Category: Sports News

We have a game coverage guide here. It kindly suggests that recaps be started in the sixth or seventh, to make sure they go up in a timely fashion. I never pre-write, due to a very specific game in 2018 against the Orioles (if you know, you know). The tenor of this recap would’ve been very different (and incoherent, a la Spiderman 3) had I pre-written anything. Because, for the first eight innings, I was livid that the Braves were basically the same ol’ lackadaisical, our talent will win out Braves. Well, guess what, Ivan, you dummy, you absolute numbskull? The Braves not only won out in this game after looking not just dead in the water, but “we threw ourselves with our legs encased in cinder blocks into the water,” courtesy of a ginormous ninth-inning rally capped off by, what else? A walk-off grand slam by Dominic Smith, making his Braves debut. So, I’ll save all the mental and physical mistakes the Braves made in this game for a meaningless coda at the end, and instead, well — let’s revel in the ninth inning first, because it’s the only thing that mattered.

After floundering and floundering, the Braves got to work against closer Carlos Estevez from the jump. Drake Baldwin laid off a bunch of elevated fastballs and drew a leadoff walk, and Matt Olson made up for an earlier miscue by roping a single into right to put the tying run on base. Austin Riley popped out, but then Mike Yastrzemski, who I felt should’ve probably been yoinked out of the game earlier (Ivan, you dummy, you absolute numbskull), came through with a hard-hit single up the middle to give the Braves their first run and put pinch-runner Jorge Mateo on third as the tying run.

Estevez then totally fell apart, walking Ozzie Albies on four nowhere-near pitches. Michael Harris II then lashed a comebacker into Estevez’ feet — a real turnabout of an early-season debacle last year where the Braves lost on a similar batted ball hit by a Padre — pushing the tying run across. That brought up Dominic Smith, who was in the midst of a rather feeble Braves debut, and, well, kablamo. There’s no real other way to describe it. Estevez threw a challenge fastball on 3-2, Smith accepted the challenge, and pulled off the ultimate result, creaming a grand slam, an absurd outcome to cap an absurd victory. Ah, that’s the stuff.

Okay, let’s cover the rest of the game. Did you know it was started by Reynaldo Lopez, who was in the midst of a shoulder-laffy-taffy-or-not saga prompted by him missing nearly the entire season last year, and a mysterious velocity drop in his final Spring Training outing that was mysteriously ascribed to “mechanical issues, now fixed” before the season got underway? Well, Lopez quieted some concerns, in that his velocity largely returned to the 94-96 mph band. Yay for that. On the flip side, his mechanics weren’t always perfect, and he mostly skated along. A lot of his outing was outs in the air, which worked out pretty well for the Braves. He got into hot water in the third, with two on, two out, and Bobby Witt Jr. at the dish, but escaped because Witt lined an amped-up, 97 mph down-the-pipe fastball right to Ronald Acuña Jr. in right field. The defense behind him played well, and Drake Baldwin helped out by throwing out a runner at one point.

Things looked like they were gonna get dicey for Lopez when he started the third time through in the sixth, but they didn’t. Mauricio Dubon helped out with a spectacular scoop-jump-and-gun play in the hole to retire Maikel Garcia, Lopez blew Witt away with a fastball, and Acuña flagged down a liner in the gap. Those defensive efforts were well-needed because…

…the Braves were absolutely eviscerated by Michael Wacha. The veteran right-hander struck out three of the first four Braves he faced, went nine up, nine down, and faced the minimum (thanks to a Baldwin double play ball) through 4 1/3, until Yastrzemski broke it up with a bunt single, of all things. The Braves turned that bunt into a real threat when Harris doubled to left (it was called a single for whatever reason, but yeah, it was basically a double). But, Wacha escaped fairly easily when Smith chased a curve in the dirt for strike three. Baldwin then hit into another double play to erase Acuña a second time, so Wacha’s final line was a seven strikeout, one walk affair in six innings of work.

The Braves tried to push Lopez through another frame, but errrnnnnt. His very first pitch of the seventh was a flagging 92 mph fastball that ended up at the bottom of the zone, and Salvador Perez, his longtime AL Central rival, didn’t miss it, creaming it over the wall in left to put the first run on the board. The Braves then immediately yanked Lopez for Dylan Lee, who gave up a two-out double but otherwise had no issues in a two-strikeout frame.

Atlanta couldn’t cash in a one-out Riley single in the seventh, even with a wild pitch that pushed the tying run into scoring position. Matt Strahm was the new Royals reliever, and the Braves didn’t pinch-hit for Yastrzemski, who hit into a forceout against the southpaw before the wild pitch. In any case, Albies flew out to keep it a 1-0 game.

For whatever reason, the Braves asked Joel Payamps to pitch a one-run game, and it went not-so-great. Payamps walked Garcia with one out, and Witt had a broken-bat bloop into center that put runners on the corners. With a lefty batter due up, the Braves swapped Payamps for Aaron Bummer. Though Witt’s easy steal of second took the double play away, Bummer got the groundball the Braves wanted… but Olson made a very uncharacteristic boot that let Garcia score easily from third. A couple of flyouts ended the frame, but the Braves were now down 2-0.

Harris greeted new reliever Lucas Erceg with a leadoff single in the eighth, but then promptly got picked off. That was absolutely brutal, because the safety meant Acuña was going to come up as at least the tying run, and also because Dubon walked later in the frame. Acuña ended up grounding out weakly, anyway.

Osvaldo Bido made his Braves debut in the ninth, which was also pretty strange, but what in this game wasn’t, at this point? To his credit, Bido absolutely showed out slash shoved, eviscerating all three Royals he faced with strikeouts. He made Tyler Tolbert look awful on a slider way out of the zone, and then froze Isaac Collins on a basically down-the-middle fastball on 1-2.

And now we’ve come full circle to the ninth, where the Braves were finally awesome and plated six runs against Carlos Estevez, with a grand slam capper from Smith to end the game. Wow. Wow wow wow.

