Category: Sports News

PHOENIX — Munetaka Murakami is hitting home runs at a pace no Chicago White Sox player has before.

He not only homered in his fifth consecutive game Wednesday night, equaling a White Sox record, but also reached 10 homers in just 24 games, the quickest by a White Sox player in franchise history. It ties the fourth-quickest by any player in MLB history in their first 24 career games.

“I mean, it’s unbelievable what he’s doing,’’ White Sox infielder Miguel Vargas said, “it’s unbelievable to watch.’’

Murakami set the franchise record with a 451-foot blast over the center-field fence off Ryan Thompson, with the crowd of 20,799 at Chase Field in awe of the majestic shot.

“I’m really happy that I have the record,’’ Murakami, 26, who has the longest homer streak by a Japanese-born player in history, said. “My swing is pretty good overall. It’s still early in the season, so I still have to keep adjustment to the pitchers, but right now, I’m sitting really well at the moment.’’

Munetaka Murakami STAYS HOT 🔥 pic.twitter.com/dmbRzIcoaD

— MLB (@MLB) April 23, 2026

When asked what it’s like to have even more homers than three-time MVP Aaron Judge, Murakami says he shouldn’t be compared to any power hitter at this stage of his career.

“I’m not the caliber of a player who should be compared to Aaron Judge,’’ Murakami said. “I’ve got to stay humble and keep doing what I’m doing right now.’’

And while any team could have had Murakami, with the White Sox winning the sweepstakes with their modest two-year, $34 million offer, Murakami says he’s thrilled to be in Chicago’s South Side.

“I love the team very much,’’ he said. “All my teammates are very open to communication. They are really just good teammates overall. Staff, coaches, I love them very much.’’

Los Angeles Dodgers star Shohei Ohtani’s on-base streak came to an end against the San Francisco Giants on Wednesday, April 22.

Ohtani finished the game going 0-for-4 in the 3-0 loss to the Giants. He also served as the Dodgers' starting pitcher for the game, striking out seven and allowing five hits in six innings pitched.

Ohtani had reached a base (by either a hit or a walk) in 53 consecutive games dating to Aug. 24, 2025.

Ohtani hit an infield single in the seventh inning against the Giants on Tuesday, April 21, extending the streak and tying Shawn Green (2000) for the longest streak in Dodgers' history.

It wasn’t a statement win, to be sure. It wasn’t a win that said the 12-game losing streak had been some weird, early-season fluke.

But on this night, any win was going to feel practically life-changing for the Mets, lifting the weight of the world off their shoulders.

“It’s a sigh of relief,” was the way Luke Weaver put it, after getting the last four outs of the 3-2 win over the Minnesota Twins on Wednesday night at Citi Field.

“It doesn’t mean we’re going to go on and win 50 straight games, but it allows us to just go out and play and not worry about trying to end the streak. It was going to take a win like this to get us going.”

By that, he meant a nail-biter, a game that saw the Mets lose leads of 1-0 and 2-1, as everyone in the ballpark seemed to brace for another cruel ending. All the more so when Mark Vientos, one of the slowest runners in baseball, purposefully ran through a stop sign trying to force the action with the game tied 2-2, only to be thrown out by 10 feet.

Yep, they were going to lose again. Why would this night be any different? The Mets hadn’t won since April 7, for crying out loud.

So when they didn’t lose, when they finally did find a way to win, with Weaver getting a huge out in the eighth with the bases loaded and then closing out the ninth, and Vientos redeeming himself with a bloop go-ahead single, you could feel a certain lightness in the clubhouse.

Not celebratory to be sure. But the relief was palpable. Players were quick to smile and exchange a bit of humor.

“I warmed them up for you,” Weaver said with a laugh to Clay Holmes, speaking of the media group waiting for the starting pitcher.

Yet it was all very self-contained, perhaps because the Mets really do believe they are much better than all of this, scratching and clawing to score runs and find a way to win just one ballgame.

Or perhaps too because it was impossible to ignore the reality that they likely lost Francisco Lindor for a significant length of time with a calf injury on the same night that Juan Soto returned from a three-week absence with the same injury.

If that represents symmetry for the 2026 Mets, this season might just be as doomed as it felt while the 12-game losing streak dragged on into historic territory.

In any case, this new reality seemed to weigh especially heavily on Carlos Mendoza. It’s clear he fears Lindor could be out at least as long as Soto, and perhaps longer, depending on what an MRI on Thursday reveals.

“We got relatively good news with Soto and it was still three weeks,” Mendoza said after the game. “It’s what we’re dealing with right now. We lost Soto and we had a hard time. We’re going to have to find a way.”

