Category: Sports News

It was Blake Snell bobblehead night Saturday at Dodger Stadium but the Atlanta Braves spoiled the left-hander’s season debut with a 7-2 win.

Making his first appearance since the eighth inning of Game 7 of the World Series, Snell showed rust early, giving up a leadoff single to Mauricio Dubón and walking Drake Baldwin. Ozzie Albies’ bunt single loaded the bases and after Matt Olson struck out, Dubon scored from third on Austin Riley’s fielder’s choice to shortstop. Snell struck out Michael Harris II to end the inning on his 25th pitch.

Atlanta loaded the bases again in the second and Albies poked a two-run single to left. Two more runs scored on Olson’s single to right and after an inning and a half the Dodgers trailed 5-0. In the bottom of the inning, Eli White made a sprinting catch on the warning track in right field to rob Max Muncy of extra bases.

Snell started the season on the injured list with left shoulder fatigue and was brought back from his rehab assignment early to replace Tyler Glasnow, who was placed on the injured list Friday with back spasms. Snell gave up four earned runs on six hits, with two walks and five strikeouts over three innings and 77 pitches.

Read more:Emmet Sheehan shows progress, bullpen thrives in Dodgers' win over Braves

While Snell struggled, Atlanta's Spencer Strider was locked in from the start, giving up one hit and striking out eight batters in six innings before being relieved by Dylan Lee.

National League East front-runner Atlanta (27-13) widened its gap to eight games over Washington while the Dodgers dropped to 24-15 and saw their National League West lead narrowed to one game over San Diego, which beat St. Louis 4-2 earlier in the day.

Jack Dreyer, who relieved Snell, gave up one hit in 1⅓ innings before being relieved by Edgardo Henriquez, who walked Riley and gave up an RBI double to Harris — the fifth hit in two days for the 2022 NL rookie of the year. Henriquez went 1⅔ innings before Paul Gervase yielded an RBI single to Baldwin.

One night after dealing Braves ace Chris Sale his second loss of the season, the Dodgers’ offense did not wake up until the ninth inning.

Shohei Ohtani went one for four with a single and two strikeouts. Freddie Freeman had two fly outs and a groundout before Dalton Rushing took his place at first in the seventh.

The Dodgers avoided their second shutout loss of the season and finally gave the crowd of 50,209 reason to cheer in the ninth when Andy Pages belted a two-run home run — his ninth of the season — off reliever Reynaldo Lopez.

Read more:Will work for free? Trevor Bauer hypothetically offers to sign a '$0 salary' deal with any MLB club

Players on both teams played with heavy hearts following the death of former Braves manager Bobby Cox at the age of 84 on Saturday.

Freeman, in his fifth season of a six-year, $162-million deal with the Dodgers, talked about Cox before the game.

“I woke up to the news this morning,” he said. “It’s a sad day in Braves country and all of baseball. My favorite memory of Bobby is seeing joy on his face when he saw my 6-year-old. He had our backs. He wanted to win as much as you do. What stands out is the genuine care he had for every person in that clubhouse.

"My first day of spring training I walk in and he joked ‘Why did it take you so long to get to the big leagues?’ He cared about the 19-year-old and 40-year-old the same way. I have an autographed Bobby Cox jersey at home.”

Cox's death came just four days after the death of Ted Turner, who owned the Braves from 1976 to 2007.

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This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.

If the game was viewed as an extension of spring training, which is basically what it was for Blake Snell, the Dodgers’ 7-2 loss to the Atlanta Braves on Saturday night could be charitably classified as a success.

After missing the first six weeks of the season, Snell was throwing hard in his season debut.

His fastball touched 98.1 mph, and the average velocity of the pitch was 95.9 mph.

So he was healthy, at least.

Snell’s final line was ugly – five runs (four earned), six hits and two walks in three innings – but he wasn’t as bad as his numbers suggested.

Snell struck out five batters, as the Braves whiffed on 16 of his pitches. The stuff was there.

What was missing was sharpness, and that was expected, considering he was initially scheduled to pitch in a minor league game on this day. A recent back injury to Tyler Glasnow forced Snell back into the rotation earlier than expected.