And now, my useless list of complaints, which you could probably already predict ahead of time, but here they are for posterity:

• Reynaldo Lopez facing the order a third time despite a 2/2 K/BB ratio through 18 batters. This blowing up in the Braves’ face was a really predictable outcome because we’ve seen this sort of thing happen for years. But, hey, what way to make it not matter.
• Not pinch-hitting for Mike Yastrzemski when Matt Strahm came up. Look, Yastrzemski is an obvious platoon bat, Strahm throws with his left hand, and, more notably: Yastrzemski wasn’t in the Opening Day lineup even though if you’re gonna find a recent lefty with reverse splits, Ragans might be your guy. (Strahm is not.) So, the idea of having Yastrzemski sit against Ragans with leverage unknown, but bat against Strahm in a key situation was incongruous. It paid off when Yastrzemski was still in the game to take a meaningful hack against Estevez, but that’s an extreme level of trust in your team to ascribe to the decision-making process here.
• I’m not going to belabor the point, but Yastrzemski bunting against Wacha was pretty weird considering the scoreless tie and his spot in the lineup, but I guess to the extent he’s doing it to free up the defensive arrangement against him in later days, that works.
• Matt Olson’s defensive gaffe was, well, a gaffe. He knows what he did. On the flip side, the bullpen flowchart, such as it is, is strange. Tyler Kinley can work a six-run game, but Payamps and Bido in a closer game? We used to talk about lead-clutching, and this was some very clutchy clutching.
• Talking about baserunning is all well and good, but it seems like “do no harm to your win expectancy” might need to be an orienting principle here. Harris visibly getting a bunch of instruction from first base coach Antoan Richardson, only to immediately get blatantly picked off… I’m going to hope that’s a learning experience. And hey, it didn’t cost the team this time!
• Oh, and the challenges. Good news: they didn’t need no stinkin’ challenges. But, the Braves burned both of their ABS challenges within a few minutes of the game starting. The one Baldwin challenged while catching was at least close; Acuña challenged one while batting that was just blatantly a strike. Maybe the guys need some leverage heuristics or something. We’ll see. Or they could just hit massive bombs and we never need to worry about challenges. On that same note, the Braves dugout missed an obvious non-ABS challenge situation when Garcia attempted to complete a double play by throwing the ball well before he stepped on the second-base bag. Acuña pointed it out, but the Braves apparently took too long to challenge, and wasted an out (and Acuña in scoring position) in the process. Oops.

But, the point is — you can make all sorts of mistakes when you lock in, pull it together, and oh yeah — hit a huge dong. That’s what happened tonight, and it was glorious… in the end, anyway.

See you tomorrow afternoon as the Braves go for the sweep behind Grant Holmes. They may not have made a full-on exorcism effort today, but it worked out similarly to one anyway… and was a lot more exciting, to boot.

It should not have been easy to homer on a slider traveling well below the strike zone at Citi Field, not with wind chills in the 30s. But new Mets outfielder Luis Robert Jr. did so anyway.

Through nine innings, hitters on both teams failed to get the ball out of the infield enough to score a run, let alone threaten the fences. Heck, a few minutes before his 11th-inning blast, Francisco Lindor, Juan Soto and Bo Bichette all came to bat with the bases loaded. None of them could square up a ball well enough to score a run.

But Robert Jr. found a way, turning what would have been a frustrating loss into a light-hearted win with a physics-defying swing that not all players can provide.

“It was unbelievable,” Mets starting pitcher David Peterson said. “I was facing him a lot in spring, and I was getting real tired of facing him.”

Robert Jr. made it look easy on those warm February afternoons at Clover Park, when Mets starting pitcher after Mets starting pitcher would have peaceful live batting practice sessions interrupted by loud cracks of Robert Jr.'s bat.

He hit so many line drives that it became almost comical, and he hit them to all fields. But he hit them on the back fields and really, who knows what to make of a .699 OPS in spring training? After all, he has shown promise before. For two games at least, he is showing it again.

“With the conditions today, with the way the wind was blowing -- especially from left field -- to be able to leave the yard like that in that situation,” Mets manager Carlos Mendoza said. “It goes to show you that this guy is special.”

Robert Jr. admitted there were times during Saturday’s frigid 11-inning saga when he could not feel his hands. Most of that, he joked later, was the fault of the man hitting in front of him: Jorge Polanco saw seven pitches when he walked in the seventh, six more when he walked in the ninth, and a half dozen more when he walked to bring Robert Jr. to the plate in the bottom of the 11th – so many that his hands started to freeze while he waited in the on-deck circle, out of range of dugout heaters.

“I asked [Polanco], ‘how many walks are you going to take this season?’” Robert Jr. said through Mets interpreter Alan Suriel. “But it gives me an advantage because I’m able to see all the pitchers that that pitcher has. I’m able to see how he’s pitching him. And I also know that pitcher is really working hard to get him out, so he’s starting to exert a little more energy.”

The presence of Polanco and three perennial Most Valuable Player candidates ahead of him in the lineup is one of the many reasons to believe Robert Jr. could make mid-career improvements as a Met.

Thursday, he highlighted one of those reasons when he worked a 10-pitch walk heard around the world, one that set up a go-ahead triple from Brett Baty and matched the longest plate appearance he has had in the last three seasons, according to Sports Info Solutions.

Mendoza said the Mets have been pushing Robert Jr. on his pitch selection, work that has yielded multiple late-count takes in the first two games of the season – including a few tempting breaking balls that Robert Jr. has almost visibly willed himself to leave alone.

“We’ve been working on that a lot,” Robert Jr. said Saturday. “I think the one thing great players have is knowing how to select the proper pitches to swing at. And I think for me to go back to being the player that I was and that I know I am capable of being, that’s going to be a big part of my game.”

Robert Jr.'s locker also sits a few feet away from an ideal role model, his fellow outfielder Juan Soto, with whom Robert Jr. trained at Scott Boras’ facility this offseason. Players like Soto are another reason Robert Jr. could look different this year: During his time in Chicago, he was not often in the presence of the kind of accomplished veteran players who would, consciously or subconsciously, prod him to push for more.

But Soto and fellow superstar Lindor have combined to miss just 30 games over the last four seasons. Marcus Semien is two years removed from setting the record for most plate appearances taken in a single baseball year. If Robert Jr. needed tips on preserving himself for the rigors of a long season, he has never had better mentors than now.

He will also have a medical staff with a fresh approach to preventing the hip and hamstring injuries that prevented him from playing more than 110 games in only one of his first five seasons. Mets trainers decided to hold out of spring training games until he built strength in his legs and had time to ease into game-shape.

“We’re working on strengthening the parts of my body that were the cause of my injuries before,” Robert Jr. said then. “Up until this point, my legs feel very strong. And hopefully when I get out there, they will keep responding and feel the way they feel right now.”

Mendoza has said multiple times that the Mets will have to be careful with Robert Jr., though he has also been clear that they did not acquire him to be a part-time player. They are hoping they will be the ones to transform him into a full-time star.

SAN FRANCISCO — The shutout streak is over, but the winning streak remains alive and well.

At long last, the Yankees finally allowed a run after starting the season with 20 straight scoreless innings from their pitching staff, but they got enough from their offense and another strong effort from their bullpen to finish the sweep.

