Category: Sports News

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Something wasn’t working between first and third base Wednesday afternoon at Petco Park, as the typically surehanded Matt Chapman and Casey Schmitt teamed up to cost the Giants the first two runs they allowed in 7-1 drubbing to the Padres.

Schmitt was charged with an error for failing to reel in a wide throw from Chapman in the first inning that ricocheted into the outfield, allowing Jackson Merrill to race home from first and open a 1-0 lead.

Chapman took the blame for a throw that sailed over Schmitt’s mitt and into foul territory on a play that should have ended the fifth inning. Instead, Gavin Sheets scored from second to make it 2-0.

Adrian Houser pitched better than the defense behind him in the season debut for the Giants’ No. 5 starter but ran into trouble when San Diego turned its lineup over for a third time. Just one of the three runs on Houser’s line was earned, but three of the Padres’ seven hits against him came in consecutive at-bats after he recorded the first out of the sixth, bringing manager Tony Vitello out with the hook.

The Padres’ ace, Nick Pivetta, rebounded from his stinker to open the season and put San Francisco’s bats back in hibernation. After more than doubling their season totals with nine runs on 16 hits to clinch a series win Tuesday, the Giants mustered just four hits while striking out a season-high 14 times.

What it means

Despite the getaway day defeat, Vitello’s first games in the road grays have to be considered a success. The first-year manager won’t be celebrating a sweep on the short charter flight back to San Francisco, but his team rebounded nicely from an 0-3 opening series by taking two of three in San Diego.

Who’s hot

Willy Adames had been on a tear since moving into the leadoff spot, but the Giants shortstop was held hitless to snap a brief three-game hitting streak. The 0-for-4 effort came in SF’s first loss in four games with Adames batting leadoff, dating back to Game 162 of last season.

Luis Arraez was responsible for three of the Giants’ four hits, including their only one in five innings off Pivetta. Arraez gave them a second with a double off Adrian Morejon to begin the seventh, and Harrison Bader got them on the board with a two-out line drive into left field for their third hit of the afternoon.

The multi-hit effort from Arraez against his former team left him batting .304 after six games, the best mark among the Giants’ starting lineup that has featured the same nine players in all of their first six games.

Who’s not

The description could fit anybody in a starting lineup that doesn’t feature one player with an OPS that starts with a seven or higher. For the fourth time in their first six games, the Giants were held to one run or less and three or fewer hits. Even with their nine-run outburst on Tuesday, the Giants are averaging just 2.3 per game, the fewest in the majors, with a .559 team OPS — better only than the A’s.

Besides the bats, Jose Butto hasn’t looked like the same pitcher who tossed 5 1/3 scoreless innings for Venezuela during the World Baseball Classic. Butto is suddenly the biggest question mark in the Giants’ bullpen after retiring only one of the seven batters he faced in his second shaky outing in three games.

Butto issued four walks, allowed three hits and found the strike zone on only eight of his 28 pitches, forcing Vitello to burn another arm, lefty Ryan Borucki, with seven more games in the next seven days.

The Padres extended their lead from 3-1 to the eventual final margin after Butto entered the game.

Up next

Robbie Ray makes his second start of the season Thursday as the Giants return to Oracle Park to begin a seven-game home stand against the Mets and Phillies. Tyler Mahle gets the ball Friday, followed by Landen Roupp and Logan Webb to finish off a four-game weekend set with New York.

SEATTLE — It is not always going to be like this.

A Yankees starter is going to give up multiple runs — maybe even three — someday.

But not now, not yet — and most of the time, not even one.

Cam Schlittler was masterful once again, throwing 6 ¹/₃ shutout innings on the way to a 5-3 win over the Mariners to claim the series at T-Mobile Park while continuing the Yankees run of pitching dominance to begin the season.

Schlittler, who retired the final 15 batters he faced and would have gone even deeper had he not been on a pitch count, recorded the fourth scoreless start by a Yankee in the team’s first six games — two by him and two by Max Fried.

Yankees starters have still only given up just two runs over their first six games — spanning 33 ²/₃ innings — marking the fewest by any team’s starting rotation through their first six games of a season since 1900.

“I think the staff’s dominant and the bullpen’s been great as well,” said Schlittler, who struck out seven and scattered just two hits. “The team as a whole, just feeding off each other and taking it each game, each start and keep rolling with it.”


The bullpen, which has mostly been strong in its own right early, threatened to light the game on fire late after the Yankees led 4-0, fueled by Paul Goldschmidt’s three-run shot.

Camilo Doval loaded the bases with two outs in the eighth inning before Cal Raleigh roped a two-run single off David Bednar to make it 4-2.