Snell loaded the bases in the first inning before registering an out, but he managed to limit the damage to a solitary run by striking out two of the next three batters.

The Braves added four runs in the second inning, two on a bases-loaded single by Ozzie Albies, who practically scraped a changeup off the ground, and two more more on a line-drive hit by Matt Olson, who pounced on an elevated slider.

Snell departed the game after throwing 77 pitches in three innings.

But Snell looked to be a series of small adjustments from returning to his customary form, and the starter opposite of him showed how much of a difference a week could make for a pitcher in his position.

Sidelined with an oblique strain until last week, Strider made his season debut in Colorado and was charged with three runs, four hits and five walks in 3 ⅓ innings.

A former All-Star and 20-game winner, Strider was much better against the Dodgers. He blanked the defending World Series champions over six innings, limiting them to a hit and two walks.

What it means

The loss was something of a reality check for the Dodgers.

In the series opener the night before, they scrapped and clawed against reigning Cy Young Award winner Chris Sale to earn a 3-1 victory.

If that game demonstrated their ability to capitalize on opportunities to win difficult games, their loss on Saturday was a reminder of how unthreatening their offense can look on certain nights.

The Dodgers let Spencer complete six innings on 91 pitches and they collected only two hits in the first seven innings. Their only runs were scored on a two-run homer by Andy Pages in the bottom of the ninth inning.

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Who’s hot

Certainly none of their hitters.

But left-hander Jack Dreyer pitched a scoreless fourth inning and retired the only batter he faced in the fifth.

Dreyer has not allowed a run over the 8 ⅓ innings he’s pitched in his last eight games. His earned-run average has dropped from 4.35 to 2.41 over that period.

Who’s not

Brock Stewart wasn’t active for long.

Three days after he was moved to the active roster, the talented-but-fragile reliever was back on the injured list, this time with a bone spur on his left foot.

Stewart missed the first six weeks of the season as he was recovering from a procedure he underwent last September to clean up his right shoulder. He pitched two scoreless innings in his brief time on the active roster – an inning on Wednesday against the Houston Astros and another on Friday against the Braves.

The Dodgers acquired Stewart from the Minnesota Twins last year in exchange for outfielder James Outman.

Up next

In a showdown of breakout pitching standouts, the Dodgers will start Justin Wrobleski, who is 5-0 with a 0.56 earned-run average as a starting pitcher. The Braves will counter with Bryce Elder, who made an All-Star team in 2023 but has been mediocre since. Elder will enter the game with a 3-1 record and 2.02 ERA in eight starts.

Behind a stellar performance from Spencer Strider and an opportunistic offensive attack early, the Braves shook off their Dodger Stadium demons for at least one night to even up the series with a 7-2 win.

Strider became the story on Saturday night, working six nearly perfect shutout innings. His slider was virtually un-hittable with a 64% whiff rate. The fastball was humming throughout the night and had Shohei Ohtani in a blender. A week after a shaky debut in Coors Field, this was as impressive as Strider has looked in more than two years. He finished the night allowing just one hit and two walks with eight strikeouts.

It goes without saying, but if this is any sign of what the future holds for Strider, the Braves’ ceiling is immensely higher. We’ll see if he’s able to carry it over in his next start, presumably against the Red Sox next weekend at Truist Park.

The Braves didn’t exactly light up Blake Snell in the early innings, but they hit ‘em where they ain’t and scratched across five runs in the first two frames.

Atlanta loaded the bases with no outs in the first but somehow only scored one run — a theme that continued from Friday night’s debacle — but thankfully broke through in a big way in the second inning with a two-run single by way of Ozzie Albies and two-run single from Matt Olson to make it 5-0.

As the score held, the Braves tacked on another run in the fifth with a Michael Harris double that plated a scootin’ Austin Riley. And in the eighth, Drake Baldwin added a little insurance with a two-out single to make it 7-0.

Dylan Lee worked a scoreless seventh inning and gave way to Reynaldo Lopez, who allowed a harmless two-run homer in the 9th to finally get the Dodgers on the board.

