Baseball is a roller coaster. Seasons are roller coasters, where even the best teams have losing streaks, even the best hitters slump, and vice versa. This game was exactly that, with the Mets slowly bleeding away an early lead, only for MJ Melendez to hit a towering home run in the 10th inning to walk off the Marlins. It is a game that will hopefully be featured on 2026 Mets Classics in a “this is one of the wins that helped get the Mets back into the playoffs” type of way, and not in a “2018 José Bautista hits a walk off grand slam for the 77-85 Mets” type of way.

The Mets started off hot behind Freddy Peralta, getting to Max Meyer early. A.J. Ewing snuck a ground ball past a draw in infield with the bases loaded and one away in the first inning, plating two. After Ewing stole second, Brett Baty added a single of his own to make it 4-0.

The Marlins started their comeback in the third, when Xavier Edwards hit an RBI triple over the head of Ewing in center field. Mark Vientos got the run back in the bottom of the frame, absolutely walloping a slider 445 ft., making it 5-1. The two teams traded runs again in the fourth, with Jakob Marksee dunking a Peralta changeup into left field, and hustling an RBI double out of it. The Mets scored their run in the frame with a throwing error by Joe Mack on a Luis Torrens sacrifice bunt, as the catcher was trying to move Marcus Semien over after a leadoff double.

The middle of the game was (mostly) all Marlins. Peralta, who was not helped out by his defense, was chased in the fifth inning after Otto Lopez drove in a run due to an ugly Vientos error at first base, and Kyle Stowers drove him home with a double down the right field line. A.J. Minter came in to clean up the inning and did just that, and got two outs in the sixth inning on top of it. Huascar Brazoban came in to relieve Minter and did well until the seventh, when a walk, a Liam Hick ground ball double that beat the shift down the third base line, and a sacrifice fly turned it into a 6-5 game. Brooks Raley got a king sized out after the sacrifice fly to end the threat with the lead intact.

The bottom of the seventh was retroactively incredibly important; in all honestly, they lose this game without it, and this recap is much more morose than matter-of-factly. Bo Bichette walked with one out. Juan Soto singled to make it first and third, and a pinch hitting M.J. Melendez sacrifice flew Bichette home to make it 7-5. The importance of that insurance run showed up immediately, as Tobias Myers served up a two run home run in the eighth to tie it at seven.

The bottom of the eighth and the entirety of the ninth went by scoreless, as we were sent to extras with a score of 7-7 (hence, the importance of that sacrifice fly). Austin Warren came in for Luke Weaver, who pitched well in the ninth, for the tenth and was great, getting out of the Rob Manfred-enforced jam to keep the score tied going into the bottom of the tenth.

Juan Soto, leading off the tenth, popped out on the first pitch, but M.J. Melendez hit a towering home run to push the Mets record to 24-33 on the season.

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Win Probability Added

Big Mets winner: M.J. Melendez, +34% WPA
Big Mets loser: Tobias Myers, -27% WPA
Mets pitchers: -3% WPA
Mets hitters: +53% WPA
Teh aw3s0mest play: M.J. Melendez’s walk off home run, +30.7% WPA
Teh sux0rest play: Owen Cassie’s two run home in in the eighth, -32% WPA

Box Score

The Brewers didn’t look great tonight. They only got four hits. They had a couple of tough errors, one of which led directly to runs. They trailed for most of the game. But these Brewers don’t lie down. They managed to squeeze a couple of late runs across by a combination of grit and good baserunning, and the bullpen kept the Astros down for six innings. Trevor Megill did the rest, and the Brewers had their third extra-innings win of the season.

Christian Yelich got the Brewers off to an inauspicious start when he struck out on three pitches, the second and third of which he swung out despite being way out of the zone. After Jackson Chourio flew out on a fly ball, Turang struck out looking (also on three pitches), and Astros starter Kai-Wei Teng had a quick and easy first inning. Taylor Trammell started things for the Astros with an infield single, but an Isaac Paredes double play erased him. Yordan Alvarez put a scare into Milwaukee starter Coleman Crow when he scorched a ball to the warning track in center, but he hit it to the wrong spot—despite a 113 mph exit velocity on a 409-foot drive, Garrett Mitchell ran it down for the third out.

