Category: Sports News

With the Emperors season starting this Thursday, Rome has released their Opening Day roster – let’s take a look at how the roster is setup in what should hopefully be a strong season. We’ve already gone over the rosters for both Augusta and Columbus earlier today and here’s a look at the Gwinnett roster from last week as well. Without further ado, let’s get into it:

Starting Pitching

• Cam Caminiti, LHP
• Cedric de Grandpre, RHP
• Cade Kuehler, RHP
• Jeremy Reyes, RHP

Rome boasts a very strong starting rotation with all five in, or near the BP Top 30, headlined by Cam Caminiti – fresh off an amazing 2025 campaign. Following him will be four right handed starters, the hard throwing Cedric de Grandpre, the hard throwing Jeremy Reyes, and Cade Kuehler. There is a lot of velocity in this starting rotation, but also tons of polished breaking pitches with the Caminiti sweeper and the Kuehler slider.

Relief Pitchers

• Trent Buchanan, RHP
• Colin Daniel, RHP
• Riley Frey, LHP
• Isaac Gallegos, RHP
• Owen Hackman, RHP
• Logan Samuels, RHP
• Justin Long, RHP
• David Rodriguez, RHP
• Jacob Kroeger, LHP
• Jacob Shafer, RHP

The relief core has a lot of experience with potentially Trent Buchanan leading the charge. Trent, coming off of a very strong 2025 season, where he had a 2.53 ERA across 28 games and two levels. Isaac Gallegos had an 3.18 ERA across 51 innings last season as well to go with a 8.47 K/9 and 3.35 BB/9 rate. Riley Frey and Jacob Kroeger will be the long lefties in the bullpen, with Riley having made an appearance in Columbus last season, while Jacob Kroeger had a 1.98 ERA across two levels last season. Braves 11th round pick Colin Daniel will be making his organizational debut in Rome as well.

Catchers

• Colin Burgess, RHB
• Mac Guscette, RHB

Rome will add Colin Burgess to a catching room that had Mac Guscette last season.

Infielders

• John Gil, RHB
• Mason Guerra, RHB
• Colby Jones, RHB
• Cody Miller, RHB
• Dixon Williams, LHB
• Will Verdung, RHB

The Rome infield will have some of the highest upside in the organization as top prospects John Gil, Cody Miller, and Dixon Williams will likely have starting roles while Colby Jones, Will Verdung, and Mason Guerra rotate for playing time.

Outfielders

• Logan Braunschweig, LHB
• Owen Carey, LHB
• Isaiah Drake, LHB
• Eric Hartman, LHB
• Dalton McIntyre, LHB
• Jake Steels, RHB

Much like the infield, the outfield is one of the most intriguing position groups in the organization as the potential starting outfield of Eric Hartman – Isaiah Drake – Owen Carey has some of the highest upside amongst all position players. Add 9th round draft pick Logan Braunschweig to the group, along with tools-y Dalton McIntyre and Jake Steels.

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The Atlanta Braves and Arizona Diamondbacks open a four-game set in the desert in a matchup of two NL teams hitting the ball pretty well lately.

I’m locked in on the total, but which lineup will give their team the edge and pull out the win? My Braves vs. Diamondbacks predictions break it all down and bring you MLB picks for this National League showdown below.

Who will win Braves vs Diamondbacks today: Braves (-120)

Both the Atlanta Braves and the Arizona Diamondbacks come into this game hitting well, so it’ll come down to the pitching to figure out who wins this game.

The Braves hand the ball to Reynaldo Lopez. The right-hander had a bounce-back year in 2024, pitching to a 3.91 expected ERA before injuries cost him most of 2025. He looked good, limiting the Royals to one run on three hits over six innings.

The Diamondbacks counter with Ryne Nelson, who got shelled by the Dodgers in his first start, while Arizona's bullpen has the fourth-worst xERA in baseball.

COVERS INTEL: Ryne Nelson surrendered two home runs in his first start against the Dodgers, and the Braves rank eighth in OPS.

Braves vs Diamondbacks Over/Under pick: Over 9 (-110)

The Diamondbacks responded in a big way to getting swept by the Dodgers by pulling off a sweep of their own against the Tigers.

