Rockies hitless and scoreless. For the MLB’s most productive team in the eighth and ninth innings, Colorado had no answers on Monday night.

Up Next

The Rockies and Nationals will face off again on Tuesday night.

The Rockies will send RHP Michael Lorenzen (3-9, 6.22) to the mound, while RHP Miles Mikolas (3-7, 5.53) will get the start for the Nationals. First pitch is set for 6:40 p.m. MDT.

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The Texas Rangers scored three runs but the Chicago White Sox scored ten runs.

The Rangers were perhaps simply outclassed by a better team this evening. That’s a hilarious notion facing the White Sox of this recent era but former Bruce Bochy sidekick Will Venable has the South Siders atop the AL Central and playing good ball.

The Rangers, meanwhile, remain the picture of inconsistency until further notice.

The Rangers actually held a 2-0 lead in this game with a run apiece in the first two innings. That’s usually a solid sign of an impending victory but even so, Jacob deGrom wasn’t exactly inspiring confidence before he eventually cratered to allow four runs in the top of the fifth.

The Rangers had just two opportunities with RISP against Chicago starter Erick Fedde and left one on base. The White Sox, meanwhile, had ten chances with RISP against deGrom and capitalized on three of them with a two-out bases loaded double from Andrew Benintendi being the big blow as deGrom finally broke after spending much of his brief outing bending.

The Rangers pulled to within two runs in the bottom of the seventh on a Jake Burger solo dong but the White Sox put the game to bed with five more runs in the top of the ninth off a floundering Jose Corniell.

The Rangers have played 100 games in 2026. They’ve won 50 of them and have lost 50 of them. Take a coin out of your pocket and flip it. Heads, the Rangers win. Tails, the Rangers lose.

It was a tails kind of night tonight.

Player of the Game: After deGrom wiggled out of a runners on second and third, zero out jam in the top of the first, Joc Pederson led off the Texas half with a solo home run. Things seemed pretty promising in that moment, but alas.

Up Next: The Rangers and White Sox are back at it tomorrow night. Texas hasn’t listed a starter but Chicago will opt for LHP Noah Schultz.

The Tuesday evening first pitch from The Shed is scheduled for 7:05 pm CDT and you can watch it on the Rangers Sports Network.

KANSAS CITY — Even when things are going mostly right for the Giants, this team has so little margin for error that all it took was two bunts for it all to go wrong.

Such was the case on an obscenely hot and humid Monday night at Kauffman Stadium, which saw Willy Adames provide the clutch heroics to tie the game with two outs in the ninth inning, only for San Francisco to go on to yet another heartbreaking defeat.

Adames played a factor in it all falling apart in the bottom of ninth when, for no apparent reason, he wasn’t in position to tag second base after catcher Daniel Susac made an equally questionable call to try to get the lead runner on the first of two sacrifice bunts.

In the end, the Giants were handed a 4-3 walkoff loss by the Royals, one of only four teams around the majors below them in the league standings.

“No matter how it goes down,” manager Tony Vitello said, “you don’t like it.”

Vitello didn’t second-guess Susac’s decision to go for the lead runner, or Adames’ failure to cover second. He was standing near the bag but his feet were inches off, allowing Josh Rojas, who led off the inning with a single against Caleb Kilian, to get in safely.

Rojas didn’t need to slide, and even began to pull up before he reached the base, because Adames wasn’t in position to tag the base for the force out.

The two players convened about the miscommunication after the game with infield coach Ron Washington, who clarified that the mistake was on both players’ shoulders. Susac should have gotten the out at first, and Adames should have been at second until that decision was made.

“I just couldn’t tell from home” that Adames wasn’t on the bag, said Susac, who was also responsible for two of the Giants’ six hits. “I just threw it. … Looking back at it, probably [should have] taken the out at first. You live and you learn. I tried to take a chance.”

The game ended only two batters later, when Nick Loftin dropped down another bunt with Rojas representing the winning run on third base. Bryce Eldridge charged the ball, which appeared to be drifting foul up the first-base line, and tried to flip it to Susac with his glove but his 6-foot-7 frame didn’t bend down far enough to get his leather around the ball.

The ball rolled away, Rojas raced home and his teammates soon poured out of the first-base dugout to celebrate a win that appeared to be in jeopardy just a half-inning earlier.

“I think it was a tough hop for Bryce,” Susac said. “It was one of those balls that probably goes foul, but at the same time, if he gets it, he’s out by three steps.

“We talked about that. It was a tough play. But it tends to happen — one bad play leads to another, one bad throw leads to another. It’s stuff we’ve got to clean up.”

Susac was on the receiving end of one great throw earlier in the game, when Drew Gilbert fired a dime on one hop to home plate for an 8-2 double play, preventing Lane Thomas from scoring on a sacrifice fly in the second inning and keeping the score tied at zero.

The catcher called the throw the “best we’ve had from the outfield all year,” though Vitello commended his catcher for corralling the one-hopper and making the tag.

“Susac was great all night, and he was extremely composed as the ball was coming,” Vitello said. “When you’ve got a throw coming that’s that firm and it’s gonna take a hop, you don’t really know what kind of hop you’re gonna get. I thought the composure was outstanding.”

That put the Giants in position to take a 1-0 lead in the fourth on a 430-foot solo shot to right field from Heliot Ramos. But for the third game in a row, San Francisco took a lead, failed to add on and eventually let it slip away, never to be reclaimed again.

The Giants were down to their last out when Adames launched his 18th home run of the season — his third in the past four games — to tie the score at 3. It was the second consecutive blown save by Royals closer Alex Lange that he allowed a home run with two outs in the ninth.

What it means

There are officially 100 games down, 62 to go in what is shaping up to be one of the worst seasons in the Giants’ history, before or after their move to San Francisco.

At 42-58, they are one of only 10 in the 143-year history of the franchise with as many losses at the 100-game milepost. The 16 games below .500 matches a season-worst.

They’ll need to win Tuesday to avoid falling further below .500 than any point since the end of the 2017 season, which produced the Giants’ second-worst finish in their West Coast era.

Who’s hot

Blink, and you might miss it.

A day after the less-than-fleet-footed Bryce Eldridge swiped second base — his first career stolen base — catcher Daniel Susac kicked it into gear, too. Unlike Eldridge, the catcher drew a throw on his stolen base attempt and dove headfirst ahead of the tag for his second steal.

The Giants, who began Sunday’s game tied for third-fewest steals in the majors, intended to be more aggressive on the base paths, and that apparently includes two of their slowest runners.

Susac’s successful steal was the Giants’ 12th in the month of July without being thrown out. 

In 15 games, they have matched their most stolen bases of any previous month, when they went 12-for-18 across 26 games in June. They had been 27-for-39 when July began.

Who’s not

It took less than an inning for Trevor McDonald to cough up the 1-0 lead Ramos provided with his home run, and he would walk off the mound only an inning later after experiencing discomfort in his elbow.

McDonald served up a 440-foot blast to Salvador Perez after he hit his second batter of the game to begin the bottom of the fourth. Isaac Collins singled home another run to make it 3-1.