The Brewers did get a couple of runners on in the second inning. Jake Bauers drew a one-out walk, and advanced to third when Mitchell followed that with a base hit up the middle. But Bauers was a sitting duck at home when he broke on a Rengifo ground ball to third, and Sal Frelick was unable to come through with a two-out knock when he flew out to center.

David Hamilton made a nice play on a hard grounder from Christian Walker to start the bottom of the second, but the Astros got on the board with one out when Cam Smith hit is sixth homer of the season out to left. (It wasn’t a cheapie, either.) Pop outs by Braden Shewmake and Jake Meyers ended the inning, but Houston had an early 1-0 lead.

The Brewers had an immediate response through an unlikely source: David Hamilton. He led off the top of the third with a backhand slapshot to the Crawford Boxes in left field, an opposite-field shot for his first homer of the year (despite just 94 mph exit velocity and a measured 343 feet!). Teng recovered to get the top of the Brewer order all in a row, but Milwaukee had tied it up.

After Nick Allen popped out to start the bottom of the inning, Crow walked the nine-hole hitter, César Salazar. But Trammell became Crow’s first strikeout victim, and Paredes grounded to Hamilton who flipped to Turang for the third out. Garrett Mitchell drew a two-out walk in the top of the fourth, but Milwaukee got nothing else.

A Rengifo throwing error put the Brewers in hot water in the bottom of the fourth. After Alvarez walked to start the inning, Walker hit a ground ball to third. It probably wasn’t hit hard enough to turn two, but Rengifo rushed the throw and threw it into right field. On the very next pitch, Smith hit one to the gap in right center; Alvarez scored, and runners were on second and third with still no outs.

Milwaukee benefitted from bad Houston baserunning for the first out. Shewmake hit a grounder to a drawn-in Turang at second, and after he looked Walker back to third, he threw to second, where Smith was too far off the bag and was caught for the first out. Crow had a path out of the inning with runners on the corners and one out, but Meyers spoiled that when he hit a one-hopper off the wall in left for an RBI double. There were still runners on second and third with one out for Allen, who hit a fly ball to center that was plenty deep to score Shewmake from third. Salazar flew out to end the inning, but Houston scored three (two of them unearned) and led 4-1.

Once again, the Brewers had an answer right away. With two outs in the top of the fifth, Yelich drew a two-out walk, and Chourio finally got a sweeper that was over the plate, and he didn’t miss it. He crushed it, 431 feet, to left-center for his second homer of the season. After a walk for Turang, too, Contreras grounded out to end the inning, but Milwaukee had closed the gap to 4-3.

Crow was done after four—Rengifo’s error certainly didn’t help what was a somewhat disappointing day. DL Hall replaced him in the bottom of the fifth and started with strikeouts of Trammell and Paredes. He got Alvarez, too, on a silly little play; Alvarez hit one pretty much straight down and assumed it was a foul ball, but it trickled into fair territory and Contreras picked it up and tagged him out as he stood outside of the batter’s box.

Steven Okert, a lefty, replaced Teng in the sixth. Bauers tried to poke one at the Crawford Boxes to lead off the sixth, but it didn’t quite get there, and he became the first out of the inning. A slider got away from Okert with Mitchell at the plate and went right at his head; luckily Mitchell mostly got out of the way, and instead of getting hit on the helmet, it was a glancing blow to his upper back that didn’t even really seem to hurt. Mitchell tried to steal a couple of times on pitches that Rengifo fouled off, but Mitchell was a little too aggressive; Okert threw over and had Mitchell picked off, though he almost made it into second on the throw from Walker. In any case, Rengifo struck out and the inning ended.

With one out in the bottom of the sixth, Hall ran into a bit of trouble when he walked Smith and Shewmake in back-to-back plate appearances. But he got out of it quickly when Meyers followed with a second-pitch 4-6-3 double play. Okert had no trouble at all with Frelick, Hamilton, and Yelich in the top of the seventh, mowing down the three lefties in a row.

Grant Anderson replaced Hall for the bottom of the seventh, and he got through it with a pop out and two fly outs. Bryan Abreu came in for Okert in the eighth and started by throwing eight straight balls, walking Chourio and Turang. After a ninth straight ball to Contreras, he finally got one in the zone. A couple pitches later, Contreras hit a fly ball to center field for the first out, but Chourio tagged and made it to third.