They plated 17 runs in that series, with Corbin Carroll being the catalyst. He collected five hits in that series, including two home runs.

Meanwhile, the Braves rank eighth in batting average and ninth in wRC+ through the early part of the season and should be able to continue that against Nelson. Current Braves hitters have a .485 expected slugging percentage vs. the Arizona right-hander.

Braves vs Diamondbacks odds

• Moneyline: Atlanta -120 | Arizona +100
• Run line: Atlanta -1.5 (+135) | Arizona +1.5 (-160)
• Over/Under: Over 9 | Under 9

Braves vs Diamondbacks trend

The Braves have cashed the Over in 24 of their last 41 away games for +7.70 units and a 17% ROI. Find more MLB betting trends for Braves vs. Diamondbacks.

How to watch Braves vs Diamondbacks and game info

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Hey, what’s up, I’m Cullen, and I’ll be your regular Thursday gameday threader and recapper this season.

I dabbled a bit in Spring Training with the game thread, but this is my first one for a regular season game. And it comes for a game in which the Royals look to sweep the Twins to get to 4-2 on this very new, very young, very promising season.

On the bump for the Royals is Cole Ragans, who’s making his second start of the season. He started the opener in Atlanta and didn’t fare so hot. Of course, as I like to say, You can’t win if you don’t score, and the Royals didn’t bother scoring in that one.

Still, I’m bullish on Ragans. I have to be. The Royals can’t win anything meaningful this year without him performing well.

The Twins turn to Taj Bradley, a pitcher I thought still played for the Rays. He fanned nine in his first start of the season but didn’t last quite five innings. Maybe he’s building up his endurance still?

Let’s get to the lineups.

Lineups for April 2, 2026

I attended the home opener on Monday and witnessed homers by both Isbel and Collins. Maybe it’s because I’m the opposite of tall, but the idea of Isbel becoming a modern-day Jim Wynn, a/k/a The Toy Rocket, has always appealed to me. Alas, I do not see him continuing his 1.000 slugging percentage for the rest of the season.

Right-handed heavy lineup for the Twins as they face Ragans, a southpaw.

Sure, it’s only been five games, but the Twins aren’t in a great spot at 1-4. Only three other teams have just one win, and two of those teams—the Nomadic A’s and Boston Red Sox—are underachieving. 2026 might provide a very ugly for the AL Central cellar between the Twins and White Sox.

Game time—1:10 p.m.

UPDATE: Anne Rogers posted at 12:18 p.m. that Carter Jensen has been pulled from the lineup, no reason yet provided. Here’s the Royals’ new lineup without him:

The Los Angeles Dodgers finished the 2025 season with more days on the injured list than any other team—it hardly came as a surprise, considering the track record of this organization and many of its pitchers. While that illustrates just how often the Dodgers must turn to their outstanding depth, it doesn’t even cover the whole story. Occasionally moving to a six-man rotation—being quite strict about the pitch counts on their starters—the Dodgers are ultraconservative to benefit the most from their hyperaggression in capitalizing on their financial advantages to acquire a depth most teams do not and cannot possess.

Oftentimes, we look for one all-encompassing explanation when tendencies such as this one come together due to several different factors, one of which might be overlooked. Yes. The Dodgers have a lot of what one might refer to as injury-prone starters, but they don’t really handle these players in the same way that the other 29 teams would—Blake Snell this season being the latest and one of the better examples of it.

Snell and even Dave Roberts indicated at various points in the buildup to this season that the Dodgers were going to err on the side of caution with the left-hander. After sort of powering through some shoulder discomfort last spring—perhaps looking to prove himself the same way every player does after signing a big-money, long-term contract—Snell ultimately had to be put on the IL during the season. Although he came back in time for the playoffs, that scare inevitably led to a more cautious approach in 2026.

Snell is one of many talented and high-priced Dodger pitchers whom the organization can be cautious with, as it possesses the depth to withstand their absences over the course of a 162-game season. A different way to think about this situation is to ponder how big a health disaster would be required before your average fan was genuinely concerned about the Dodgers’ chances of making the postseason—something nearly treated as a foregone conclusion ahead of every season, however ludicrous that may seem.

