Category: Sports News

Is this a series featuring two teams headed in opposite directions or early season mirages?

The Pittsburgh Pirates entered the offseason fresh off a seventh consecutive losing season. Their 434-598 record over that span was the second-worst in MLB behind only the Rockies (402-629). A team ERA of 4.58 (26th). 29th in runs scored!

What could be done?

The Pirates decided to retool their dreadful lineup, first by offering Kyle Schwarber a reported 4-year, $125 million deal. When that was rejected (he signed for 5/$150MM), they signed 1B/OF Ryan O’Hearn to a 2-year, $29 million contract and have gotten an .824 OPS out of it. But O’Hearn’s production does not lead the team. That honor belongs to second baseman Brandon Lowe, who was acquired for RHP Mike Burrows in a three-team trade involving the Pirates, Rays, and Astros. He has a Pirates-leading 10 home runs and .941 OPS. He hit .247/.326/.481 for the Rays across 8 seasons, but he’s off to a white-hot start. Even his defense (-23.8 Defensive Runs Above Average in those 8 seasons) has been great (+1.8 in 2026). They also signed Marcell Ozuna to be their DH, but he’s been a Deversian bust to this point, posting a putrid line of .186/.256/.288 in 129 PA.

Former Giants prospect Bryan Reynolds is off to a great start, too, hitting .254/.399/.410 and has played in every game to this point. Joey Bart has been pushed into more of a backup role at this point and in his .619 OPS (54 PA) he has 19 strikeouts against just 2 walks. The Pirates’ own farm hand, Oneil Cruz has shifted from shortstop to center field and has gotten better as a hitting, with a .773 OPS to start the year while playing the new position. He vacated shortstop so that the Pirates could call up their top prospect, Konnor Griffin, all of 20 years old. He’s hitting .257/.320/.389 with a pair of homers and 9 walks against 36 strikeouts in his first 125 major league plate appearances.

So, there’s a buzz in Pittsburgh and not just because it’s the setting of the excellent HBO Max drama The Pitt, but because their baseball team is finally competitive. They’ve been good on the road this season (10-8), though with a negative run differential, too. Regardless of how the season ends, the extra work they put in to reimagine their offense has gone a long way. They’ll be playing a Giants team tha has a distinct lack of imagination when it comes to rebuilding or reimagining any part of the roster, and the “stand pat” attitude towards the lineup coupled with the “win the lottery five times” strategy for the pitching staff seems to have set them up for a lost season just 37 games in.

Sure, you can’t win the division in April, but you can lose it all in May, and so far the Giants are off to a worst month in the second month of the season (1-5) than how they started the season (2-4); but, they’ve also lost 8 of 9. They spent the offseason crowing about how they felt they had the best lineup the franchise has seen in years, but through 37 games they’re merely the absolute worst lineup going in every way. Their pitching is valued at 24th (2.0 fWAR), Pittsburgh’s is ranked 3rd (5.3 fWAR). Knowing that most Giants fans and probably the front office abhor Wins Above Replacement, I’ll look at another stat that makes the gap between these two staffs look smaller than it is: the Pirates’ team ERA of 3.70 is 7th in MLB while the Giants’ 3.99 ERA is 11th. So, there you go. There’s not much of a difference between these two teams in this one very narrow respect. So, if you focus on that, maybe that’ll make it easier to imagine that the Giants are as good as the Pirates have been — unless you’re sticking with recent history and imagining that the Pirates will pumpkin back into the Pirates of the last seven years and the Giants will similarly revert to the… around .500 team they’ve been 5 of the last 6 seasons.

Series overview

Who: Pittsburgh Pirates (21-17) vs. San Francisco Giants (14-23)
Where: Oracle Park | San Francisco, California
When: Friday at 7:15pm PT, Saturday at 6:05pm PT, Sunday at 1:05pm PT
National broadcasts: None.

