Category: Sports News

The Syracuse Mets were in action on Wednesday night and two prospects made their mark in the eventual 7-6 win over Buffalo.

Drew Gilbert was front and center in Syracuse's comeback. With the Mets down 2-0 in the third, Gilbert came up with one out and runners on second and third. The left-handed slugger fell behind in the count 0-2 before he fouled off four straight pitches.

He eventually worked the count to 2-2 before he lined a curveball down the right field line just out of reach of the right fielder for a two-run triple. It was the 12th pitch of the at-bat and Gilbert's 20th and 21st RBI of the minor league season between Low-A and Triple-A.

Gilbert finished 1-for-2 with two walks and that triple extended his hitting streak to five games.

In 39 games in Triple-A, Gilbert is slashing .214/.343/.321 with two home runs and 15 RBI.

Drew Gilbert works a 12-pitch at-bat and is rewarded with an RBI triple! pic.twitter.com/dV99duApgB

— Syracuse Mets (@SyracuseMets) June 4, 2025

On the mound, Blade Tidwell made his 11th start for Syracuse this season and was effective. The right-hander threw 89 pitches (51 strikes) across six innings, allowing three runs on six hits (two home runs) and four walks while striking out three batters.

Tidwell improved his record to 4-2 on the season but his ERA increased from 3.97 to 4.02 on the year.

The 23-year-old has continued to be a quality pitcher in Syracuse, pitching to a 1.23 WHIP to go along with the 4.02 ERA while striking out 64 batters across 53.2 innings pitched.

On a not-so-positive note, reliever Dedniel Nunez was hit hard on Wednesday. With Syracuse up 7-3 in the ninth, Nunez allowed a three-run shot before finishing the game. In his one inning of work, Nunez allowed three runs on three hits and a walk. It's Nunez's worst appearance since being optioned back to Triple-A in mid-May. In six appearances, he's allowed four runs, three coming on Wednesday.

After leaving Sunday's game with a thumb injury against the Dodgers, Yankees outfielder Jasson Dominguez has missed the team's last two games, including Wednesday night's loss against the Cleveland Guardians.

Manager Aaron Boone said before the game that Dominguez was feeling better and was available to pinch-run in Tuesday's game, but the team wanted the young outfielder to swing a bat in the cages on Wednesday without issue before he could return to the lineup. After the game, Boone was asked about Dominguez and the Yankees skipper was encouraged, saying everything went well in the cages.

"He should be good to go," Boone said.

Dominguez is slashing .247/.346/.420 with a .765 OPS this season with six home runs and 25 RBI in 49 games. The young outfielder is not an everyday player for Boone yet and is currently part of a four-man outfield that includes Aaron Judge, Trent Grisham and Cody Bellinger.

Fernando Cruz first appearance off IL

Cruz made his triumphant return to the Yankees bullpen when he was activated on Tuesday, but didn't have his first appearance back off the IL until Wednesday, where he pitched a solid inning.

He struck out three batters but made one mistake pitch to Manzardo, who deposited his fastball over the right-center field wall.

"I thought Cruz was really good," Boone said after the game. "Obviously gave up the homer, Manzardo got him and ambushed him a little bit. Thought stuff was really good. Thought the fastball was good and tallied up three more of the ugliest swings on the forkball.

"Good to get him back in there. His stuff resembled who he is. He was pretty sharp. Manzardo just got him on a good swing on a fastball. Good to see him back out there. Reasonable pitch count, hopefully on his way again."

"I feel amazing," Cruz said of how he felt after the game. "Feel like everything was there. Velocity was there, stuff was there. Splitter feel amazing. Everything felt amazing out of my hand. It's a good time to give the team what it need. I'm ready, I feel good."

Cruz has become one of Boone's best relievers this season. After Wednesday's appearance, the 35-year-old has pitched to a 2.92 ERA and 1.01 WHIP but with 38 strikeouts in 24.2 innings.

Yankees manager Aaron Boone was not ready on Wednesday to announce the next steps for Giancarlo Stanton’s return from the injured list. But the slugger’s timetable is gradually becoming clearer.

