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The San Francisco Giants have dominated the Chicago Cubs in recent memory, but the hosts will grab a victory in today's series opener at Wrigley Field. 

My Giants vs Cubs predictions will explain why Chicago, which is a -156 favorite today, is in a prime position to take this contest, with Robbie Ray on the mound for San Francisco. 

Read more in my MLB picks for Friday, June 5. 

Who will win Giants vs Cubs today: Cubs -1.5 (+120)

The Chicago Cubs will face San Francisco Giants left-hander Robbie Ray this afternoon. He's struggled lately, compiling a 5.85 FIP across his last two starts, and he also owns a 6.24 SIERA during that span.

Ray has completely lost his command (10.13 BB/9), forcing him to serve his offerings on a silver platter over the heart of the plate.

Additionally, 47.6% of his contact over the last 14 days has come through the air, with 10% of those fly balls leaving the yard. That's concerning against a Cubs offense that ranks 12th in home runs, setting him up for a rough day at the office against Chicago's 43.1% hard-hit rate over the last week, while carrying a 107 wRC+ against left-handed pitching.

The real edge is Edward Cabrera's pitch mix returning to Wrigley Field, where he has a 3.89 FIP this season while limiting contact in the air to just 34%.

I'll play this pick to +100.

COVERS INTEL: The Cubs can pull away late against a Giants' bullpen boasting a 5.23 xFIP over the last two weeks. 

Giants vs Cubs Over/Under pick: Under 10.5 runs (+100)

My secondary lean is the Under. While I expect the Cubs to generate offense against Ray, Chicago's pitching staff should be capable of limiting the damage on the other side. With Cabrera returning from the IL, he will likely be on a short leash, and he's failed to pitch more than 4 2/3 innings in either of his last two outings.

That means the Cubs bullpen will play a significant role, and that's hardly a concern. Chicago's relievers own a 3.20 FIP over the last seven days while holding opponents to a .169 ISO and just 0.43 home runs per nine innings.

The Giants haven't shown much power on the road either, carrying a .157 ISO away from home in 2026. If Chicago's bullpen continues its recent form, San Francisco will struggle to generate enough offense to push this game beyond the total.

I'll play this pick to -110. 

Giants vs Cubs odds

• Moneyline: Giants +150 | Cubs -156
• Run line: Giants +1.5 (-127) | Cubs -1.5 (+122)
• Over/Under: Over 10.5 (-113) | Under 10.5 (+108)

Giants vs Cubs trend

The San Francisco Giants have hit the Team Total Under in 28 of their last 45 away games (+9.00 Units / 17% ROI). Find more MLB betting trends for Giants vs. Cubs.

How to watch Giants vs Cubs and game info

Giants vs Cubs latest injuries

Giants vs Cubs weather

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Good morning, LSB.

The Rangers were off yesterday.

Evan Grant writes that the team expects BOTH Corey Seager and Wyatt Langford back in action on Friday.

Grant’s weekly Rangers stock report claims a volatile Burger index.

Grant also answered a bunch of Rangers questions in his weekly live stream.

Jim Callis’ latest mock draft has the Rangers taking a Kentucky shortstop.

And Rob Manfred sees a storm coming.

That’s all for this morning. The Rangers start up a series against the Guardians tonight with Kumar Rocker on the mound for Texas.

Happy Friday!

I definitely can recall a time, back in the cooler days of spring, when I used to forget that Taylor Ward was in the lineup. Acquired last November for Grayson Rodriguez to Anaheim, I was pretty uninterested in Taylor Ward, and I felt bad for Rodriguez. In general, the trade felt to me hasty, a little wasteful, and cruel to a homegrown arm.

Well, that take has aged pretty badly, because Ward has quietly become a reliable leadoff man, and one of the most interesting hitters on the team. (If you were wondering about Rodriguez, by the way, here.) The moral: I guess we should read the transaction wire more carefully.

The raw numbers are solid without being flashy, brought down of late by an 0-for-14 skid. But a batting average hovering around .252 with an OBP north of .400, MLB-Top 3 walk totals, and a thoughtful approach at the plate has been a genuine asset at the top of a lineup that’s sorely lacked in consistency. In early May he set an O’s record with 40 walks through his first 40 games (topping the previous mark of 39 set by Albert Belle). The power, though, has been nearly absent—or at least diminished: after posting a career-high 36 home runs with the Angels a year ago, Ward has cleared the wall only twice this season. The homers have turned into doubles: 16, tied for fourth in the AL.

