Category: Sports News

What we learned as Robbie Ray's dominant start fuels Giants' win over D-backs originally appeared on NBC Sports Bay Area

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PHOENIX — Bob Melvin shrugged and grimaced on Thursday afternoon when asked if Camilo Doval and Randy Rodriguez would be available for the series finale. The bullpen had to work hard in Wednesday’s extra-innings win, and Melvin knew he would have to get creative if he was protecting a lead a day later. 

Robbie Ray told his manager not to worry about it. 

Making his first start at Chase Field as a visitor, the left-hander was perfect until a solo homer from Eugenio Suarez in the fifth. That was one of just three hits from the Diamondbacks, as Ray led a dominant 7-2 win that secured a series split that seemed unlikely at multiple points this week. 

Ray cruised through the night, throwing just 57 pitches through six innings. He was at 78 after eight, allowing him to chase his first complete game since 2017, when he was a Diamondback. 

A soft groundout opened the ninth before Ketel Marte yanked a solo homer down the line. After a walk of Geraldo Perdomo, pitching coach J.P. Martinez came out for a mound meeting. Lourdes Gurriel Jr. popped the next pitch up and Ray struck out Eugenio Suarez to end the night.  

Ray Day = Win Day

Ray was likely in line to make his second All-Star team anyway, but you never know how things will shake out when MLB has to account for having one player from every team. His dominant start Thursday was well-timed, giving him one last push three days before teams are announced. Now, it should be a no-brainer. 

Ray finished the night ranked eighth in the NL in ERA and tied for fourth in innings. He is one of three National League pitchers with nine wins and the Giants are 14-4 in his starts. 

Back In Black (Jerseys)

Willy Adames took much better swings in June, but he still had just a .675 OPS in the month. In July, the production has arrived. 

Adames hit a 425-foot rocket in his second plate appearance that would have been a home run in 29 ballparks. At Chase Field, where there’s a mammoth wall in center and an elevated yellow line, it was a very, very long double. Umpires reviewed it, but it hit the wall a few feet under the yellow line. 

Willy Adames teed off on this ball 🏌️‍♂️ pic.twitter.com/Mn7z7MFdis

— SF Giants on NBCS (@NBCSGiants) July 4, 2025

Adames later yanked a double down the left field line, giving him his first multi-double game as a Giant. Two days after a loud homer, he also had a walk and infield single. 

That’s Sick, Dude

Heliot Ramos was under the weather early in the series and it showed. Melvin gave him Wednesday off to recover, and when the clubhouse opened on Thursday, Ramos was all smiles. Whatever it was — and he didn’t know — had passed. 

Ramos looked like himself Thursday. He had an RBI double in his first at-bat and an RBI single in the third as the Giants jumped out to a 4-0 lead.

Heliot gets it started 🙌 pic.twitter.com/edT0UlIOzX

— SF Giants on NBCS (@NBCSGiants) July 4, 2025

The left fielder is unlikely to make a second straight All-Star team given the depth at outfield in the National League, but he’ll take a .277 average and .804 OPS back to California. 

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As the Mets deal with a growing list of injuries to their starting rotation, president of baseball operations David Stearns said on Thursday that while “every option is on the table,” his preference is to not call up one of the club’s top pitching prospects like Brandon Sproat or Nolan McLean to make a spot start.

“My preference is to not bring up a top prospect for a spot start,” Stearns said. “I also understand this is a unique circumstance and I can’t take anything off the table right now, but my preference would be to figure out a way to do it without doing that.”

While Kodai Senga (hamstring) and Sean Manaea (oblique) continue to take positive steps in their individual recoveries and could each be back in the rotation before the All-Star break, the Mets come into this weekend’s Subway Series against the Yankees with question marks when it comes to both Friday and Sunday’s starters.

Paul Blackburn had been scheduled to start on Friday, but he’s since landed on the IL with a shoulder impingement. Sunday’s game, meanwhile, has been up in the air all week, but Stearns made it seem pretty evident that neither Sproat nor McLean will get called up, though it’s not entirely out of the question.

“I think from a developmental standpoint we prefer -- again, it’s not always possible -- but we prefer and I’ve seen over my career that it’s often beneficial for pitchers who you expect to pitch in your rotation for years to come to have a little bit of runway when they break into the major leagues,” Stearns said. “It’s not easy to come up here and perform right away. Sometimes it takes two, three, four, five starts to get your feet under yourself at the major league level, and I think allowing a pitcher, especially a top prospect pitcher, to have that runway can be helpful sometimes, both from a physical and a psychological standpoint. There’s also the reality of a baseball season that you have to get through, so you don’t always get to follow the perfect path.”