That set up Jake Bauers with a good situation, but the Astros had had enough of one Bryan and switched to another, Bryan King. He also struggled to find the strike zone, and on a 3-1 pitch, Bauers hit a slow ground ball to second where the only play was to first base. Chourio scored to tie it, and Turang moved to second. Pat Murphy took an opportunity to use a weapon off the bench, but Andrew Vaughn, pinch-hitting for Mitchell, flew out to foul territory in right on the first pitch and the inning ended.

Now in a tie game, the Brewers went to the Vulture, Aaron Ashby. He struck out Paredes and Alvarez, and though Walker picked up a two-out single, Ashby needed just one more pitch to get Smith to ground out to short.

Could the Brewers get him a 10th win? With King still pitching, Rengifo lined out to right on the first pitch he saw. Frelick lined a solid single up the middle on a 3-2 pitch and put the go-ahead run on first with one out. The Brewers at this point decided to go with another pinch-hitter, Gary Sánchez, who hit for Hamilton. Sánchez popped up to shallow right—the second baseman, Allen, let the ball hit the grass so that he could throw Frelick, the faster runner, out at second, though that didn’t matter much anyway because Joey Ortiz was going to come in for Sánchez whether that was on the bases or in the bottom of the inning. So Ortiz was on first with two outs for Yelich, but he grounded out to end the inning. No win tonight for Ashby.

Abner Uribe was the Brewer pitcher, making his first appearance since “crotch-chop gate” against the Cardinals on Tuesday. The leadoff hitter in the bottom of the ninth was pinch-hitter Jeremy Peña, who was one of the better players in the league last season but has struggled while dealing with injuries in 2026. Peña should’ve grounded out, but Ortiz, who’d just entered the game, didn’t make a perfect throw and it got by Bauers (who honestly probably should’ve caught it). Ortiz was charged with an error; Meyers tried to bunt on the first pitch but swung away at the second; Rengifo, playing in to cover the potential bunt, didn’t have a play on a ground ball that probably would’ve been a double play with a regularly positioned defense. Tough luck, but the Astros had runners on first and second and nobody out.

Allen was definitely in to bunt, and he laid down a good one; it required a good (and kind of scary) play by Uribe to get him at first base, but the winning run was at third with one out. Christian Vázquez came in to pinch-hit for Salazar, facing a fully drawn-in infield. After a first-pitch ball, the Brewers chose to intentionally walk him to load the bases. The batter was not Trammell, but Brice Matthews, who’d entered as a defensive substitute an inning earlier. Uribe needed just three pitches to strike out Matthews looking, and the Brewers were one out away from a Houdini act. The batter was Paredes. A beneficial call in an 0-1 count made it 0-2, and there was nothing Paredes could do about it, as the Astros had burned both challenges early in the game. After a couple more pitches, Paredes popped out to Turang in shallow right, and the Brewers were out of it.

The new Houston pitcher in the tenth was Alimber Santa, who made his major-league debut on Monday when he pitched the last two innings of the Astros’ combined no-hitter. He started Chourio with three straight balls but worked the count back full before Chourio flew out to center. It wasn’t hit very deep, but Yelich challenged Meyers’ arm in center, and made it to third with one out. Turang jumped on the first pitch and hit a line drive to right—it was caught, but Yelich, who’d just moved to third with good baserunning, tagged and scored. Santa struck out Contreras to end the inning, but the Brewers had a 5-4 lead.

Megill replaced Uribe with pinch-runner Zach Dezenzo on second as the ghost runner and Alvarez at the plate. Walking Alvarez seemed like the obvious decision, but Megill had different ideas. The first pitch was a fastball on the upper inside corner for a called strike, a perfect pitch. The second one, he got away with: a fastball in the lower half that got a bit too much of the plate, but Alvarez mercifully missed it. The next pitch, a fastball on the outer half, surprised Alvarez, and he struck out looking. It was quite an at-bat.

Walker, the next batter, hit a fly ball to fairly deep right, which Frelick caught right on the edge of the warning track. Dezenzo tagged and moved to third, but Houston was down to their last out—in the form of Cam Smith, who’d already homered and doubled in this one. The Brewers got another fortunate call in Smith’s at-bat when he appeared to check his swing on a 2-1 pitch, but the first-base umpire disagreed; Smith was only able to get a tiny piece of the next pitch, a fastball in the upper part of the zone, and he was out on a foul tip. Milwaukee won, 5-4.