The Braves are 27-13.

The series concludes on Sunday afternoon with Bryce Elder set to face lefty Justin Wrobleski, who owns a 5-0 record and 1.25 ERA that is screaming for some regression. First pitch is set for 4:10 p.m. ET.

The Dodgers got the best of Chris Sale on Friday, but against the flamethrower Spencer Strider and crew, they were nearly left silent as the Braves defeated the Dodgers by a final of 7-2.

Blake Snell made his 2026 season debut after missing the first month of the regular season, marking his first appearance since coming out of the bullpen for Game 7 of the World Series last year. Atlanta immediately loaded the bases with nobody out in the top of the first inning as Mauricio Dubón and Ozzie Albies singled while Snell walked Drake Baldwin. Snell managed to strike out Matt Olson, but a fielder’s choice from Austin Riley gave the Braves an early 1-0 lead. Snell struck out Michael Harris II to complete his first inning of work having tossed 25 pitches.

Snell had a better start to the second inning, striking out Sean Murphy on three pitches, but the Braves rattled off a pair of singles from Eli White and Jorge Mateo, with Baldwin later walking for a second time to load the bases with two outs. Albies somehow made contact on a pitch just off the dirt and poked it into left field for a two-run single, with Olson following with another two-run single to make it a 5-0 Braves lead. Snell would face one batter over the minimum in the top of the third inning, but he ended his night having tossed 78 pitches over three innings. The Braves would tack on another run with an RBI double from Harris against Edgardo Henriquez to make it a 6-0 lead.

While Snell struggled over just three innings, the same could not be said about Braves right-hander Spencer Strider as he kept the Dodgers in check over six shutout innings, striking out eight while allowing just one hit— a single by Will Smith in the first inning— and walking just two on 90 pitches. Strider had a first pitch strike rate at 71.4 percent (15 first pitch strikes over 21 hitters) against the Dodgers, and even though he generated a 20 percent whiff rate on his fastball, his three complementary pitches totaled a combined 62.5 percent whiff rate.

After Jack Dreyer and Henriquez combined for one run allowed over three innings, Paul Gervase made his season debut and just his second appearance as a Dodger. Gervase completed three innings of work allowing four hits and a walk with five strikeouts, although he helped Atlanta get another run as Jorge Mateo singled in the top of the eighth to make it a 7-0 lead.

Freddie Freeman’s seven-game hitting streak came to a close as he went 0-3 before being pulled in the top of the seventh inning for Dalton Rushing.

The Dodgers were once again a handful of outs away from getting shut out, but Alex Call gave the Dodgers their first extra-base hit of the night with a double in the bottom of the ninth, with Andy Pages launching a home run to put the Dodgers on the board. Pages now has nine home runs on the season— four this week— tied with Max Muncy for the team lead. Teoscar Hernández kept the game alive with a single up the middle before Hyeseong Kim was called safe on a ground ball to first. The initial call was overturned, giving the Dodgers’ their second loss that was verified by replay review on the final play over their last three home games.

Game particulars

• Home runs— Andy Pages (9)
• WP— Spencer Strider (1-0): 6 IP, 1 hit, 0 runs, 2 walks, 8 strikeouts
• LP— Blake Snell (0-1): 3 IP, 6 hits, 5 runs (4 earned), 2 walks, 5 strikeouts

Up next

The Dodgers wrap things up against the Atlanta Braves on Sunday (1:10 p.m. PT, SportsNet LA) before welcoming the San Francisco Giants for a four-game set beginning on Monday. Justin Wrobleski starts the finale against Bryce Elder.

The Twins had two hits in eleven innings and won a baseball game at Progressive Field.

Sure, man.

Good team or no good team, the Buck Truck keeps rolling, as evidenced by Byron’s leadoff blast to left field in a rain-delayed Saturday night game against the Cleveland Guardians. Buxton’s bomb, his 13th of the year, set the tone for a Twins offense that promptly stopped scoring — or hitting at all — leaving Joe Ryan and Derek’s Magical Arm Barn the monumental task of holding it down in a tight game.