For the third straight season, the Yankees are 3-0 after fending off the Giants for a tense 3-1 win Saturday at Oracle Park, capping a well-rounded opening series in which their bullpen was especially clutch.

“That’s what you want to do,” said Aaron Judge, who homered for the second straight game. “That was one thing the past couple years we’ve struggled at, is finishing off series and sweeping series. So we just tried to make it a point pregame today, we talked about it, ‘We got to close out the series.’

“That’s what’s going to make the difference between winning the division or ending up tied and losing it. So every game matters and we’ll just take it on to Seattle.”

After Max Fried and Cam Schlittler turned in terrific starts in the first two games, combining for 11 ²/₃ scoreless innings — and relievers accounting for 6 ¹/₃ more — Will Warren held the Giants to one run across 4 ¹/₃ innings Saturday.

The game was then left in the hands of the bullpen, which used a handoff from Brent Headrick to Jake Bird to Tim Hill to David Bednar to secure the win heading into a rare Sunday off day in Seattle.

“This was awesome,” said Ben Rice, who gave the Yankees a lead with a two-run double in the third inning. “Some tight games, great plays on defense, clutch pitching, clutch hitting. It was a great way to start the year.”

While there is still a long way to go for this bullpen to answer some of the questions it faced entering the season — looking like the Yankees’ potential weak spot — it has started the year with 11 scoreless innings.

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Bednar played with fire in the ninth when the first two runners reached, but he struck out Harrison Bader and then got Patrick Bailey to ground into a double play to end it — the fourth double play the Yankees turned Saturday, three of them coming in the final four innings.

Bird was particularly impressive in a five-out appearance. He entered with a runner on second and no outs in the sixth inning and gave up a single through the left side to Heliot Ramos, putting runners on the corners. Bird then locked it down by striking out Willy Adames and then getting Bader to ground into another double play that was smoothly turned by Jazz Chisholm Jr. and José Caballero.

Hill also used a double-play ball to end the eighth inning, getting former Red Sox player (and Yankees nemesis) Rafael Devers to ground into the twin killing.

Austin Wells, who caught all 27 innings this series and guided the pitching staff that allowed just one run, helped change the game with a pair of automated ball-strike system challenges from behind the plate that helped Bird and Hill get through their innings.

Trent Grisham also used the ABS in the third inning to avoid a strikeout and eventually draw a walk that soon gave way to Rice’s two-out, two-run double off the high brick wall in right field for the 2-0 lead.

Warren, who left runners on the corners in the first inning, gave up the only run the Giants scored all weekend in the bottom of the third. But he responded by retiring the next three batters, two on strikeouts, to curb any Giants momentum.

“Look, wins are always hard to come by,” manager Aaron Boone said after his 700th career win. “You take them when you can get them. I love that we played well. But it’s March.”

Before I talk about the actual game, give me a moment to jump on my soap box. In the second inning of the contest, the Fox broadcast booth – featuring Adam Amin, Adam Wainwright, and A.J. Pierzynski in one of the most fun and informative national broadcast booths you’re likely to see – was doing an in-game interview with Atlanta pitcher Chris Sale. During the interview there was a blown call at second base, Maikel Garcia fielded a ground ball attempted to step on second and throw to first for the double play. Ordinarily, we could just be talking about how bizarre a shift the Royals were running to allow for that to happen but Garcia didn’t actually step on second before he threw to first. The runner, Ronald Acuña Jr., should have been safe. The booth saw the replay and immediately started telling Chris Sale that Atlanta should challenge the play. Ultimately, Atlanta was not allowed to challenge – probably because they took too long, but it was never made clear by the umpire – and no harm was done.

To be clear, I don’t think the broadcast booth was attempting to help Atlanta cheat. I think they just didn’t fully consider their actions. But that’s just as big a problem for these in-game interviews – which are a poor way to watch a game and a poor way to interview someone – that something like that could happen unintentionally. MLB absolutely cannot allow these to continue now that we’ve seen this happen. They were always a bad idea, but now they’re a bad idea that can call into question the integrity of the game. If Atlanta had challenged and won, it would have absolutely appeared like they had cheated to do so even if the call would have been right and even if Chris Sale hadn’t relayed what the broadcast booth was telling him.

OK, now I guess I have to talk about the game.

Michael Wacha was terrific for six innings in this one. He struck out seven while giving up one walk and allowing three hits – all singles – in six innings. The Royals needed him to be good because the offense was still a bit sluggish. Matt Strahm and Lucas Erceg got the seventh and eighth innings and did their jobs, too. It was odd to see Erceg pitching the eighth against the bottom of the Atlanta order because he’s so often been used against the tougher parts of the lineup, but I guess Q figured he could go by innings instead of difficulty with three proven backend relievers in his bullpen.

Salvador Perez got the Royals their first run of the year with a leadoff shot in the seventh inning.

That one was a wall-scraper, but hit at 105.8 MPH off the bat of the captain to left with an estimated distance of 390 feet. I guess Truist park has a really deep left field.

The Royals scored a second run in the eighth. Maikel Garcia took a one-out walk, went to third on a Bobby Witt Jr. broken bat single, and scored on a Vinnie Pasquantino groundball to first, ruled as an error by Matt Olson. Many people were complaining about the contact play last year, but it was crucial to scoring the run this time. If Maikel isn’t running, he can’t score there because Olson didn’t kick the ball far enough away. Honestly, the thought of Garcia going home might have caused Olson to rush the play and led to the error in the first place. So whenever you see the contact play again this year, remember, sometimes it works!

And now the bad, bad news.

We talked before the game about how Reynaldo López’s velocity had been down all spring, and it had to be a huge concern for Atlanta. You wouldn’t have known it watching him pitch tonight, as he was back into the 95-96 MPH range with his fastball for most of the game. That gave me some hope that perhaps Carlos Estévez would turn his velocity back on in the ninth inning now that it was the regular season. That hope was short-lived as the first pitch he threw was a fastball that missed armside and only got to 90 MPH. The result was predictable from there.

Estévez walked Drake Baldwin, then gave up a single to Matt Olson. Miraculously, he got Austin Riley to pop out to second, and you began to hope he could finesse his way out of it. That hope was also short-lived. Mike Yastrzemski singled to center to drive in the first run and return the bases to first and third. Estévez then lost all of his control and walked Ozzie Albies on four pitches. My best guess is he realized his lack of velocity was going to prevent him from getting the job done, and he started overthrowing.

You’ll note in that image that all of his pitches missed armside and/or high. The first pitch isn’t even visible; it’s that far outside.

