Category: Sports News

After losing 2 of 3 against the Brewers, the Royals now take a short road trip to Cleveland early this week before returning home to face the White Sox later this week. The weather will be pretty cold in Cleveland for this series, so they’ve already moved tomorrow’s game up in time to be during the day. Max’s got you covered with the series preview here.

The Guardians enter the series leading the AL Central with a 6-4 record, with the Royals right behind at 4-5 (also tied with White Sox and Tigers). Their offense so far has basically just been Chase DeLauter and no one else. They’ve made it this far on the backs of their normal crap – a bunch of dudes at starting pitcher I’ve never heard of throwing average-ish or better ball. It’s such a house of cards team (cue “he can’t keep getting away with this” gif).

Having said that, Tanner Bibee gets the start for the Guardians today. I’ve heard of him. He’s thrown only nine innings across two starts so far – he gave up three homers in the first start against Seattle. He’s mostly a fastball/changeup guy, with variations. He throws a cutter, four seam, and sinker for the harder pitches, although at 86-87mph his cutter isn’t really a fast pitch. It is the one he throws the most though.

Michael Wacha gets the start for the Royals. Wacha was originally going to pitch on Friday against the Brewers, but he was scratched due to illness and the game was postponed anyway. As a result, we’ve seen Wacha only once so far this season, against the Braves. He threw six innings of shutout ball with seven strikeouts. I’d take that again today.

The game starts at 5:10pm US Central time. You can watch the game on Royals.tv or listen on 96.5 The Fan/Royals Radio Network. Or both! Both is good.

Lineups:

If you simply look at the win column, the Cincinnati Reds are rolling at the moment. Winners of 6 of their first 9 games of the year, they’re fresh off a road sweep of the Texas Rangers, and they now roll into Miami to face a Marlins club that’s also 6-3 to start this year.

The Marlins, though, at least can boast a +8 run differential. Cincinnati, on the other hand, sits with a -4 run differential, a fact that’s largely due to them having scored fewer runs than all but the San Francisco Giants among MLB teams so far this season.

The offense, shall we say, has mostly stunk – at least on the actual production side. Their .288 team wOBA ranks 25th on the season, though their .316 xwOBA – their expected production – is a much more respectable 13th, tied with the New York Yankees so far. So, there’s at least some optimism that things will improve, even though the sure have been fruitless at the plate so far.

That’s put an outsized importance on the pitching so far, and just about every single member of the staff has held up their end of the bargain in the absence of both Hunter Greene and Nick Lodolo. The lone real exception to that has been Brandon Williamson, who was shelled in his first start of the year.

That start just so happened to be his first time on a mound in any affiliated game in a year and a half, though, as his recovery from Tommy John surgery cost him all of the 2025 season. The hope is that he’ll continue to work his way back into form as his velocity is actually better now than it had been, and on Monday in Miami he’ll get his second chance of the season to show that’s the case.

First pitch is set for 6:40 PM ET, and the Reds will line up like this:

The Mets will officially retire Carlos Beltrán’s number 15 in a pregame ceremony at Citi Field prior to the team’s game against the Phillies on Saturday, September 19. The Mets will also induct Beltrán into the team Hall of Fame.

It was previously reported that the team was planning a special ceremony for Beltrán, who was originally supposed to go into the Team Hall of Fame alongside Bobby Valentine and Lee Mazzilli. However, once Beltrán was voted into the Baseball Hall of Fame, the team changed course on their original plans, and will now give one of the best position players in franchise history a day of his own.

Beltrán has been a divisive figure in franchise history, oftentimes unfairly, especially because of one specific play. However, his numbers speak for themselves, as he ranks third all-time among Mets position players in in WAR (31.2), fourth in OPS (.869), sixth in OBP (.369), sixth in SLG (.500), seventh in home runs (149), seventh in doubles (208), seventh in RBI (559), tenth in walks (449), and tenth in runs scored (551). He earned five All-Star game nods while in Flushing and won two Silver Sluggers. He was also an elite defender, taking home the Gold Glove in three consecutive seasons from 2006-2008. He finished fourth in NL MVP voting during the team’s 2006 campaign. There will be a lot to unpack about his legacy in the months leading up to the retirement, but it’s impossible to ignore his talent and his impact on the field.