Mendoza said he knew it was bad as soon as he saw Lindor slow up going around third, as he scored from first on Francisco Alvarez’s double to right-center, injuring the calf along the way.

“Then I could see the look on his face, walking to the dugout,” Mendoza said. “Then he had to come out of the game.”

Lindor, of course, rather famously wants to play every day through anything, whether it’s a broken toe, a broken finger, or the birth of a child, none of which has kept him from his shortstop position.

The worst news for the Mets, of course, is that Lindor was finally starting to heat up at the plate after one of his notoriously cold starts to a season.

He had the three-run home run on Tuesday, two hits on Wednesday, and nine hits in his last seven games.

Even more to the point, there’s no getting around the fact that as Lindor goes, so go the Mets. It has been that way year after year: they win when he hits, they lose when he doesn’t.

He’s always had that impact, going back to his days in Cleveland. For his career, spanning 10 seasons for the Guardians and Mets, Lindor has put up a .950 OPS in games his team has won, as opposed to .638 in losses. In wins, he’s hit .316, in losses, .216.

Those numbers have been even more dramatic with the Mets. Last season, he had a .999 OPS in games the Mets won, compared to .610 in losses. In wins, he hit .333, in losses, .196.

And in 2024, the season in which Lindor carried the Mets to the postseason, making a run at the MVP Award, his OPS in wins was 1.084, compared to .543 in losses.

Mendoza knows all of that. He knows that even with Soto back, the Mets are going to feel the loss of Lindor at a time when they need to make a run to have any hope of getting back into contention in the coming weeks and months.

As it was, he could only smile wryly when asked after the game if he expected to come back with the same new-look lineup he used on Wednesday, with Bo Bichette leading off the Lindor in the clean-up spot.

“Well, we probably won’t have Lindor,” he said. “So I’m probably going to have to get creative.”

It’s been that kind of season for the Mets. The losing streak was over. And yet you knew the manager wasn’t going to sleep well. Again.

BOSTON — The Yankees primarily roster Amed Rosario for a bat that has proven deadly against left-handed pitchers and is showing more and more power by the day.

The Yankees primarily roster Ryan McMahon for a glove that helped steady their infield defense after the trade deadline last year.

On Wednesday, manager Aaron Boone did a nice job of helping both players’ strengths shine during the same game.

The Yankees’ primary third basemen became the offensive and defensive standouts of a 4-1 victory over the Red Sox at Fenway Park, where Boone leaned on Rosario’s power to supply a lead and McMahon’s glove to help Max Fried preserve it.

Against lefty Ranger Suarez, the righty-hitting Rosario got the nod and immediately rewarded that nod. He stepped up with two on base and two outs in the first and launched a three-run shot over the Green Monster for the only runs the Yankees would need.

In 17 games and just 55 plate appearances, Rosario has rocketed four home runs. He totaled nine homers the previous two seasons.

The likely source of his power finding a new gear: three years of work at the data-driven baseball factory Driveline, where he has focused in particular on bat speed.

Over the past three years, his average swing has gone from 71.2 mph to 73.2 mph to 74.3 mph.

“I felt there was a chance to [bump up the bat speed],” Rosario said through interpreter Marlon Abreu. “If we worked on [bat speed and launch angle], you can improve on power. And the results have been progressing little by little.”

Rosario used some more power to lift a sacrifice fly into left to score Aaron Judge from third base in the third inning, which would account for the final Yankees run — all of which were driven in by Rosario.

His job done, he tagged out in the top of the sixth inning, when Ben Rice pinch hit against righty Zack Kelly, and by the bottom of the inning, the Yankees could insert their best third base defender.

No one in baseball induces more ground balls to third than Fried, who kept McMahon busy for the final three innings that saw a pair of sparkling plays.

It took just three batters for McMahon to make his presence known, Andruw Monasterio sending a ground ball down the third base line that McMahon backhanded on the run. From foul territory and fading away, McMahon sidearmed a strike in the air to Paul Goldschmidt for the final out of the inning.

“I’ve seen that play way too many times with him running into the foul ground and throwing the ball in the money,” Fried said of McMahon, as the two were longtime National League rivals with the Braves and Rockies, respectively.

In the next inning, it was Isiah Kiner-Falefa who tried to sneak a would-be double past McMahon, who took a step to his right, dove and speared the ball out of the air while fully extended.

“Wow,” Boone said after a strong night from his third basemen. “I mean, those are two tremendous plays.”