He fired a 92 MPH fastball right down the middle to Michael Harris II, and was incredibly lucky it was hit on the ground right back up the middle. Estévez was unlucky because it hit him instead of carrying through to Witt for a game-ending double play. It became an infield single that left the bases loaded and tied the game.

Next up was Dominic Smith. Smith has been a big leaguer off and on since 2017. He has never put up a starter-quality season outside of 2020. Estévez threw him two pitches in the dirt, then caught the corner with a fastball. He threw another fastball that was called a ball, but Salvy challenged it because the Royals still had both their challenges, and why not? It turned out to be barely a strike. So Carlos tossed another ball in the dirt. Knowing a fourth ball would walk home the winning run, he threw a fastball right down the middle. Dominic Smith blasted it to right; game over.

Carlos Estévez now has a 162.02 ERA and a 60.00 FIP. He allowed four hits and two walks in a third of an inning. They weren’t cheap hits, either; all four were considered hard hit. Three were over 100 MPH exit velocity. You don’t want to overreact to one game, but this is one game that looks exactly like everything we saw during Spring Training. I’m not ready to write Estévez off as an effective reliever, but he cannot be the closer until his velocity and control come back.

Every single mark on his pitching summary that means anything is very, very blue. He might not be washed, but he’s completely unpitchable right now. He either needs to be brought in for blowouts only or he needs to be diagnosed with an injury. The latter would be the better solution, because I don’t think you can even have him in low leverage with metrics like those, and if there’s any hope of him finding his mojo, it’s almost certainly in pitching semi-regularly for a bit.

I am not going to be furious with Matt Quatraro for sticking with his guy once. Estévez has been telling him that everything is fine, and Quatraro chose to believe him and hope it would all come together for the regular season. It didn’t, and it was so tremendously bad that Quatraro can’t ignore it. Estévez can’t have a second chance any time soon. I don’t know if Q should go with Lucas Erceg, Matt Strahm, or some kind of closer by committee. Whatever the answer is, it can’t include Estévez. Not right now.

Just to end things on a brighter note, the Royals have lost their opening series each of the last two years, but finished with more wins than losses by the end of it. They’re 0-2 now, but that doesn’t have to mean anything by the time the season ends.

Tomorrow will be the Royals’ first day game as they look to avoid the sweep in Atlanta. Seth Lugo will pitch for KC; Grant Holmes will go for Atlanta. The game will start at 12:35 Royals time and be broadcast on Royals.TV.

There are a lot of unreliable things about this era of Yankees baseball, but there’s always one thing that they seem to do every year. While some teams are sluggish out of the gates, the Yankees always manage to go full speed to start the season.

For the third straight year, the Yankees have swept their opening series of the season and they’ve done it in three different ways. In 2024, they rode clutch plays on both sides of the ball to a sweep over the hated Astros. In 2025, they pummeled the eventual NL Central champion Brewers into submission with those newfangled torpedo bats. This year? Their pitching absolutely flummoxed the Giants.

While they came up short of the ever-elusive series shutout, the Yankees allowed just one run total in the three games in San Francisco, as Will Warren and the bullpen carried over good work from Wednesday and Friday en route to a 3-1 win against the San Francisco Giants. Ben Rice got things started with an early two-run double, Aaron Judge went deep again, and the Yankees’ infield turned four clutch double plays to continually deny the Giants’ offense.

Tyler Mahle started this game off by getting a pair of outs against Judge and Trent Grisham, but gave up a long triple to Cody Bellinger into Triple’s Alley to give Rice a chance for his first RBI of the year, but the Yankees’ first baseman chopped a ball to shortstop to end the inning.

Warren took the bump and looked to answer with a zero of his own and got off to a good start, but things nearly unraveled on him. Singles by Luis Arraez and Rafael Devers, along with the usually one-dimensional Arraez stealing third and nearly forcing a balk with his theatrics, put an amped-up Warren in a jam. In a lengthy at-bat with Heliot Ramos, Warren reared a 97 mph fastball by him in the 10th pitch of the at-bat to strike him out and end the inning.

Both teams got a baserunner in the second on a single by Giancarlo Stanton and a walk by Patrick Bailey, but the game was kept scoreless. In the third, Grisham was able to overturn a frankly horrendous strike three call with ABS and drew a walk. After Judge struck out, Bellinger lined a single up the middle to give Rice another chance, and the young slugger didn’t miss it, smashing a ball 105.5 mph off the right-field wall to open the scoring with a two-run double. It would’ve been a home run at Yankee Stadium… and 23 other parks.

Stanton lined another single shortly after to give Rice a chance to score, but a strong throw from Heliot Ramos gunned him down at the plate. San Francisco, whose scoreless streak was now up to a baffling 20 innings to start the season, finally got on the board with a Jung Hoo Lee double and Matt Chapman RBI single. Warren was struggling to put hitters away for much of his outing, but he was able to impressively strike out Arraez and Devers to get out of that mini-jam, keeping a 2-1 lead.

Mahle concluded his outing in the fourth with a sharp 1-2-3 inning that included a long flyout from Ryan McMahon, while Warren induced a nifty 3-6-1 double play to end the bottom half. Rice has looked a helluva lot more comfortable at first base in the opening series.

Ryan Borucki got the fifth for the Giants and was able to dispatch Wells and Grisham. Joe Davis openly wondered on the broadcast whether rookie skipper Tony Vitello would put Judge on intentionally due to the pair of lefties behind him with the lefty specialist on the bump. Well, despite striking out seven of his first 11 at-bats to start the year, the three-time MVP struck again in his homecoming, blasting his fifth career home run in San Francisco and second in this series to make it 3-1.

Warren, like Max Fried and Cam Schlittler before him, isn’t completely built up, so he faced two more hitters and was pulled after walking Lee with one out. Overall, it was a fine first outing for the sophomore starter. He had real juice in the first, maxing out at 98 and throwing several pitches harder than his season-high from last year, but he lost several ticks as the game went on and struggled to put guys away. Still, it’s not a bad season debut for someone trying to stay in the rotation long term as a pair of All-Stars rehab.

Brent Headrick was the one who answered the call to the bullpen and was able to retire Matt Chapman and Arraez to end the fifth. Matt Gage, who was a Yankee very, very briefly, sat the Yanks down in order 1-2-3 to start the sixth.

Looking to play matchup, Aaron Boone left Headrick out there to face Devers, who roped a leadoff double to right. He made the move to go to Jake Bird, and it started poorly with a Ramos single to put runners on the corners, but Bird struck out Willy Adames, and the infield defense flashed again by somehow doubling up old friend Harrison Bader, 4-6-3, to end the inning.