Projected starters
Friday: Carmen Mlodzinski (RHP 2-2, 4.76 ERA) vs. TBD
Saturday: Braxton Ashcraft (RHP 1-2, 3.02 ERA) vs. TBD
Sunday: Bubba Chandler (RHP 1-4, 4.76 ERA) vs. TBD

Players to watch

Pirates

Konnor Griffin / Brandon Lowe / Bryan Reynolds: Yes, yes, I just mentioned all these guys up above, but over the past two weeks, they’ve really led the Pirates’ lineup, with wRC+s of 183, 182, and 158, respectively. Griffin’s slugging .596 and Lowe .625. Griffin has also stolen 4 bases. Reynolds has scored 11 runs in 13 games and has a walk rate of 24.1% against a strikeout rate of 25.9% — interesting!

Spencer Horwitz: Sort of the big offensive acquisition the Pirates made last offseason in a trade with the Blue Jays. He’s struggled on the road this season (.530 OPS), but the first baseman has a .920 OPS in 31 career PA vs. the Giants, but in Oracle Park he’s hitting .381/.409/.619 in 22 PA with a home run and a pair of doubles. This might be a perfect setup for him, because the Giants might try to get around the hotter hitters in the lineup and forget about him.

Mason Montgomery: He was the other part of the three-team trade that netted Pittsburgh Brandon Lowe and all the 26-year old lefty has done is strike dudes out (22 in 14 IP). Okay, and walked duded (8 in 14 IP). And, uh, even given up a lot of hits to them (1.429 WHIP). But he’s allowed just 1 home run in those 14 innings, and that’s because his stuff is really something, with a 98 mph four-seamer paired with an average-ish curve and high spin slider (2,648 rpm). He’s not the team’s closer (that’s veteran Gregory Santos, who has a 1.42 ERA in 19 IP), but it feels like he’ll come into situations late in the game that will, effectively, decide them.

Giants

Willy Adames: This series will be the definitive test to determine whether or not Willy Adames passed away at some point this season and what we’re seeing haunt the Giants lineup right now is, in fact, a g-g-g-ghost. He has a lot of experience against the Pirates from his NL Central days, and while that .790 career OPS in 299 PA isn’t among the best results against a specific team, if he has a series that good we’ll know he’s still alive.

Jung Hoo Lee: He has just a .611 OPS in his career against Pittsburgh, but let’s balance that against what he’s done over his last 24 games (96 PA): .319/.354/.462 (.816 OPS). This stretches back to that terrible Baltimore-Cincinnati road trip. He has 5 doubles, a triple, and a pair of homers to go with 5 walks against 9 Ks. Of course, he’s just 2-for-22 in the first 6 games of May, so, maybe he’s back in a cold spell along with the rest of the offense? We’ll just have to find out!

Bryce Eldridge: This will be a classic test of a rookie, especially a rookie of the modern game, and especially for Eldridge himself. The three scheduled starters in this series all average either 96, 97, or 98 mph with their fastball, and have one exceptional second pitch while the rest of their arsenals are average/sub-average. Those other exceptional pitches will play around with his tremendous height. Mlodzinski has a splitter he throws more often than that fastball (though, he has a wipeout sweeper too). Ashcraft has a 46.2% whiff rate on his curveball (throw 28.5% of the time). And Chandler has a 92-93 mph changeup.

Tony Vitello watch

He’ll be managing against another first year manager in Don Kelly. The only differences are that Kelly played in the majors for 9 years and was an organizational scout and then staffed as a coach on two major league staffs prior to being named the Pirates’ manager. But, you know, other than that, exactly the same.

Prediction time

The Giants really need to sweep this series to get to a record (17-23) that, historically, has been one that can be recovered from in the quest for a solid season. I’m pretty sure these 2026 Giants are awful, and maybe even historically so, but I’ll let this one last flimsy historical mark be the deciding factor before I delete Have Hope In Your Sports Team app from my brain.

The Atlanta Braves are headed to The City of Angels to face off against the Dodgers after a day of rest. As it turns out, there could not be a better time in the schedule to play this series. The Braves are slotted to use their top half of their rotation, while the Dodgers will go with the bottom half of theirs.

Both teams have had injury issues with their rotations, but both have kept on winning. This series will be the biggest test yet for the Atlanta Braves that have been winning the games that they are supposed to. This will be the first series in quite some time that the Braves will be the underdog, which is always fun to see how teams respond.