“The clear downside to giving someone the ball and having them not have a good outing, a short start, whatever it is, is you put your major league team in a hole,” Stearns added later. “So step one is we’d like to avoid that outcome. For the individual player’s development, you never know. I’m certain there are pitching prospects and prospects in general who will handle that just fine, and there are others who it probably impacts a little bit more, and trying to figure out which is which can be difficult. It’s also perfectly possible that you call someone up, they give you five good innings, and then go back down and continue their development.

“I’m certainly aware of all of these outcomes, and we’re sorting through it.”

 While nothing is set in stone in regards to this weekend’s pitching plans, Stearns and the Mets will explore every possible avenue, including bullpen games, using an opener with a bulk option to follow, as well as looking at the Triple-A and other major league rosters, in order to fulfill their current needs on the mound.

“I think every option is on the table, and we’re discussing all of them,” Stearns said, ‘whether that’s more days like [Wednesday] with an opener followed by a length option followed by the bullpen, whether we go straight bullpen days, whether we call up additional starters from the minor leagues, whether we seek external help, we’re going to evaluate everything.

“We’ll get through it. I do think we have options to get through this, and this is more of a short-term need than a longer-term need. We feel good about where Senga is in his process. We feel good about where Sean is, getting back, so clearly this weekend we have decisions to make, and then we have an off day and we get into next week and it becomes a little cleaner.”

Mets ace Kodai Senga, whohas been out since June 12 due to a hamstring injury, appears ready to take another step forward in his rehab.

Manager Carlos Mendoza said prior to Thursday's game that Senga is expected to take the mound Saturday or Sunday for Double-A Binghamton.

"He was going through PFPs, some running drills, and all that," Mendoza said. "The goal is for him to pitch in a minor league game, I think it's in Double-A, either Saturday or Sunday. He's going to make an appearance there and we'll go from there."

Mendoza mentioned on Tuesday that Senga faced hitters on Sunday during "an up-and-down" live bullpen session and was scheduled to throw another bullpen session on Wednesday.

When asked how many rehab starts Senga will need before he could return to the bigs, Mendoza was optimistic on the right-hander's timeline.

"One at a time," Mendoza said. "Hopefully it's the one here this weekend. He might be in play for us before the break, too."

Senga's return would be huge for New York, as they are in need of healthy starting pitchers. Paul Blackburn (shoulder impingement) hit the IL Thursday, joining the recently added Tylor Megill (right elbow sprain) and Griffin Canning (season-ending Achilles injury). Mendoza did note that Sean Manaea is expected to have another rehab start after tossing 60 pitches over three-plus innings on Wednesday and could also be back before the All-Star break.

The Mets wrap up their three-game series with the Milwaukee Brewers on Thursday, followed by a weekend Subway Series at Citi Field, a three-game set in Baltimore, and three more games in Kansas City before the All-Star break, starting on Monday, July 14.

New York Rangers president and general manager Chris Drury accomplished everything he wanted to do during the 2025 offseason.

Drury called these past few weeks“busy and exciting” as the Rangers have made a slew of moves over the past few weeks.

What exactly has made this offseason such a grand success so far?

The Blueshirts opened the summer with arguably the most monumental choices by trading longtime Ranger forward Chris Kreider.

It seemed at one point that Kreider would finish his career in New York, but it didn’t quite work out that way. 

Kreider struggled with injuries and saw a steep decrease in his overall stats during the 2024-25 season. On top of it all, he was the subject of trade rumors throughout the year, which certainly didn’t help make matters any better. 

While the 34-year-old should still have some quality hockey in his arsonal, Kreider’s decline was obvious to all watching the Rangers and he’s still under contract for another two seasons at an average annual value of $6.5 million. 

Drury is no stranger to dumping salary as he traded Jacob Trouba without retaining any of his salary and waived Barclay Goodrow when he was still under contract for another couple of seasons. 

The goal was not to retain any of Kreider’s salary, and that’s exactly what Drury did, trading him to the Ducks, who took on his entire contract. 

Speaking to the media on Wednesday, Drury confirmed the Kreider trade had a lot to do with the ability to have more cap space. 

“It’s not always the easiest thing to do,” Drury said about trading Kreider. I could tell you that Chris himself and his agent were terrific to deal with in trying to figure out a solution here… A big piece of it was salary cap. There’s only so much to go around in trying to figure out the pieces that fit under the cap as we tried to rework the roster.”