Keaton Winn sat the bottom of the order down in order in the seventh for the Giants, but their offense remained flummoxed by a combination of Bird and Tim Hill. Austin Wells improved to 3-for-3 on the season in ABS challenges with a pair in the inning, including one to punch out Lee to end the frame.

Erik Miller started the eighth for San Francisco and gave up a single to Grisham and walked Bellinger, eventually being pulled for JT Brubaker, who induced an inning-ending pop-out from Stanton. Hill did what he does best in the bottom half, responding to an infield single by Arraez by getting Devers to hit into another double play. Now that he’s in the National League, this is the first time since 2016 that the longtime Yankee killer hasn’t hit a home run against the Yankees. Huzzah!

Ryan Walker had a 1-2-3 top of the ninth to set the stage for David Bednar. The Renegade walked Ramos to start the inning after ABS overturned a strikeout, and Adames singled to put the tying run on base. The story of this game, however, was clutch Yankees pitching and disastrous Giants situational hitting, as Bader struck out and Bailey hit into a game-ending 4-6-3 double play to lock down the series sweep for the Yankees.

After a rare Sunday offday, the Yanks travel up to Seattle to start a three-game set with the reigning AL West champion Mariners on Monday at 9:40 pm EDT. It’ll be Ryan Weathers’ Yankees debut up against former All-Star Luis Castillo, and for just the second time this season, it’ll be on YES.

Box Score

SAN FRANCISCO — The Giants are officially on the scoreboard. Now, how about the win column? One step at time: They can try holding a lead first.

The Giants pushed across their first run of the season Saturday. They needed to do it at least three more times to avoid being swept by the Yankees in their opening series of the season.

The Yankees were already leading when Matt Chapman singled home Jung Hoo Lee in the third inning, and the Giants wouldn’t claw any closer in a 3-1 loss that dropped them to 0-3.

The Giants doubled their hits (eight) from their total through two games (four), but Tyler Mahle’s team debut was over after four innings. He exhausted 81 pitches and exited down 2-1.

San Francisco got extra-base hits from Jung Hoo Lee and Rafael Devers, but Aaron Judge slugged the Yankees’ third home run of the series and Ben Rice doubled home more runs in one swing than the Giants mustered in 27 innings.

Heliot Ramos and Willy Adames reached to start the bottom of the ninth against Yankees closer David Bednar, allowing the Giants to bring the potential winning run to the plate. But Harrison Bader struck out on a foul tip and Patrick Bailey grounded into a game-ending double play.

The Giants put 12 men on base but failed to take advantage, allowing the Yankees to turn two three times.

What it means

Tony Vitello fell to 0-3 as a major-league manager, the worst start for a Giants skipper since Danny Ozark in 1984. The team’s 0-3 start at least comes with more encouraging history.

The last time the Giants failed to win any of their first three games? 2012. That turned out OK.

By getting on the board in the third, the Giants avoided setting a franchise record for their longest scoring drought to start a season. It took them 20 innings to finally score a run, the same number of frames as the 1909 New York Giants.

Who’s hot

Judge left the yard for the second time in as many games to give the Yankees’ lead some cushion after the Giants cut the margin to 2-1 with their first run of the season.

Judge punished the second pitch he saw from Ryan Borucki for a solo shot that made the score 3-1 in the top of the fifth. Vitello called on the left-hander to get the platoon advantage against Austin Wells and Trent Grisham, but it meant Judge got to face the lefty.

The Giants held Judge to two hits in 13 at-bats, but both were home runs.

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Vitello said he planned to shake up the Giants’ lineup after they were blanked in both their first two games, and he looked smart for moving Jung Hoo Lee into the leadoff spot.

Lee scored the Giants’ first run of the season after leading off the third with a double down the right field line. Matt Chapman singled him home a batter later.

Chapman was the only Giant to reach base in all three games of the series. Lee, Devers, Luis Arraez and Heliot Ramos all reached base multiple times in Saturday’s loss.

Who’s not

Adames finally notched a hit off Bednar in the bottom of the ninth, but the notoriously slow-starting shortstop had gone hitless in 13 at-bats to start the season with five strikeouts. 

Adames struck out with a runner on third and less than two outs for the second time this series, eventually stranding Devers on third in the sixth inning. His single in the ninth gave the Giants runners on first and second with nobody out, but the rally didn’t result in any runs.

Up next

The Giants are off Sunday before heading out for their first road trip of the season against the Padres. They hit the road still in search of their first home run.

Logan Webb is lined up to make his second start of the season on Tuesday. Adrian Houser will make his Giants debut in the first game on Monday, and Landen Roupp will start the series finale on Wednesday.

Box Score

The Brewers didn’t quite put on the show that they did on Opening Day on Thursday in defeating the White Sox on Saturday evening. But what they did do was demonstrate the difference between teams that do do the little things right, and teams that don’t do the little things right. But behind a good-enough outing for starter Chad Patrick, a good night for the Brewer bullpen, and a whole bunch of singles, walks, and stolen bases, the Brewers came away with a comfortable 6-1 victory.

William Contreras used a Brewers challenge—unsuccessfully—during the first at-bat of the game, when Chase Meidroth took a 2-0 pitch from Patrick just high that was upheld on review. Patrick did come back to get Meidroth to ground out, but starting the game down a challenge wasn’t great. Patrick got the second out with a strikeout of Colson Montgomery, but then two batters reached with two outs when Andrew Benintendi hit a single to left and Munetaka Murakami walked. But a Lenyn Sosa popout ended the inning with no further damage done.

Brice Turang led off the bottom of the first by giving a ball a ride to the opposite field off of Chicago starter Sean Burke. For a minute it looked like it might make it out, and then it looked like it was going to be caught, but instead it landed near the base of the wall and near left fielder Andrew Benintendi’s feet and resulted in a double (though that’s tough for Burke, as it should’ve been caught). After a near-miss on a foul ball (on a pitch about five inches above the zone), Contreras hit a grounder back to Burke that resulted in an out but advanced Turang to third with one out. Chicago pulled the infield in against Christian Yelich, who took advantage and hit a grounder through the hole between Murakami at first and Meidroth at second that scored Turang for the game’s first run.

The White Sox’ questionable defense continued to rear its head when Jake Bauers hit another single through the right side and the throw came to third (too late to get Yelich) instead of second, allowing Bauers to move up to second base and give Milwaukee two runners in scoring position with one out. It paid off right away when Garrett Mitchell jumped on the first pitch and drilled a two-RBI single through the middle, the first really hard hit ball of the game for the Brewers, knocking in the game’s second and third runs.