Don’t get this wrong: if they all can follow the lead of Yoshinobu Yamamoto last season and deliver 30+ starts in the regular season and flourish in October, that’s even better. It’s also an unrealistic expectation out of a group with the injury track record of the likes of Snell, Tyler Glasnow, Shohei Ohtani, and company.

It’s impossible to gauge this properly, but there is a very real argument to be made that, individually, any of these pitchers—if they were to play on a more pedestrian team—would find themselves with a larger workload in the regular season or more often powering through potential concerns. Snell’s case is the latest, but even if we go back to Shohei Ohtani’s outlook last season, he could’ve been fully built up to pitch consistently far sooner than he did. However, coming off major elbow surgery in a bit of uncharted waters, the Dodgers only cared about having him at his best and with no restrictions to pitch in the playoffs.

All of this boils down to the Dodgers making the most of what they have. Maybe if the track record of Glasnow and Snell involved fewer concerns, the Dodgers would not have been able to add both of them—certainly not for the price each of them cost. And that’s just to name a couple of the more obvious ones.

It has only been two starts, and neither of them have been dominant, but Cade Cavalli is showing exactly why the Nats are so high on him. Through 9.2 innings, Cavalli has posted a 2.79 ERA with 8 strikeouts and a .229 opponents batting average. He has also shown us the stuff that makes people so excited about him.

While Cavalli’s fastball velocity has been slightly down to start the year, his 95-98 MPH heater still has plenty of juice. It has a bit of a cut-ride shape and does a good job setting the table for his secondary pitches. Against righties, Cavalli also throws more of his sinker. I think he could stand to throw it even more against right-handed hitters. It has nasty movement and high velocity.

Despite having a fastball in the mid to upper 90’s, I think the secondary pitches are the real star of the show here. Cavalli’s power 12/6 curveball has long been his best pitch. He can throw it in the mid-80’s while getting the movement of a slower curve. It is a true hammer pitch where the bottom drops out of it. He can throw the pitch to righties and lefties, but I actually think it plays better against lefties.

That is part of why Cavalli had reverse splits last year. Lefties only hit .221 against him, but righties hammered him at a .381 clip. I do not think the curve is inherently worse to righties, it was more about the rest of his mix. Against lefties, Cavalli could rely on his changeup as a real third pitch and an offering that moved away from left handed hitters. 

He did not really have anything that moves away from righties. The fastball is straight, the curve goes up and down and the sinker comes in on them. That made his mix pretty predictable. To combat that, Cavalli added a sweeper this offseason. Cavalli actually talked about the issues he had against righties during Spring Training.

In a limited sample size, Cavalli has been tougher on righties so far this season. He has issued more walks against them than you would like, but he has only allowed one hit to a righty so far. Cavalli is throwing his 4-seamer, sinker, sweeper and curve at least 16% of the time to righties. Those are four distinct weapons that have different movement patterns. This allows him to stay unpredictable.

Speaking of that sweeper, the actual movement profile of the pitch is interesting. It is almost like a second variation of his curveball. His sweeper has much more drop than the typical sweeper, but still gets that side to side movement. A reason for that could be how he throws it. Cavalli has said he throws it similarly to his curve, he just has a slightly different grip.

Regardless, the pitch is distinct enough to be effective. I also think his usage patterns and maybe even some of his shapes will evolve as he learns more about his new arsenal. We have not seen Cavalli’s A game yet, but he has still shown why he is so highly touted.

He dealt with the Phillies lineup pretty comfortably yesterday. With all of the big names in that lineup, this is no easy task. Cavalli also did not really seem to have his best stuff until the fifth inning. He was surviving in those first four innings, but in the fifth and sixth inning, he was dominating.

I actually think Cavalli could be even more unpredictable with his pitch mix. His changeup and sinker are both pitches I like, but he has not been throwing them a ton this season. The sinker usage is only at 14% and the changeup usage is only at 6%. I think he should use the sinker as his primary fastball to righties and he could mix in his changeup even more to lefties.