That wasn’t the Giants’ biggest concern after the game, however. McDonald is set to undergo MRIs, and the prognosis didn’t sound great — San Francisco already has another arm, Tristan Beck, en route.

The 25-year-old right-hander summoned the training staff after something felt off on a slider he threw while warming up for the fifth inning. Teammates consoled him on the mound, and JT Brubaker took over.

Up next

The Giants resume their series against the Royals with the second of a three-game set Tuesday (4:40 p.m. PT). Tyler Mahle will make his first start of the second half against Luinder Avila.

Much like his entire first season with the Mets, Freddy Peralta’s first game back in Milwaukee didn’t go as planned. 

Simply put, other than his ovations from Brewers fans, it was ugly for Peralta.

The right-hander was greeted rudely by his old teammates, as they immediately made him pay for a four-pitch walk in the bottom of the first, striking for the first two runs of the ballgame.

21-year-old rookie shortstop Cooper Pratt jumped him for his first career homer in the second, then Andrew Vaughn got him for a two out two-run shot in the third to make it a 5-1 game.

Peralta had to battle to strand a man in scoring position as he posted his first scoreless frame in the fourth, then he followed that with his only perfect inning of the night. 

The Mets pushed him too far in the sixth, though, and he ultimately ran out of steam.

After a walk and single put runners on the corners with one out, Xzavion Curry entered and immediately served up a three-run homer to add even further damage on his line.

Overall, Peralta allowed seven runs on eight hits and a pair of walks over 5.1 innings.

“It’s frustrating for him, he desperately wants to be great,” interim manager Andy Green said. “Today he backed up some spin, he hasn’t had much trouble with that but got hit on those, and didn’t get the fastball up when he needed.

“He clicked it in there in the fourth and the fifth and was heading in the right direction, then the sixth probably gave him too much of a leash -- it was good to see some positives, but obviously, not the outing we’re looking for.”

Peralta now holds the third-highest ERA among qualified pitchers through 21 starts (5.01), and he’s completed six-full innings just six times over that span. 

He still can't explain the continued struggles, but will continue to battle to figure it out. 

“I don’t understand it,” the 30-year-old said. “I feel good, the stuff feels good and everything is there -- I’ve been working to figure it out, I’m not going to give up -- just have to keep going through this and keep fighting.”

Freddy Peralta struggled in his return to Milwaukee tonight, and the offense could not figure anything out even after Jacob Misiorowski left the game after the fourth inning, resulting in an 8-3 loss.

Bo Bichette put to rest any hopes of a no-hitter for Misiorowski in the first inning as he broke his bat on an in-field single. Francisco Lindor also smacked a single into left field, but Jorge Polanco was called out on strikes to end the Mets’ first-inning bid immediately after. Peralta walked Jackson Chourio with one out, and then Brice Turang whacked a ball right over Jared Young’s head down into the corner of right field for an RBI double. After Peralta struck out William Contreras, Garrett Mitchell also smacked one into right field for an RBI single. By the time that Andrew Vaughn flied out to end the inning, Peralta’s pitch count was already 24, and the score was Brewers 2, Mets 0.

After the Mets batters went down in order in the second inning, Peralta started with a strikeout but then gave up a home run to Cooper Pratt. With two outs, Christian Yelich lined a double over Juan Soto’s head into right field, but Chourio grounded out to strand him there. At the top of the third inning, Francisco Alvarez drove the first pitch he saw into center field to reach first base. A.J. Ewing snuck one under Vaughn’s glove, reaching first on the error, and Alvarez made it to third base. Despite Soto grounding into a double play, Alvarez was able to score. Bichette worked a four-pitch walk with two outs, but Lindor flied out right after. With two outs in the bottom of the third, Mitchell hit a ground-rule double to left field, and Vaughn lofted a home run over Luis Robert, Jr.’s head in center field to increase the Brewers’ lead and bring the score to 5-1.

Young hit an infield single to third base in the fourth inning but was left there. When Pratt lined a single into left field, he proceeded to steal second base successfully because Brett Baty could not hold onto the throw from Alvarez. A couple batters later, Pratt got to third on a wild pitch from Peralta that glanced off the edge of Alvarez’s glove. Luckily, Peralta struck out Chourio to end the fourth inning, the first inning in which the Brewers had not scored.

At the top of the fifth inning, Craig Yoho replaced Misiorowski. Ewing drew a one-out walk, but Soto and Bichette both struck out after him. Peralta worked a 1-2-3 inning to end the fifth quickly and came back out for the sixth inning. After he got the first out, he walked Jake Bauers and allowed a single to Cooper Pratt, prompting his replacement by Xzavion Curry. Curry immediately gave up a three-run home run to Joey Ortiz, the Brewers’ third home run of the night. He walked Chourio, but struck out Turang to end the inning. Unfortunately, the score was now Brewers 8, Mets 1.

At the top of the eighth inning, Soto drew a one-out walk, and Bichette dropped a double into right field. Lindor grounded out, but Soto scored and Bichette pulled in at third base with two outs. Polanco then came through with an RBI single to right field that scored Bichette. Young grounded out to strand Polanco. Curry came out for the bottom of the eighth and retired all the batters in order, and despite a single and stolen base from Alvarez, the game ended with final score 8-3.

Mets will try again tomorrow with Zac Thornton on the mound. Brandon Sproat will be pitching for the Brewers, and first pitch is at 7:40 PM ET.

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What’s WPA?

Big Mets winner: A.J. Ewing, +8% WPA
Big Mets loser: Freddy Peralta, -30% WPA
Mets pitchers: -32% WPA
Mets hitters: -18% WPA
Teh aw3s0mest play: A.J. Ewing reaches first on a fielding error, Francisco Alvarez goes to third base, +8.9% WPA
Teh sux0rest play: Andrew Vaughn 2-run home run, -12.7% WPA

MILWAUKEE — Freddy Peralta received an ovation before he took the mound Monday night, and the volume of cheers only increased as he began throwing pitches.

One hittable pitch after another.

The former Brewers ace returned to his major league roots and showed Wisconsinites what life in the Big Apple has been like for him.

In just his latest ugly performance, the right-hander got torched for seven runs in the Mets’ 8-3 loss at American Family Field.

Peralta pitched 5 ²/₃ innings and allowed eight hits and two walks (all seven runs against him were earned), marking the fourth time in his last eight starts he surrendered at least five earned runs.

Overall, he owns a 5.01 ERA this season.

“I just want to get through this,” Peralta said. “I still believe in myself. I know that I’m better than great and sometimes it’s not easy. But I have to understand as a player there’s some tough moments that we have got to get through. It’s not the first one or the last one, but I don’t want to stay like this.”

With the Mets’ season in disrepair, Peralta — who is set to hit free agency after the season — figures to be a goner by the Aug. 3 trade deadline.

But his spree of ugly outings isn’t doing any favors for the Mets as they attempt to maximize their trade return.

“He has good stuff,” interim manager Andy Green said. “We want to keep him on the attack, and I think that is the main message to him.”

The Mets surrendered prospects Brandon Sproat and Jett Williams to acquire Peralta and Tobias Myers last offseason.

Sproat, who has struggled to a 5.16 ERA in his first full season, will get a shot at his former team as the Brewers starting pitcher Tuesday.