Beltrán became the third Met to get inducted into Cooperstown wearing a Mets cap, joining Tom Seaver and Mike Piazza which made this all but a certainty. He will become the 11th number retired by the franchise, and the ninth player to receive the honor, joining David Wright (5), Dwight Gooden (16), Keith Hernandez (17), Darryl Strawberry (18), Willie Mays (24), Mike Piazza (31), Jerry Koosman (36), and Tom Seaver (41). Gil Hodges (14) and Casey Stengel (37) both had their numbers retired as team Managers.

Hindsight in 20/20 and hindsight analysis is 20 times as annoying as my Uncle Perv trying to play the bagpipes. What is the art of sitting back as a fan and judging the difficult decisions a manager, a base coach, or a player have to make long before the metrics tell you what his odds were?

Process vs. Outcome

Judging process, rather than just leaning on outcomes, can be extremely counter-intuitive. To drive this point home let me offer a scenario in which presumably all fans will agree on the proper strategy.

In a tie game, 9th inning, the Yankees have runners at 2B and 3B with 2 outs and Trent Grisham due up against your RH reliever. Looming on deck is the legendary Aaron Judge. Do you pitch to Grisham or do you walk him intentionally to load the bases and face Judge instead?

I will go out on a limb and say you would do what 30 out of 30 managers would do and that is to go after Grisham. Here’s the catch. If you IBB Grisham and foolishly choose to pitch to Judge instead, with nowhere to put him, odds are you will wind up looking good. Because if you run that 100 times Judge, whose career OBP is an elite .412, will bail out your terrible idea about 59 times.

Never mind that Grisham gets out 2/3 of the time if you just go after him, with another 12 of those 100 outcomes being just the walk you were considering anyway. Or that if he doesn’t get out he’s far less likely to HR or double.

Despite making an absurdly poor choice, a manager will get bailed out nearly 60% of the time even pitching to Judge with the bases loaded. So it’s not fair to wait for Judge to make an out and then decry, “See? Smart manager!”

Base running – Jacob Wilson

In Sunday’s game Wilson made a gamble on Lawrence Butler’s slicing drive to left-center field. He took off from 1B, rounded 2B, and was easily doubled off when Joey Loperfido made a sliding catch in the alley. I thought Wilson made an excellent decision that just didn’t work out.

Keep in mind that when a ball is hit, the runner does not have access to the “expected batting average” or any other data designed to put odds to the outcome. When Butler hit that drive, all Wilson could see is that he smoked it and he had historical info of how many times Butler’s drives to LF and left-center carried to the wall when they were hit that hard — especially in Sacramento where balls tend to carry well.

Off the bat it looked a lot like a tweener, but Wilson had 3 choices. He could have stayed close to 1B as if it was going to be caught, which could have resulted in a disastrous result where a one-hopper off the wall was relayed quickly forcing Wilson to hold at 2B, which would have stalled Butler at 1B. He could have gone to 2B and waited, an “in between” move that might still have risked a DP but also would not have allowed him to score had the ball one hopped the wall. Or he could gamble, as he did, ensuring either a run scored or a DP.

He gambled and lost, but given the info he had off the crack of the bat I would argue it was the right gamble and Loperfido just made a great play.

Base coaching – Bobby Crosby

Similarly, if Bobby Crosby had influence in Jeff McNeil’s decision to try to score from second on Shea Langeliers’ big for a game winning hit, it’s important to recognize when decisions had to be made. As Jose Altuve sprawled to his right, McNeil was hitting 3B and the only way he maximizes his ability to score is if he never stops.

At that point it was unclear whether Altuve could field it cleanly or just smother it, whether the ball would stay firmly in the glove or roll away. Only a clean pickup gave Altuve any shot at the play at home. And then he had to bounce up immediately and make a throw good enough to get McNeil.

Granted, he made a poorish throw and still got McNeil easily, which is probably the best argument against the decision, but consider how easy it is, under that pressure, to sail it 40 feet up the line or to airmail the catcher or to give the catcher a short-hop he can’t handle cleanly.