Oh baby we're off and running

→ https://t.co/eycfmE2vgmpic.twitter.com/pEIkEQTh5b

— Milwaukee Brewers (@Brewers) March 28, 2026

Mitchell stole second during a classic, pesky Sal Frelick at-bat, but Burke won that battle when Frelick flew out to shallow left on the 10^th pitch. Burke struck out Joey Ortiz to end the inning, but Milwaukee sent seven batters to the plate, saw 29 pitches, and scored three runs in the first inning.

Former Brewers draft pick and farmhand Tristan Peters (who was traded for Trevor Rosnethal once upon a time) struck out looking to start the second, unsuccessfully burning a challenge in the process. Everson Pereira grounded out on a check swing blooper to first base, and Reese McGuire struck out on three pitches, giving Patrick a three-up, three-down second inning.

After Burke quickly got the first two outs in the bottom of the second, Turang snuck another double into left field, this one a blooper down the line that landed just out of Benintendi’s reach (and, according to Statcast, should certainly have been caught). Contreras drew an eight-pitch walk to put two on for Yelich, who hit a dribbler to third base that would’ve been an infield hit, but the throw from Burke—which would’ve been late anyway—was in the dirt, and while Murakami kept it in the infield, Turang was able to score from third. Yelich stole second with Bauers at the plate, and Bauers worked the count back full from 0-2, but he struck out looking to end the inning. Burke, though, needed 34 pitches in the second after throwing 29 in the first, putting him in critical pitch-count condition through two innings.

Meidroth hit a one-out single in the third, but Chicago got nothing else off of Patrick. Burke got back-to-back strikeouts on Mitchell and Frelick to start the bottom of the inning, and Frelick burned the Brewers’ second (and final) challenge trying to overturn the pitch he looked at for strike three. Ortiz extended the inning with a two-out single up the middle, and he stole second base to give Hamilton a shot with a runner in scoring position. Hamilton nearly beat a dribbler to third for an infield hit—he was called safe on the field, but the play was overturned on a Chicago challenge and the White Sox were out of the inning.

Murakami got a 92 mph fastball right down the pipe to start the fourth inning, and if there’s one positive thing we’ve seen in these two games for the White Sox, it’s that that guy has some real power if he gets a hold of one. This one ended up 409 feet away, and the Brewers’ lead was cut to 4-1. With one out, Peters had a nice moment when he dumped a fly ball into center that Mitchell couldn’t quite get to—it came off the end of his glove—and Peters ended up at second for a double, his first major-league hit in the ballpark of the team that drafted him. But Patrick struck out Pereira and got McGuire to fly out to left, and Peters was stranded at second.

The Brewers went down in order in the bottom of the fourth (though Turang nearly doubled again on a ball that went just foul, and then hit a 106 mph, 398-foot fly ball that was caught on the warning track in dead center).

The White Sox were on Patrick to start the fifth. Luisangel Acuña hit a fly ball at 106 mph that Mitchell made a nice play on for the first out, and Meidroth hit a ground-role double into the right-field gap with one out. With three lefties due up, Pat Murphy opted to move for Aaron Ashby at that point. Ashby walked the first batter, Montgomery, but he got pinch-hitter Austin Hays on a weak comebacker to the mound and struck out Murakami to end the inning.

Big K for Aaron Ashby to get the Crew out of a jamhttps://t.co/68EQQYUZ6Zpic.twitter.com/L9lxy2w6D3

— Brewers.TV (@BrewersdotTV) March 29, 2026

Patrick finished with 4 1/3 innings pitched and, with the assist from Ashby, one run allowed on five hits, a walk, and four strikeouts. He threw 74 pitches and wasn’t always sharp, but mostly got away with it today.

With four lefties due up in the bottom of the fifth, the White Sox moved to the left-handed Chris Murphy, ending Burke’s (somewhat unlucky) day. Yelich struck out, and in a rare opportunity against a lefty (which might be more numerous with Andrew Vaughn on the shelf), Bauers nearly had an extra-base hit down the right-field line but Murakami made a diving stab and tagged first for the second out. Mitchell walked, but Frelick grounded out to end the inning.

Ashby was back out in the sixth and issued a one-out walk but otherwise struck out the side. After a bit of a lull from the Brewers’ offense from the third through fifth innings, they got something going again in the sixth against the new pitcher Grant Taylor. With one out, Hamilton walked and stole second—Murphy stuff—then scored when Lockridge hit a ground ball into right center for an RBI single that made it 5-1. Turang followed with a single to left, his third hit. After a visit to the mound, Chicago elected to stay with the right-handed Taylor instead of switching to lefty old friend Bryan Hudson to face Yelich, but they got away with it—Yelich struck out swinging at a 1-2 curveball that appeared to bounce in the grass in front of home plate, and Taylor was out of it with just one run in.

Brandon Lockridge picks up an RBI knock in his first start of the year 🔒 pic.twitter.com/oHRy8bI6yZ

— Milwaukee Brewers (@Brewers) March 29, 2026

Brewer fandom got its first look at Ángel Zerpa in the seventh when he came in to relieve Ashby. After a slight pitchcom delay, he got two quick outs on ground balls. Montgomery lined a two-out single to right for his first hit of the season and Hays followed with another hit, and when Lockridge misplayed the ball in left, Montgomery tried to score from first. But Lockridge recovered in time to start a perfect 7-6-2 relay that nailed Montgomery at home for the third out.

DON'T EVEN THINK ABOUT IT

→ https://t.co/eycfmE2vgmpic.twitter.com/ByO3chJTwK

— Milwaukee Brewers (@Brewers) March 29, 2026

Hudson did indeed enter for Chicago in the seventh, and struck out Bauers looking on a 3-2 pitch to start the inning. Mitchell slapped a single through the left side of the infield for a one-out hit, his second. With Frelick battling again, Mitchell stole second for the second time on the night, but Frelick struck out when he couldn’t check his swing on a 3-2 pitch way off the plate. Ortiz still had a shot with a runner in scoring position and two outs, and he came through with another single up the middle, his second hit of the night and third RBI of the season.

Joey O is putting on a clinic right now pic.twitter.com/YmtqgjB2jx

— Milwaukee Brewers (@Brewers) March 29, 2026

A balk advanced Ortiz to second with Hamilton at the plate, and Ortiz stole third on a pitch that Hamilton watched for ball four, putting runners on the corners with two out for Lockridge, and after another stolen base and another walk, the bases were loaded and Hudson was out of the game after 33 pitches. The batter was Turang, who was already 3-for-4 with two doubles and a very loud fly out, and the pitcher was Jedixson Paez, who the Brewers got for three runs in 1 1/3 innings on Thursday… but Turang got under the first pitch, and while he hit it 102 mph, he hit it too high to do any damage and it was caught in center for the third out.