What’s changed for Ward at the plate?

Discipline metrics tell much of the story. The headlining number is Ward’s walk rate: 19.2%, a career high by a wide margin, and third among all 163 qualifying hitters in baseball, trailing only Mike Trout and the Athletics’ Nick Kurtz. A walk rate that extreme does not happen by accident, and the underlying swing data reveal a player who has fundamentally remade his approach.

Ward’s Swing% sits at 31.1%, a career low, meaning he is offering at far fewer pitches than at any point in his career. His O-Swing% (swings at pitches outside the zone) is 12%, the only time in nine seasons it has not exceeded 20%. His Z-Swing% (swings at pitches inside the zone) has fallen to 50.8%, another career low. In other words, Ward is not even chasing good pitches unless they are precisely what he is looking for. And when he does pull the trigger on pitches in the zone? He is making contact at a 90.8% clip — a career best.

The profile that emerges is of a hitter who is extraordinarily choosy but, when he has identified the pitch he wants, is not missing it. And he’s not selling out for power, either. Alongside a strikeout rate near its career low, his launch angle is at a career low, too, and his average exit velocity is unspectacular. Ward is taking walks. Or he’s finding the gap. He’s not swinging for the fences.

What explains the transformation? The change is intentional, as you’d guess. Ward himself cites three factors: offseason mechanical work to produce a line-drive approach, more intensive pregame prep on how pitchers plan to nibble outside the zone, and the new Automated Ball-Strike challenge system, which he says has encouraged umpires to stay closer to the true zone all season. Let’s dwell on that last point for a second.

The ABS system, new in 2026, uses Hawk-Eye cameras and a slightly hitter-friendly strike zone calibrated to each player’s height. One big implication is that pitches that clip the outer edge at the front of the plate and then dive out of the zone are no longer called strikes. And new hitting coach Dustin Lind has a documented track record of reducing chase rates wherever he has worked: he helped the Giants drop their chase rate from 31.2% to 24.2% between 2019 and 2021, and brought a similar philosophy to the Phillies in 2024.

One further downstream effect of Ward’s extreme selectivity is that it forces pitchers to throw strikes. When a hitter lays off breaking balls and borderline pitches with Ward’s consistency, opposing pitchers face an uncomfortable choice — walk him or attack him with fastballs. This season, fastballs have constituted 59.3% of the pitches Ward has seen, and he is hitting .309 against them. Ward’s choosiness, in other words, is producing, not just walks, but also an advantageous pitch mix. He is laying off the curveball, getting the heater, and doing something productive with it. (Now, can Colton Cowser do the same?)

So there you have it: Taylor Ward, a player we were all mostly uninterested in, showed up to town in his ninth big-league season, at age 32, with a brand-new skill set. Granted, he arrived in Baltimore with a reputation for power, and that power is somewhat dormant, unless you really like doubles. (For the record, I do like doubles.) Ward may or may not be a household name in Birdland, but he is on this team—and, in fact, batting leadoff most nights—and he has been one of the most quietly excellent hitters in the American League all season. Time to start paying attention.

This question is very clearly prompted by last night’s loss, where the Blue Jays (surprisingly?) did not BABIP over .500… but they got pretty close.

There was a game the Braves lost to the Red Sox recently — the 8-0 shellacking, where the Red Sox had a .400 BABIP, and the Braves had a .208 BABIP. Not quite double, but yeah, that’ll do it in terms of the 8-0 score. To be more sophisticated about it, the Braves didn’t really “get screwed” in that one, as the Red Sox had a .400+ xwOBA and actually slightly underhit it… though it is worth noting that the Braves had a .213 wOBA on a .359 xwOBA — their second-biggest underperformance of the season so far.

So, when yesterday’s game against the Blue Jays transpired, even before the Reynaldo Lopez “implosion” in the ninth, it was reminiscent of something from the prior week. With the dust settled, here’s what we got:

• Blue Jays BABIP (i.e., Braves BABIP-against): .485, a season-high BABIP-against for Atlanta
• Braves BABIP: .125, third-lowest.