Part of it is “making them make the play” and Altuve is, at this stage of his career, a poor defensive 2Bman with very limited range and a weak arm. Whether McNeil ran on his own — which you almost have to do in that situation rather than waiting to hear from your base coach — or whether Crosby was screaming, “Keep going! Go!” whoever made that in-the-moment call did what I want the A’s to do: don’t sit around waiting for a clutch hit with 2 outs, make the other team’s shaky defenders come up big executing several parts of a tough play well.

Pitcher decisions – Mark Kotsay

Mark Kotsay also had some key choices to make this weekend and in this writer’s view he botched them at least twice — once with poor results and once with great results.

Where Kotsay paid a price was his puzzling choice of JT Ginn to enter a game the A’s were leading by 9 runs. Ginn has had his problems but he was coming off a sterling relief appearance and looked like one of the A’s better candidates for high leverage innings over the weekend.

Keep in mind the A’s lead was so secure that had Scott Barlow (who would have been my choice) gotten the call instead, and had Barlow started the inning giving up a HR, two 4-pitch walks, and a double, the A’s would have still led 9-4 and could have bailed Barlow out with a win still nearly assured.

Meanwhile, after throwing 32 garbage time pitches Friday Ginn was called upon again Sunday and predictably, after getting out of the 6th he started the 7th without his best stuff going, hung a slider to Christian Walker and gave up a two-run HR.

Later on Sunday Kotsay was rewarded for what I thought was an inexcusably bad decision. With Hogan Harris in the game, Houston leading 10-9 in the 10th with runners at 2B and 3B with one out, Walker was due, Cam Smith on deck.

If you want to go after Walker on your terms, corner and chase pitching, you can choose from Harris or Elvis Alvarado, who was warming up. Or if you feel the need to IBB Walker to load the bases, you stick with Harris who, on a career basis, still fares better against RH batters than LH batters regardless of the hand he throws with.

The one thing you don’t do is to load the bases and then summon your wild reliever, Alvarado, giving him no margin for error. Even though everything worked out in the end, the reasoning was hammered home when Alvarado fell behind Smith 3-1 with pitches that were all over the place. Luckily he settled down just at the right time and fired two quality strikes, the last of which Smith swung through, and then to his credit Alvarado retired Yainer Diaz to escape the jam.

Going to back to the Grisham/Judge example, in any showdown the pitcher is going to succeed more than half the time. So you can make the wrong move and be handsomely rewarded. But I wouldn’t suggest making a habit of it.

Anyway, the weekend offered many chances for fans, armchair, real-timers, and everything in between, to weigh in on several difficult decisions that had to be made in the heat of the moment. How do you think these guys did?

The Dodgers and Toronto Blue Jays are back at it on Tuesday night for the middle game of their series at Rogers Centre.

Yoshinobu Yamamoto starts on the mound on Tuesday, looking for his fourth win in as many career games in Toronto. The other three just happened to be in the 2025 World Series, winning starts in Games 2 and 6 last October and, famously, getting the final eight outs of Game 7 to close out the championship.

Right-hander Kevin Gausman is off to a fantastic start to his season for the Blue Jays, with 21 strikeouts and zero walks in his 12 innings, with just one run allowed in his first two starts.

In addition to the SportsNet LA broadcast, TBS will also televise Tuesday’s game, but only for folks outside the local markets.

Tuesday game info

• Teams: Dodgers at Blue Jays
• Ballpark: Rogers Centre, Toronto
• Time: 4:07 p.m. PT
• TV: SportsNet LA, TBS
• Radio: AM 570 (English), KTNQ 1020 AM (Spanish)

It’s that time of year, folks. The flowers are blooming, the birds are chirping, baseball is back, and so are our meters, which provide the community with a nice little snapshot of how each player is performing. To be transparent right from the jump, this year I am doing something new with the meters: instead of weekly, they will be posted biweekly (as in, every other week, not twice a week). This cadence is much more manageable with my schedule and I also think a two-week sample size is more meaningful to look at than a one-week sample. In the case of this first set of meters, because the first week of the season was not a complete one, these numbers cover the first ten games of the season. Hereafter, meters will appear on the site every other week on Mondays—maybe occasionally on Tuesday if your imperfect Mets Meter Maid (that’s me) is having a bad week.