As expected, the first Cleveland run was largely thanks to Jose Ramirez. The future Hall of Famer reached in the fourth on a one-out single, stole second (15) and scored on a game-tying single from Kyle Manzardo.

From there, Joe attempted to take some heat off the bullpen by blowing the game his own damn self. The Guardians’ next two batters reached, with Ryan walking Daniel Schneemann, then plunking newcomer Travis Bazzana. With only one out and the bases loaded, Ryan was able to elicit a called strike three against Angel Martinez, then induce an inning-ending whiff from Austin Hedges.

I wasn’t kidding about the offense shutting down, by the way. After the leadoff homer, the Twins would not record a hit for another ten full innings, as starter Tanner Bibee notched nine strikeouts and walked only two in a six-inning start. Hunter Gaddis and Colin Holderman picked up where Bibee left off, putting well over 100 pitches between the Minnesota lineup and its last base hit.

To his credit, Ryan all but matched Bibee despite the lengthy fourth. The Guardians’ two fourth-inning singles were their only hits off Joe, a stretch that extended through Andrew Morris’ two-out appearance and Taylor Rogers’ getting-of-the-final out in the seventh. (Masterful prose.) Rogers would snag two more outs in the eighth, before handing the ball over to Yoendrys Gomez for his second appearance as a Twin. Gomez retired pinch-hitter Rhys Hoskins to take the ballgame into the ninth, all knotted up at 1-1.

I guess I owe a small apology to Shelton’s Magical Arm Barn for my expectations of their performance tonight. Their reputation preceded them, after all.

Erik Sabrowski struck out two in a quick top of the ninth, leaving the Twins one-hit through regulation, and setting up what should have been one of the most predictable Cleveland walk-offs of all time. The broadcast set up the disproportionate CLE/MIN one-run, walk-off dominance this decade, and almost on cue, Kody Funderburk walked the leadoff hitter to put the winning run aboard, then walked the next guy to move him over just for fun. Then, in the world’s most obvious bunt situation, Funderburk fielded a comeback sacrifice, spent eighteen years thinking about the sure out, then finally recorded the out at first base on a play so close that it had to be overturned by a Shelton challenge.

Funderburk was removed in favor of Eric Orze, who walked pinch-hitter David Fry, and engaged in direct combat with Bryan Rocchio with the bases loaded and one out. Orze forced a 4-2 fielder’s choice, with Luke Keaschall cutting down the winning run at the plate, then induced a sharp groundout from Steven Kwan to send the game into extra innings.

Despite a leadoff walk to Keaschall — you remember him? From the last sentence? — Minnesota couldn’t advance a runner in a 10th inning that ended with Matt Wallner caught looking at curveball, and the lineup caught looking at a box score that still registered one solitary hit.

Orze returned for the home tenth, intentionally walking Jose Ramirez with one out to set up a battle with Hoskins. The battle was underwhelming; he walked Hoskins on four pitches, loading the bases and forcing Shelton to activate the five-man infield for a second consecutive inning. But the defense, so often the downfall of the 2026 Twins, showed up in a major way — first, it was Brooks Lee showing off catlike reflexes to make a full-extension, game-saving grab on a liner for the second out. Then, it was Austin Martin, cradling a sharp flyout while still wearing his infielder’s glove out in left.

So, the Twins were extended another chance to take home the ballgame, and they were finally able to execute. With one out in the 11th, Byron Buxton narrowly missed a second homer on another long fly to left that banged off the high wall; responsible for the only two Twins hits in the ballgame, Byron also ended the night responsible for both runs batted in.

Luis Garcia was given the save opportunity. He got Martinez to fly out on the first pitch, but ghost runner Bazanna stole his way to third and gave Cleveland two chances to bring him home. But David Fry popped weakly to shallow left, and Rocchio grounded out on a web gem that required a slide and spin from Brooks Lee straight up the middle, and a backhand pick by Kody Clemens to seal the deal at first base.

Nice to have one like that in Cleveland.