That’s a ratio of nearly 4.00! That’s tough to overcome. What about outputs versus inputs?

• Blue Jays: .398 wOBA on a .319 xwOBA, the third-highest gap the Braves have allowed this year.
• Braves: .213 wOBA on a .259 xwOBA.

So, in some ways, the result wasn’t surprising. But the Blue Jays still got some very unjust deserts, and the Braves’ luck went the other way.

Still, that .485 BABIP is very high. It made me curious: how often do the Braves suffer the indignity of a .500+ BABIP-against?

The answer is “a few times a season, except 2023 where they didn’t have any, and 2024, where they somehow had six against them.” Weirdly, there was only one such game in the misery that was last season; you’d think will the stuff the team had to deal with, it would’ve been way higher in 2025 than, say, 2024.

They haven’t had one in 2026 yet. Will they? If they do, and “patterns” are meaningful (they aren’t), it might come soon. Three of the Braves’ six highest BABIP-against games have come in the last week-ish, and are in fact the team’s only losses in that span. There was the aforementioned game in Boston, then there was the Ronald Acuña Jr. defensive issues crammed into nine innings game in Cincinnati, and then last night’s game. But, will they have another that actually comes when the opponent BABIPs .500+? If so, when?

Here are five things to watch and predictions as the Yankees host the Red Sox at Yankee Stadium for a three-game series starting Friday...

5 things to watch

Life without Judge

WithAaron Judge on the shelf, the Yankees will need to move on without their captain. 

Judge missed the three-game set against the Guardians this week and the offense was anemic, to say the least. They scored 10 runs in the series, and only two in the finale to salvage a game.

Against the Red Sox, the Yanks may not need so many runs against a struggling Boston team, but they will have to score enough against some notable names.

After Sonny Gray on Friday, the Red Sox will deploy Ranger Suarez and Connelly Early to round out the weekend series. 

Rice rising

In Judge's absence, Ben Rice is the clear best hitter in the lineup. While it may not be fair to the youngster, the Yankees will need Rice to come up big in this series. 

It'll be a tall task for Rice as he'll go up against Suarez and Early, a couple of tough southpaws, but Rice is hitting .306 against left-handers with five home runs this season. 

Rice had a seven-game hitting streak going before it was snapped Thursday. 

Can Schlittler bounce back?

Schlittler is one of the frontrunners for the AL Cy Young, but he's coming off his worst start of the season.

Against the Guardians, Schlittler allowed five runs (four earned) in the loss. Not to beat a dead horse, but if Judge is not going to be in the lineup, the formidable starting pitching needs to step up alongside the other hitters. 

Schlittler has two career starts against the Red Sox. He allowed one run in eight innings in Boston in late April this year and also faced them in his coming out party last October, when he pitched eight shutout innings while striking out 12 batters in the Wild Card Series.

Will Schlittler continue to dominate his childhood team? 

Getting to Early....early

On the opposite side of that game in the Wild Card Series was young Connelly Early. 

The talented southpaw has two career starts against the Yanks, the aforementioned playoff game and back on April 21 in Boston.  In the Wild Card Series, Early allowed four runs in the loss but looked impressive, matching Schlittler's zeroes with three scoreless before Boston's defense betrayed them in a four-run fourth inning that cost them the season.

In April, Early was effective, allowing three runs across 5.1 innings while walking three and striking out four. 

Against the current Yankees lineup, Jazz Chisholm Jr. has the most success against Early. He's 2-for-4 against Early, and the only Yankee to have multiple hits against the 24-year-old.

AL East scoreboard watching

Despite their best efforts this week, the Yankees made up ground on the Rays.

Although they went 1-2 against the Guardians, the Rays were swept by the Tigers and Tampa's hold on the AL East sits at a half game heading into play Friday. 

Tampa is 2-8 over its last 10 games and will take on the Marlins in Miami this weekend. If the Yankees take care of business, they can find themselves in first place by the end of play on Sunday. 

Predictions

Who will the MVP of the series be?

Ben Rice

The young slugger continues his tear.

Which Yankees pitcher will have the best start?