As is tradition, we will start with the position player group first and the pitchers will go up later. On Opening Day, the Mets erupted for 11 runs right out of the gate en route to their usual Opening Day victory. But the bats went silent for a little while after that, prompting some agita about the offense. However, the Mets have bounced back to win their last three straight and the offense was looking pretty potent again, particularly on Friday and Saturday. This weekend’s games saved a couple of players from the dreaded “poop emoji in your very first meter” fate; Bo Bichette, Tyrone Taylor, and Marcus Semien in particular have turned things around of late. The first ten games have proven a bit of a renaissance for Mark Vientos, who has been the Mets’ hottest hitter in 2026 despite a dismal 2025 season. Juan Soto has been Juan Soto, but he has just hit the injured list and the lineup will definitely lack a certain je ne sais quoi without him in it.

Player	This week
Francisco Alvarez, C
Brett Baty, UTIL
Carson Benge, OF
Bo Bichette, 3B
Francisco Lindor, SS
Jorge Polanco, 1B/DH
Luis Robert Jr., OF
Marcus Semien, 2B
Juan Soto, OF
Tyrone Taylor, OF
Luis Torrens, C
Mark Vientos, 1B/3B
Jared Young, 1B/OF

We’ll start with Mark Vientos since he has been the Mets’ best hitter so far this season. Over the first ten games of the season, Vientos has put up a blistering 254 wRC+ in 23 plate appearances, which leads the team. He didn’t see a lot of playing time in the early going, but has gotten more starts lately—and why not? He has earned them. Vientos’ ten hits are tied for the second-most on the team thus far. “I feel like myself,” Vientos said after Saturday’s game. Something closer to the 2024 version of Mark Vientos over the course of a full season would be massive for the 2026 Mets.

The team leader in hits over the first ten games is Juan Soto, whose emoji I had to change to a red cross in the middle of writing this, as he was just officially placed on the IL with a mild calf strain. It is a huge bummer to lose the lineup’s most potent threat so early in the season, especially when Soto has been so durable over the course of his career, but hopefully this will be a relatively brief absence. Over 34 plate appearances before the injury, Soto scored three runs, drove in five runs, went deep once, and walked three times, posting a 164 wRC+.

Somehow, even with the new ABS challenge system, Soto does not lead the team in walks. That would be Francisco Lindor batting in front of him with ten walks, which is a good recipe for success to do in front of Soto. However, the walk is just about the only way Lindor is getting on base right now. Lindor had a couple of triples early in the season, which is already more than he had all of last year and an encouraging sign for those concerned that his hamate surgery may have zapped his power, but he has just five hits overall in 48 plate appearances, which is not good. However, he has seven runs scored to lead the team, so he is often being driven in when he does get on base. His 86 wRC+ over these first ten games should improve with time.

Speaking of improvement, one of the most prominent new faces on the position player side Bo Bichette was barreling toward poop emoji territory before he saved himself at the 11th hour with a strong performance over the weekend. He had a multi-hit game on both Friday and Saturday, raising his hit total to nine—a much more respectable number—with six RBIs, which is tied for the team lead. Still, Bichette holds an ugly 38 wRC+ over his first 48 plate appearances with a team-leading 12 strikeouts.

The story with fellow new Met Marcus Semien is quite similar. Outside of an RBI knock on Opening Day that was aided by the sun in Oneil Cruz’s eyes, Semien didn’t hit a lick in the early going until the past few games saw him raise his wRC+ from the doldrums all the way up to 117 in 41 plate appearances. Semien matches Bichette’s six RBIs for the season and has scored two runs—one of those coming on his first home run in a Mets uniform. Semien has also played strong defense at second base, as expected.

The new Met that has made the greatest impact so far has been Luis Robert Jr., who has been excellent with the bat to the tune of a 173 wRC+ in his first 38 Mets plate appearances. He matches Mark Vientos ten hits for the second-most on the team. One of those ten hits was a home run—his only extra-base hit so far. He is the third Met along with Bichette and Semien with a team-leading six RBIs. He has also scored six runs—second only to Lindor for the team lead. Perhaps the biggest pleasant surprise about Robert’s performance so far is that his eight walks are also second only to Lindor for the team lead. Robert is not particularly known for being patient at the plate, but he has exhibited uncharacteristic patience so far this season and it has paid off. Even when they were struggling to score runs, the Mets have demonstrated early on that they are capable of seeing a lot of pitches and and working deep counts as a collective.