The game one matchup tonight will feature Chris Sale against Emmet Sheehan, and in terms of ERA these two pitchers are having very different seasons. Sale is once again starting off strong with a 2.14 ERA and Sheehan is struggling with a 5.23. The season is still young, so the sample sizes are small, but this pitching matchup should make for the one game in the series that the Braves have the best odds of winning.

Chris Sale’s season has been no fluke. He did have the forgettable start on April sixth when he surrendered six runs, but that makes the rest of his work much more impressive. It is crazy to think that a pitcher, this early in the season, could surrender six runs in a 4.0 inning start, yet still own an ERA of 2.14 in the first half of May. Outside of that start with six ERs, Sale has pitched at least six innings in every other start and has not surrendered more than one earned run in any of them. Sale is also trending in the right direction. In his last three starts he is averaging 6.2 innings, 3.0 hits, 0.7 earned runs, 2.0 walks, and 9.0 strikeouts. Those are Cy Young front runner numbers almost every year. The one caveat is that he pitched those three games against the Phillies twice and then the Rockies.

Believe it or not, Chris Sale has not faced the Dodgers’ hitters that often. Outside of Teoscar Hernández that has faced Sale eighteen times, no other Dodger has faced him more in than nine at-bats.

Ironically enough, the player who has had the most success against Sale is former Braves hero, Freddie Freeman. Freeman has nine at-bats against Sale and currently holds a .333 average and 1.222 OPS with a HR. Hernández has an OPS of .818 against him, but no one else has an OPS above .708. Not even world superstar Shohei Ohtani.

The Braves will be facing Emmet Sheehan who has been victim of some poor luck. His ERA is much higher than his expected ERA (xERA) of 4.31. An xERA of 4.31 is not exactly elite, but it is much better than his surface numbers. What could be a recipe for success for the Braves is that Sheehan’s weakness is the Braves’ strength. Sheehan is in the top 25.0 percent of the league in strikeout and walk rates but struggles with giving up hard contact. Sheehan is currently at the bottom 36.0 percent in barrel percentage and bottom 42.0 percent in hard-hit rate. The Braves are currently third in MLB in barrels per plat appearance and eighth in hard-hit percentage. Fun side note, the Braves are first in MLB in batted balls (BBE), and second in MLB in balls hit 95.0 MPH or harder.

It should go without saying that in his young career Sheehan has not faced many of the Braves’ hitters many times. In fact, the last time he faced them was way back in 2023 before his season ending injury that kept him out all of 2024 as well. He has not faced any hitter on the Braves in more than five at-bats, and no player that was on the Braves in 2023 faced him more than twice. Ozzie Albies had two hits on him in that game.

The Atlanta Braves have a legitimate shot to win tonight but bring your coffee because the game does not start till 10:10 EDT.

Game Info

Game Time: Friday, May 8th, 10:10 pm EDT

Location: UNIGLO Field at Dodger Stadium, Los Angeles, CA.

Watch: BravesVision

Radio/Audio: 680 AM / 93.7 FM The Fan

The Diamondbacks are struggling, to say the least. They’re coming off another losing series, this time to the Pirates, where they had one game where everything went swimmingly, then ran into the buzzsaws of Skenes and Present Day Gallen. They’ve lost seven of their last ten, and they are already 5.5 games behind the Dodgers and 3 behind the Pirates and the final Wild Card. The season is almost 25% complete. It’s no longer too early to start looking at that. They need a turnaround. Fast.

Enter the Mets. If there was a team in baseball for the Diamondbacks to right the ship, they would be the one. They’ve done slightly better of late, going 5-5 over their last ten, but that has only brought them to 14-23, which is good enough for dead last in all of baseball, tied with only the Giants. They will be the poster children for the MLBPA as they argue that spending money doesn’t guarantee winning and there doesn’t actually need to be a salary cap after all.