Cam Schlittler

Schlittler seemingly pitches his best against Boston.

Which Red Sox player will be a thorn in the Yankees' side?

Willson Contreras

Contreras is having one of the best seasons of his long MLB career. He enters play Friday with 12 home runs and is hitting close to .300.

Like so much of the Detroit Tigers’ 2026 season, Framber Valdez hasn’t exactly worked out as planned. Signed to a backloaded 3 year, $115M deal with an opt out after 2027, Valdez was supposed to stabilize a rotation that had Reese Olson injured and Jack Flaherty a total wildcard coming into the season. More importantly, in the face of Casey Mize’s and Tarik Skubal’s upcoming free agency, Valdez was meant to anchor the 2027 rotation while reinforcements like Troy Melton and – eventually – Jackson Jobe established themselves in the majors.

So far, Valdez has been more decent than great, and his struggles while Skubal and Mize have been injured of late have left the rotation without a dominant arm. His 4.39 ERA is his worst since he established himself as a capable postseason arm back in 2020, and his 18.3% strikeout rate is outright the lowest of his career. He’s not even compiling innings, as his 5.6 IP/game is his lowest since he joined the rotation full time. This is a meaningfully reduced version of Valdez at probably the most inopportune time.

What’s going wrong is pretty obvious, in part because Valdez is a very simple pitcher whose gameplan has never been a secret. He bullies opposing hitters with a bowling ball sinker, racks up league high groundball rates, strikes out about an average number, and is OK walking a few too many hitters or giving up some hard contact because all of those groundballs means a lot of double plays and quick innings. As they say, it’s hard to slug on the ground.

This year, though, that groundball rate is only 44%, which isn’t low in a league-wide context, but it’s very low when groundballs are the only way you’ve succeeded in 7 years as a major league pitcher. It’s especially low when all those hard groundballs get exchanged into hard fly balls, and well, now we know why 2026 Valdez has his highest HR/9 of the 2020s despite exchanging Minute Maid/Daikin for Comerica.

Why his groundball rate has dropped seems straightforward enough. Valdez is isn’t getting his sinker down enough. Seriously, here’s heatmaps of his 2022 sinker (which was, for my money, his best season) and his 2026 sinker. See how that cloud around the bottom of the zone and a bit below goes away in 2026 in the image on the right? That’s bad. Sinkers over the middle can work, but only if the batter thinks they’ll be at the bottom of the zone. Right now, Valdez isn’t giving hitters enough of a reason to worry about that sinker on the bottom rail, so they’re teeing off on the elevated ones.

That’s the bad news, obviously. Valdez is throwing a ton more hittable sinkers. The good news, however, is that other than the general location being a bit up, nothing’s all that different about the sinker. Valdez still throws the pitch about 50% of the time, gets about 25 inches of drop, and his average velocity is still exactly 93.9 mph. It isn’t working as well, but the pitch itself isn’t fundamentally broken. In theory, setting your sights 6 inchers lower could get the whole operation back on track.

The issue doesn’t appear to be his catchers either. He’s gotten more balls called strikes at the bottom of the zone than the reverse, and while Jake Rogers, who usually catches Valdez, grades out a -1 framing runs at the bottom of the zone, he doesn’t appear to be costing Valdez strikes specifically.

Of course, I’d be remiss to mention the edges of the strike zone and leave ABS out of the equation. Is a pitcher like Valdez, who generally relies on that bottom rail, getting burned by ABS?

The answer is seemingly a yes, but likely not how you expect. So far, Valdez isn’t a victim of challenges. Batters have only made 3 challenges against Valdez this year, and only one was overturned from a strike to a ball. If ABS is impacting Valdez, it isn’t because a hitters are challenging his fringe strikes and forcing him up in the zone. But ABS resulted in two major changes to how the strike zone works. One was by introducing challenges. Less advertised is that ABS also changed the zone that umpires are supposed to call.

By standardizing the minimum height, ABS made the zone smaller and raised the bottom higher off the ground. This is how ABS impacts Valdez, not challenges. Since the dimensions of last year’s strike zone are still remembered, sites like FanGraphs offer statistics about both the current and ‘Legacy’ strike zone. In 2026, 48.4% of Valdez’ pitches have been in the 2026 zone, but 50.4% would have been in the ‘Legacy’ zone. That means 2% of his pitches used to be strikes and now aren’t, and I have to imagine – I unfortunately don’t have the tools to prove this right now – that the majority are sinkers down in the zone.