In 2025 and early 2026, Cavalli’s changeup has been a whiff machine. He had a 41.8% whiff rate on the pitch last year and it is up to 60% this year. Cavalli’s changeup was one of his best pitches in the minors, but it has been underutilized in the big leagues so far. I also think his sinker plays better against righties than his 4-seam does. Having the sinker moving in, the curve moving downward and the sweeper moving away would be a nasty combo against righties.

Cavalli can do so many different things with the ball, so I think his pitch mix will be constantly evolving. Keeping hitters off balance needs to be a big part of Cavalli’s game. The biggest weakness I think Cavalli has is his command. His strike-throwing is solid, but his command within the zone is spotty at times. He will also have more bad misses than some other pitches.

However, I think Cavalli has the velocity, pitch mix and overall stuff to make up for that. If he can improve that command, especially with two strikes, I think he can take off. Even if Cavalli is what he is right now, that is a solid pitcher. 

It took a long time to see the payoff, but the Nats have what they hoped they would get from Cavalli when they drafted him in the first round. He is a big righty with a power fastball, a pair of nasty breaking balls and a surprisingly good changeup. At 27 years old and finally injury free, Cade Cavalli is finally coming into his own.

Wednesday was a rough day at the park for Francisco Lindor. 

The Mets’ usually fundamentally sound veteran shortstop committed not one, but two costly mental mistakes in what ended as a frustrating walk-off loss to the Cardinals. 

First Lindor forgot how many outs there were, calmly jogging to second for the force and turning to the dugout on what should’ve been a routine inning-ending double play in the first.

Freddy Peralta easily escaped after, but it cost the starter five more pitches. 

Lindor would hurt the Mets a bit more a few innings later, though, as he was picked off first a few pitches before Juan Soto broke a scoreless tie with a solo homer in the sixth. 

New York, of course, ended up losing the game 2-1 in extras. 

Lindor did draw a walk for the fourth consecutive game, but he went hitless on the afternoon, leaving him with just one knock in 10 at-bats during the series in St. Louis. 

Despite the tough day, former Mets shortstop Jose Reyes says fans need to relax about the five-time All-Star. 

Relax everybody… my guy Francisco Lindor gonna be good. Bad days happen — that’s baseball. Could happen to anyone. He’s human just like all of us. Watch how he responds… this gonna be good for him and for the organization 🧡💙

— Jose Reyes (@lamelaza_7) April 2, 2026

Lindor’s first opportunity to respond will come in Thursday’s series opener against the Giants.

The Colorado Rockies have their first day off of the 2026 regular season following their surprise series victory over the defending American League champion Toronto Blue Jays. It took the Rockies until June to secure their first series victory in 2025. Does this portend the Rockies are indeed an improved unit?

With the Rockies traveling back home to Denver for their home opener tomorrow, we can tune into some minor league baseball as the Double-A season begins this week! All High-A and Low-A will kick off their season tomorrow to mark the minor league season as fully started!

Check out the Weekly Pebble Report for a story on Charlie Condon as he nears the precipice of a potential Major League debut this season, and for our prospect report for last week!

All MiLB games today are listed in order of start time. Lineups will be added if/as they become available on team social media feeds.

Triple-A: Reno Aces (3-2) vs Albuquerque Isotopes (1-4)

Despite some excellent pitching from Tanner Gordon, Sean Sullivan, and Gabriel Hughes, the Isotopes have just one win in their young season thus far as the offense has struggled to launch. Gordon will toe the rubber again today while Blaine Crim and Zac Veen continue their rehab assignments in an early afternoon affair against the Arizona Diamondbacks’ Triple-A affiliate.

First Pitch: 12:05 p.m. MDT

TV: MiLB.TV

Radio: MiLB.TV

Lineups:

Double-A: Chesapeake Baysox (0-0) vs Hartford Yard Goats (0-0)

The Double-A season starts today with an Eastern League match-up. The Yard Goats clinched a postseason berth in 2024 for the first time in franchise history, only to miss the dance in 2025. What does this season have in store for them? Right-handed Jake Brooks—obtained from the Miami Marlins in exchange for Bradley Blalock this off-season—will start for the Yard Goats.

First Pitch: 7:10 p.m. MDT

TV: MiLB.TV

Radio: MiLB.TV

Lineups:

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