Rounding out the new look Mets is Jorge Polanco, whose first couple of weeks as a Met have been okay-not-great. He’s struck the ball well on many occasions and not had much to show for it; the ball that was caught on the warning track that would have been the Mets’ second walk-off homer in as many days comes to mind. Polanco has amassed six hits—three singles and three doubles—and five walks in 37 plate appearances, good for a 76 wRC+. Polanco is still adjusting to first base and sharing time there with both Vientos and at times Brett Baty and Jared Young. Baty has been a jack of all trades, getting at-bats in both the infield and outfield. Baty posted a 71 wRC+ over his first 33 plate appearances, but his six runs scored match Robert for the second-most on the team. Baty has racked up eight hits, but unlike a lot of his teammates, he isn’t walking much. In fact, he hasn’t drawn a single walk this year and has struck out ten times—a troubling ratio to perhaps keep an eye on. Meanwhile, Young has made the most of his playing time, which will probably increase in Juan Soto’s absence. In addition to drawing two walks, Young has five hits in his first 15 plate appearances this season. He has scored two runs and driven in one run.

I didn’t have the heart to give Carson Benge a poop emoji in his very first meter in his rookie year, but his 27 wRC+ is the worst on the team in these first ten games, despite his thrilling Opening Day home run that represented his first hit in the big leagues. Overall, Benge has three hits and four walks in his first 34 major league plate appearances. He has also struck out eleven times, which is certainly a higher rate than you want. It is clear that Benge struggles against same-sided pitching—an expected growing pain for a young player. Carlos Mendoza has opted to keep him in there against lefties at times, while pinch hitting for him at other times, clearly wanting to strike the right balance between showing confidence in his young player and giving the team the best chance to win. Benge has scored three runs and driven in three runs so far in his rookie campaign.

Tyrone Taylor was another player in the “potential poop emoji” club who saved himself. His pinch hit three-run homer broke Saturday’s game open and represents one of only two hits from him in 15 plate appearances, three of his four RBIs for the season, and one of his two runs scored. Taylor is another player who will likely see more playing time during Soto’s IL stint with the Mets down an outfielder, especially with Mets brass wanting to give Robert regular rest to keep him healthy.

Francisco Alvarez was a big part of the weekend’s offensive breakout with a two home run game on Friday. Overall, he has three home runs and is the only player on the team with multiple long balls to his name. His 203 wRC+ is second only to Vientos for the team lead. Alvarez’s power surge in these first ten games earns him a fireball emoji to open 2026.

Luis Torrens provided the key hit in yesterday’s game—a go-ahead pinch hit RBI double in the eighth inning. It was Torrens’ fourth hit in 12 plate appearances and his first extra-base hit of the season. Torrens has scored two runs and driven in four runs in total.

SAN FRANCISCO — When Christian Koss took the mound to record the final three outs of the Giants’ blowout loss to the Mets on Saturday, it was hardly out of the ordinary.

The utility infielder has been the Giants’ go-to guy when a game has gotten out of hand the past two seasons. The twist is that his first pitching appearance came before he logged an at-bat.

After years of utilizing every spot on the 26-man roster and maximizing platoon advantages by mixing and matching with in-game moves, the Giants haven’t made much use of Koss or the rest of the five reserves on their bench in the early days of Tony Vitello’s managerial tenure.

“I think currently with the set-up we have, those guys are going to have to get used to not getting consistent at-bats,” Vitello said.

Not just consistent at-bats: any at all. 

Entering their 11th game of the season Monday, the Giants still had two position players yet to step to the plate in Koss and backup outfielder Jared Oliva. Jerar Encarnacion, their biggest bench bat, has been called on to pinch-hit just once.

In fact, Encarnacion’s groundout for Patrick Bailey in the seventh inning of their loss to the Padres on Wednesday was the Giants’ only pinch-hit plate appearance of the season. Just one other team, the Angels, has utilized its bench less than Vitello in the early going.

“I’m ready at any point,” Koss said. “You would like to be in the lineup more often, but that doesn’t dictate whether I’m ready for when my name is called.”

When asked if he has found it difficult to find opportunities to get Koss and the rest of his reserves into games so far, Vitello said, “Yeah, I think so.”