SAN FRANCISCO –– For six innings Wednesday night, Shohei Ohtani tortured the San Francisco Giants’ offense.

The minute he left the mound, everything changed.

In the Dodgers’ 3-0 loss at Oracle Park, Ohtani’s pitching was the only bright spot in what was the club’s fourth loss in its last five days. 

While he spun six scoreless frames, neither the lineup nor the bullpen could provide any support, setting the stage for a back-breaking sequence in the bottom of the seventh.

With Ohtani’s night over after 91 pitches, left-handed reliever Jack Dreyer took the mound and immediately gave the game away. The first two batters he faced both singled. Then, after a sacrifice bunt, he hung a two-strike slider to Patrick Bailey that the Giants catcher –– and previously .145-hitting No. 9 batter –– clobbered for a no-doubt three-run homer.

The way the Dodgers’ offense has been going this series, the defeat was essentially sealed right there.

For the first time this season, the team was shut out in a game, finishing the night with just four hits. 

Giants starter Tyler Mahle frustrated them over seven scoreless innings. And after the fourth, they never even put a runner in scoring position.

As a hitter, Ohtani wasn’t immune to such struggles, losing his 53-game on-base streak with a 0-for-4 performance.

But, outside of Freddie Freeman and his two hits, just about every other Dodgers hitter failed to make an impact, as well.

“Obviously with Shohei, we always expect more,” Roberts said, with Ohtani now just 7-for-his-last-29 at the plate and batting .258 this season. “But it’s just one of those things these last couple nights, we haven’t really swung the bats well. We haven’t.”

What it means

The defeat clinches a losing road trip for the Dodgers (16-8), who have gone 2-4 this week against the Giants (11-13) and Colorado Rockies.

Now, they are in danger of suffering their first series sweep of the season, too.

Not what they were expecting from a trip in which they faced two sub-.500 teams.

Who’s hot

Ohtani, the pitcher.

In his six scoreless innings, the right-hander continued his electric start to the season. He struck out seven batters. He gave up just five hits. He didn’t walk anyone. And he had some of his best raw stuff in a Dodgers uniform.

His fastball averaged a season-high 98.8 mph, and eclipsed the 100 mph mark seven times. His sweeper was almost unhittable, generating a whiff 9 of the 15 times the Giants swung at it.

At the end of his night, he even showed some rare emotion, stranding runners at second and third in the sixth with a strikeout of Casey Schmitt that had him pumping his fist as he spun off the mound.

Though Ohtani might have been able to keep going, Roberts said he didn’t want to push his two-way star so early in the season –– especially after the stress of the sixth.

“You can see he was emptying the tank right there,” Roberts said, “because we clearly haven’t been scoring runs.”

Still, in four starts overall this year, Ohtani has now allowed just one earned run in 24 innings, good for a 0.38 ERA to go along with 25 strikeouts.

“You saw it from the outset, just where his head was at, the velocity, it was going to be hard to get runs off him tonight,” Roberts said. “Unfortunately, we couldn’t support him on the offensive side.”

Who’s not

The Dodgers’ offense indeed –– including Ohtani, the hitter, who failed to set a new record-long on-base streak in the franchise’s Los Angeles history after tying Shawn Green at 53 games.

Ohtani, of course, was far from the only disappointment on Wednesday.

Kyle Tucker also failed to reach base in a 0-for-4 clunker, dropping his early-season batting average down to .233.

Teoscar Hernández, Andy Pages and Hyeseong Kim were hitless, as well, while squandering the team’s two best chances of the night –– Hernández by grounding out with two aboard to end the first inning, and Pages and Kim by doing the same in the fourth after the Dodgers had gotten runners to second and third base.

Up next

The Dodgers will try to avoid their first sweep this season in Thursday afternoon’s series finale. Tyler Glasnow (2-0, 3.24 ERA) will face Logan Webb (2-2, 5.40 ERA) in the 12:45 p.m. start.

A seven-game losing streak to the San Diego Padres was finally snapped as the Colorado Rockies delivered on all fronts to secure an 8-3 victory at Coors Field. Solid starting pitching and an offensive outburst for the lineup have now tied the series 1-1.

With the win, the Rockies have secured their 10th win of the season, a stark contrast to the fact that Colorado lost 50 games in 2025 before winning their 10th game at the start of June.

Pour Some Sugano On Me

The Rockies were hoping for a bounce-back start for Tomoyuki Sugano after a rough outing against Los Angeles, and “Tommy Sugar” delivered. Sugano ended up working 5.2 innings, allowing just one run on five hits with four strikeouts against one walk.

