Category: Sports News

The St. Louis Cardinals will wrap up the first road trip of the 2026 season with a Wednesday afternoon contest against an old friend. While the Cardinals have Michael McGreevy scheduled to make the afternoon start, the Washington Nationals will send Ron BurgundyMiles Mikolas to the mound. Miles has had a rough start to the season with an 0-2 record and an ERA of 14.46. Let’s hope the Cardinals increase that number Wednesday afternoon.

It’s time to paste the Statcast graphic into the body of this post because it wasn’t available when I was doing the lineups post, and also, for the Braves to have a successful West Coast-ish road trip and continue to be unbeaten series-wise in 2026, right? Oy.

Another underwhelming day for the Diamondbacks offense yesterday. After eleven games, the team is hitting a collective .213, with an OPS of .632. That’s ranked 23rd in the majors, and 59 points below league average. Though it is worth noting that offense generally is down as a whole. The OPS across all of MLB is below .700 at a mere .691, 28 points below the overall figure last year. It’s not just the expected “slow start in cold weather” thing. Through April 7th last year, the MLB OPS was .705, so this season’s figure is below even that. Remember when an OPS starting with a six indicated a hitter was really struggling? So far in 2026, it has been the norm.

That said, the D-backs had posted a .768 OPS through the same date last season, so it’s definitely an issue. Corbin Carroll is continuing to do Corbin Carroll things. But Ketel Marte (OPS+ 70) and Geraldo Perdomo (51), who were expected to power the offense to an equal extent, have got off to a slow start. As we noted on Monday, Marte is hitting the ball hard, but into the ground. His GB/FB rate is 1.60, the highest on the team among regulars. For Perdomo, there is a concerning amount of blue on his Baseball Savant page. Of particular concern, the percentage of time when he’s hitting the ball at the right launch angle (8-32 degrees), which powered his surge last year, is significantly down. He has hit just one “barrel” so far.

All told, there is reason to suggest the offense has been more “responsible” for the issues so far this year than the pitching. By Win Probability on Fangraphs, Arizona’s hitting has been worth -96%, which ranks it 22nd in the majors. The pitching is at +46%, ranked 15th. And this might be a surprise: the D-backs’ bullpen is higher still, a +18% figure which comes in twelfth. Yes, our relievers have been better than average at keeping the team in games. I reckon, as mentioned in the comments on yesterday’s recaps, that they have simply had so little room for error. You might expect each reliever to put up a zero. But when you need five of them to do so in a row…

After the bullpen blew it again, the Nats need to get off the mat. Last night was a really disheartening loss that showed just how bad this bullpen is. The offense continues to get the job done though, which is really exciting for the present and future of the club.

With a righty on the mound, the Nats made a few tweaks to the lineup. Luis Garcia Jr. will be back at first base, and hitting second. Jose Tena and Drew Millas are also back in the lineup. The red hot James Wood remains the leadoff man today and will play right field. Miles Mikolas is on the mound against his old team, and this feels like a crossroads moment for him. If he is not doing well early, Brad Lord is well rested and should be ready to roll.

The Cardinals only made a couple lineup changes. Ramos Urias will be back in the lineup, shifting Nolan Gorman to DH. Nathan Church will be in center field over Victor Scott. Otherwise, it is a familiar crew. Nats pitchers will have to watch out for the red hot Jordan Walker, who looks like a different player this year. Former first rounder Michael McGreevy will be on the mound for the Cards.

Game Info:

Stadium: Nationals Park

Time: 4:05 PM EST

TV: Nationals.TV

Radio: 106.7 The Fan

If you like runs, the Nats are a team you would love to watch. The offense has been electric and the pitching has been abysmal. With Miles Mikolas on the mound, hopes are not high for the pitching staff. Hopefully the offense can continue to slug. Follow along in the comments down below and let’s go Nats!

Time for Part 2 of this brief series on early season data points, I was hoping there might be more positives to take away from yesterdays game but alas the beat or baseball season goes on.

Today I will be taking a look at a group of lefty hitters where half of them are off to pretty good starts!! The other two however have been major letdowns.