Peralta isn’t the only underperforming pitcher in the Mets rotation: Kodai Senga was banished to the bullpen after a brutal stretch, and Sean Manaea has struggled to find consistency for much of the season.

Nolan McLean and Christian Scott have been strong positives for the club, and rookie Zach Thornton is showing early promise.

The left-hander is scheduled for his fourth major league start Tuesday.

Peralta’s pummeling began with Brice Turang’s RBI double in the first. Garrett Mitchell’s RBI single later in the frame gave the Brewers a 2-0 lead.

The assault began after Peralta walked Jackson Chourio with one out.

“I have got to keep fighting to get through this,” Peralta said.

Cooper Pratt’s first major league homer, a solo blast in the second inning, pushed Peralta into a 3-0 hole.

Peralta threw a belt-high, 0-1 sweeper that Pratt hit over the center field fence.

The Mets scored an unearned run against Jacob Misiorowski in the third inning after Francisco Alvarez singled and Andrew Vaughn misplayed A.J. Ewing’s grounder for an error.

But Juan Soto’s double-play grounder to bring in the run was hardly enough.

Peralta recorded two quick outs in the third inning before Garrett Mitchell doubled and Vaughn hit a first-pitch fastball over the center field fence to give the Brewers a 5-1 lead.

“[Peralta] has always managed to win on the top half of the strike zone and above the strike zone,” Green said. “When he gets the fastball there, he does really well. He’s obviously up there trying to fill the zone up at that part of the zone and he wasn’t getting the pitches there.”

Joey Ortiz smashed reliever Xzavion Curry’s second pitch over the left field fence for a three-run homer that buried the Mets in an 8-1 hole.

Peralta was removed with two outs in the inning after walking Jake Bauers and surrendering a single to Pratt.

“I spent a long time here and it’s a place that I will always love,” said Peralta, who pitched eight seasons for the Brewers. “It’s always going to be in my heart. Both of my kids were born here, too. Milwaukee is always going to mean something for me.”

Emmet Sheehan backpedaled down the mound, watching the ball fly just over the left-field wall.

His start Monday, much like his season, had its ups and downs. But just when it seemed he’d found a groove, he gave up a momentum-swinging solo home run to Philadelphia’s Brandon Marsh in the sixth inning of the Dodgers’10-7 loss to the Phillies.

It was Sheehan’s first start since the All-Star break, pushed back because of a rainout Saturday in New York. He gave up six runs in 5⅓ innings, raising concerns again over his inconsistency. While the Dodgers (63-38) weather the loss of Shohei Ohtani from the rotation, they need steadiness from the rest of their starters.

“Certainly, he’s getting a lot of opportunity,” manager Dave Roberts said of Sheehan. “It’s not the consistency that any of us like or want, Emmet included. Until there’s another alternative, we’re going to keep running him out there.”

Read more:Shaikin: Why Dodgers aren't panicking over their $60-million bet on Kyle Tucker

One bad inning from Sheehan pushed the game into the Phillies’ favor. With one out in the second, he gave up three straight hits, a sacrifice fly and a two-run homer by Trea Turner to put the Dodgers behind 4-0.

Sheehan adjusted, navigating the next three innings efficiently without giving up a run.

“It’s just really trying to be convicted in his pitch-making before he touches the stove,” Roberts said. “When there’s damage or things have happened, then he locks in, raises his level of intensity a little bit more. But it’s just got to be that before, you know, things start happening.”

It was clear Sheehan’s delivery wasn’t fully in sync. His velocity steadily dropped, with his fastball averaging 94.7 mph in the first inning and 92.7 in the fifth. But he gave the Dodgers’ offense time to chip away at the Phillies’ lead.

“It’s just trying to keep myself from being frustrated and knowing that our offense is so good that we’re in every game,” Sheehan said.

The Dodgers scored in the fourth when Mookie Betts came home from third as Teoscar Hernández hit into a double play. They scored two more runs in the sixth, with Max Muncy delivering an RBI double after Cristopher Sánchez’s start ended after 99 pitches.

The tide really began to turn later in the inning with two outs and the bases loaded. Andy Pages chopped a slow bouncer up the middle, and Turner charged. The ball hit off the heel of the Phillies shortstop’s glove, and another run scored.

Boos poured down even as Turner was chasing the ball. It didn’t matter that he’d hit the second-inning homer; Phillies fans were going to make it clear how upset they were about his second defensive mistake of the night.

The Dodgers, however, didn’t ride the momentum for long.

Three pitches into the bottom of the sixth, Sheehan grooved a fastball to Marsh, and he hit it out for a 5-3 lead. A double to center — which bounced off Pages’ glove — and a strikeout later, Sheehan handed over the ball.

“I thought we had a pretty good handle on [my delivery] coming in,” Sheehan said. “The past few starts have been better with that, and then kind of a step back today, which is pretty frustrating.”

Alex Vesia then surrendered a walk and a three-run homer to Turner, who won back the fans (until another botched grounder in the ninth).

From there, the game became a slugfest. Betts, who went four for five, hit two home runs — a solo shot in the seventh and a two-run blast in the ninth.

The Phillies (56-45) hit two homers off Landon Knack to finish with five.

Read more:'That's why he's our ace.' Yoshinobu Yamamoto shines with latest complete-game gem

Ohtani update

Ohtani likely will throw off a mound late in the week, Roberts said. But it is still unclear when his next pitching start will be. Ohtani, who has continued to play as the designated hitter, went 0 for 4 on Monday.

Ohtani, who has missed his last two starts and received an Orthovisc injection to manage lingering discomfort in his left knee, has continued to throw on flat ground. He again played catch in left field at Citizens Bank Park on Monday.

Dodgers make trade

The Dodgers added bullpen depth with upside, acquiring right-hander Seth Halvorsen from Colorado. They sent two minor leaguers — right-hander Nick Frasso, who has a 4.74 ERA in triple A, and outfielder Landyn Vidourek, a 2025 third-round pick — to the Rockies.

Halvorsen, coming off a stint on the injured list because of right shoulder inflammation, is set to join triple-A Oklahoma City. He throws a 100-mph fastball but hasn’t found a way to control it. He has a 4.31 ERA and 13 saves in three seasons.

“Hopefully we can unlock some levers,” Roberts said. “But the arm talent’s there. Our guys are really excited about him.”

Read more:Eliezer Alfonzo delivers emotional first hit in Dodgers' loss to Yankees

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This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.

The Orioles’ seven-game winning streak is over. And it was a heartbreaker. They came up against the buzzsaw of the Boston Red Sox’ 13-game (now 14-game) winning streak and couldn’t do quite enough to overcome it, torpedoing their own chances with a brutal four-error performance in a 6-5 loss.

Tonight marked only the fifth time in the last 65 years that two teams with 7+ game winning streaks squared off against each other, and this game lived up to the billing as a back-and-forth, bare-knuckle brawl. It felt like a playoff atmosphere at Fenway Park as the Orioles and Red Sox exchanged blows throughout the game, each team taking a lead, then losing it, then grabbing it back in a dizzying whirlwind.