The lone walk came in the first inning after Ramón Laureano drew a walk to lead off the game and came in to score via a Jackson Merrill single. After the first inning, Sugano allowed just three more base runners, two of which came via singles in the sixth inning that drove him out of the game with two outs.

As he has done each time out, Sugano pounded the zone, throwing 64 of his 101 pitches for strikes. His slider and splitter were especially effective in inducing nine groundouts and two flyouts. It was also the first outing this season where he didn’t allow a home run.

King of the Hill

With two men on in the sixth and left-handed hitting Gavin Sheets coming up to the plate, the Rockies turned to Jaden Hill out of the bullpen to bail out Sugano. Sporting a .176/.263/.176 slashline against left-handed hitters, Hill successfully retired Sheets on a groundout.

Hill then pitched the seventh and managed to strike out of the side, although Luis Campusano belted a home run to left field for the Padres’ second run of the game, and he issued a free pass. Still, it was another fantastic outing for the right-hander as he sports a shiny 1.80 ERA.

Bye Bye Buehler

The last time Walker Buehler pitched at Coors Field in 2024, he allowed seven runs on seven hits in just four innings of work. While he didn’t surrender that many runs this time around, the Rockies still got after him and chased him from the game after 2.2 innings.

The damage against Buehler came in the second inning after Troy Johnston kicked things off with a one-out single to right field. After Kyle Karros moved him up ninety feet on a groundout, the Rockies managed to construct a massive two-out rally. Willi Castro, Jake McCarthy (with an assist from the second base bag), and Edouard Julien delivered three-straight singles to give the Rockies a 2-1 advantage. Mickey Moniak then delivered an RBI double to score McCarthy and put two runners in scoring position. Hunter Goodman drew a walk to load the bases for Tyler Freeman, who managed to drive in a run after smoking a ball to Xander Bogaerts who then bobbled the ball trying to rush a throw from a diving stop.

The Rockies threatened Buehler again in the third inning with a Karros double and walks issued to Castro and Julien to drive him from the game with two outs and the bases loaded. Unfortunately, Moniak couldn’t deliver against the left-handed reliever Kyle Hart to put a bigger blemish on Buehler’s start. In the end, he allowed four runs on eight hits with three walks and two strikeouts on 82 pitches.

Hit Parade

After managing just three singles on Tuesday, the Rockies deployed the offense with authority in tonight’s game. They collected 15 total hits, including seven extra-base hits, while every starter collected a hit by the fifth inning. They scored the four runs in the second and added a run in the fourth, sixth, seventh, and eighth.

Goodman led the offense with three hits, collecting a pair of doubles and a towering solo home run. Moniak had two doubles while TJ Rumfield collected a pair of hits and two RBI. In total, five Rockies had multi-hit games with the bottom third of the order going 5-for-10 on the night. Additionally, the Rockies struck out just six times while drawing four walks.

Perhaps more importantly, five of the Rockies’ eight runs came with two outs as they went 7-for-17 with runners in scoring position.

Up Next

The Rockies look to win the series on Thursday before heading to New York. Ryan Feltner (1-1, 6.00 ERA) is slated to take the hill for Colorado while the knuckleballer Matt Waldron (0-1, 14.73 ERA) is slated for San Diego.

First pitch is scheduled for 1:10 pm MT.

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Well it has rapidly turned into prospect week for the Braves’ rotation, as a 1.0 inning Reynaldo Lopez start on Tuesday in the middle of a stretch of 10 games straight sent the Braves’ pitching into a scramble to cover innings. An up and down 3.0 inning start from Didier Fuentes resulted in Thursday’s scheduled starter Martin Perez being burnt to cover another 3.0 innings. Fuentes was probably better than his line would indicate, as he got a bit unlucky with some BABIP, while striking out 7 batters across 3.0 innings and generated 15 whiffs on 74 pitches. That said, he was not as his best, particularly in the first inning. So that leaves us with JR Ritchie making his MLB debut on Thursday as a consensus top 100 prospect and top 2 prospect in the organization. Ritchie made a real push for a rotation spot in Spring Training and has been largely effective in AAA so far. Ritchie has a deep pitch mix and will be fun to watch on Thursday, as he can hopefully can provide some depth for a Braves team that desperately needs it.

Braves News

The Braves are calling up top prospect JR Ritchie to start Thursday’s series finale against the Nationals. Cookie Carrasco will also join the roster in the place of Dylan Dodd, as the Braves are really scraping the bottom of the organizational barrel to cover innings in this 10 game stretch, no disrespect to Carrasco’s impressive career.