Word around the Yanks is that Stanton could remain in Tampa over the weekend, then begin a rehab assignment as soon as early next week. If that goes off as planned, it’s reasonable to speculate that Stanton would make his season debut in or around mid-June.

Stanton, last seen propelling the Yanks to an American League pennant last fall, has yet to play in 2025 due to tendinitis in both elbows.

He has lately been working out and getting live at-bats at the team’s complex in Florida.

"Today was just a workout day,” Boone said on Wednesday afternoon. “I think he was doing baseball activities [but not live at-bats] today. He's probably headed up here, but I don't know the next step if it's a rehab assignment or what. Hopefully, we'll have that in the next 24 hours."

Asked if Stanton could forgo a rehab assignment, as he has in the past, Boone said, "I don't want to speak too soon. We'll see."

The prediction here is that Stanton will indeed go on a brief rehab.

He is 71 home runs away from 500 in his career, which would seal his Hall of Fame case.

Clarke Schmidt allowed three runs in the top half of the first inning, and Yankees batters could only muster five hits in response in a 4-0 loss to the Cleveland Guardians on Wednesday night in The Bronx. 

New York was shut out for just the second time this season as they left six runners on base and went 0-for-3 with runners in scoring position. The Yankees struck out 10 times and fell to 37-22 on the year, 19-9 at home.

"We just didn't mount much offensively tonight," manager Aaron Boone said after the game. "I thought we got pitched pretty tough; we just didn't have a great night. It happens in the 162."

Here are the takeaways...

- Schmidt issued a walk to Steven Kwan to start the top of the first and then served up a 394-foot home run on the first pitch to Angel Martínez, as the cutter hung right over the heart of the plate. José Ramírez took a cutter at the top of the zone for a double to right and came around to score on a two-out Daniel Schneemann double to right as he tagged the knuckle-curve. The right-hander's 26th pitch of the inning ended the frame, blowing a fastball past Gabriel Arias, Cleveland’s lone right-handed batter in the starting lineup.

After the first, Schmidt settled down and retired 12 of the next 14 batters, allowing just a pair of two-out singles while tallying six strikeouts. "He stayed true to his stuff," Boone said, adding that mixing in his curveball and fastball allowed him to "settle in" against the lefty-heavy lineup.

Cleveland put two on with one out in the sixth on a single and a checked-swing infield hit, leading to Matt Blake’s second mound visit of the night. The pitching coach said the right words as Schmidt got Arias swinging for the third time of the night. Boone summoned lefty Brent Headrick to get the final out to strand a pair.

Schmidt’s final line: 5.2 innings, three runs, seven hits, one walk, eight strikeouts on 91 pitches (64 strikes) to see his ERA rise to 4.04 on the year.

- Ben Rice, who lined out in the first when he smashed a ball (102.9 mph off the bat) to the opposite way, had better luck in the third inning, rocketing a single to right (108.8 mph) to give Aaron Judge a two-out chance with two runners on base. But Cleveland starter Luis Ortiz got Judge looking at a breaking pitch right over the plate to end the frame.

The Guardians' righty gave Yanks batters tons of trouble through the first five frames, tallying seven strikeouts with two hits (both singles) and two walks. Ortiz had 13 whiffs on 40 swings with 14 called strikes, and his slider was particularly good.

"He kinda kept us at bay and we really didn't sting the ball much off him at all," Boone said of Ortiz's start. "Pretty slow night for us offensively."

Judge, who singled his first time up, got his second hit of the night with two outs in the sixth, which ended Ortiz’s night. But lefty Tim Herrin stranded the inherited runner. 

- Against Cleveland closer Emmanuel Clase in the ninth, Rice grabbed an infield hit to second, but Judge went down swinging, before Cody Bellinger sliced a ground-rule double on a ball that just stayed fair down the left-field line. But in just their second and third at-bats with a runner in scoring position on the night (and first since the third inning), Clase got two strikeouts to close the door.

Rice finished the day 2-for-4, grounding into a rare 5-3 double play thanks to a Cleveland shift on a tapper toward the middle. Judge also went 2-for-4 with two strikeouts as his average rose to .389 on the year. Bellinger finished with one hit in four at-bats as he is in a 5-for-30 funk, but did end a streak of eight games without an extra-base hit.