Abner Uribe was on for his first appearance of the season in the eighth. He got the first out when Murakami hit a ground ball in front of the plate, but during the second plate appearance Uribe acted like something tightened up on him somewhere around his waist, but after the training staff checked on him he stayed in the game. Mildly concerning, and we’ll keep an eye on it, but he looked no worse for the wear, as he struck out Sosa with a 98 mph sinker and got pinch hitter Miguel Vargas looking with a slider that may have been successfully challenged had Sosa not burned the White Sox’ second challenge in the previous at-bat.

The White Sox got some work for their new closer, Seranthony Dominguez, in the bottom of the 8th. Contreras nearly hit an opposite-field homer to start the inning, but it was caught on the warning track by Pereira for the first out. Yelich lined a solid single into left with one out, his third hit, but Bauers flew out to center and Mitchell popped out in foul territory.

With a five-run lead, the Brewers went to DL Hall in the ninth, and he committed did what you don’t want in that situation and walked the leadoff hitter, Pereira. But Hall struck out pinch-hitter Edgar Quero looking, and Acuña grounded into a 6-4-3 double play, and the game was over.

The Brewers finished with 12 hits and five walks today in a balanced attack. Turang and Yelich both went 3-for-5 (with Turang’s two doubles as the team’s only extra-base hits), and Mitchell and Ortiz were both 2-for-4, with Mitchell adding a walk. Milwaukee also ran wild today and went 7-for-7 in stolen bases, just the fifth time in franchise history they’ve stolen that many, with two of those to Mitchell, two to Ortiz, two to Hamilton, and one to Yelich.

Milwaukee will go for the sweep tomorrow afternoon in the series finale at 1:10 p.m. when Brandon Sproat makes his Brewers debut against Chicago lefty Anthony Kay.

The Yankees pitching staff worked in and out of trouble against San Francisco's lineup, as New York defeated the Giants, 3-1, on Saturday night to complete the three-game sweep.

Ben Rice drove in two runs and Aaron Judge mashed a homer for the second straight game to provide the offense, while Yankees pitchers induced four double plays to keep the Giants hitters off the board. The Yankees outscored the Giants, 13-1, in the three-game sweep.

New York has now started 3-0 for the third straight season. 

Here are the takeaways...

-The Yankees had a chance early on in this one. Cody Bellinger hit a two-out triple, but was stranded whenRice grounded out to end the threat. Rice would get his chance again in the third, which was set up by ABS.

Trent Grisham challenged a called third strike and won, working a one-out walk two pitches later. Bellinger followed with a single to put runners on the corners for Rice. The first baseman lined a down down the right field line to score two runs. Giancarlo Stanton followed with a hard-hit single to left fielder Heliot Ramos, who gunned down Rice trying to score from second base. Stanton finished 2-for-4 and has had two hits in each of his first three games.

-Will Warren entered his first start of the season after an impressive spring. It looked to carry over early, with the young right-hander getting the first two batters rather quickly. However, back-to-back singles from Luis Arraez and Rafael Devers -- with an Arraez steal of third thrown in -- the Giants had runners on the corners with two outs, but Warren bounced back to strike out Ramos to end the threat.

After a ho-hum second for Warren, the Giants finally broke through in the third. Jung Hoo Lee led off with a double and Matt Chapman singled up the middle to score a run. It's the first run the Giants have scored this season after being shut out in the first two games. It snapped a streak of 20 scoreless innings to start the season, tying their longest such stretch to start the season (1909). Warren would get out of the inning, but he wouldn't last long because he wasn't efficient enough.

Under a strict pitch count, Warren could only get one out in the fifth before he walked Lee. At 83 pitches (54 strikes), Warren allowed one run on five hits, two walks, while striking out three batters. 

-Judge, after homering in his last game, would have an encore, blasting a shot in the fifth inning to put the Yankees up 3-1. The longball went 383 feet with an exit velocity of 102.1 mph. Judge finished 1-for-4 with a strikeout. He's now 2-for-13 with seven strikeouts. Both hits this season are home runs.

-In relief of Warren, the Yankees' bullpen faltered a bit. Brent Headrick was the first one out and got the final two outs of the fifth, but allowed a leadoff double to Devers in the sixth. Jake Bird was called on to limit the damage, but he allowed a single to Ramos to put runners on the corners with no outs. Bird bounced back by getting Willy Adames to strike out swinging and Harrison Bader to ground into a doubleplay, helped by the tandem of Jazz Chisholm Jr. and Jose Caballero -- and an outstretched Rice -- to end the threat.

The rest of the Yankees bullpen did its job. The combination of Tim Hill -- who got Devers to ground into an inning-ending double play in the eighth -- and David Bednar got the final seven outs to complete the sweep. The ninth wasn't easy for Bednar, however. 

The closer walked Ramos -- helped by an overturned strike-three call -- and gave up a single to Adames. Bednar then got Bader to strike out and Patrick Bailey to ground into a doubleplay as the Yankees held on for the win.

Here's how the bullpen broke down on Saturday...

• Headrick: 0.2 IP, 1 H, 1 K
• Bird: 1.2 IP, 1 H. 2 K
• Hill: 1.1 IP, 1 H, 1 K
• Bednar: 1.0 IP, 1 H, 1 BB, 1 K

Game MVP: Jake Bird

With the Yankees only up by two runs, Bird worked his way out of a tough situation to preserve the lead. Without that, the game is completely turned on its head.

Highlights

Ben Rice with a 2-RBI double to put the Yanks on the board first 🍚💪 pic.twitter.com/AHOu4rBtfY

— Yankees Videos (@snyyankees) March 29, 2026

ALL RISE!

Aaron Judge with the solo shot to extend the lead! 😤💪 pic.twitter.com/B0U3iYpujP

— Yankees Videos (@snyyankees) March 29, 2026

What's next

The Yankees have a day off Sunday before heading up to Seattle to start a three-game series with the Mariners on Monday.

Ryan Weathers makes his Yankees debut and will be opposed by Luis Castillo.

Dylan Cease is already dominating at his new home up north.

During his Blue Jays debut on Saturday, Cease fanned 12 batters across 5⅓ innings while giving up just one earned run in Toronto’s 8-7 walk-off home win over the Athletics.

Cease’s 12 strikeouts set a new record for most by a Blue Jays pitcher in their debut for the franchise, topping southpaw David Price’s 11 during his debut back in 2015.