This felt like an unlikely win. The offense was lifeless for most of the game, and the Brewers had a couple of uncharacteristic defensive miscues that nearly cost them the game. But this is a team that doesn’t quit, and some timely manufactured offense along with six shutout innings from the bullpen gave them a win.

Crow wasn’t as bad as his line—four innings, four hits, two walks, one strikeout, four runs, two of which were earned—but he’ll hope for better days in the future. Hall looked great in his first inning and got through the second despite a couple of walks. Anderson and Ashby threw solid scoreless innings. Uribe worked around the throwing error that nearly handed Houston the game. And Megill was extremely impressive in the 10th.

Offensively, Milwaukee managed only four hits, but they did what they needed to do. Two of those hits were homers, Hamilton’s first and Chourio’s second. Yelich’s baserunning in the 10th didn’t show up in the box score, but the run he scored did. Bauers and Turang both went hitless but both knocked in runs (and each drew a walk).

Milwaukee now has two chances to win the series. The first of those comes tomorrow afternoon at 3:10 p.m., when Brandon Sproat takes on Peter Lambert.

It has been said that when Stephen Kolek is getting ground outs in the first inning, you can tell it’s going to be a good night. Unfortunately, Kolek didn’t get a groundball until the seventh batter he faced in the first inning, and Nick Loftin turned that into an error. But let’s back up a bit.

In the top of the first, Mackenzie Gore was not fooling anyone. Lane Thomas struck out swinging on a well-located fastball, but Bobby Witt Jr. barrelled a line drive to center at 107.4 for the second out. Maikel Garcia then lined a single to center at 103.8 MPH, Salvador Perez smoked a double down the line at 105.7 MPH. Starling Marte, with runners at second and third but two outs, smoked a ground ball up the middle at 102.1 MPH that old friend Nicky Lopez turned into an inning-ending groundout despite its expected batting average (xBA) of .590.

The bottom of the inning had the Rangers also put a runner at second and third with two outs. Backup infielder Ezequiel Duran hit a line drive to center with a .990 xBA to score them both. Two errors later, two more runs had scored. If that first inning isn’t exemplary of the Royals’ 2026 – failing to drive in runners despite a moderately good effort, followed by giving up runs in the exact same situation, and then crumpling – I don’t know what is.

What makes it the most frustrating is that, during the good stretch the Royals had for a couple of weeks, they were playing some of the most resilient baseball I’ve ever seen in my entire life. But the rest of the time, they have the resiliency of wet single-ply.

Anyway, I don’t think we need to recap in detail every single moment of this game. One particularly frustrating moment was when Steven Cruz, pitching the sixth inning, allowed a two-run home run to Nicky Lopez. That was Lopez’s eighth career MLB home run in his eighth MLB season. He hadn’t hit one since 2024 until tonight. The Royals scored their lone run in the ninth inning when Rangers reliever Gavin Colyer, the first right-hander the Royals saw all night, walked Maikel Garcia and Salvador Perez to lead off the inning before giving up a nice single to Vinnie Pasquantino. He still got two strikeouts and a pop-up to end the game.

One of the most consistent complaints about the Royals this year by fans – including yours truly – is that the Royals aren’t just bad, they’re also not really doing anything about it. Vinnie and Salvy not only still bat 3-4 most nights, but they’ve literally had three days off between them. Jac Caglianone and Carter Jensen still get benched for every lefty despite doing slightly better against them than Vinnie.

The Royals have also had multiple opportunities to shake things up with off-days following disastrous series that they’ve completely ignored. I sat down with the FanGraphs transaction tracker and determined that the Royals have the fourth-fewest transactions in MLB since the season started, ahead of only the Padres, Cardinals, and Rangers. That includes promotions, demotions, signings, releases, and IL movement. They’ve also still got the entire coaching staff they started the year with.

They are not behaving remotely like a team that feels any urgency about their predicament. One of the reasons they were able to bounce back last season to finish 82-80 was that they acted with urgency during the season, even if they could have used some more in the previous offseason. We haven’t seen any urgency in either the most recent offseason or this season, and it’s gotten pretty old.