It’s worth noting that Minnesota was able to hold the Guardians to just two hits themselves, although Cleveland was able to manufacture opportunities on a more consistent basis throughout the night. It was an incredible high-wire performance from all arms tonight.

The Twins will go for the series win tomorrow afternoon. See you then!

STUDS:

CF Byron Buxton (2-for-5, R, 2 RBI, 2B, HR)

SS Brooks Lee (Two game-saving plays)

SP Joe Ryan (6 IP, 2 H, ER, 3 BB, 5 K)

Shelton’s Magical Arm Barn (5 IP, 0 H, 0 R, 5 BB, 2 K) ((lol))

DUDS:

NO DUDS! TWINS WIN! TWINS WIN!

So today was Merrill Kelly’s fifth start of the season, after having his spring training cut short and then a lengthy rehab period to start the year. He entered the game carrying an unsightly 9.95 ERA, and while our broadcasters kept going on and on last Sunday about how he was “finally turning the corner,” he wound up surrendering 6 earned runs in while failing to complete five innings against the Cubs, which really didn’t support their oft-repeated thesis. Today, he was pitching at home, for a national audience because the game was being broadcast on Fox, and was facing off against Clay Holmes, who came into the game with seven starts under his belt and an NL-leading ERA of 1.69 (nice). So I for one certainly wasn’t feeling terribly optimistic, and I certainly didn’t expect a pitcher’s duel to break out.

But oddly enough, that was indeed what happened.

Merrill started things off with two quick outs, and then walked MJ Melendez, the Mets’ DH, on six pitches, which seemed to be a harbinger for control problems to come. No worries, though, at least not in the first frame, as Kelly picked Melendez off with a perfect throw to Ildemaro Vargas to end his inning with the minimum faced and only 11 pitches thrown. Because pickoffs don’t count as pitches. Sadly, however, Holmes retired our top three in order in the bottom of the first without breaking a sweat, and only 11 pitches thrown. It was eerie, almost.

We weren’t heading into the uncanny valley, though….Kelly recorded another two quick outs to start the second, then surrendered a single to Marcus Simien followed by a first-pitch meatball he left in the exact middle of the strike zone that Brett Baty sent out to deep center field for an RBI double. 1-0 Queens

We got some runners on base in the bottom of the second, thanks to a leadoff single by DH Adrian Del Castillo, and then a one-out walk by Nolan Arenado. The bottom of our lineup, though, were not going to cover themselves in glory today, though—collectively they went 0 for 11 with six strikeouts between them—as Holmes made short work of Lourdes Gurriel, Jr. and Gabriel Moreno.

Kelly pitched around a one-out walk in the top of the third to put up another zero, and despite being down a run, he was showing a lot more efficiency than in previous outings, pitching to contact and letting his defenders make plays behind him, and was go through the third with only 41 pitches thrown, and no nibbling at the edges of the strike zone in sight.

And finally, in the bottom of the third, our offense rewarded him with some actual run support. Not a lot of run support, to be fair, but when you’re very hungry even a half an apple and some crusts of bread are welcome. Ryan Waldschmidt, getting the start in center today and batting ninth, struck out to start things off, and four pitches later Ketel Marte grounded out to the pitcher for the second time in three innings, but then something nice happened! First Corbin Carroll grounded a single into shallow right. Then Geraldo Perdomo chopped a single over Bo Bichette and into left field, where Juan Soto made a very nice play to get the ball back into the infield that kept Perdomo from having a double and kept Carroll from scoring from first. That was okay, though, because ADC drew a six pitch walk, and then Ildemaro extended his new hit streak to three games with a single to left that scored both Carroll and Perdomo:

Nolan Arenado then flied out to end the inning, but Ildemaro had given us the lead! Also, we hung 31 more pitches on Holmes in that inning alone, so he was up to 60 pitches after three. 2-0 DBACKS

And that, in terms of offense, was that. For both teams. Seriously. It hadn’t felt exactly like a pitchers’ duel up to that point, but that’s exactly what it wound up being. Both teams sat down in order in the fourth, Kelly pitched around a two-out double and an intentional walk to Juan Soto in the fifth, before retiring the Mets in order in the sixth and seventh innings to finish with his longest and best start of the season so far. His final pitching line was 7 innings pitched, three hits and three walks given up, one earned run allowed, and six strikeouts with 97 pitches thrown. Not too shabby, Merrill. Not too shabby. It’s almost like you turned that corner today that Steve and Bob were jabbering about during last Sunday’s broadcast. And damn, it was really good to see.