The 30 year old also struck out seven straight batters in one stretch during Saturday’s game, sitting down Athletics catcher Tyler Soderstrom to end the third inning before striking out the side in the fourth and fifth.

“That was a blast,” Cease told reporters following the game, according to MLB.com. “The minute I walked out, there was cheering and they were being extremely supportive. That was really cool. It’s just an electric atmosphere. I think that really does make a difference.”

Blue Jays skipper John Schneider said he was impressed with Cease’s debut outing, adding that he bested teammate Kevin Gausman’s 11 strikeout Opening Day performance.

“He one-upped Kevin [Gausman] in terms of strikeouts,” Schneider said.

Gausman said he believes that this year’s Blue Jays staff is the most powerful since he arrived in Toronto in 2022.

“I really love our pitching staff this year,” Gausman said. “I think it’s the best, stuff-wise, since I’ve been here, and we’ve had great pitching staffs since I’ve been here.

“That’s what’s exciting for me. The swing-and-miss is probably more than we’ve ever had.”

Despite Cease’s performance, Toronto was trailing in the ninth inning before catcher Alejandro Kirk blasted a game-tying solo homer to send the game to extra innings.

Third baseman Ernie Clement was the hero for the Blue Jays with a game-winning single in the 11th inning, marking the team’s second straight walk-off to start the season.

“We’re battling. We’re fighting back. We’re picking guys up,” Clement said. “That’s what was special about last year’s team, and that’s what will be special about this team.

“We’re never out of it. We’re going to battle, and we’re going to get it done.”

By the end of last season, 0-70 had become as much of an indictment of the 2025 Mets as an ugly statistic. Steve Cohen even made a point of referencing it in his press session at spring training in February, as if still finding it hard to believe his ballclub had gone the entire year without winning a game in which they’d trailed after eight innings.

Such futility demanded some examination: was the absence of dramatic comebacks fluky or did it hint at some lack of esprit de corps on the '25 Mets?

David Stearns and Cohen clearly decided on the latter, overhauling the roster and, as Cohen noted on that day in February, bringing in proven clutch hitters in part so 0-70 didn’t happen again.

And so as the Mets pulled off the unlikeliest of comeback wins on Saturday night at Citi Field, defeating the Pittsburgh Pirates 4-2 on Luis Robert Jr.'s 11th-inning three-run home run, both the owner and president of baseball operations had to feel as warm and fuzzy, wherever they were watching, as the players were bitterly cold on the ballfield.

As it turned out, the win wouldn’t have changed the 0-70 stat last year, as the Mets were tied 0-0 after eight innings on this day.

But suffice it to say that coming back not once but twice in extra innings, on a day when they couldn’t get a big hit for nine innings, made for a memorable comeback and perhaps reason to believe this indeed will be a team with more grit, more toughness than whatever happened to last year’s ballclub.

Especially considering it seemed the Mets had blown their opportunity to win the game in the 10th, when their best hitters, Francisco Lindor, Juan Soto, and Bo Bichette all failed to get the winning run in from third base after Mark Vientos and Luis Torrens had delivered clutch singles to get the game tied.

All Lindor and Soto needed were fly balls to get the run in, but couldn’t deliver. And Bichette, who has been hailed as something of a clutch-hitting savant with the numbers to prove it, lifted a routine fly ball to right for the third out, three innings after striking out in the eighth with the go-ahead run on third.

But that’s baseball, of course. Everybody fails. It’s the good teams, or perhaps the best ones, that find ways to overcome it, find a way to win games late when the money is on the table, even on days when there’s not a hint of a win in the air.

That’s what Saturday felt like for the Mets. After all the praise heaped on them on Opening Day regarding their new-look, high-contact lineup, they couldn’t do much of anything at the plate, especially against Mitch Keller, who has been tough on them historically.

They had three hits through nine innings, all singles, and four walks. They were 0-for-8 with runners in scoring position.

Maybe it was just too freezing cold for anybody to hit. Yet when it counted most, Robert changed everything with his three-run home run, making him the early favorite for X-factor of the year and making for a feel-good Mets’ clubhouse as well.

David Peterson, who got big outs when needed to pitch out of trouble and deliver 5.1 scoreless innings, kept changing the subject from his own performance to the nature of the victory as he talked to reporters.

“Awesome win,” he said. “A total team win. We needed everybody to win this game and everybody played a role. Just awesome.”

Ok, ok, I can hear the skeptics, or even many reasoned fans out there saying this is making too much of one win, improbable or not, against the less-than-imposing Pirates in the second game of this new season.

And that’s fair.

Certainly, there is plenty we don’t know about this team, and probably won’t for weeks, even months.

But there was also plenty to like on this day, even with such an absence of offense.

Peterson’s start offered reason to believe, as the Mets do, that he simply hit a wall in September related to his career-high innings-pitched total last season, and will bounce back and be a solid starter, perhaps even the guy who made the NL All-Star Game in 2025.

In addition, Devin Williams made his debut as the guy taking over for Edwin Diaz, and put up a zero in the ninth. It wasn’t routine, as the go-ahead run got to third base, but he struck out Bryan Reynolds to end the inning, blowing a fastball by him after setting that up with his signature change-up, the ballyhooed air-bender. It felt significant.

For that matter, all of the high-leverage relievers were sharp, producing 3.2 scoreless innings before Luis Garcia and Richard Lovelady each allowed runs in the 10th and 11th innings, albeit partly because of the free runner at second base.

Also, Vientos’ pinch-hit single in the 10th, loading the bases and setting up Torrens’ game-tying hit, felt significant as well, as the Mets are hoping he recaptures his 2024 form and becomes a difference-maker again.

On the other hand, Bichette and Jorge Polanco are off to shaky starts in their transitions to new positions at first and third base. Bichette made a throwing error on a routine play and has been wide to the first base side with at least a few throws, going back to spring training.

He also fielded a grounded ball in unconventional fashion, positioning himself as he moved to his left so he could backhand the ball, which looked awkward but did put himself in a strong position to throw.

On the SNY telecast, Keith Hernandez called it “interesting.”

Meanwhile, Polanco has had a couple of balls bounce off him, and while his athleticism allowed him to recover to make the plays, he hasn’t looked comfortable getting in front of hard-hit balls, and couldn’t handle a bad hop that was ruled a hit in Saturday’s game.

It doesn’t mean the two ex-shortstops won’t make the transitions successfully. But it does look like they’re going to need some time.

So we’ll see. In the end, the win mattered most, of course, especially because of that dreaded 0-70 that came to define the disaster of 2025.

Last season, the Mets weren’t as good as their individual talent. On Saturday, the result was better than they actually played.

It felt like a good omen.