What the final result came down to, unfortunately, is the same problem that’s plagued the Orioles all season long: their inability to play fundamentally sound baseball. The O’s committed four errors in this game — and arguably could’ve been charged with a fifth — that handed the Red Sox multiple gift runs. The Birds, for all the heart and grit and energy they showed in this game, could not overcome their lack of defensive competence on this night.

It stinks, because the Orioles really had every opportunity to steal the opener of this series, snap Boston’s winning streak, and extend their own. The Birds could’ve established themselves as a force to be reckoned with. And you can’t say they didn’t try! The O’s offense came up big in the clutch multiple times. Shane Baz threw a gutsy outing against a sizzling Sox lineup. But every time the O’s did something impressive, they’d follow it up by doing something infuriating. Every time they looked like they had the Red Sox on the ropes, they’d let them back into the game through unsightly defensive shenanigans. To paraphrase Dennis Green, the Red Sox are who we thought they were, and we let ’em off the hook.

The Orioles struck the opening salvo in this game with a first-inning run off Sox lefty Payton Tolle, thanks to back-to-back doubles by Gunnar Henderson and Tyler O’Neill. The Red Sox tied it in the second on a pair of singles and a Jarren Duran sac fly against Shane Baz. OK, so far, it’s a pretty crisply played, tightly contested game.

That all changed in a disastrous bottom of the third. After Baz retired the first two batters, he should’ve had the third out on a Ceddanne Rafaela grounder up the middle. But Jeremiah Jackson, with his momentum carrying him toward center field, uncorked a bad throw to first that even the elite scooper Pete Alonso couldn’t corral. You simply can’t give a red-hot team an extra out, and sure enough, the Red Sox took full advantage of the new life. Wilyer Abreu pounded a double to the wall in left-center (which Leody Taveras seemed to play tentatively), and while it looked like the O’s might have a chance to throw out Rafaela at home, cutoff man Gunnar Henderson uncorked a horrendous throw nowhere near the plate. The Sox took a 2-1 lead, and Gunnar’s error, the Orioles’ second in a row, allowed Abreu to take third base.

The next batter, Willson Contreras, smacked a sharp liner toward the middle. Henderson leapt in the air, snared the ball…and dropped it. Oh lord. I won’t say that was an easy play — Contreras smoked that ball, and it knuckled a bit — but it’s a play that I think Gunnar should have made. Contreras was credited with an RBI single, but Abreu wouldn’t have scored had he started that play on second base instead of third. And neither run that inning would’ve scored if Jackson hadn’t muffed the throw on the would-be final out. Baz deserved better.

To their credit, the Orioles battled back to erase their self-created 3-1 deficit. Christian Encarnacion-Strand, making just his second O’s start, was the unlikely spark plug. He tagged Tolle for a solo home run into the Green Monster seats in the fifth to make it 3-2.

An inning later, the O’s put together a truly impressive rally to regain the lead. Tolle retired two batters but gave up singles to O’Neill and Taveras to bring up Jackson. Jeremiah came up big, jumping on a first-pitch cutter and lacing it into left for a game-tying single. Would you believe that Jeremiah was making his first start in 15 days? Fifteen! I’m not saying he should be an everyday player or anything, but I feel like he’s earned a little more playing time than he’s gotten. And clutch hits like that one certainly don’t hurt his case.

Then it was Encarnacion-Strand’s turn to play the hero again. The O’s third baseman rolled a single up the middle, plating Taveras to give the Orioles a 4-3 lead. Nice! I enjoy when he does well, even if it means I have to take the time to type out E-N-C-A-R-N-A-C-I-O-N-dash-S-T-R-A-N-D every time. I’m willing to make that sacrifice. The Orioles, though, missed a chance to add to their lead when Sam Huff weakly struck out with two aboard. The absences of Adley Rutschman and Samuel Basallo felt particularly profound whenever we had to watch an at-bat from Huff, who struck out all three times tonight.

Baz now had a lead to work with, but it evaporated quickly thanks to another Orioles error. Baz only had himself to blame for this one, as he airmailed a throw past first base on Abreu’s slow roller near the mound, putting the runner on second. Abreu promptly scored on a Contreras double, knotting the score at four. Baz exited after the sixth inning, giving up four runs, but only two earned.

Again, the Orioles clawed back into the lead in the seventh on an O’Neill RBI groundout (which should’ve been a double play, but was muffed by Sox second baseman Anthony Seigler). And again, just as quickly, they gave it back, with another heaping dose of bad defense. With a runner at second and two outs in the seventh, Yennier Cano hung a two-strike sweeper to Rafaela, who lashed a single to left. Taylor Ward foolishly threw home even though he had no chance to get the runner, and his throw was so off-target that Rafaela took second. That’s error #4 for the Orioles, if you’re counting. Yeesh. That error didn’t cost the Birds, since Tyler Wells stranded Rafaela on a strikeout, but it’s still an ugly look.

At that point, the Orioles were all out of magic. The Red Sox weren’t. Light-hitting third baseman Caleb Durbin blasted the Red Sox into the lead with a two-out solo homer off Wells in the eighth, because of course he did. The exuberant Sox exploded in celebration in the dugout and the raucous Fenway crowd of 37,659 went wild. They were three outs away from their 14th consecutive win.

The Orioles, to their credit, didn’t make it easy for Boston in the ninth. Colton Cowser drew a leadoff walk and Henderson lashed his third double of the game, a two-out clanker off the Monster, to put two in scoring position against All-Star closer Aroldis Chapman. Tyler O’Neill was thisclose to delivering an enormous hit, lashing a sharp liner to the left side, but shortstop Tseng-Che Cheng made a nifty running grab to snare it for the final out.

The Red Sox made the plays. The Orioles didn’t. And that, in a nutshell, was the difference in this game.

On Sunday night, Jazz Chisholm Jr. — about as publicly confident as any player in baseball — acknowledged what baseball players rarely acknowledge: “I’ve sucked all season,” he said.

Perhaps because of this admission and perhaps because he has not been hitting or acting like himself, plenty of his Yankees teammates have been in his ear. Aaron Judge, Anthony Volpe, “basically everybody,” Chisholm said, has been attempting to coax a great hitter awake not by tossing around batting tips but by throwing around compliments.

“Sometimes they see me dragging a little bit lately,” Chisholm said Monday. “They just were like, ‘Bro, let’s not forget who you are. You’re the greatest in the world.’ ”

Feeling like the greatest in the world, he then was the greatest player in the game during a series-opening, 8-5 victory over the Pirates in front of 42,348 in The Bronx, which will be remembered for Chisholm’s two home runs and some late fireworks between the two clubs.

“He needed it,” José Caballero — whose pitch-clock strategy bothered former Yankee Dennis Santana enough to empty the benches after the eighth inning — said about Chisholm’s explosion. “We all needed it.”

The deeply slumping Yankees had scored more than five runs in just one of their previous 27 games — a nearly unbelievable drought, the entirety without Judge and Giancarlo Stanton — but for one night, they racked up eight by the third inning and finished with 11 hits.

The catalyst was Chisholm, who had launched the go-ahead shot against the Dodgers on Sunday then made it three straight plate appearances with a homer, adding a three-run dinger in the first inning and wrapping a two-run, go-ahead shot around the foul pole in what became a four-run third.