Meanwhile, Clay Holmes didn’t go quite as deep, retiring the top of our order in order again in the bottom of the fifth and then getting the first two outs in the sixth before surrendering a single to Arenado that got him the hook. Well, that and the fact that he was at 103 pitches after Arenado’s at bat, so his day was done.

So it was up to the bullpens, and both bullpens buckled down and did their jobs. Some dude named Austin Warren recorded four outs despite a two-out Ketel Marte doulbe in the bottom of the seventh, and somewhat hilariously Craig Kimbrel came out for the bottom of the eighth, and got three quick outs after walking the first two batters he faced, largely thanks to two egregiously bad one-pitch ABs by Vargas and Arenado that were duly pillories in the Gameday Thread.

For us, Taylor Clarke pitched a perfectly clean eighth, and Paul Sewald pitched a perfectly clean ninth to record his eighth save in eight save opportunities. Say what you will about Sewald being back on the roster, but the dude isn’t costing us very much while we await the return of Puk and JMart, and as long as we don’t let him pitch in any situation other than a save situation, he’s doing the business. Credit where credit is due.

Win Probability, courtesy of FanGraphs

Winner, Winner: Merrill Kelly (pitching line above, +35% WPA)
Chicken Dinner: Paul Sewald (1 IP, 0 ER, 2 K, +17% WPA), Taylor Clarke ( 1 IP, 0 ER, +12% WPA)
Gizzards and Entrails: The offense as a whole (30 AB, 6 H, 2 R, 4 BB, 8 K, -14% WPA)

Those Win Probability numbers pretty much say it all. Our pitching won this game for us. The offense did just enough. Seriously, though, and I mentioned this in a comment elsewhere earlier today, but Torey needs to take the whole damn offense and cram them into his office and have a “one-way” conversation with them like he did with the starters after the sweep by the Cubs last weekend. We’re damn lucky Merrill was so good today, and that the back end of our bullpen is proving right now to be capable of holding a one-run lead when we manage to give them a one-run lead to hold. But come on. We need to do better.

Anyway. It wound up being a pretty good Gameday Thread today, with 220 comments at time of writing. By popular acclaim and because I very much agree, today’s Comment of the Game goes to WebbGemz, for this appreciation of our often-reviled closer:

Stop by tomorrow as we try to secure our first series win in awhile. Everyone’s favorite hologram is going for us, while Huascar Brazoban is currently listed as the starter for the Mets, which I guess indicates that they’re going to be giving us a bullpen game. That might be fun. First pitch is scheduled for 1:10pm AZ time, TheRealRamona will be filing her guest recap for the month of May, and she lived in Queens for awhile back in the day, so I’m sure she will have thoughts to share. Hope you can join us!

As always, thanks for reading, and as always, go Diamondbacks!

Box Score

It was a matchup of two young pitchers who have been dominating to start 2026: Cam Schlittler and Kyle Harrison. Offense would be at a premium; that was certain.

The Brewers nearly were able to knock Schlittler out of the game in the first inning, after William Contreras ripped a 108.5-mph comebacker off of Schlittler’s calf for an infield single. He hobbled around gingerly, and his first test pitch sailed to the backstop. He pushed through to remain in the game, but was slow walking off the field after the inning.

He continued on and showed no ill effects from that hit and completed six innings, allowing just two hits while striking out six.

Kyle Harrison, meanwhile, lost the shutout on the first batter of the game, allowing a no-doubt home run to 38-year-old leadoff hitter and notorious Brewers killer Paul Goldschmidt. Then in the second inning, Harrison walked Amed Rosario and Jazz Chisholm with nobody out. He got out of it with no runs allowed, though. In the fourth, the Yankees went double, single, and walk to load the bases with nobody out. Harrison nearly got out of that one, until a Goldschmidt hot shot to third was unable to be fielded cleanly by Luis Rengifo, resulting in an infield single and a run scoring to make it 2-0 Yankees.