Game 1 — 5/8, 6:40 PM: Ryne Nelson (-0.8 bWAR, 1-3, 6.61 ERA/64 ERA+, 1.43 WHIP) vs. Nolan McLean (0.6 bWAR, 1-2, 2.97 ERA/134 ERA+, 0.94 WHIP)

Nelson pitched pretty decently his last time out against the red hot Cubs. He went 5 2/3 inning, only giving up a run. He did give up two unintentional walks, but balanced it with four strikeouts. Because the offense is struggling nearly as much as the pitching is, that one run was enough for him to get tagged for the loss. Karma for the no decision in his five inning, six run start the game prior. Like all of the starting pitchers on the team, Nelson needs to get it figured out, and fast. This will be a good place to build a trend of his start against the Cubs.

McLean has been a bright spot for the Mets this season. He’s gone out for seven starts so far, and he has yet to give up more than three runs in any of them. However, he is coming off his worst start of the season, where he only lasted four innings and gave up three earned runs. He has already faced the Diamondbacks this season, and it didn’t go great for them. It was a 6 1/3 inning start. They only managed two runs, and they struck out eight times.

Game 2 — 5/9, 4:15: Merrill Kelly (-0.8 bWAR, 1-3, 9.95 ERA/43 ERA+, 2.31 WHIP) Clay Holmes (1.7 bWAR, 4-2, 1.69 ERA/236 ERA+, 0.98 WHIP)

Merrill Kelly is broken, and I’m not sure what else to say here. His command is gone. His ability to prevent runs is gone. It’s early still, but he is on the path to becoming yet another pitcher that the Diamondbacks signed to a multi-year contract and just tanked as soon as they put on the uniform. I’m not sure if it’s fixable. I’m not sure if it’s an injury. I’m not sure if it’s just the undefeated Father Time who comes for us all in the end. But he and the coaching staff need to figure out something soon, or it’s going to be a very long three years.

Holmes has also pitched exceptionally well for the Mets this season. He hasn’t given up more than two runs and has held his opponents scoreless twice already, while pitching into the sixth inning or later every time. One thing of note, however, is that his FIP is 3.65, basically two full runs higher than his ERA. That suggests that he is pitching a bit over his head, and that there might be room for regression if the Diamondbacks’ bats can wake up like they did in Game 1 against the Pirates.

This game will be nationally broadcast on FOX and will not be available on DbacksTV.

Game 3 — 5/10, 1:10 PM: Eduardo Rodriguez (1.3 bWAR, 3-0, 2.50 ERA/168 ERA+, 1.28 WHIP) vs. TBD

E-Rod is coming off his best start as a Diamondback, seven innings, no runs allowed. It was a very emphatic answer to the meeting Torey Lovullo had with the starting pitchers prior to the game. Even before that, however, Rodriguez has been pitching well this season. He had a couple of bumpy starts where he gave up four runs, but in the two starts since then, he’s pitched better.

Conclusion

Well, if you look at just these pitching matchups, it sure is hard to see why the Mets are struggling so bad, isn’t it? Unfortunately for the Mets, starting pitching will only get you so far. If you have a team batting average of .230 and an OPS+ of 83, even giving up two runs is close to catastrophic, which is why this could be a bounce back series for the Diamondbacks. Eduardo pitches like he has most of the season, and either Nelson or Kelly have a good game, this easily goes to the Diamondbacks. Now, how confident am I that will happen? Right now? Not very! but hopefully they’ll prove me wrong.

The Cubs met up with an AL West team in their second series of 2026 and took two of three from an Angels club that has fallen into the basement in their division.

This weekend they’ll visit another AL West team, the Rangers.

For more on the Rangers, here’s Adam Morris, manager of our SB Nation Rangers site Lone Star Ball.

Things are less than ideal for the Texas Rangers currently. The team is three games under .500, and Wyatt Langford and Josh Smith are both on the injured list, and yes, if you check the B-R page, both players have gotten off to bad starts, but Langford, in particular, profiles as one of the Rangers top players, so his absence hurts the lineup.  

On the other hand, the Rangers have played either the most difficult schedule so far this season, or the second most difficult schedule, depending on where you look, and are just two games behind the Northern California Athletics in the American League West, so, you know, things could be worse.

The Rangers will have the Vandy Boys — Kumar Rocker and Jack Leiter — starting the first two games of the series. Each has been up-and-down this season, looking great at times and looking awful at other times, often in the same game.  