In his walk year, Chisholm finished the opening game of Sunday’s doubleheader with a .698 OPS and 13 home runs in 93 games. A Yankees team that has many trade-deadline needs might have been talking itself into second base, too.

Two games later, he has 16 home runs and a .726 OPS.

“Three different pitches, too,” manager Aaron Boone said after Chisholm went deep off an Evan Phillips fastball, a Braxton Ashcraft curveball and an Ashcraft slider. “When he gets it rolling, he’s capable of big things, and obviously that was a big night for him and for us tonight.”

The Yankees (56-44) have won six of eight, remain 1 ½ games back of the Rays in the division and cannot exhale, but probably can breathe a bit easier than they had been a week ago.

In what you could consider only their second strong offensive performance since June 18, the Yankees had help.

The Pirates (52-49) — a decent team, we swear — looked like the Pirates of old in the first, when Paul Goldschmidt bounced a hopper to the left side that deflected off the glove of third baseman Nick Gonzales and into center field.

Ben Rice chugged from first to third and Goldschmidt hustled into second, where left fielder Bryan Reynolds intended to throw upon pouncing on the ball but then tried to halt his throw upon realizing no one was covering the base.

What followed would have worked in Spikeball, a throw that maybe traveled 2 feet and allowed Rice to score without a throw.

After a Cody Bellinger single, Chisholm smoked his first homer of the night to right for a 4-0 lead that was not safe. Ryan Weathers (4 ²/₃ innings, five runs) was not sharp and gave back the lead by the third, but Chisholm came through with yet another go-ahead shot.

After a Goldschmidt single, Chisholm got a 2-2 slider down and in, threw his barrel to the pitch and did whatever he could to keep it fair. The second baseman remained at home plate, leaned to his left and watched the ball sneak inside the foul pole and reach its destination in the second deck in right field.

That became the last meaningful swing of the night and ended the scoring, with credit due to Angel Chivilli, Brent Headrick, Tim Hill and Fernando Cruz, who combined for 4 ¹/₃ scoreless innings.

But it did not end the drama, with Santana taking offense to Caballero’s habit of milking the pitch clock as much as hitters are allowed and starting a shouting match after the end of the eighth inning.

“If you [as a pitcher] get frustrated, I’m winning,” Caballero said after he and Chisholm sparked the Yankees to a win.

A rather unremarkable play erupted in the eighth inning of the Yankees’ game against the Pirates as both benches cleared during an altercation between Dennis Santana and Jose Caballero.

Caballero hit a tame grounder to the pitcher to end the inning with a double play, but the pair jawed after the play concluded as things quickly escalated.

The pair could be seen walking toward each other before Pittsburgh’s Rafael Flores Jr. held an incensed Santana back.

But the benches and bullpens cleared out nonetheless as the pair continued talking towards each other, with Santana trying to break out of his teammates’ grasp and make a bolt towards Caballero moments later.

The game was paused for several moments before play resumed, and the home fans were energized by the fracas as “Let’s Go Yankees!” chants rang out through the stadium.

PHILADELPHIA –– Trea Turner taketh … then giveth … then giveth … then taketh again.

In what has been a rollercoaster season for the Philadelphia Phillies star shortstop, Turner induced particularly extreme whiplash against his former team on Monday night. 

He hit two home runs in the Phillies’ 10-7 win over the Dodgers at Citizens Bank Park –– but also committed a couple consequential misplays defensively that, at least for a little while, let the Dodgers hang around.

He was cheered, then booed, then cheered again.

Four years removed from leaving the Dodgers for the Phillies on a $300 million contract, Turner bounced back from a first-inning fielding error on Monday with what initially seemed to be the night’s biggest swing, when he punctuated a four-run Phillies rally with a two-run homer against Emmet Sheehan.

However, it was Turner’s shaky defense that helped the Dodgers get back into the game, even with Cy Young contender Cristopher Sánchez on the mound for Philadelphia.

After the Dodgers got one run back in the fourth –– and drove up Sánchez’s pitch count after Turner failed to stab a ground ball later in the inning –– Turner was in the middle of another Dodgers’ rally in the sixth.

With Sánchez out of the game, Max Muncy came off the bench for a pinch-hit RBI double against Orion Kerkering that made it 4-2. Then, with the bases loaded and two outs, Turner booted a bouncer back up the middle from Andy Pages, charging the ball only to see it kick off his mitt. 

The play was generously ruled an infield single by the official scorer. But it allowed a run to score nonetheless, cutting the Dodgers’ deficit to 4-3.

“We were one hit away a couple different times,” Dodgers manager Dave Roberts.

Despite all that, Turner made amends in the next half-inning.

With the Phillies leading 5-3 following Brandon Marsh’s solo blast off Sheehan, Turner came up against left-hander Alex Vesia with two aboard and roped a three-run homer off the bottom of the foul pole in left, re-establishing the Phillies’ four-run lead. 

Turner’s up-and-down night wasn’t over there. In the ninth, he booted another ball on a sharp one-hopper from Tommy Edman, setting up Mookie Betts for a two-run homer (his first of two on the night). But by then, the Phillies had already pulled away, hitting two more home runs of their own off Landon Knack for five total as a team on the night.

What it means for the Dodgers

After starting this post-All-Star-break road trip with consecutive wins, the Dodgers (63-38) have given them right back with a pair of losses.

As a result, they no longer have the best record in the majors, falling behind a surging Milwaukee Brewers team that has now won four-straight games since the midseason break.

A No. 1 playoff seed, of course, is less important to the Dodgers than winning the NL West (which they still lead by 11 games) or securing a first-round bye courtesy of a top-two finish in the NL standings (they still have a four-game cushion there). But, it’s not nothing either. And now, they’ve given themselves some work to do to reclaim the best record in the majors.

Who’s hot

Betts was slumping so much entering Monday –– mired in a 14 at-bat hitless streak and 4-for-38 rut in his last 11 games overall –– that Roberts decided to bump him down in the batting order, moving him from the cleanup spot to the five-hole in hopes of providing Betts a “different look.”

Coincident or not, he then had his best game of the season.

Betts not only recorded four hits in a game for the first time this year, but also belted a pair of long balls to snap a home run drought that dated back to June 27.

The performance catapulted Betts’ OPS on the season back over .700 (from .690 at the start of play to .731 by the end of the game) and offered a needed boost of confidence even in a losing effort.

“That was certainly a nice silver lining for tonight,” Roberts said. “All of his at-bats were really good.” 

Who’s not

After finishing an up-and-down first half on something of a high note (only four earned runs allowed in his last three starts), Sheehan’s search for consistency returned on Monday.

He put himself in immediate trouble in the first, only escaping with the help of a diving stop by Edman at third to begin an inning-ending double-play. In the four-run second, however, he got no such luck, giving up three consecutive one-out hits, including an RBI double to Gabriel Rincones Jr., before hanging a slider that Turner hit for his two-run homer.

Sheehan mostly settled down after that, retiring 10 of his next 12 batters. But with his fastball velocity again on the decline, he was punished again on Marsh’s solo homer in the sixth –– which came on a 92.8 mph fastball over the plate in a 2-0 count.