So, we have a groundball, sinker pitcher whose sinker is doing all the same things, but not working how it should. And we have a strike zone that’s slightly smaller, especially at the bottom of the zone where Valdez needs it most. Put those together and we go from Framber Valdez: Borderline Ace to Framber Valdez: Just OK, which is not what Detroit invested in. To get back on track, he’ll have to adapt to this new zone and start pounding the real bottom rail again.

Felix Reyes was a surprise call-up back in early May and made a strong first impression. He homered off of Chris Sale in his first at-bat, but he couldn’t carry that momentum forward, as he hit just .158 with a paltry .421 OPS through 38 MLB plate appearances across 12 games.

Reyes was sent back to Triple-A on May 19th and has been on fire ever since. As of June 2nd, Reyes is hitting .321 with nine extra-base hits including six home runs across 13 games at Lehigh Valley since his demotion. He’s stuck out 10 times and has walked five times across 62 plate appearances.

Despite this impressive production, Reyes’ short time in the Majors and his status as a non-highly touted prospect makes it appear likely that he is your typical AAAA player, meaning a player too good for Triple-A and not good enough for the Majors. It may be too early to declare that definitively, but it is certainly trending that way.

But the Phillies are in need from some offense somewhere, especially in one of Reyes’ positions. Adolis Garcia has been abysmal at the plate this season, particularly in the month of May. He hit .125 in the month with a miniscule .400 OPS and a gigantic 37.6% strikeout rate. It’s probably too early for the Phillies to consider releasing Garcia, and his stellar defense in right field does carry some weight, but it’s at least time to consider something else.

When Reyes was first up, he was primarily used as a platoon option and therefore spent most of his time on the bench. It’s hard for anyone to get into a rhythm that way, but it’s especially difficult for someone getting their first taste of MLB pitching. That doesn’t mean that more regular at-bats will turn Reyes into a serviceable hitter, but it’s at least something the Phillies haven’t tried yet. If he were to be recalled again, perhaps he could get some more runway as the starting left fielder while Garcia receives playing time either platooning with Brandon Marsh with Marsh starting in right when Reyes plays or platooning with Justin Crawford with Marsh starting in center.

This is admittedly just a theory, as the Phillies have not publicly expressed any desire to cut back on Garcia’s playing time. But maybe they should start. Reyes is not a permanent solution by any means, but maybe they could catch lightning in a bottle for a few weeks. It may seem desperate, but the Phillies have a lot of questions offensively and not many answers.

So, is it time for the Phillies to try Felix Reyes again?

In the top of the seventh inning Thursday night at Wrigley Field, I was sitting around thinking sad thoughts, after Shōta Imanaga had given up two more home runs, totaling four long balls allowed on the evening, and the Cubs trailed the Athletics 6-1. At that point — and come on, you were thinking this too — it felt like it might as well have been 60-1, the way the Cubs have been hitting recently.

Well. All of us were wrong as the Cubs put together an almost-unbelievable ninth-inning rally, coming from three runs down in the ninth for the first time since David Bote’s ultimate grand slam in 2018. The 7-6 win over the A’s ended a three-game losing streak, but perhaps more importantly, might give this team the boost they really need after a long, long stretch of losing baseball.

Let’s begin at the beginning.

Imanaga breezed through the first two innings. Meanwhile, the Cubs were adding to their RISP frustration. Pete Crow-Armstrong was hit by a pitch and stole second. All that led to was going 0-for-3 with RISP, three strikeouts with a Michael Busch walk in the middle. Then Moisés Ballesteros singled with one out in the second, but Dansby Swanson hit into a double play.

This is going swimmingly well, right?

With two out in the fourth, A’s DH Shea Langeliers hit a ball that bounced in and out of the right-field basket for a home run (confirmed on review). Okay, the wind’s blowing out and that one just barely made it, not totally Shōta’s fault. Meanwhile, the Cubs went down 1-2-3 in the third, fourth and fifth.