Rocker is a sinker/slider guy who has a changeup that is still a work in progress, and who generates a ton of ground balls. His slider is his best pitch, and when he’s on, he throws it for strikes enough to keep hitters from sitting on his sinker. When he’s not on, he struggles to throw strikes and hitters will tee off on his sinker.  Rocker is terrible at holding on runners, and the Rangers catchers aren’t great at throwing out baserunners, so the Cubs will almost certainly look to run on him. Base stealers are 5 for 5 against him this season, and 17 for 17 against him in his major league career.

Leiter, on the other hand, relies on a high-speed, high-spin fastball that generates swings-and-misses.  He introduced a kick-change last year that he’s used much more this year — its his second most frequently thrown pitch — and, unusually, he throws it frequently to righthanded hitters as well as lefties. It can be a devastating pitch, but he struggles to command it — if you look at the heat map for the changeup, you will see that the pitch can end up anywhere from above the batter’s head to hitting the ground 4 feet in front of the plate. When Leiter is on, he racks up Ks and gets a lot of pop ups and lazy fly balls. When he’s not on, his pitch count gets out of control early on, and he gives up a lot of loud contact in the air.  

Jacob deGrom is slated to pitch the finale. You might have heard of him before. He’s pretty good. He’s no longer “best pitcher in baseball” Jacob deGrom, but he is still “legitimate No. 1 starter” Jacob deGrom.  The biggest issue with deGrom is that he’s much more homer-prone since coming back from Tommy John surgery — he’s allowed just 13 runs this year, but 6 home runs, and allowed 26 homers last year.

The bullpen is a collection of no-names, but has performed quite well so far this season. Manager Skip Schumaker has tended to go with Jakob Junis and Jacob Latz as his primary options late in games with a lead.

The offense has been erratic. Corey Seager is off to a slow (for him) start, though he’s still got a 114 OPS+.  Brandon Nimmo and Josh Jung are off to great starts offensively, though Nimmo is nursing a hamstring issue that has limited him of late — he’s missed a couple of games over the past week, and DH’d when he has played. With Smith and Langford out, the Rangers have had to use Andrew McCutchen — on the roster as a platoon DH — in the outfield some, and put Joc Pederson in right field against the Yankees on Thursday, something we hope we will never have to see again.  

Globe Life Park played very hitter-friendly in 2023, when the Rangers won the World Series, but since the start of the 2025 has played as an extreme pitchers park due to the ball not carrying well at all. A ball off the bat that seems like it should land 10 rows back will end up caught on the warning track. Don’t be surprised if we have a low-scoring series.

Fun facts

The Cubs have a winning record against the Rangers all-time, with 14 wins and 13 losses. But they are 5-7 at Texas, where they have won only one of four series, two games to one in 2010. They lost two of three in their two subsequent visits, both to start seasons, in 2019 and 2024.

This is the first of three straight series on the road for the Cubs, their only three-team road trip this season. However, the third series will be in Chicago, on the South Side vs. the White Sox. They will play three games at Atlanta before that one.

(Courtesy BCB’s JohnW53)

Probable pitching matchups

Friday: Ben Brown, RHP (1-1, 2.10 ERA, 1.013 WHIP, 2.71 FIP) vs. Kumar Rocker, RHP (1-3, 4.71 ERA, 1.465 WHIP, 3.98 FIP)

Saturday: Edward Cabrera, RHP (3-0, 3.27 ERA, 1.282 WHIP, 4.01 FIP) vs. Jack Leiter, RHP (1-3, 5.45 ERA, 1.368 WHIP, 4.45 FIP)

Sunday: Jameson Taillon, RHP (2-1, 4.24 ERA, 1.140 WHIP, 6.01 FIP) vs. Jacob deGrom, RHP (2-2, 3.11 ERA, 1.009 WHIP, 3.35 FIP)

Times & TV channels

Friday: 7:05 p.m. CT, Marquee Sports Network, Peacock (streaming, Rangers broadcast, outside the Cubs and Rangers market territories)

Saturday: 6:05 p.m. CT, Marquee Sports Network

Sunday: 1:35 p.m. CT, Marquee Sports Network

Prediction

The Rangers got off to a decent start this year but have lost eight of their last 12. Two of the pitching matchups look favorable to the Cubs, so I’ll say, again, that the Cubs will win two of three.