Anyway, the Royals will try again tomorrow afternoon. Seth Lugo (3.74 ERA) will face off against Kumar Rocker (3.96 ERA). The game will start at 3:05 PM CDT. I no longer expect anything to change or anything interesting to happen.

The margins for error in baseball are incredibly slim. So far this season, the White Sox have taken advantage of opportunities afforded to them, which is why they’re seeing success early in the season. Coming into tonight’s game, they knew they’d have to take advantage of their chances with budding Detroit ace Troy Melton on the mound.

The Tigers have been awful so far this season, and much of their struggles are due to their lack of offense. They came into the game ranked 24th in runs scored, and the White Sox knew they wouldn’t need to put much on the board to get a win. Unfortunately, the South Siders looked like they were playing with Wiffle ball bats for the first eight innings, as they went 0-for-11 with runners in scoring position and were held to one run.

And that’s not even mentioning the ugly takeaway from this game, in spite of the win: In the bottom of the third, star slugger Munetaka Murakami left the game with hamstring tightness running out a ground ball (postgame, the White Sox indicated an IL stint and a couple of weeks out for Mune).

Hits weren’t much of an issue for the White Sox overall — it was the timing of those hits that was. Chicago outhit the Tigers, 10-4, but it was Detroit that had the upper hand for most of the game. While the Tigers also struggled hitting with runners on, going just 0-for-2 with runners in scoring position, their struggles were offset by a second-inning Dillon Dingler dinger on an Erick Fedde changeup that quite simply had no right to be hit out of the park.

It was an odd change for a White Sox team that was so successful hitting with runners in scoring position against the Minnesota Twins in their last series. The bats will always go cold from time to time, but this game was a stark contrast to the team that hit .311 with RISP over their last four games.

To their credit, the White Sox faithful did everything they could to rally their team. The tarps came off in the stands in the top of the ninth and much like in St. Louis earlier this month, it resulted in a successful rally as the White Sox were able to tie the game on a Rikuu Nishida sacrifice bunt in the bottom of the ninth:

In a long baseball season, these nights are bound to happen to even the best of teams. The difference between the average teams and the good ones is that the good teams find a way to win. The Tigers plated a run in the top of the 10th, and were one out from stealing this win back and possibly turning around their season.

However, the White Sox and Miguel Vargas had other plans. Vargas connected on a juicy changeup from Bengals veteran Drew Anderson and delivered a game-winning bomb that may have been picked up on the radar over at O’Hare. The 30,019 fans went ballistic, and the South Side is surely starting to believe there is magic in the air:

Not many people would’ve expected this result after watching the game, but that’s been Chicago’s M.O. It wasn’t pretty, but the boys scratched and clawed their way and clearly never gave up hope. Only the players and manager truly know exactly what has changed this year in the locker room, but it is clear that their belief in themselves has taken this team to an entirely different level.

For a team that looked like a dead man walking for the majority of the night, they shocked back to life at the perfect time. With the win, the White Sox now have two more cracks at the Tigers to take the series before hitting the road for a six-game stretch.

Charlotte Knights 12, Jacksonville Jumbo Shrimp 4
Although Charlotte unleashed another storm of runs onto poor Jacksonville, the biggest headline is Jacob Gonzalez’s departure. He collected three hits, including his 19th bomb, and a stolen base before Jason Matthews replaced him in the sixth.

Why, you may ask?

Gonzalez’s removal lines up with Munetaka Murakami being pulled from the parent club’s game after reporting hamstring tightness. Austin Hays, still on a rehab assignment from the big club, was also removed early, with no signs of injury or fatigue. Not long after the end of the White Sox game came confirmation that Murakami will be hitting the IL, and that Gonzalez indeed will be his replacement on the White Sox roster. Perhaps Hays will ride Gonzalez’s coattails to Chicago and reclaim his roster spot.

The good news appears to be that even sans Gonzalez, the Knights lineup will fare just fine. Mario Camilletti and Braden Montgomery, who can hold down the fort as the dynamic duo at the top of the order, tonight combined for five runs and two RBIs with five walks. And though Garrett Schoenle uncharacteristically gave up a pair of runs in the seventh, his 1.98 ERA in 10 games has helped stabilize Charlotte’s bullpen.