As he transitions from the University of Tennessee to Major League Baseball, every move the rookie skipper makes — or doesn’t make — will be under the microscope as fans and rival teams alike attempt to determine his managerial tendencies.

“There’s no agenda with the lineup other than trying to win the game,” he said.

It’s not like the regulars have made it hard to take them out of the lineup. Entering Monday, the Giants owned the worst record in the National League, at 3-7. They have scored the fewest runs in the majors — 2.6 per game — and played sloppy defense resulting in the fifth-most errors in MLB.

But Vitello has shown a proclivity to stick with his guys.

When the Yankees brought in tough lefty Tim Hill to face Jung Hoo Lee in a leverage moment in the first series of the year, Vitello didn’t bring in any of the five right-handed hitters on his bench.

Lee was called out on strikes to end the eighth inning of a 3-1 loss. 

Vitello had his full complement of reserves available, and Lee possesses a .601 career OPS against lefties, but when asked if there was any discussion about subbing in a pinch-hitter, he said, “Not at all. I mean, he’s our guy.”

When hiring the Giants’ next manager, Buster Posey said he wanted someone to “obsess over the details,” but Vitello has gone about showing that in a different way than with every little in-game decision. Gone are the days of winning at the margins by prioritizing platoon matchups.

Giants batters have owned the left-right advantage in only 47.5% of their plate appearances this season, tied for the fourth-lowest mark in the majors. The Guardians lead the league at 78.1%, and San Francisco ranked among the top 10 as recently as 2023 with a rate of 62.4%.

That same season the Giants used 179 pinch-hitters, tied for the most in MLB. Through 10 games this year, they’re on pace for fewer than 20 pinch-hit at-bats over the course of 162.

That is due, at least in part, to roster construction. Whether it be through trade or free agency, the Giants have built their most stable starting lineup in years, and Vitello has mostly rolled with the same group of nine players to start the season.

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Oliva has proven to be an asset on the base paths, with Vitello using the speedy 30-year-old to pinch-run three times. Daniel Susac looks like a capable backup to Bailey. But the remaining combination of Encarnacion, Koss and Casey Schmitt has so far been of little utility. 

“We’ll find ways to utilize JO’s speed, and he’s also got other things he can do well,” Vitello said. But, he added, “I think with Jerar and with Koss, we’ve got to get creative.”

All five reserves bat right-handed, but the highest career OPS against left-handed pitching among them belongs to Schmitt, with a mark of .685. 

If the hope is for at least eight of their nine regulars to play everyday, and few situations would be suitable for any of their reserves to pinch-hit, then what value are the Giants getting out of the end of their roster? At the end of the day, Vitello can only manage the players he has.

“Jerar has probably been the first guy to show up about everyday since the season has started,” Vitello said. “Koss, he could put on a couple pounds, he doesn’t look like the toughest guy in the world, I can tell you internally, he’s probably as tough as anybody we got. …

“On a personal level, I’d like to see those guys get rewarded for their hard work as much as anything. But also, this isn’t a situation where it’s a ‘Rudy’ deal. These guys can do some things on the field.”

Dodgers center fielder Andy Pages had five multi-hit games and reached base far more often than not against the Cleveland Guardians and Washington Nationals, and on Monday was rewarded with National League player of the week honors.

Pages last week started with a pair of two-hit games, then three three-hit games in a row, before reaching base twice on Sunday afternoon against the Nationals. In all, he had 14 hits in 24 at-bats, hitting .583/.615/.917 with two home runs, two doubles, two walks, seven runs batted in, and five runs scored.

He led or tied the majors last week in hits, times on base (16), total bases (22), batting average, and on-base percentage, and led the National League in slugging percentage, OPS (1.532), and wRC+ (334).

Through nine games this season, the 25-year-old Pages is hitting .471/.500/.794 and leads the Dodgers in home runs (three) and RBI (10).

“He’s controlling the zone, he’s fighting when he gets two strikes, he is hitting to all fields,” manager Dave Roberts said of Pages over the weekend in Washington D.C. “Right now, he’s showing he’s a complete hitter.”

It’s the second career player of the week honor for Pages, who shared NL weekly honors with Eugenio Suárez for the week ending in April 27, 2025.