Up next

The Cubs have Monday off, then head to Atlanta for a three-game series against the Braves beginning Tuesday evening.

Welcome, friends. I hope you brought popcorn and soda, because it’s time for Part 2 of my impromptu review of the Yankees’ first base situation before Ben Rice arrived on the scene. In Part 1, we covered the decline phase of Mark Teixeira and the tragic fate of Greg Bird, but ended on a high note with Luke Voit’s magical 2018 run. Today, we’ll be covering 2019-2024. Without further ado, let’s remember some guys.

2019 – 2021: Voit’s truncated tenure, LeMahieu’s uncomfortable fit, and Rizzo’s introduction

As the 2019 season approached, all eyes were on Luke Voit. I guess hitting 14 home runs in 39 games the year prior has a way of heightening expectations. While Voit could not quite match that level, he had a very strong start to the year, hitting .277/.386/.497 with 16 home runs through June. Everyone in Yankee Universe was just about ready to crown him as the future at first base. However, as with Greg Bird, the injury bug would befall Voit time and time again. 

First, on June 29 during the London Series against the Red Sox, Voit suffered an abdominal injury that sidelined him until July 13, forcing him to miss eight games. Then, on July 31, he was placed on the injured list yet again with a sports hernia. When he returned at the end of August, he simply wasn’t the same. Prior to the hernia, Voit’s wRC+ stood at a robust 132; post-injury, he only managed an 80 wRC+ over 94 plate appearances, with a paltry .138 ISO. Although his overall line (.263/.378/.464, 126 wRC+) was still strong thanks to his early-season performance, the way Voit’s season ended left a bad taste in many a fan’s mouth. 

Fortunately, though, for 2019, the Yankees were able to weather Voit’s absences quite well thanks to two excellent backup options – DJ LeMahieu and Mike Ford. When Voit went down at the end of June, it was LeMahieu, along with the recently acquired Edwin Encarnación, who handled first base. Those of you who have followed the Yankees’ recent years might not remember LeMahieu so fondly, but in 2019, he was truly a force to be reckoned with, hitting .327/.375/.518 while handling multiple infield spots capably. With LeMahieu sliding over to first from second and third, the Yankees did not miss a beat offensively – in 135 plate appearances as a first baseman, LeMahieu hit a sparkling .338/.361/.531. 

LeMahieu also saw time after Voit’s second IL stint, but this time, his first base partner was Mike Ford. A sleeper prospect who had posted strong OBPs in the Yankees’ system for many years prior, Ford was invited to spring training as a non-roster player, and had been assigned to Scranton to start the year before being called up in April when Greg Bird was placed on the IL. While he struggled in his initial April stretch, Voit’s second injury gave him another opening, and he sure made the most of it. In 84 August PAs, Ford hit eight homers with a .582 slugging percentage, good for a 121 wRC+. Between Ford and LeMahieu, first base was in good hands despite Luke Voit’s injuries and subsequent struggles, at least for 2019.

Coming into 2020, there was some uncertainty around how Voit would perform (although if that was your main preoccupation at the time, you should consider yourself lucky). However, Voit quickly silenced any doubters. In a pandemic-shortened season, Voit hit .277/.338/.610, and led the league with 22 dingers in just 234 PAs. Unfortunately, Mike Ford cratered, managing only a 37 wRC+ in 84 PAs. However, you don’t really have to worry that much about how your backup 1B is doing when your starter is running a 153 wRC+. Once again, Voit had shown that he was capable of being an elite player – the only question was whether he would be able to sustain that over a full year, and Yankeedom could not wait for that question to be answered in 2021.

So, the baseball gods being the bullies that they are, naturally it was time for Voit’s body to betray him again. On March 27, it was announced that he had partially torn his meniscus in his right knee and would undergo surgery. It wasn’t until May 11 that he would make his season debut, and just twelve games later, he landed on the IL again with an oblique strain, sidelining him for a month. Then, on July 11, Voit suffered a bone bruise, forcing him to miss yet another month. When all was said and done, Voit was only able to play 68 games, and while his 11 homers and 113 wRC+ weren’t terrible, it was a far cry from his peak form.