Charlotte will definitely be in better shape without Gonzalez than Chicago without Murakami, so let’s hope Jacob can bring his Knights firepower to the South Side.

Pensacola Blue Wahoos 3, Birmingham Barons 2
Bham dropped the ball on what should’ve been its 19th win. The Barons clung to Alec Makarewicz’s sac fly in the first and Jeral Perez’s bases-juiced walk to stay in the game while the bullpen did the legwork. The relief crew did a stellar job recovering from Jake Palisch’s fifth-inning stumble, where he gave up a two-run double that knotted the contest at two each. Jacob Heatherly gave up the only relief run, while Jackson Kelley and Jarold Rosado kept the Blue Wahoos off the board even while faced with a sacks-packed, two-out situation in the eighth.

A walk-off win seemed in sight. Wilfred Veras drew a leadoff walk and Drake Logan singled to quickly get two on with none out. Samuel Zavala grounded into a double play, pushing Veras to third but cutting Bham’s chances significantly. Colby Shelton was hit by a pitch, but the rally ended abruptly on Makarewicz’s fly out. With 10 left on base and going 0-for-10 with runners in scoring position, a walk-off win would’ve been Bham’s saving grace. But this loss, sadly, was deserved.

Rome Emperors 3, Winston-Salem Dash 2
Rome evened the series with Winston-Salem at two apiece after the Dash lineup failed to translate runners in scoring position into runs. Despite knocking one more hit than the Emperors, going 0-for-11 with runners on second and third and stranding eight on base stifled the Dash. Liam Paddack rung up eight through four scoreless innings to start the game, but they were wasted as the lineup did little until the eighth, when Rome’s Elison Joseph handed two runs to the Dash with a wild pitch and a balk. Outside of Joseph’s mistakes, the Dash would have been shut out. This loss was on the lineup.

Augusta GreenJackets 8, Kannapolis Cannon Ballers 1
Adrian Gil played hero on both sides of the ball in Kanny’s struggle to stay in the game. He put the Ballers’ only run on the board with a solo shot to left field with two outs in the ninth inning, and that came AFTER he supplied two scoreless innings on the bump in this 8-1 blowout. Talk about carrying the team.

Outside of Gil’s efforts and Landen Payne’s 2 1/3 shutout frames, the CBs were nowhere to be found. The lineup strung together six hits and the game got out of hand in the second when starter Caedmon Parker a gave up a three-run jack. Thing devolved quickly as the GreenJackets put up eight mostly unanswered runs off small ball. It definitely wasn’t a memorable game. Oh well, onto the next one.

ACL White Sox 6, ACL Dodgers 3 (7 innings)
The ACL Sox got an early jump on the ACL Dodgers, and turned that into an easy victory. Jose Mendoza put the Complexers on the board in the first with his RBI single, and Yordani Soto added three with a homer over the right field wall. In the second, Jurdrick Profar tacked on two more insurance runs with another moonshot, and Marcelo Alcala supplied a sixth insurance run. These runs provided plenty of padding for Fidel Montero, who swiftly saw his lead halved in the third when he gave up a three-run shot to Aidan West. Fortunately, Montero’s slip was the only blunder on the Sox side, as Jeremy Gonzalez and Jesus Mendez closed the final four outs and struck out five.

It’s good to be home.

The Rays came back home Friday night needing something that felt a little less like the last few days in Baltimore and a lot more like the team that had made Tropicana Field a very uncomfortable place for visitors. After four straight losses, a sweep they would like to forget, the Rays opened the homestand against the Los Angeles Angels. The good news for the Rays is has been different. The Rays entered with the best home record in baseball and a chance to become just the first team this season and the third team in franchise history to reach 20 home wins before June.

Nick Martinez opened the night like a veteran trying to get this team to end the losing streak. He struck out Zach Neto, got Mike Trout to fly out in foul territory, and punched out Vaughn Grissom to end a clean and efficient first inning.

Then Yandy Diaz came out swinging in the bottom half of the inning.

On the first Rays plate appearance of the night, he launched a Walbert Ureña sinker for a solo homer to right, his ninth of the season, giving the Rays a quick a 1-0 lead. Junior Caminero would draw a walk later in the inning but that was all the offense Tampa Bay would get in the opening frame.