The A’s plated another run in the sixth on a one-out walk and double.

Then this happened [VIDEO].

You could tell right away that PCA had no idea where that ball was. He didn’t lose it in the lights — right around that time was dusk, not quite sunset, and it’s really hard to see the ball against that kind of sky. I lost track of it too — until it landed about 70 feet behind PCA near the warning track. Langeliers circled the bases for a two-run inside-the-park home run, making it 4-0.

That led to this fun fact. Well, not so fun for the Cubs, but interesting regardless (Bluesky link):

It’s 4-0 now and it felt like 40-0, the way the Cubs were hitting (one hit over the first five innings).

PCA got one of those runs back with one out in the sixth [VIDEO].

Okay, 4-1 in the sixth gives the Cubs a sign of life.

Craig Counsell allowed Imanaga to start the seventh. This kind of made sense as the first hitter was left-handed, Tyler Soderstrom. Whoops, Soderstrom goes deep. Surely Counsell will take Shōta out now, with switch-hitter Jonah Heim due up? Nope, Imanaga stays in. Heim also goes deep (this from a guy who came into the game batting .194/.263/.361) and now it’s 6-1, which is where we came in, with me thinking those sad thoughts.

Trent Thornton, who’s been solid out of the pen since being recalled, did issue a couple of walks and gave up a hit after relieving Imanaga, but got out of the inning with a foul popup by Langeliers.

Then the Cubs began their remarkable comeback.

Alex Bregman led off the seventh with a double. Ian Happ, who I just profiled here yesterday, followed with a colossal home run [VIDEO].

That ball was absolutely demolished [VIDEO].

The 446-foot homer, Happ’s team-leading 14th, was the longest by any Cub so far this year (previously: 444 feet by PCA last Saturday in St. Louis).

More on the two Cubs homers from BCB’s JohnW53:

The Cubs’ two home runs tonight, coming after two on Tuesday, gave them back-to-back games with multiple homers for the first time in 16 games, since May 15-16 on the South Side vs. the White Sox.

Those were their first in 20 games, since five in a row, April 21-25 (first three at home vs. Phillies, last two at Los Angeles vs. Dodgers).

So, the Cubs have hit multiple homers in back-to-back games twice in their last 37 games. And had lost all of the back-to-back games — until this one.

Okay, it’s 6-3. This… might be doable.

Thornton and Ryan Rolison got through the eighth 1-2-3, but the Cubs also went down in order in the bottom of the inning. Rolison, who’s also been a useful reliever this year, retired the A’s 1-2-3 in the ninth.

Three runs down. Three outs left. A difficult task.

Busch led off the inning with a double. Bregman flied to left for the first out. A double to the right-center field gap by Happ made it 6-4 [VIDEO].

Two runs down. Two outs left. Still not impossible!

A single by Nico Hoerner moved Happ to third. Now the tying run is on base. With Ballesteros at bat, Nico was thrown out trying to steal. It was reviewed, but ruled “call confirmed.” [VIDEO].

I understand why Nico did that — trying to stay out of a possible double play with Ballesteros, a slow runner, at the plate. It almost worked.

Moisés came through with an RBI single [VIDEO].

That came really close to ending the game, but neither A’s middle infielder could handle Ballesteros’ grounder. Now it’s 6-5. One run down, one out still remaining, the tying run on first now represented by Kevin Alcántara, who ran for Ballesteros.

Seiya Suzuki, who was given a break from starting in this game, batted for DH Pedro Ramirez. Suzuki singled, with Alcántara stopping at second. Now the tying run is in scoring position.

That brought up Dansby Swanson, who had looked pretty bad at the plate in this game, with a fly out, strikeout and ground out.

Dansby came through, hitting this single that scored Alcántara to tie the game [VIDEO].

Really happy for Swanson, who has needed something to get him back on track. Maybe this hit will start something good for him. Suzuki took third on Swanson’s hit, the winning run 90 feet away, still with two out.

PCA, who’d had an, um, interesting night with his misplay in the field and a home run, had the crowd behind him, loudly chanting his name.

And he won the game [VIDEO].