Unlike 2019, the 2021 Yankees’ backup options could not carry them. Fresh off winning the AL batting title, the magic was gone from LeMahieu’s bat, and he could only manage a 101 wRC+ – fine if you’re a slick defender at second and third, but inexcusable if you’re manning first. Ford could not bounce back from his awful 2020, hitting just .136 with three homers in his 21 games at first base. The Yankees tried throwing Jay Bruce and Chris Gittens at the wall, but they disintegrated upon impact. It was painfully clear that the Bombers did not have any in-house options.

So, the Yankees got creative. On July 29, they sent prospects Kevin Alcántara and Alexander Vizcaíno along with cash considerations to the Cubs for Anthony Rizzo. At the time, Rizzo was enduring the worst full season of his career since 2013, when he was still a budding major leaguer. At 31 years of age, it was abundantly clear that Rizzo had entered his decline phase. However, even a diminished Rizzo was head and shoulders above the Yankees’ other options at the time. He hit for a 115 wRC+ over 200 plate appearances with the Yanks, and coupled with Luke Voit’s struggles with injury, that was enough for Brian Cashman to hand him the keys to the first base job. On March 17, 2022, the Yankees signed Rizzo to a two-year, $32-million deal. A day later, they shipped Voit to the Padres for Justin Lange. Thus ended Luke Voit’s Bronx tenure – what an unceremonious end, given that it had started with such promise.

2022 – 2024: Rizzo falls victim to injuries, Yankees’ mismanagement; A new hope

Going into the 2022 season, there was some trepidation with Rizzo given his age and his performance in the prior year. However, Rizzo responded resoundingly with a resurgent year with the bat, hitting .224/.331/.480 (131 wRC+) with 32 homers in 548 plate appearances. Even though he was hampered by injuries, particularly in the second half of the season – first by back spasms, then by the aftereffects of an epidural injection gone wrong – Rizzo managed to be a stable presence at first base for the first time in what felt like forever. Indeed, his 117 games at 1B were the most by a Yankees first baseman since…Lyle Overbay’s 119 games in 2013. Man, that 2013 team sure was something.

In the offseason, Rizzo bet on himself, opting out of his deal and becoming a free agent. However, the Yankees weren’t going to let their first “real” 1B in nearly a decade slip away. They signed him to another two-year deal, this time for $40 million, and Yankees fans everywhere rejoiced. Then, as the 2023 season started, Rizzo did the unthinkable – he was even better than the year before. Through May 28, 2023, Rizzo hit .304/.376/.505, good for a 145 wRC+.

Why was I so specific about the date there? Because that was the day it all went south for Rizzo and the Yankees.

That day, during a pickoff attempt at first base, Fernando Tatis, Jr. rushed back to the bag, and his right hip collided squarely with the side of Rizzo’s head.

Hindsight is 20/20, but reviewing the video, it’s painfully clear that the play left Rizzo seriously disoriented. Watch the way he sluggishly rises to his full height, tries to tag Tatis again like he’s not sure where he is, and stumbles off towards second base like he’s had one too many beers. He left the game due to what was initially described as a “neck injury”, but even to the untrained eye, it seems quite obvious that Rizzo was suffering from a concussion.

Fortunately, the Yankees eventually reached the same conclusion. Unfortunately for Rizzo, it took fourty-six games for them to do so.

For more than two whole months, the Yankees kept on running Rizzo out, despite the fact that he was experiencing signs of post-concussion syndrome such as grogginess and fogginess, and the fact that his post-injury performance (a 43 wRC+ over 192 PAs) should have been cause for alarm in itself. Sure, he passed MLB’s initial concussion testing, but that’s no excuse for the Yankees to have continued to play Rizzo for as long as they did. For the record, in Chris Kirshner’s postmortem interview with Rizzo regarding the whole fiasco for The Athletic, Rizzo claimed that neither he nor the Yankees handled anything wrongly, explaining that he was hesitant to blame his struggles on the collision with Tatis because “we’re not bred to come up with excuses”.