Andres Gimenez 268/318/463 – 127 WRC+

Gimenez much like the start of last season has started this season hot and he currently leads the Jays in slugging which is good for him but anytime Gimenez leads the team in slugging is likely to bad for the Jays.

For Gimenez the big data point over this small sample is him absolutely crushing right handed pitching, against RHP he is hitting 346/393/654!!!!

Yes unfortunately there is some over performance based on balls in play and quality of contact and he is highly unlikely to maintain this kind of batting line against RHP for the whole season but if you break his splits against RHP by all months where he has seen at least 150 pitches so far this month would rank 2nd in expected batting average, 3rd in expected slugging, 2nd in xWOBA and 2nd in barrel rate.

This month still has lots of time left so not really a fair comparison but so far the first 11 games of the season has been one of the better 11 game hitting stretches against RHP of his career.

Daulton Varsho 171/275/229 47 WRC+

Varsho is clearly off to a rough start especially after being so hot during Spring Training, during the Spring Varsho was doing a great job pairing his new found hard contact from last season with much more contact.

Since the start of the regular season he has so far done a good job maintaining the contact and has raised his contact% all the way up to 82.7% from last seasons 71.7% which has cut his K rate from 28.4% to 15% and he has paired this with a much higher line drive rate of 31% compared to last seasons 16.9%.

Way less Ks and more line drives you would expect this to be a good thing but unfortunately the quality of contact has really fallen off with his hard hit rate dropping from 40.3% to 24.12% and his average exit velocity currently down 7.8 MPH.

It is early but if Varsho can find a happy medium between the all power high K hitter he was last season and the low K line drive guy he has been this season he should be able to help this Jays roster score some runs.

Jesus Sanchez 286/375/429 141 WRC+

I will keep this one pretty short because the Jays have to be happy with what they have received from Sanchez in the batting lineup this season and based on quality of contact he has actually underperformed his expected batted ball stats!!!

A 47.6% hard hit rate, 9.5% barrel rate to go with a 21.9% K rate is a pretty great start to his Blue Jays career.

Addison Barger 053/174/105 – Minus 11 WRC+

Ahhh yeah not a great start to the season for Barger and he is of course now on the IL with an injury.

Even Barger’s 1 hit on the season was a ball that should have been a HR but the RF brought it back and dropped the ball so he was able to get a double but Barger is one dropped HR robbery from still having a 000 batting average.

Digging thru Barger’s data and honestly I don’t have much positives to take away, he is making more contact on both in zone and out of zone pitches so if he gets back to last season’s chase rate he could make some real progress on his K rate

He has still been hitting the ball hard with a 50% hard hit rate so hopefully the IL stint allows him to reset and come back with a better approach and he can combine the new contact rates with his regular quality of contact and get on a roll.

The San Francisco Giants wrap up this series against the Philadelphia Phillies this afternoon from Oracle Park.

Taking the mound for the Giants will be right-hander Tyler Mahle, who enters today’s game with a 7.00 ERA, 5.04 FIP, with nine strikeouts to three walks in nine innings pitched. His last start was in the Giants’ 10-3 loss to the New York Mets on Friday, in which he allowed five runs on eight hits with four strikeouts and two walks in five innings.

He’ll be facing off against Phillies right-hander Aaron Nola, who enters today’s game with a 3.18 ERA, 3.42 FIP, with 16 strikeouts to three walks in 11.1 innings pitched. His last start was in the Phillies’ 10-1 win over the Colorado Rockies on Friday, in which he allowed one run on five hits with nine strikeouts and a walk in six and a third innings. One run allowed at Coors Field is practically a no-hitter, so that’s pretty impressive.

Game #13

Who: San Francisco Giants (4-8) vs. Philadelphia Phillies (6-5)

Where: Oracle Park, San Francisco, California

When: 12:45 p.m. PT

Regional broadcast: NBC Sports Bay Area

National broadcast: n/a

Radio: KNBR 680 AM/104.5 FM, KSFN 1510 AM

Davey Lopes, the second baseman who helped lead the Dodgers to the 1981 World Series, died on Wednesday, the team announced.