After Bednar struck out Julio Rodríguez to end the threat, Ben Rice got a run back in the top of the ninth on his first home run of the season, which provided a bit more breathing room for when the Mariners fought back again in the bottom of the ninth, pushing across another run. But Bednar finally nailed down the final out on his 40th pitch, sending the Yankees flying home high following a 5-1 West Coast trip ahead of Friday’s home opener.

“Really good baseball,” manager Aaron Boone said. “Obviously pitching at a really high level. The defense was excellent on the trip overall. Some timely hitting, a couple big homers along the way. Just really good baseball and a good way to open the season and head back home into an off day and hopefully start off a nice homestand.”


Across 79 pitches Wednesday — still building up after back inflammation had slowed him briefly in camp — Schlittler continued to pound the zone and attack with his three fastballs. He has still not walked a batter this season, only letting three runners on base at all across 11 ²/₃ scoreless innings.

• CHECK OUT THE LATEST MLB STANDINGS AND YANKEES STATS

The 25-year-old became the first pitcher in Yankees history to begin a season with back-to-back starts of five-plus scoreless innings and seven-plus strikeouts.

“He’s not afraid to throw his best stuff and come at you in the zone,” said Rice, who capped off a strong series by going 2-for-3 with a walk, RBI double and the 427-foot homer. “Clearly he is very difficult to hit.”

It is still early, but this kind of start has allowed the Yankees to dream on the high-end potential of their rotation over the full season, especially with Carlos Rodón and Gerrit Cole expected to join it before long.

“What a week of pitching,” Boone said. “Credit to those guys for, along with [Austin Wells] and J.C. [Escarra] and the pitching group, coming up with a really good game plan and those starting pitchers going out there and executing at a really high level.”

Goldschmidt, who was only in the lineup because the Yankees wanted to give the red-hot Giancarlo Stanton a proactive day off to keep him healthy over the long haul, delivered the biggest swing in the sixth inning. The veteran first baseman crushed a three-run shot off right-hander George Kirby to put the Yankees ahead 4-0 — set up by Trent Grisham and Rice each drawing a walk — creating some cushion for Schlittler and Co.

“Being efficient, limiting the walks, limiting the hits and getting the strikeouts,” Schlittler said, “is a good way to put the team in a position to win.”

Last week, the WNBA established a historic seven-year collective bargaining agreement (CBA) that will run through 2032, paving the way for astronomical league growth. In what will be marked as one of the biggest breakthroughs in women’s professional sports, the WNBA has proven that league growth, competitive parity and expansion are not mutually exclusive.

MLB, on the other hand, is at a pivotal intersection of balancing competitive parity and league growth. The league is staring down an almost guaranteed lose-lose scenario with the current CBA expiring at the end of this year, and salary floors and potential ceilings are nowhere near agreed upon. If the league and team owners want to preserve as much of the 2027 season as possible, they may want to borrow one distinct element from the WNBA’s CBA: scaled player compensation.

In their recently-ratified CBA, the WNBA raised its salary floors and caps to acknowledge the league’s massive boom in the last five years.

Maximum player salaries may grow to up to $2.4 million, based on financial projections. WNBA players are also guaranteed at least 20% of the league’s gross revenue, replacing the previous revenue-sharing model that required league revenue to exceed a specific threshold before players saw any returns.

The increased player compensation corrects previous underpayments and sets a scalable economic system for future growth and league establishment, tying player salaries directly to league performance. 

MLB’s economic structure differs greatly, as revenue doesn’t automatically scale with league engagement.

For starters, player salaries aren’t tied directly to revenue. Salaries increase through free market competition, with team revenue growth and superstars serving as the main drivers for market rates in free agency and arbitration. MLB players have traditionally made as much as teams wanted to pay them. Mechanisms for limiting salary during a player’s initial six years of team control also cut into potential player profits. Long story short, front offices have a heavy hand in balancing salaries with revenue. 

In turn, revenue sharing isn’t guaranteed for MLB players. Profits from revenue sharing from local markets are distributed to teams, not players. Players are at the mercy of owners to reap what they sow. Adjustments to the revenue-sharing model would likely require players to concede to a salary cap.

The dramatic contrasts between a league intentionally designed to scale with anticipated growth and a league having to backtrack and update its structures to preserve its fan base result in severe economic disparity. Using ESPN’s table of WNBA salaries by CBA year and Spotrac’s minimum and highest AAV MLB salaries by CBA year, I recorded salary changes in each league from 2015 to 2026. The results were astonishing.

The lowest-paid WNBA players will make at least 20% of the salary earned by the highest-paid players, while the lowest-paid MLB players make less than 2% of the salary earned by the highest-paid ballplayers. The millions, that’s right, millions of dollars of pay gap is the crux of the problem. Since international market growth, historic media deals, shifts toward direct-to-consumer streaming, and increases in fan attendance have made MLB an $11.1 billion industry, grave salary disparities among MLB players are unjustifiable. 