Martinez worked around two singles with two outs in the second, but the Angels tied it in the third after Neto doubled, moved to third on Trout’s flyout, and scored on Grissom’s two-out single. The Rays, meanwhile, had their own chance in the bottom half when Jonathan Aranda singled and Caminero doubled with two outs. Two runners in scoring position, a chance to answer right back, and Ryan Vilade grounded out.

In the fourth, Tampa Bay had another ideal setup. Chandler Simpson beat out a bunt single, Ben Williamson followed with a soft grounder for an infield hit, and the Rays had two on with nobody out. Instead of retaking the lead, Richie Palacios struck out and Nick Fortes rolled into a double play ending the potential rally.

The Angels took advantage in the fifth when Jose Siri, returning to the Trop in a different uniform, doubled to start the inning, then moved to third on a Martinez wild pitch. Neto singled him home, and suddenly the Rays trailed 2-1. Martinez limited the damage by getting Trout to ground into a double play to keep the game close.

Tampa Bay had another window in the sixth after an error by Neto put Vilade aboard, and Williamson was hit by a pitch. Williamson, in his first game back from injury, had to leave the game. Oliver Dunn took over as a pinch-runner. Once again, the Rays could not finish it with runs. Palacios struck out after an ABS challenge, and Fortes lined out to left. Through six innings, the Rays had chances, but chances aren’t runs. It was the baseball equivalent of loading your cart online and never checking out.

Then the seventh inning happened, and the best way I can describe it is the game turned into a sampler platter of ways to get outs and ways to score runs for the Rays.

Nick Madrigal lead off with a single to left, deflected off Caminero, and for a moment the Angels had a chance to add on while clinging to that 2-1 lead. But the Rays quickly shut the door. Logan O’Hoppe popped out in foul territory on a ball Caminero charged in for calling Fortes off late, then Madrigal tried to swipe second and got tagged out after oversliding the base, turning a leadoff baserunner into two outs in a blink. Jose Siri followed with a soft liner to Oliver Dunn at short, and Martinez was through seven with the deficit still only one. The Rays were still within one swing of a tie game.

Ureña was gone and Ryan Zeferjahn entered in relief for the Angels. Cedric Mullins immediately drew a walk after looking like he was prepared to bunt in the first pitch of the at-bat. That brought Yandy back to the plate, and Yandy apparently decided one homer was just an appetizer. He launched a two-run shot to left-center, flipping the game from 2-1 Angels to 3-2 Rays. It was his second homer of the night, but this one landed in the mostly shirtless “Tarps off” section of the ballpark, sending the place into a frenzy.

Aranda followed with his own blast, a solo shot to right-center, and suddenly the Rays had back-to-back homers and a 4-2 lead. Caminero singled, Vilade moved him over with a groundout, Simpson reached on an error, and Dunn dropped down a bunt single to score Caminero. Well done.

Then Palacios, who had struck out twice and left runners hanging earlier, got his redemption swing. He ripped a two-run triple to right, scoring Simpson and Dunn, and suddenly the Rays had turned a tight, frustrating game into a 7-2 lead. Fortes added another on-brand run for the Rays, a sacrifice bunt that scored Palacios from third. Homers, walks, errors, bunts, triples, productive outs. It was less an inning and more a baseball bingo card.

Hunter Bigge started the eighth by walking Neto after an ABS challenge, then walking Trout. Grissom doubled in a run, and Kevin Kelly entered trying to stop the inning from becoming a full-blown problem. He did, sort of. Jo Adell and Wade Meckler each brought home runs on groundouts, trimming the lead to 8-5 before Kelly struck out Oswald Peraza to end it in a way that was more functional than ideal. The six-run cushion had turned into a three-run game faster than anyone wanted and served as a reminder that no lead is ever truly safe.

At 8-2, this should have been the point where everyone leaned back, admired the throwbacks, and started thinking about Saturday. There was no reason after that seventh inning to expect the Angels to bring the winning run to the plate in the ninth. And yet, well, here we were.

Bryan Baker entered for the Rays in the ninth and got Nick Madrigal to strike out, but Logan O’Hoppe walked and Siri singled. Baker struck out Neto for the second out, and it felt like the game might finally settle down or go off the rails in the ninth. Then Trout walked, loading the bases and bringing Grissom to the plate as the tying run. Again, this was an 8-2 game seven outs earlier.