“Lopes was a member of the team’s record-setting infield of the 1970s and 1980s and one of the finest basestealers in MLB history,” Los Angeles officials said in a statement just minutes before the Dodgers took the field at Rogers Center in Toronto for a matchup with the Blue Jays.

“Our condolences go out to his family and friends.”

Lopes was 80 years old.

The Washburn University product was picked by the Giants in the eighth round of the 1967 draft, but he did not sign. He was then taken by the Dodgers in the second round of the 1968 draft, and he went on to have a storied career for the Boys in Blue.

He made his debut in 1972, and he became a regular contributor for the Dodgers in 1973. 

He was prolific on the basepaths, stealing 30 or more bags eight times in his 16-year career.

In 1978, he made his first-ever All-Star Game, and he went on to be selected to the league’s Midsummer Classic three more times.

In ’81, he was part of the Dodgers team that defeated the Yankees for the World Series crown.

Lopes finished his career with stints in Oakland, Chicago and Houston, officially wrapping his time as an MLB player in 1987. He ended up playing in a total of 1,812 games and recording 557 stolen bases with a .263 batting average.

Lopes went on to coach in retirement, suiting up for the Rangers, Orioles and Padres in the 1990s. In 2000, he was hired as the Brewers’ manager.

He piled up a 144-195 record before he was fired in 2002.

Lopes later had roles on the Nationals’ and Phillies’ staffs before he returned to the Dodgers to be a first base coach.

He ultimately retired from managing following 2017.

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Davey Lopes, the best second baseman in Los Angeles Dodgers history, died on Wednesday at age 80, the team announced.

Lopes was the oldest member of the Dodgers’ famed infield — the quartet of Lopes, Steve Garvey, Ron Cey, and Bill Russell were regulars for 8 1/2 years, the longest-running infield in major league history — and the latest of the four to debut, but Lopes remained a force atop the Dodgers lineup and one of the best leadoff men in the sport during the 1970s.

“If we weren’t the best infield of all time, we were the most successful,” Cey wrote in his autobiography ‘Penguin Power,’ written with Ken Gurnick. “Every member was a multi-year All-Star, we appeared in more World Series than any infield, and we won a world championship.”

In Lopes’ first seven seasons, from 1973-79, he ranked sixth in the majors in runs scored (639, averaging 91 per season) and was second in stolen bases (371, only two behind Lou Brock; averaging 53 steals per year). He led the majors with 77 steals in 1975, and paced the National League with 63 steals in 1976.

Lopes even stole 47 bases in 1985 with the Astros in the year he turned 40, still the record for any major league player that old in one season, 10 more than Rickey Henderson. Lopes and Henderson are the only players to steal more than 26 bases in a season at age 40 or older. And when Lopes stole 47 bases in 1985, he was only caught four times.

Efficiency was the name of the game for Lopes, too, stealing bases at an 83-percent clip throughout his career, the 12th-best in MLB history for anyone with at least 200 attempts. His 418 stolen bases with the Dodgers are second only to Maury Wills, and Lopes’ 83.1-percent success rate in tops in franchise history.

“A guy that’s a base stealer, he disrupts the crowd, he disrupts the team that he’s playing against, and he can set the tone for the game,” Lopes said in an interview with MASN Sports in 2017 when he coached for the Nationals. “I studied it, from the standpoint of picking up on idiosyncrasies that the pitcher had when he threw to first compared to when he threw to home. The sooner you can pick that up, the quicker you can get out of the box.

“I always talk about quickness, and as soon as I say that most people think of a body movement, but it’s not. It’s what you can recognize with your eyes. The quicker you can recognize a key, the first key that a pitcher is telling you he’s coming over to first or going home, the bigger the jump you’re going to get.”

That wisdom served Lopes well in his three decades of coaching after his playing career ended in 1987. He managed the Brewers from 2000-02, but was otherwise a first base coach from 1988 through 2017 for the Rangers, Orioles, Padres, Nationals, Phillies, and Dodgers, including multiple stints in San Diego and Washington.