- Anthony Volpe grounded out three times, but accounted for five outs as he bounced into 5-4-3 and 4-6-3 twin killings to finish 0-for-3. He entered the night hitting into just two double-plays in his first 58 games of the campaign.

- Paul Goldschmidt was 0-for-3 with a walk and two strikeouts.

- Jazz Chisholm Jr., in his second game back from the IL, struck out swinging in each of his first two at-bats. He finished 0-for-3, reaching on an error in the seventh.

- Austin Wells was hitless in three at-bats with a strikeout.

- DJ LeMahieu finished 0-for-3 with a strikeout looking.

- Trent Grisham went 0-for-2 with two walks and a strikeout

- Out of the bullpen: Headrick allowed a hit but only faced four batters thanks to a double-play ball in 1.2 innings.

Fernando Cruz, making his first appearance since May 17 after an IL stint, struck out the first two batters swinging at his devastating splitter to start the eighth, but left a 1-0 fastball up over the plate to Kyle Manzardo, who clobbered it 402 feet into the Yankee bullpen. Schneemann followed with a double to the right-field corner, but Cruz got Arias swinging at a splitter in the dirt to strand the runner.

A couple singles off Tim Hill put two on and one out in the ninth, but the lefty got a strikeout and a foul popout. Yankees pitchers surrendered 12 hits and a walk, but stranded eight runners by holding the visitors to 1-for-9 with runners in scoring position.

What's next

The three-game series concludes on Thursday night with a 7:05 first pitch.

Left-hander Max Fried (1.92 ERA, 0.973 WHIP in 75 innings) gets the ball for the home team. Righty Slade Cecconi (5.28 ERA, 1.435 WHIP in 15.1 innings) gets the ball for the visitors.

Prior to Wednesday's matchup with the Dodgers in Los Angeles, Mets manager Carlos Mendoza gave updates on a number of injured players...

Sean Manaea's first rehab start set

The Mets skipper revealed when Manaea will finally get some game action after a months-long recovery process from a strained right oblique.

Mendoza said that Manaea is scheduled to have his first rehab start on Friday with High-A Brooklyn. The Cyclones are on the road, but Manaea will appear in that game with the expectation to have two ups and 35 pitches or so.

Manaea threw 29 pitches in a live bullpen that "went well" earlier this week and the Mets starter recovered well and is not ready for the ramp up until he returns to the Mets rotation.

Frankie Montas' next step unclear

Montas has had a few rehab outings as the veteran right-hander recovers from a lat strain, and his latest came Tuesday with Triple-A. It was the first rehab start for Montas in Syracuse and he was not effective across his four-plus innings of work.

Mendoza was asked about Montas and the Mets skipper said they have to wait to see how he recovers from his latest start but he did not know how many rehab starts his pitcher will need. He did say they wanted to continue to build him up, but they have 20 days until his rehab assignment is officially completed, and they will have to revisit then.

In Tuesday's start, Montas threw 61 pitches (43 strikes) but allowed six hits, three for home runs.

Good news on Mark Vientos

The Mets placed Vientos on the 10-day IL on Tuesday with a hamstring strain but Mendoza provided a positive update on the young slugger.

"We got relatively good news. It’s a low-grade strain," he said. "Going to treat it for the next 10-14 days until he’s symptom-free and then ramp him back up. Good news there."

Vientos hit a slow grounder to the left side in extra innings of Monday's game but collapsed running up the first base line and stayed down for a bit. He eventually got back up and grabbed his hamstring as he made his way to the dugout. After the game, Mendoza said the injury "didn't look good" so he was pleasantly surprised by the results of the testing on Vientos.

"You never know, guy goes down the way he did. You kinda expect the worst," Mendoza said. "Once he went through all the testing, talking to the trainers - You hate to see him go down at any time, the fact that it’s low-grade, it’s good news."

Vientos will rest for a minimum of 10 days and see if he's symptom-free before he starts baseball activities and then he will be ramped back up.

In the meantime, prospect Ronny Mauricio was called up and is seeing time at third base while Brett Baty, Luisangel Acuna and Jeff McNeil split time at second.