Atlanta DFA’d Ian Hamilton after a rough Tuesday outing, making space to bring up Didier Fuentes to start Wednesday’s game.

Didier Fuentes showed some promise and some flaws in a 3.0 inning outing to start what ended up being an 8-6 Atlanta victory in Washington DC.

MLB News

The Mets won their first game after a 12 game losing streak, beating the Twins in a tight 3-2 game.

The A’s are placing exciting centerfielder Denzel Clarke on the IL with a bone bruise.

The Rangers are placing the young outfielder Wyatt Langford on the IL with a flexor strain, an odd injury for a position player.

The struggling Phillies placed catcher JT Realmuto on the IL with back spasms.

Lucas Giolito finally signed and it was with the Padres, where he got a pretty small deal.

After scoring one run on Tuesday, the Dodgers were shut out for the first time this season on Wednesday, with the San Francisco Giants silencing them 3-0.

The Dodgers once again had a two-out walk in the first inning against the Giants, this time with Tyler Mahle walking Will Smith. Freddie Freeman skied one to shallow center field, but Drew Gilbert travelled back initially and was unable to make the play to put two men on. Mahle got out of the jam unscathed by inducing a ground out from Teoscar Hernández.

The Giants threatened early against Shohei Ohtani on the mound in the bottom of the first inning with a pair of singles from Luis Arraez and Rafael Devers. Against Casey Schmitt, Ohtani got his third strikeout of the inning to strand the two baserunners, marking the sixth strikeout over his previous two innings on the mound dating back to April 15.

The Dodgers bats went down quietly against Mahle until Freeman recorded his second hit of the game to lead off the top of the fourth inning, with Max Muncy following with a single of his own. Freeman took third on the play, with Muncy taking second on the throw to third, but the Dodgers failed to deliver in the inning. Mahle got Pages to ground into a fielder’s choice which began the first of 11 consecutive hitters retired in order, as the Giants right-hander held the Dodgers scoreless over seven full innings.

Ohtani would set down 11 hitters in a row following the single from Devers—which included another strikeout in the second inning and a seven pitch third inning— before Heliot Ramos broke through with a one-out single in the bottom of the fifth to give the Giants their first baserunner since the first inning. Ohtani got his first strikeout since the second inning by getting Gilbert fanning at an outside fastball at 100 miles per hour, completing five scoreless innings by getting a groundout from Patrick Bailey.

Ohtani was one out away from another quick inning of work in the bottom of the sixth, but Chapman reached on an infield single and Devers lined a double down the right field line, with a quick ricochet to Kyle Tucker in right field holding Chapman at third base. Ohtani got Schmitt swinging for the second time to give him his seventh strikeout of the game, completing another scoreless six innings of work on the mound. While Ohtani dazzled on the mound again, he went 0-4 at the plate on Wednesday, bringing an end to his on-base streak at 53 games.

Jack Dreyer came in to try and keep the game scoreless, but he was immediately ambushed by a pair of singles from Jung Hoo Lee and Heliot Ramos. Gilbert moved both men over on a sacrifice bunt, and even though Dreyer was ahead of Patrick Bailey 1-2 in the count, he left a hanging slider that Bailey crushed over the left-field wall to produce the game’s first three runs. It was the first home run Bailey hit from the right side of the plate since his walk-off grand slam against Tanner Scott late last year.

The Dodgers were left with no response against right-handers Caleb Kilian and Ryan Walker, as the Dodgers were held scoreless for the first time since Sept. 3 against the Pittsburgh Pirates last season. It’s the Dodgers fourth loss over the last five games, as they fall to 16-8 over their first 24 games— the same record they had over their first 24 games last year. With the San Diego Padres falling to the Colorado Rockies on Wednesday, the Dodgers continue to share a tie with San Diego for first place in the NL West.

Game particulars

• Home runs— Patrick Bailey (1)
• WP— Tyler Mahle (1-3): 7 IP, 3 hits, 0 runs, 2 walks, 5 strikeouts
• LP— Jack Dreyer (1-1): 1 IP, 3 hits, 3 earned runs, 0 walks, 0 strikeouts
• SV— Ryan Walker (3): 1 IP, 0 hits, 0 runs, 0 walks, 0 strikeouts

Up next

The Dodgers wrap things up against San Francisco and wrap up their seven-game road trip on Thursday (12:45 p.m. PT, SportsNet LA) before heading back home to open a three-game series with the Chicago Cubs. Tyler Glasnow makes his fifth start of the year against Logan Webb.