The next big decision came at around the time of the 2025 NHL Draft when the Rangers had to decide whether to keep their 12th overall pick this year or 2026 first-round pick. 

As part of the J.T. Miller trade, the Rangers had to relinquish either their 2025 or 2026 first-round pick. 

Drury ultimately decided to keep his 2026 first rounder and transfer the 2025 12th overall pick to the Pittsburgh Penguins. 

Despite not holding a selection in the opening round, the Rangers were able to draft forward Malcolm Spence with the 43rd overall pick, a player many predicted would be off the board by the end of the first round, further validating New York’s big decision. 

“Malcolm is an excellent winger, power play, PK (penalty kill), plays the game the right way,” Rangers director of player personnel John Lilley said. “He doesn't cheat the game. We’ve valued him for a few years now… I think he was projected to go quite a bit higher, so when the opportunity presented itself, we were thrilled to get him in that spot, and we think he's got a lot of potential and a high-character player.”

When it came to free agency, the Rangers were able to fetch one of the most sought-after players available on the market. 

There’s no doubt that the Blueshirts struggled from a defensive standpoint this past season, which is why the team went out and gave Vladislav Gavrikov a seven-year, $49 million contract.

“It starts in our D-zone,” Drury said when explaining the Gavrikov signing. “We have to be better in our zone, we have to be better in front of (Igor Shesterkin) and (Jonathan Quick). To me, that’s the mindset he shows up with every single day. 

Vladislav Gavrikov Is The Most Important Piece Of The Rangers' Massive Defensive Reconstruction The New York Rangers made a substantial financial commitment, giving defenseman Vladislav Gavrikov a seven-year, $49 million contract. 

“The size, the reach, the competitiveness, the way he defends and the way he is able to complement his partner, whether that’s Fox or any other of our right-shot D that we have, that’s what excited all of us in targeting this player. Thrilled to be able to have him as a key part of that D corps.”

The addition of Gavrikov made K’Andre Miller more expendable whom the Rangers were hesitant to give a long-term contract extension to. 

K’Andre’s lack of growth made it difficult for the Rangers to fathom committing a large amount of money to him. 

The Hurricanes were interested in the 25-year-old defenseman, and the two teams completed a sign-and-trade where the Rangers were able to acquire Scott Morrow, a conditional 2026 first-round pick, and a 2026 second-round pick. 

“With a young player that’s a year or a couple years away from free agency, it’s not always the easiest thing to come to an agreement on a long-term contract,” Drury said about Miller. “We just felt at this time it was best to allow him to explore a different opportunity.”

The last major order of business was to sign Will Cuylle to a two-year contract extension worth $3.9 million per season.

Cuylle is an emerging young talent for the Rangers who has shown a lot of potential. The Blueshirts were able to escape not giving Cuylle a long-term contract extension just yet, while no other teams attempted to offer-sheet him.

Now, the Rangers will be able to evaluate Cuylle’s progression even further and assess whether they want to commit to him long-term.  

So to recap it all, the Rangers dumped off some necessary salary, keeped their 2026-first round pick while drafting a high-quality prospect in the second round, signed a defensive anchor, got a quality return for a player they did not want to give a long-term extension to and, signed one of their most high-coveted young players to a team-friendly deal.

All of Drury’s goals have been fulfilled, and now the Rangers will have to build upon this impressive offseason.

The Yankees are reportedly bolstering their infield depth.

According to FanSided’s Robert Murray, the Yankees are adding infielder Nicky Lopez on a minor-league deal.

Lopez, 30, has played for five different teams during his seven-year big league career. This season alone, Lopez has been with the Angels, Cubs, and Diamondbacks, appearing in 14 games with the Cubs and four with the Angels.

Though Lopez has never been a great hitter (career 72 OPS+ with a .245 batting average), he’s always been a wizard defensively. A Gold Glove finalist with the Royals in 2020 and the White Sox in 2024, Lopez ranked in the 88^th percentile last season with 5 Outs Above Average.

While it’s no sure thing that he’ll make his way to the major league roster, Lopez gives the Yankees a very interesting potential bench player who could come into games late as a defensive replacement. Between Jazz Chisholm Jr., Anthony Volpe, and DJ LeMahieu, the Yankees have had their issues along the infield, and Lopez, who can play just about anywhere, could be an instant defensive upgrade.