Pat Murphy turned to Chad Patrick out of the bullpen to begin the fifth inning. With days off on Tuesday and Thursday this past week and another one coming on Monday, the Brewers won’t need a fifth starter for a while, so this helps keep Patrick on some sort of normal schedule. Patrick was able to settle things down and kept the Yankees off the board in his three innings of work.

The Yankees turned to their bullpen in the seventh inning, and Jake Bauers was very happy to see it, taking the first pitch he saw, a middle-middle fastball from Brent Headrick, into the second deck in right to cut the deficit in half. The Brewers then added on in the eighth with some classic small ball, starting with a Brice Turang single. Turang followed by stealing second, and Contreras delivered an RBI single to left to tie the game up at 2-2.

With both teams unable to score in the ninth, we went to extra innings. Aaron Ashby was so close to getting through a scoreless 10th and had Ryan McMahon down 0-2, but a single through the middle gave the Yankees a 3-2 lead before Aaron Judge was caught heading to third.

In the bottom of the 10th, Garrett Mitchell was the Manfred Man on second base. A wild pitch put him on third base before Luis Rengifo walked. Gary Sánchez pinch-hit for David Hamilton and lifted a fly ball to shallow right field. Mitchell thought about tagging, but pulled up as the throw from Judge was on line (though a bit high). Then Jackson Chourio was able to deliver an infield single to bring Mitchell in and tie the game up at 3-3.

With runners on first and second and one out, Brice Turang hits a tapper to the pitcher Tim Hill. Hill, inexplicably, decided to throw the ball to third base to try to get Rengifo, and ended up hitting Rengifo in the hand, leaving the bases loaded for Contreras.

Contreras lofted a fly ball deep enough to right field to score Rengifo, and the Brewers walked off the Yankees 4-3.

Aaron Ashby ends up with his league-leading seventh win of the season, the Brewers win the series, and have a chance to sweep on Mother’s Day. Tomorrow’s game features Logan Henderson opposite Carlos Rodón, who is making his season debut for New York. First pitch is at 1:10 p.m.

MILWAUKEE (AP) — William Contreras singled home the tying run in the eighth inning and hit a game-ending sacrifice fly in the 10th as the Milwaukee Brewers rallied past the New York Yankees 4-3 on Saturday.

The Yankees wasted a brilliant performance from Cam Schlittler and have lost back-to-back games for the first time since they dropped five in a row from April 8-12. On Friday, they got just three hits against Milwaukee’s Jacob Misiorowski and Shane Drohan in a 6-0 defeat.

Paul Goldschmidt hit a leadoff homer and drove in two runs for the Yankees. Jake Bauers went deep for Milwaukee.

Schlittler got struck in the leg by a 108.5 mph liner off the bat of Contreras in the first but stayed in the game and allowed two hits in six scoreless innings, lowing his major league-leading ERA to 1.35.

After Ryan McMahon’s two-out RBI single on an 0-2 pitch from Aaron Ashby (7-0) put New York ahead 3-2 in the top of the 10th, Milwaukee scored twice in the bottom half to give Ashby the major league lead in wins.

Jackson Chourio’s one-out infield single off Fernando Cruz (3-1) tied it and put runners at first and second.

Tim Hill entered and got a comebacker from Brice Turang. The lefty reliever tried to throw out the lead runner at third, but his throw hit Luis Rengifo in the hand, loading the bases.

Contreras followed with a fly ball to right that easily brought home Rengifo.

Bauers got Milwaukee on the board in the seventh with a 420-foot shot to right-center off Brent Headrick. Turang hit a two-out single off Camilo Doval in the eighth, stole second and slid home on Contreras’ single to left.

Yankees right-hander Luis Gil was placed on the injured list Saturday at Triple-A Scranton/Wilkes-Barre with shoulder inflammation. The 2024 AL Rookie of the Year isn’t expected to throw for three weeks.