In addition to coaching first base, Lopes would often be in charge of coaching baserunning, as he did with the Dodgers from 2011-15, including tutoring a young Dee Gordon. In his first year back in Los Angeles in 2011, the Dodgers stole bases at a 75.9-percent clip, at the time the second-highest clip in franchise history. Three of Lopes’ five years on the Dodgers coaching staff (2011, 2013-14) produced top-14 stolen base success rates in club history.

Lopes was never shy about speaking his mind, both as a player and coach, sometimes in blunt fashion, and suffered no fools. He is the last Dodger to hold official captain status, doing so in 1978 and into 1979, when he resigned from the position midseason as the two-time-defending pennant winners were mired under .500.

“I felt [resigning as captain] was the best thing for myself and the team,” Lopes told Associated Press in June 1979. “This way, we’re all equal. I have no title. Nothing more will be expected of me than anyone else.”

Lopes in 1979 had his best season at the plate, hitting .265/.372/.464, setting career highs in runs scored (109), runs batted in (73), slugging percentage, OPS (.836), and wRC+ (133). His 28 home runs that season were 11 more than he hit in any other year, and coupled with his 44 stolen bases Lopes delivered the first season in Dodgers history with at least 22 home runs and 22 steals.

Those 28 home runs in 1979 still stand as a record by a Dodgers second baseman in a season, tied with Jeff Kent’s 2005 campaign.

In 10 seasons with the Dodgers, Lopes was a part of four pennant-winning teams, and started at second base and batted leadoff in all 45 postseason games for Los Angeles during that stretch. He hit .242/.332/.393 and scored 28 runs in those 45 games, a 101-run pace over a full year. Lopes’ 19 stolen bases still stand as the Dodgers postseason record.

Lopes made four All-Star teams, the last coming in 1981, when the team finally broke through to beat the Yankees in the World Series. But that was his age-36 season, and with second baseman Steve Sax the most ready among the next crop of Dodgers prospects, Lopes was the first member of The Infield to depart. The Dodgers traded Lopes for 20-year-old minor league infielder Lance Hudson in February 1982.

“I think a lot of individuals would like to get through their whole career and stay with one team,” Lopes said after the trade, per the Los Angeles Times. “But there’ll be a time in their careers when everyone is rejected.”

Three quarters of The Infield started their careers at different positions, including Lopes and Russell in the outfield to start their professional careers. Lopes was part of the Dodgers’ legendary 1968 draft hall, long considered the best draft year by a team in major league history. Lopes was taken in the second round of the January draft, and spent the first three-plus seasons in the minors in the outfield before switching to second base.

His 1,150 games at second base are the most in Dodgers franchise history.

Lopes after leaving the Dodgers found new life as a utility man, mixing in time at all three outfield positions in a addition to third base aside from his duties at second. That allowed him to play through his age-42 season for the A’s, Cubs, and Astros. He posted above-average years offensively in each of his last five seasons, and overall hit .265/.348/.410 with a 112 wRC+ after leaving Los Angeles.

In addition to his 30 years of coaching, Lopes played 16 years in the majors, the first 10 of which were with the Dodgers. He hit .263/.349/.388 with 155 home runs, a 111 wRC+, 557 stolen bases, and scored 1,023 runs.

The Dodgers say Lopes is survived by two brothers, Patrick and John, and four sisters, Jean, Judith, Mary and Nina.

Los Angeles Dodgers infielder Miguel Rojas revealed on Instagram that his father, Miguel Rojas Sr., died unexpectedly on Tuesday, April 7.

The Dodgers are currently playing a series against the Toronto Blue Jays, the team they beat in last year's World Series. Rojas played a starring role in the decisive Game 7 by hitting a game-tying home run in the ninth inning.

After missing Tuesday's game, Rojas is back in the lineup for Wednesday's series finale in Toronto, playing shortstop and batting ninth.

“To feel like he can go out there and play in a big league ball game, whether it's a distraction, doing it in honor of his father, whatever reason, I heard that,” Dodgers manager Dave Roberts told reporters before the game.