If MLB decides to directly tie salaries to league revenue in the next CBA, it could transform the game for the future. Tightening the pay gap between rookies and stars would incentivize winning and stellar performance. Rewarding players for their contributions on the field through direct revenue sharing or salary scaling would introduce invisible pay structures that preserve the traditional free market economic system without letting the rich get richer at the expense of the prospects and young talent that serve as the foundation for baseball’s development.

The story of the Yankees’ 2026 season so far has been all about the pitching. They opened the season with two shutouts, courtesy of Max Fried and Cam Schlittler. The second time through the rotation began on Tuesday night, and Fried continued his good work, once again not allowing a run.

That set the stage for Schlittler’s second start of the season. Much like Fried did, Schlittler followed a similar scrips to his first start of the season. In 6.1 innings, Schlittler allowed no runs on just two hits and no walks, while striking out seven. His rise since his callup last season remains remarkable.

On the offensive side of things, Ben Rice and Paul Goldschmidt led the way, each homering and driving home all five runs between them. As it turned out, the bullpen made it so that all the runs were needed, as Seattle threatened in the eighth and ninth innings. However, the efforts of Schlittler, Rice, and Goldschmidt proved to be enough as the Yankees took the series in Seattle with a 5-3 win over the Mariners.

The Yankees used a two-out rally to take an early lead in the first. While Trent Grisham and Aaron Judge went down in order, Cody Bellinger managed to keep the inning alive by working a walk. Then, he continued the Yankees’ aggressiveness on the basepaths early on this season, stealing second. That allowed him to score as Rice got one past Josh Naylor and into the right field corner for a RBI double.

George Kirby settled down for Seattle after that, but Schlittler was also dominating in the meantime. Him holding things down allowed the Yankees to eventually build on their lead, thanks to an unexpected source.

While Grisham led off the sixth inning with a walk, Kirby then got the next two outs. Once again though, the Yankees came through with two down. Rice kept the inning alive with a walk of his own, bringing Goldschmidt to the plate. Despite it being 2026 and Kirby being a right-handed pitcher, Goldschmidt managed to do the damage, hitting a three-run shot to increase the lead.

In the bottom of the seventh, Schlittler retired Julio Rodríguez for a third time and was sitting on 79 pitches. At that point, Aaron Boone came out of the dugout and went to the bullpen, going with Fernando Cruz, who ended the inning without issue.

Camilo Doval entered for the eighth inning and got two outs, but also gave up a couple hits. He then walked Brendan Donovan on four pitches, which set up Cal Raleigh as the potential game-tying run. At that point, Boone decided to call on closer David Bednar. Bednar couldn’t fully escape the inning, as Raleigh got him for a two-run single, but he did strike out Rodríguez to keep the lead intact.

Right after that, the Yankees got some helpful insurance. Rice struck again, absolutely obliterating a home run to lead off the top of the ninth.

Bednar remained in for the bottom of the ninth, and did allow another run after giving up hits to Randy Arozarena and Dominic Canzone. Representing the game-tying run, Cole Young then made Bednar work, and eventually took an offering to deep right field. However, it stayed in play and eventually ended up in Judge’s glove for the final out of the game. The victory gave the Yankees a 5-1 record on their west coast swing and two series victories to start the new year.

With that, the Yankees have finally wrapped up their season-opening road trip. After getting tomorrow off, they’ll head to the Bronx for Friday’s home opener against the Marlins. Will Warren will get the start opposite Eury Pérez in that one.

Box score

Project Hail Mary and The Martian by Andy Weir: Brendan Donovan (+.07 WPA)

Artemis by Andy Weir: Julio Rodriguez (-.16 WPA)

Game Thread Comment of the Day:

The Mets went out and made some drastic changes to their roster over the offseason after a hugely disappointing season, which ended without a playoff berth. A lot of those changes were to their lineup, breaking up a core that had been together for some time in order to give the team a new look and a fresh start.

One of the most glaring issues for New York's offense last year was its inability to capitalize on chances with runners in scoring position. In fact, not only did the Mets overhaul their lineup, but they also retooled their hitting department by bringing in new hitting coaches in hopes that they could correct the RISP problem that plagued them so often last year.

But just six games into the season, that problem is rearing its ugly head. 

One day after being shut out and held to three hits, New York went 0-for-11 with RISP and left 11 men on base in a 2-1 loss to the St. Louis Cardinals. The worst of it came in the top of the 11th inning when the Mets loaded the bases with one out, a golden opportunity to push across at least one run, but came up empty.