Up next

Seven months after undergoing elbow surgery, Carlos Rodón makes his season debut for the Yankees on Sunday. Logan Henderson (0-1, 4.50 ERA) starts for the Brewers.

MILWAUKEE — Cam Schlittler threw six shutout innings Saturday night, then gave way to a slow-motion train wreck at American Family Field.

The Yankees lineup had wasted opportunities to blow the game open throughout the night, then saw it all come back to bite them late as a leaky bullpen could not hold a two-run lead and ultimately fell to the Brewers in brutal fashion, 4-3 in 10 innings.

The Brewers (21-16) walked it off against Tim Hill, as William Contreras — who had tied the game in the bottom of the eighth with an RBI single off Camilo Doval — delivered a bases-loaded sacrifice fly to win it.

That situation was preceded by an unwise decision from Hill. The lefty ground-ball specialist had entered a tie game with runners on first and second and one out to face the left-handed-hitting Brice Turang. Hill got Turang to hit a chopper off the mound, but with no shot of a double play, Hill should have just gone to first base for the easy second out. Instead, he forced a long throw to try to get the lead runner at third, only to hit him and get no outs at all.

“I made a good pitch and then a bad decision afterwards,” Hill said. “Feel like my instincts told me third and my instincts were wrong.”

Hill has been the Yankees’ most reliable reliever all season and typically fields his position well, but did not with the game on the line Saturday.

“Obviously one out there, want to get the out, any out we can get,” manager Aaron Boone said. “So I just think his aggressive nature took over.”

If Hill had gotten the out at first, he could have intentionally walked the righty Contreras to face the left-handed-hitting Jake Bauers — who homered off Brent Headrick in the seventh to pull the Brewers within 2-1 — with the bases loaded and two outs.

Instead, Contreras won it and handed the Yankees (26-14) their third loss in their past four games — just a few days removed from winning 15 of 17 — and their first series loss since April 10-12, when they swept by the Rays. They will now try to avoid another sweep Sunday, when Carlos Rodón makes his season debut.

On a night when the Yankees went 3-for-14 with runners in scoring position, Ryan McMahon collected one of those hits in the top of the 10th when he came through with a two-out, two-strike single up the middle for the 3-2 lead. But Fernando Cruz quickly gave it up in the bottom half.

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He issued a leadoff walk to Luis Rengifo, who was trying to lay down a sacrifice bunt, and in the process spiked a fastball to the backstop, allowing the automatic runner to take third.

Ex-Yankee Gary Sanchez came up next and lofted a fly ball to right-center field that the Brewers decided was too shallow to test Aaron Judge’s arm. But they got the tying run in on the next at-bat, as Jackson Chourio poked a slow grounder to José Caballero’s right that the shortstop had no play on, at which point Boone called on Hill.

After a dominant Schlittler left the game with a 2-0 lead, Headrick immediately gave up his first home run of the year in the seventh before Doval allowed another run in the eighth.

David Bednar tossed a 12-pitch bottom of the ninth, and Boone said he considered sending him back out for the 10th, but ultimately decided not to after the closer had thrown a five-out save Tuesday.

“You don’t want to get in the habit of doing that over and over and felt really good about being lined up there with Cruz and Hill to get us through in the end,” Boone said. “So I did consider it a little bit, but once you realize if he’s going to finish that game, it might get up into that 30-35 [pitch range], and I just didn’t want to be in a position to do that with a full bullpen still behind him.”

The bigger issue was the Yankees not being able to cash in earlier in the game, stranding nine runners and giving their pitchers no margin for error. They put runners on first and second with no outs in the second inning and could not score; loaded the bases with no outs in the fourth and only scored once; and then put runners on first and second with no outs in the eighth and could not score again.

Paul Goldschmidt provided the 2-0 lead with a leadoff home run and an RBI single in the fourth inning, but that was all the Yankees got until the 10th.

“Obviously not being able to really break through is the difference there,” Boone said. “We had a chance to break it open, didn’t get that big hit enough tonight.”