It was, as noted above, the first Cubs walk-off win down three in the ninth in nearly eight years, since the famous Bote grand slam. In some ways this one was more amazing, since they did it without a home run — two doubles and five singles. After going 0-for-3 in the first inning with RISP, the Cubs were 6-for-7 with RISP the rest of the game — Happ’s home run and five of the seven hits in the ninth. Don’t forget to give credit to Thornton and Rolison for keeping the A’s at six runs, allowing the hitters to make this comeback.

Also, this is fun (Bluesky link):

Here are Craig Counsell’s postgame comments [VIDEO].

Will this give the Cubs any “momentum”? I put that in quotes because the old saying is, “Momentum is only as good as your next day’s starting pitcher.” But if the Cubs do go on a run, and somehow claw back to the top of the NL Central, I think we can look back at this game as where it all started.

The Cubs open a three-game series against the San Francisco Giants Friday afternoon at Wrigley Field. The Giants just split a four-game set against the Brewers, losing one game 16-2 and winning another 12-9. Let’s hope the Giants left all their offense in Milwaukee. Edward Cabrera will be activated from the injured list to start Friday for the Cubs. Robbie Ray will go for San Francisco. Game time is 1:20 p.m. CT and TV coverage will be via Marquee Sports Network (and MLB Network outside the Cubs and Giants market territories).

Another series at home, another series loss.

Now the Red Sox travel for six games against the New York Yankees and Tampa Bay Rays, only the two best teams in the American League. Starting in the Bronx. No sweat.

Since sweeping Boston, the Yankees have gone 21-18. Boston meanwhile has gone 17-18. That initial 10-17 start continues to haunt the Red Sox. As a reminder of those Yankees games, while the sweep sure hurt it wasn’t actually that bad, all things considered. The three games were losses of 4-0, 4-1 and 4-2. You’d hope the offense now might have made those more competitive. Although they were still played at Fenway, so perhaps not. But, thankfully, this is a road series for the Red Sox.

Sonny Gray has gone 6.0 innings while allowing exactly 1 run in three of his last four starts. The one exception was his last start against the Minnesota Twins. The veteran didn’t face the Yankees the first meeting this season but did face them once in 2025 and gave up 6 runs in 5.0 innings. Ryan Weathers, a southpaw, missed Boston in Fenway Park and has been a solid contributor for New York. He hasn’t tossed fewer than 5.0 innings in any start since April 4th. He’s coming off a 5-run, 6.2 inning outing against the Athletics. He struck out 10 for the second time this season.

Ranger Suarez had been on a roll entering May but has been in a funk since then. His last five starts have lasted 4.0, 5.1, 4.1, 5.0, and 5.0 innings. He did strike out 10 Guardians though, so maybe he’s getting back on track. His start against the Yankees in Fenway Park was forgettable. Will Warren has been on a roll for the last month since a 4.0 inning, 6-run outing against the Texas Rangers.

The matchup of the two promising young pitchers is saved for last. Connelly Early didn’t have his best stuff against the Baltimore Orioles last time out but did still settle down enough to last 5.1 innings. The 4 runs he allowed early were enough for Baltimore to cruise to victory. Early faced New York in April and, of course, last October. He allowed 3 runs in 5.1 in that meeting in 2026 and the Yankees would win 4-0. The Sox have scored at least 2 runs in his other 11 starts. The Guardians figured out something against Cam Schlittler, knocking him around for 5 runs (4 earned) in 4.1 innings. Hopefully the Sox advance team can follow whatever Cleveland was doing.

Ben Rice has 17 home runs, tied with Aaron Judge. And, guess what? Aaron Judge is hurt. Here’s your 4-6 weeks at least to gain some ground, Red Sox!

Trent Grisham is hitting just .206/.328/.371 after his big 2025.

Giancarlo Stanton is still on the IL. He went on the IL 2 days after playing Boston. Not having him in the lineup is a win.