“I think that when there’s damage or things have happened, then he locks in and raises his level of intensity a little bit more,” Roberts said of Sheehan. “But it’s just got to be that before you know things start happening.”

Indeed, after matching a season-high six runs allowed in his 5 ⅓ innings, Sheehan’s ERA is now back up to 5.03 on the season, and he has now gone seven-straight starts without completing six innings.

The Dodgers’ injury problems mean his rotation spot is safe for now. But the frustrations he has endured during this 2026 campaign are only becoming more magnified.

“I thought it was the delivery,” Sheehan said. “I thought we had a pretty good handle on that coming in. The past few starts have been better with that. And then yeah, kind of a step back today, which is pretty frustrating.”

Up next

A pair of 10-game winners will be on the mound Tuesday at Citizens Bank Park, when Justin Wrobleski (10-2, 2.69 ERA) faces off against right-hander Zack Wheeler (10-1, 2.13 ERA).

On the 57th anniversary of the moon landing, the Royals and Giants celebrated by playing a baseball game on the surface of the sun that the Royals won 4-3 on a walkoff squeeze bunt. It was 97 F at first pitch. Thankfully, the Royals gracefully managed to avoid all the extra innings while burning on the field.

The surface of the sun makes weird things happen, apparently. After Alex Lange blew the game in the ninth by giving up a two-run, game-tying homer that just cleared the fence, the Royals came up in the bottom of the 9th with a chance to walk it off. Josh Rojas, who just made a beautiful diving stop down the third base line in the 8th inning to save a run, slapped a grounder against the shift for a single. Then Tyler Tolbert laid down a pop-spinner of a bunt that the Giants catcher picked up at the line. It was ruled a fair ball, and the catcher threw to second base for the force. Willy Adames was *not* standing on second base when he caught the ball, so no outs were given to the Giants. I’m not sure if that ball would have kept rolling foul, but it was worth a shot. I’m not sure they were getting the force at second anyway.

Carter Jensen lined out deep enough to center field for Rojas to advance to third. That brought up Nick Loftin, who showed bunt early on. His first attempt was foul. With the infield in and charging on the pitch, Loftin did manage to lay down a bunt down the first base line. Bryce Eldridge was there, but he did not field it cleanly and could not get the throw to the catcher in time to get Rojas. Walkoff.

I don’t know if it was the sweat dripping down the pitchers’ arms, or cramps, or whatever, but this game was a bit cursed, if you hadn’t noticed already. Both starters seemed to have grip issues with several errant pitches. Curveballs that were 15 feet above the plate. Changeups that seemingly moved up, not down. Sliders that did no such thing. Multiple hit-by-pitches. Giants starter Trevor McDonald was removed in the bottom of the 5th inning during warmup pitches for an injury of some kind. Bobby Witt Jr was subbed out for Nick Loftin in the top of the 5th due to lower back tightness. I think even the umpire was affected by the heat – the strike zone seemed rather large. The Royals ran out of challenges, and the Giants used more than their allotted 2 since they won a few. There were 8 total ABS challenges.

The slippery ball issues (I’m assuming) came to haunt McDonald in the 4th inning before he was removed in the 5th. He hit Vinnie Pasquantino on a slider that looked like it just slipped out of his hand. Salvador Perez, himself hit by a similar slippery-errant pitch earlier in the game, blasted a majestic homer well beyond the center field fence to put the Royals ahead. That was his 316th homer, putting him 1 shy of George Brett’s Royals record. Michael Massey doubled and then advanced to third on a groundout. He scored on a single from Isaac Collins.

Worth noting – the Royals got into McDonald’s weakness – runners on base – early in the game in the second inning. A single, walk, and HBP (Salvy) loaded the bases with no outs. Then Michael Massey hit a shallow popup to left-center field, after which the Royals sent Lane Thomas home. The center fielder made a strong, accurate throw and nailed Thomas at home for a double play. A groundout ended the inning. How disappointing to load the bases with no outs and come away with nothing.

When it wasn’t slipping out of his hand, Wacha had excellent command of his changeup. He gave up a home run to Heliot Ramos on a curveball down the pipe, but otherwise Wacha pitched a very strong game. He struck out 5 guys in his 6 innings and gave up only 3 hits. Another quality start (his 13th) for the Royals leader in innings pitched.

Quick Notes

• Cags’ 10-game hitting streak ended as he went 0-4
• The Royals have won 3 of 4 games coming out of the All-Star Break

The Royals move to 41-60 and the Giants are now 42-58. They will play again tomorrow at 6:40pm US Central time at Kauffman. Hopefully it will be cooled off by then.

Who knows how Trea Turner got out of bed this morning and into work but he probably didn’t anticipate having one of the most chaotic nights to remember for a position player.

His three hits, two of them being out of the park, five runs driven in, four misplays that ended up costing them a run. It was a +4 night for Turner even if it probably cost Cristopher Sánchez several pitches and potentially another inning of work.

Emmet Sheehan was lucky to get out of trouble in the first after an Alec Bohm double play ended the Phillies threat but he was not so lucky in the second, allowing back to back singles before Gabriel Rincones jr smacked a double to give the Phillies an early lead. Rincones later made a diving catch to save an Andy Pages knock, probably the best game he’s had in a while.

After a Justin Crawford sacrifice flyout, Turner redeemed one of his mistakes by crushing a hanging slider for his first dinger of the night.

Skipping all the way to the sixth, Sanchez began to run out of gas as the Dodgers, partially thanks to Turner’s defense, raised the left handers pitch count enough. Before Mattingly pulled him in the middle of the inning, Mookie Betts slapped a single to left field and then Teoscar Hernandez smacked another to put runners on first and second with one out.

Mattingly went to Orion Kerkering to try and protect a three run lead with two on, Dave Roberts countered by hitting Max Muncy for Alex Call. Roberts’ move paid off, Muncy took the seventh pitch of the at bat to right field for a double that gave the Dodgers a 4-2 lead.

After a strikeout and intentional walk to Shohei Ohtani, Trea Turner booted another ground ball that allowed a run to score and took the Phillies lead down to one.

In the bottom half of the sixth, Roberts had Sheehan stay in and Brandon Marsh made him pay, taking a fastball to left center field for his sixteenth home run of the year and made it a 5-3 game.

After a Stott double and a Derek Hill walk against Alex Vesia, Trea Turner got his chance to turn garbage into gold, as Marc Zumoff would say, and took a hanging first pitch changeup down the left field pole and barely fair that extended the Phillies lead to five.

It was a night for Turner to get hot, but also one for Mookie Betts to turn the page on his tough season. The future Hall of Famer came into Monday night’s game with a .690 OPS but you wouldn’t know it from tonight. After two singles off Sanchez, he took Jonathan Bowlan deep to cut the Phillies lead to four.

The Phillies would add a pair of home runs from Bryce Harper and Derek Hill to set the stage for a ninth inning that did not need to be as stressful as it was.