Before that, New York was unable to drive in the free runner in the 10th inning and couldn't get pinch-runner Jared Young home in the ninth after Jorge Polanco's leadoff double. 

Even in their series-opening win on Monday, the Mets finished 1-for-14 with RISP. In Sunday's loss to the Pittsburgh Pirates, they went 2-for-10 with RISP and on Saturday, a win, 3-for-14. Aside from Opening Day's 11-run outburst, New York is averaging 2.4 runs per game.

"I feel like with runners in scoring position, there’s a few things there," said manager Carlos Mendoza. "Ultra aggressive at times, expanding [the strike zone] at times, as well, with some of the guys. We just gotta get back to what we do well, which is controlling the strike zone, getting good pitches to hit and doing damage. Good hitters that right now for a couple of games they’re not getting it done."

Following a season filled with this familiar phenomenon and the upheaval that took place to try and rectify it, seeing it happening again so soon (and after the offense teased its potential on Opening Day) is certainly disheartening.

Still, the season isn't even a week old yet and Mendoza believes things will change and doesn't see a through line between last year's offense and this year's offense, saying it's "completely different guys, different lineups."

"It’s two games," the skipper said. "Yes, we gotta make some adjustments, but they’re good hitters and right now for the last couple of games we haven’t gotten the job done."

While it's still early and a relatively small sample size, things need to change soon so that a fan base who went through it last season and might still hold some emotional scars doesn't completely come down on the team.

Cam Schlittler continued a string of dominance for Yankees starters and Paul Goldschmidt's homer provided enough offense as New York defeated the Mariners, 5-3, on Wednesday afternoon in Seattle to pick up the series win.

The Yankees (5-1) have now won both series to start the season. Yankees starters have also allowed just one run in the team's first six games. 

Here are the takeaways...

-Yankees starters entered Wednesday's game allowing just one run through the first five games, but the Mariners lineup threatened Schlittler in the first. Brendan Donovan hit a leadoff double, but the young right-hander struck out Cal Raleigh and Julio Rodriguez before getting Josh Naylor to fly out to end the threat. 

After allowing a one-out hit in the second, Schlittler retired 11 straight batters and was through five innings, throwing just 55 pitches. He'd extend that streak to 14 batters through six innings. The only thing that could get to Schlittler was his pitch count, which was limited considering he is still being built up.

Schlittler tossed 6.1 scoreless innings, allowing just two hits, no walks and striking out seven batters. He threw 79 pitches (58 strikes). 

In his first two starts, Schlittler has thrown 11.2 scoreless innings with 15 strikeouts, and has allowed only three baserunners (all hits). 

-With a varied lineup, the Yankees got to George Kirby early. Cody Bellinger worked a two-out walk and stole second, and Ben Rice -- starting as the DH -- lined a double down the right field line to give the Yankees an early 1-0 lead. 

Goldschmidt, starting at first base, broke the game open in the sixth with a two-out, three-run bomb off of Kirby. 

-In relief of Schlittler, the Yankees bullpen did its job. Fernando Cruz got the two outs to finish the seventh for Schlittler before Camilo Doval -- who has dominated early on -- pitched into trouble. He allowed back-to-back one-out singles to put runners on the corners. Doval struck out Leo Rivas but walked Donovan to load the bases for Raleigh. 

Manager Aaron Boone pulled Doval for David Bednar, but the Yankees closer couldn't get the MVP runner-up, as the Mariners backstop dumped a two-run single to cut their lead to 4-2. Bednar would get Rodriguez to strike out on a 2-2 splitter to preserve the lead. It was a seven-pitch AB for Rodriguez that Bednar won.

Bednar would allow a run in the ninth on two hits, but eventually locked down his third save of the season after tossing 40 pitches (27 strikes).

-Rice would get one of those runs back in the ninth with a leadoff solo shot, his first of the season. 

Game MVP: Cam Schlittler

It took a bit for the Yankees offense to get going, but Schlittler held down the Mariners long enough for that Goldschmidt bomb. 

Highlights

Ben Rice opens the scoring as Cody Bellinger scores! pic.twitter.com/W9qkalcB99

— Yankees Videos (@snyyankees) April 1, 2026

A 3-run homer for Paul Goldschmidt! pic.twitter.com/b2k6KezRJc

— Yankees Videos (@snyyankees) April 1, 2026

Cam Schlittler is DEALING pic.twitter.com/6tgDriRhWP

— Yankees Videos (@snyyankees) April 1, 2026

What's next

The Yankees are off Thursday before heading back to the Bronx for their home opener. They'll take on the upstart Miami Marlins for a three-game series starting Friday at 1:35 p.m.

Will Warren will take the mound for his second start this season and will be up against Eury Perez.