Probable Pitching Matchups

Friday, June 5: Sonny Gray (3.06 ERA / 3.52 FIP) vs. Ryan Weathers (3.52 ERA / 3.88 FIP)

Saturday, June 6: Ranger Suarez (3.38 ERA / 3.12FIP) vs. Will Warren (3.22 ERA / 3.27 FIP)

Sunday, June 7: Connelly Early (3.26 ERA / 4.62 FIP) vs. Cam Schlittler (1.99 ERA / 4.85 FIP)

When/Where to Watch

Friday, June 5, 7:05 PM ET on NESN

Saturday, June 6, 7:35 PM ET on FOX

Sunday, June 7, 1:35 PM ET on NESN

I make no bones about the fact that “Major League” is probably my favorite baseball movie. Half of my fantasy baseball teams have the name “Jobu’s Rum.” There are other good ones to be sure. “The Natural” is a good one. “Bull Durham” is a classic. “Eight Men Out” is another one. There are probably more including “Field of Dreams” that get you in a soft spot, but Major League has so many lines that I can recite from heart. One of my favorite exchanges is below.

Lou Brown: That’s Jake Taylor. He was an all-star in Boston right?

Charlie Donovan: Yeah, he wound up in the Mexican Leagues because he had trouble with his knees.

Pitching Coach: Wish we would have had him two years ago.

Donovan: We did.

Pitching Coach: Four years ago then.

I’m not saying Wade is Jake Taylor, but that scene always comes back to me when teams sign guys like Wade. He was a really good player back in 2021 and 2022. However, it was short-lived as these things usually are. However, there is a difference between the basic numbers and the underlying numbers. So, let’s take a look at both and see what the Astros are getting.

Observant readers will notice that the 2026 numbers are missing. That is because he has not been at the big league level yet this season. He was toiling in the International League with the White Sox’ triple A affiliate. In just over 200 plate appearances he has a .250 average, seven home runs, and 26 RBI. Of course, just looking at these numbers buries the lede. If you look at the ratios and BABIP it begins to make more sense.

As you can see, some of the underlying numbers look a lot better than the basic numbers. In particular, he seems to fit in with the new approach by the hitting coaches. He takes more pitches and therefore takes more walks. His swing percentages are consistently in the same neighborhood as Isaac Paredes. His chase rates never went above 23 percent and sit at 19.5 for his career. Those make him perhaps the most selective player on the Astros roster.

He is normally a neutral fielder in left field, but has spent most of his time playing right field and first base. He has -5 defensive runs saved in over 1300 innings in the outfield. He has -1 DRS in almost 2400 innings at first base. So, you have a guy that can play three different positions at almost league average ability. Ostensibly, he is taking Joey Loperfido’s spot on the roster, so let’s take a look at his periherals.

When you look at the Astros bench, it looked like they were a little heavy on the strikeouts. The Astros sent Zach Cole down, but before he went down he had a strikeout rate of nearly 40 percent. Zach Dezenzo has a strikeout rate near 35 percent. Brice Mathews looks like a contact fiend compared to them. His K rate is “only” 32.9 percent. Suffice it to say, when you add in the substitution of Collin Price for Cesar Salazar and it looks like the Astros are trying to beef up their bench.

In 1996, Gerry Hunsicker (then the Astros general manager) signed veteran pitcher Terry Clark mid season to join the bullpen. At the time, Hunsicker said he was trying to “catch lightening in a bottle.” Clark would go onto have an ERA over 11,00 in five games with the Astros. Clearly, the lightening came nowhere near the bottle. Wade is no Clark, but this feels like a similar gamble. In AAA this season he has been the same guy he always was as he has drawn more than 40 walks. If we look at the statcast numbers we can see that Wade has been an underrated hitter throughout his career.

What statcast does is look at the expected numbers across the board depending on the quality and rate of contact by the hitter. Including in that is an adjustment for Fangraphs’ weighted on base average (wOBA) they call xwOBA. If we look at that along with the career numbers we can see what might be possible for Wade in Houston.

Weighted on base percentage is a number most fans are not familiar with. It mimics OBP but it includes a slugging element to it. A career .322 wOBA is actually pretty close to league average. As you can see, the expected numbers are better than that across the board. So, he is not a gas can like Terry Clark was, but there is a calculated gamble here. The gamble is that there will be some regression to the mean. The downside is that he might be on the way down.

Of course, a league minimum salary is not that much of a gamble. The Astros officially activated Joey Loperfido and optioned him to Sugar Land. The worst that can happen is that Wade isn’t the next Jake Taylor. If that happens then you cut him and bring Loperfido back up. What do you think? Are you excited about the Astros adding Wade?