Because it was now a 10-4 game, Mattingly asked Chase Shugart to get the final three outs. Shugart began the outing by walking Andy Pages to start things off. Turner’s defensive issues continued when he couldn’t handle the sharp ground ball hit by Tommy Edman.

After a groundball that made it 10-5, Betts crushed his second home run of the night to left field on a sinker that went straight into Mookie’s barrel. After an Alex Freeland strikeout, Mattingly has seen enough and went to Jhoan Duran to put the game to bed.

It would be a routine groundball to Trea Turner, as every fan in the ballpark clenched their teeth, he took the hop comfortably and fired a strike to first to put an end to a weird night. Trea Turner’s weird night.

Box Score

It was a night of returns at American Family Field. Fan favorite and longtime Brewer Freddy Peralta made his first appearance at the ballpark in a uniform other than the Brewers’, while Jacob Misiorowski was back on the hill after taking a couple of weeks off around the All-Star break in an effort to limit his innings as we get toward the business end of the season. Even Billye Aaron, the widow of the late Henry, was back in Milwaukee as part of the Brewers’ celebration of Aaron’s 755th and final major-league homer, on a night when another Brewer hit his very first.

Misiorowski had a solid start, one that was intentionally shorter than we’re used to seeing from him, but things did not go well for Peralta, whose unsuccessful season with the Mets drags toward what feels like an inevitable conclusion as we approach the trade deadline. On top of it all, the Dodgers dropped their game with the Phillies tonight, and the Brewers ended the evening with the best record in baseball.

Was there any doubt that Misiorowski would come out after almost two weeks fired up? After taking a couple of 102 mph strikes to start the game, New York’s leadoff hitter A.J. Ewing was called out on a knee-buckling curveball. Juan Soto was next, and he got four straight fastballs between 103.6 and 104 mph—he swung and missed and the first, watched the second for a ball, and swung and missed again at the third and fourth. After Bo Bichette reached on a swinging bunt, Francisco Lindor (after going 3-for-3 with two walks yesterday) hit a solid single into left, but Jorge Polanco struck out on three pitches and the back-to-back two-out hits didn’t matter. It was a scoreless three-strikeout first inning for Miz.

Christian Yelich started the game by working Peralta into one of his patented full counts, but a ground ball to second ended the at-bat. Jackson Chourio drew a walk on four pitches, and Brice Turang followed with a rude greeting to his old teammate, a line drive down the right-field line. Chourio came around to score from first base, and Turang was into second with an RBI double. William Contreras nearly burned a Brewers challenge on a 1-2 pitch that just scraped the edge of the zone, but wisely decided against it, and he became the second out. Garrett Mitchell, though, continued his hot streak by lining an RBI single to right. Andrew Vaughn popped out to shallow right for the third out, but Milwaukee had jumped out to a 2-0 lead on their old pal.

Jared Young was the first non-strikeout out recorded by Misiorowski when he grounded out to second to start the top of the second inning, but Miz was back on the Ks with strikeouts of the newly returned Luis Robert Jr. and Brett Baty to end a 1-2-3 inning.

After a Jake Bauers strikeout started the bottom of the inning, Brian Anderson commented that Cooper Pratt was still looking for his first home run—mere seconds before Pratt launched one into the Brewer bullpen for career homer number one.

After Joey Ortiz struck out, Yelich kept the hit parade going with a fly ball to left that got over Soto’s head for a double (and yes, a better fielder probably would have caught it, but Yeli needs the break right now). A Chourio groundout ended the inning, but Milwaukee was up 3-0 after two.

Francisco Alvarez lined a single up the middle for a base hit on Misiorowski’s first pitch of the third. Ewing hit a hard grounder right at Vaughn that should’ve been a double play, but Vaughn whiffed on it and instead the Mets had runners on the corners with no outs for Soto. Soto hit a hard grounder to second which Turang made a nice play on to start a 4-6-3 double play; Alvarez scored from third, but the Brewers now had two outs and no runners on. Miz temporarily lost his command and walked Bichette on four pitches, but after a visit from Contreras, Lindor flew out to center to end the inning.

Mitchell’s hot hitting continued when he sliced a ground-rule double down the left-field line with two outs in the third, and that sparked a quick two-out rally when, on the next pitch, Vaughn blasted a fastball out to left for his third homer of the season and first since June 8th. The Brewers lead was up to 5-1. A Bauers groundout ended the inning, but the Brewers had Peralta on the ropes after three innings.

Jared Young picked up another infield hit for the Mets with one out in the second, but Robert Jr. struck out and Baty popped out and it was a scoreless top of the fourth for Misiorowski. Pratt led off the bottom of the inning with a single on a soft line drive to left, and then with Ortiz at the plate, he stole second. Ortiz struck out, but Pratt moved up again on a wild pitch to Yelich. Yelich, though, could only manage a soft grounder to first on which Pratt had to hold at third, and a strikeout of Chourio gave Peralta his first scoreless inning of the game.

Misiorowski, whose usage is being heavily monitored—comments from Pat Murphy before the game suggested this would be a shorter outing—was finished after four innings and 65 pitches. He was good, if not perfect, today: he walked one, gave up four hits (two of them of the infield variety) and allowed only an unearned run while striking out six, and left the game with a four-run advantage. Replacing Miz was Craig Yoho, looking for a bounce back after his tough outing on Saturday. Yoho walked Ewing with one out, but struck out Soto and Bichette to end a scoreless inning.

Peralta had his first flawless inning in the fifth. In the bottom of the frame, Brewers fans were treated to the debut of new acquisition Lance McCullers Jr., who replaced Yoho. In his first inning of work, McCullers—who recently made three rehab starts in the Astros’ system but hadn’t pitched in a big-league game since May 13th—looked surprisingly sharp. He started with a strikeout of Lindor, then got groundouts from Polanco and Young to end the inning.

Peralta kept going despite an elevated pitch count in the sixth. After Vaughn lined out, Bauers walked and Pratt picked up his third hit of the game, a single that put runners on the corners with one out. That was the end of the line for Peralta, but it wasn’t the end of his scoreline—on the second pitch from Xzavion Curry, Ortiz snuck one over the wall down the left-field line for a three-run homer, his fifth of the season and third in the last two weeks. Don’t look now, but in 21 games since June 27th, Ortiz has four homers and an OPS near .900. A Yelich groundout, Chourio walk, and Turang strikeout ended the inning, but the Brewers were up to an 8-1 lead.

Ortiz’s homer closed the book on a bitter comeback for Peralta. His final line consisted of eight hits, two walks, six strikeouts, and seven runs (all earned), and his season ERA bumped up over five.

Robert Jr. started the seventh with a hard line drive off of McCullers, but Ortiz snagged it out of the air for the first out. McCullers followed with strikeouts of Baty and Alvarez, and he had his second straight perfect inning. With two outs in the bottom of the inning, Vaughn put good wood on another ball and missed a homer by a few feet (it was just to the left of the cutout in right field). Instead, he settled for a double (his second extra-base hit of the day, both off of right-handed pitchers), and was stranded when Bauers struck out.