Despite giving up the runs, the vibes in the stands were still festive with Rays Brand Engagement Executive Brett Phillips joning in on the tarps off.

Baker finally ended it by getting Grissom to pop out to Aranda at first, preserving an 8-5 Rays win that somehow felt both convincing and too dramatic. The losing streak was over. The Rays became the first MLB team to reach 20 home wins this season.

It was not perfect. The Rays left early runs on the table, the bullpen made the finish much tighter than it needed to be, and Williamson’s exit is worth monitoring. But it was also exactly the kind of win they needed after a rough stretch.

The Rays will try to start a new winning streak as they look to get their 12th series win tomorrow, with first pitch at 4:10pm and Drew Rasmussen scheduled to take the mound opposite Reid Detmers.

The Texas Rangers scored nine runs while the Kansas City Royals scored one run.

After getting battered and bruised by leaguewide losers over the past couple of weeks, the Rangers donned their blood red tops with a sellout crowd decked out in replica Nolan Ryan bloody jerseys to witness an increasingly rare feat for Texas in 2026.

The Rangers came into tonight’s game having lost seven consecutive series-opening contests, with their lone series opener victory of the month coming on the first day of the month when they beat the Detroit Tigers on May 1 in a series they would eventually lose.

The Rangers drew first blood in the first inning in what would essentially become the story of the game. The Royals opened the game with a two-out double with a runner on but that runner had to halt at third base. Texas starter MacKenzie Gore got the last out to strand both runners in scoring position to keep KC off the board.

As we’re all well aware, securing a clean first inning has been a struggle for Texas this season but Gore getting out of danger helped to ignite the team for a crooked number in the bottom half of the inning.

Like Kansas City, the Rangers got a two-out double with a runner on base but that runner was Joc Pederson who led off the game with a walk. Pederson isn’t exactly swift these days so he too stayed at third base meaning it fell on Ezequiel Duran to deliver on the exact same situation that the Royals could not.

Much like with the top of the inning, where Texas has too often allowed early runs to start games with a deficit, two-out RBI situations have too often been wasted by the Rangers. However, the narratives continued to flip as Duran delivered with a two-out, two-run single that snowballed into an even bigger frame.

After Duran’s single, Evan Carter blooped a double toward the left field line and then Alejandro Osuna reached on an error to score Duran. Eventually Carter scored as well when Osuna attempted to steal second base and Royals’ catcher Salvador Perez threw the ball the ball away trying to throw him out.

After bloodying KC’s lip in the first, the Rangers tacked on two more each in the fifth and sixth innings with Brandon Nimmo hitting a two-run homer in the fifth and newcomer Nicky Lopez hitting just the eighth home run over his nearly 700-game big league career.

The dinger from the former Royals’ infielder was also of the two-run variety which gave Texas an 8-0 lead. In the top of the eighth, Pederson capped off the scoring for Texas with a solo dong of his own before the Royals prevented the shutout with a run in the ninth off Gavin Collyer when it was far too little and far too late.

Despite the fact that the Rangers went on to comfortably win by eight runs, a third first inning two-out hit by KC or the Rangers failing to cash in on their own two-out opportunity a half inning later could have easily altered the course of the evening.

Nevertheless, Texas did have themselves a rare charmed first inning and that fed into what would become an even rarer first game of a series win.

Player of the Game: The Rangers had ten hits and scored nine runs, hit three home runs, and saw everyone in the lineup reach base with only Danny Jansen failing to get at least one hit.

However, Gore tossing 6.1 innings of scoreless ball on just four hits and a walk continued a solid stretch for the left-hander as May creeps to a close. Gore, one of the league’s top strikeout artists, only had three strikeouts tonight but 63 strikes in his 99 pitches allowed him to pitch beyond the sixth inning for just the second time this season.

Up Next: The Rangers and Royals play an afternoon affair with RHP Kumar Rocker making the start for Texas against RHP Seth Lugo for Kansas City.

The first pitch of the second game of this series on Saturday is scheduled for 3:05 pm CDT and will be aired on the Rangers Sports Network as well as nationally on FS1.