I’m going to cut Rizzo some slack here. Although the “play through pain” mentality is just another example of how patriarchy harms men, I think it’s unrealistic to expect someone like Rizzo, who has spent nearly his entire life in a hyper-masculine, hyper-competitive field, to suddenly have a moment of clarity and concede that something wasn’t right. But I’m not inclined to extend the same courtesy to the Yankees. They have a responsibility to put their players’ health before anything else, especially for an issue as serious as this. Reading the Kirshner interview, it seemed like the team waited for Rizzo to come forward to conduct additional testing, but the onus should be on the team to look out for their players.

The hope for 2024 was that Rizzo would able to recover from this ordeal and return to his career norms. That did not happen. Limited to 92 games due to a mid-June arm fracture that sidelined him until September, Rizzo hit a pitiful .228/.301/.335 (85 wRC+). Somehow, the Yankees saw enough in him to stick with him at first base in the playoffs, but it did not end well, both offensively (he went 2-for-16 in the World Series) and defensively. After the season ended, the Yankees declined his $17 million option, making him a free agent. He went unsigned, and in September 2025, he officially announced his retirement.

However, all was not lost for the Yankees. A certain unheralded prospect made his debut in 2024. Always old for his level, no one expected much of him, but he burst on to the scene, becoming the first Yankees rookie to dinger thrice in one game. And though a hellacious slump prompted the Yankees to send him down to Scranton in late August, his peripherals suggested that he was much better than the back of his baseball card. His name was Ben Rice, and I guess you all know what happened next.

So, that concludes our trip to the pre-Rice era. The moral of the story is: don’t take what Rice is doing now for granted. Savor every moment. I hope he’s able to enjoy a long, healthy career, but you just don’t know. And if Rice ever finds himself in a slump, remember this article and remind yourself that it could always be worse.

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Two National League division leaders begin a weekend series tonight as the Atlanta Braves visit the Los Angeles Dodgers. 

The Braves are tied for the best record in baseball at 26-12, while the Dodgers are at 23-14.

I’m backing Chris Sale and the visitors with my Braves vs. Dodgers predictions and MLB picks for Friday, May 8.

Who will win Braves vs Dodgers today: Braves moneyline (+108)

The Atlanta Braves and Chris Sale at plus money? That’s difficult to pass up.

Sale has been his typical dominant self with a 2.14 ERA, and Atlanta has come away victorious in six of his seven starts. His 114 Stuff+ ranks seventh among starters — well ahead of his pitching counterpart on Friday, Emmet Sheehan (169th among starters with a 93 Stuff+).

Sheehan’s velocity is down a full tick from last year, and he’s offered no mercy against an Atlanta lineup that has plated the most runs (213) in the MLB.

COVERS INTEL: Sale has dominated the Dodgers’ projected starting lineup, limiting them to a .535 OPS across 69 at-bats with a 21-5 strikeout-walk ratio.

Braves vs Dodgers Over/Under pick: Under 8 (-110)

Two of the most effective bullpens in baseball, and one of the most lethal starting pitchers? Yeah, that’s enough for me to take the Under. 

All of the top arms will be available for both teams after Thursday’s off day. Atlanta’s pen ranks third in bullpen SIERA (3.27), and the Los Angeles Dodgers are right behind (3.30).

While Sheehan’s 5.23 ERA is a worry, his 3.11 xFIP is more encouraging, and he’s turned things on lately with 18 Ks in his last two starts. 

Sale, meanwhile, has held some of the Dodgers' best bats (Kyle Tucker, Shohei Ohtani, Will Smith) to a combined 2-for-21 at the dish.

Braves vs Dodgers odds

• Moneyline: Braves +102 | Dodgers -120
• Run line: Braves +1.5 | Dodgers -1.5
• Over/Under: Over 8 | Under 8

Braves vs Dodgers trend

Atlanta is 6-1 in games where Chris Sale is the starting pitcher. Find more MLB betting trends for Braves vs. Dodgers.

How to watch Braves vs Dodgers and game info

Braves vs Dodgers latest injuries

Braves vs Dodgers weather

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