The first blemish on McCullers’ line came when Soto drew a one-out walk in the top of the eighth, and that was followed by a well-placed fly ball from Bichette that landed for a double down the right-field line. Soto held at third, but scored on an RBI groundout by Lindor, and a two-out single from Polanco scored Bichette, too. A groundout by Young ended the inning, and while the Mets cut into Milwaukee’s advantage, it was still an 8-3 game.

Curry had a quick bottom of the eighth to finish with 2 2/3 innings. McCullers took a seat in favor of Grant Anderson in the ninth; Anderson struck out the first two batters of the inning, walked Alvarez,

The Brewer offense had a really nice game after looking a bit discombobulated against the Marlins over the weekend, even while picking up the sweep. Pratt lead the way with three hits including his first homer, and the Brewers also got home runs from Ortiz and Vaughn, who also hit a double. Yelich, Turang, and Mitchell added doubles of their own, and it was a fun ten-hit, eight-run game for the offense. On the other side, it was all good news: Misiorowski looked sharp in his return to the mound, Yoho had a solid bounce-back outing, McCullers looked like a guy who could help, and Anderson closed the door without any excitement.

The series continues tomorrow with Brandon Sproat the team with whom he debuted last season. Rookie Zac Thornton will pitch for the Mets. Be here for first pitch at 6:40 p.m.

The first three innings of the series opener between the Yankees and Pirates were tantamount to a fierce battle on the open sea. The Bombers struck the first blow with a four-run opening inning, then the plucky crew from Pittsburgh returned fire with five runs of their own climb in front. The tide of battle turned immediately back into the Yankees’ favor, however, thanks to the heroic exploits of Jazz Chisholm Jr. Jazz hit two home runs on the night, including what would be the game-winning blast, to lead New York to a victory for the second consecutive evening.

The second act of this game was nothing but calm on the water, thanks to the Yankees’ bullpen. Angel Chivilli, Brent Headrick, Tim Hill, and Fernando Cruz joined forces for over four innings of scoreless work, letting up just two hits and a walk to seal the deal.

While the 2026 Pirates have the look of a team ready to turn a corner and mature from the doldrums of yesteryear, the old Bad News Bucs made an appearance when the Yankees first came up to bat.

It started after Ben Rice successfully overturned a called third strike into ball four, giving New York a baserunner. Rice was able to rumble from first to third after a grounder from Paul Goldschmidt was booted by third baseman Nick Gonzales. Then Bryan Reynolds, in his haste to quickly get the ball back in from the outfield, twirled and spiked the ball into the grass as if he’d scored a touchdown. Rice was able to score easily as a result to give the Yankees the early lead.

A single by Bellinger gave the Bombers a chance to add on, and Jazz Chisholm Jr. was happy to provide. Fresh off smacking the go-ahead home run in last night’s victory over the Dodgers, Jazz repeated the act on a 1-1 curveball from Ashcraft, powering it deep out to right for his 15th home run of the year and a four-spot in the opening frame against an All-Star pitcher.

Now in the unfamiliar position of receiving early and substantial run support, one would hope that Ryan Weathers could settle in and lock things down on the hill. Alas, it was not to be. The talented Pittsburgh offense wasted little time striking back, putting two runners in scoring position for shortstop Jared Triolo. Triolo attacked a first-pitch hanging slider from Weathers and stroked a ground-rule double over the left-center bullpen wall to cut the Yankee lead in half.

Triolo was not content to stand around and wait while parked at second base. At several points throughout the remainder of the half-inning, he signaled to his teammates at the mound as if to indicate what Weathers was about to throw next. Whether or not Triolo actually knew the signs, it seemed to get under the lefty’s skin—and it bore more fruit for the Bucs when Gonzales atoned for his error with a base hit to bring Triolo home and make it a 4-3 affair in short order.

The tone for the evening was set, and the runs would keep on flowing from there. Weathers’ woes continued after the Yankees went down quietly in the second inning, and Reynolds walked to bring up Pittsburgh’s exciting young power hitter, Esmerlyn Valdez. Another slider from the southpaw caught too much of the strike zone, and Valdez pulverized it the other way for a titanic 431-foot go-ahead blast. The rookie already has 13 home runs in 107 MLB plate appearances.

Weathers settled down enough to retire the next three batters in order, which meant the Yankees were down 5-4 but certainly not out. Cue the Jazz.

With a runner on, Chisholm matched up with Ashcraft once again. He battled to a full count before Ashcraft fired a payoff sinker right in the lefty-hitter happy zone: down and in. Jazz attacked quickly, slashing it well deep enough to leave the yard but hooking down the right field line. He leaned with his body after the swing, willing the ball to stay fair—and it did, landing inside the pole in the second deck for Chisholm’s second round-tripper of the night.

The Yanks weren’t done. That home run was the first of five consecutive hits the Bombers smacked off Ashcraft in the third, for a total of six in the frame. The final knock of that flurry was a José Caballero two-run double which kissed the chalk on the left field line and put New York ahead 8-5. Ashcraft stranded two runners in scoring position, but departed having allowed eight runs on eight hits with just two strikeouts.

As soon as the starters departed the game, the tone of this game changed dramatically. The Yankees found themselves flummoxed by young reliever Wilber Dotel, who retired nine of the ten batters he faced with five strikeouts from the fourth through the sixth. Only a single from Ben Rice kept Dotel from a perfect outing.

Thankfully, the Yankees bullpen held up their end of the bargain. It began with Angel Chivilli, who secured the final out of the fifth in relief of Weathers, then put away the Pirates in order in the sixth. Chivilli has been steadily climbing the ladder of trust since his call-up.

Brent Headrick continued his spectacular season with a perfect seventh inning, striking out Reynolds and Valdez to send us to the stretch. The lefty relief ace now has a 1.43 ERA on the season, one of the best marks for a reliever in the league.

Tim Hill was next up, and began the eighth inning by allowing an infield hit—despite the best efforts of a jump-throwing Jazz. Hill responded by inducing a perfect double play ball from the lumbering Marcell Ozuna. A quick turn from Caballero to Chisholm got the job done. Hill allowed another single and yielded to Fernando Cruz, who struck out pinch-hitter Tyler Callihan to retire the side.

The bottom of the eighth provided one last bit of theater. Former Yankee Dennis Santana took the mound for the Bucs and faced Caballero with one on and one out. Caballero did his signature move of not looking at the pitcher until the last possible moment, which evidently got Santana upset. Cabby eventually tapped a ball to Santana, who began a 1-6-3 twin killing—then he had some words for the Yankee shortstop. Both dugouts emptied and Santana did the hold-me-back-bro routine before his teammates escorted him off the field. Okay then.

Cruz continued on for the ninth inning and left no remaining room for doubt, setting down the Pirates in order, including on a pair of strikeouts against Gonzales and former Ray Brandon Lowe—and the Yankees won the 100th game of their season, improving to 56-44 on the year.

Annoyingly, the Rays and Red Sox both won tonight; the latter team came from behind against the Orioles to notch their 14th straight win. Still, the Bombers kept pace, and have much to celebrate from tonight’s effort.

Tomorrow night’s game will feature a matchup of two talented pitchers seeking to establish themselves. Will Warren is set to take his turn against the filthy-but-wild Bubba Chandler, with coverage set for the same time on the same channel: 7:05 pm on YES.

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