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The New York Yankees look for a series sweep when they visit Daikin Park and the Houston Astros.

The New York bats are booming, and my Yankees vs. Astros predictions and MLB picks expect the Yankees to pull off a convincing victory. 

Who will win Yankees vs Astros today: Yankees -1.5 (+120)

Luis Gil doesn't need to be lights out today. He just needs to hold off the Houston Astros long enough for his New York Yankees lineup to do what it's been doing all season.

Ben Rice is barreling at 21.6%, and Aaron Judge at 24.6%, the Yankees are second in the sport with 39 home runs, and they've beaten up on the Astros six of the last ten times out. 

Gil has stymied this Astros lineup in the past, and Houston's bullpen ranks dead last with a 5.94 ERA and 1.85 home runs per nine frames. Let the Yankees prevail!

COVERS INTEL:Spencer Arrighetti has a low ERA, but his xFIP is nearly three runs higher with a 5.08 xERA this season. 

Yankees vs Astros Over/Under pick: Over 9.5 (-110)

Spencer Arrighetti has a high hard-hit rate, with an xERA of 5.04 and a walk rate over 15% through two starts.

Gil isn't far behind, with an xERA of 5.20, suggesting the Astros and their fourth-best 119 wRC+ will likely chase him after plating some runs. 

Both starters are due for regression, and totals set at 9.5 have a way of finding the Over when the bill comes due. 

The Over is 7-2-1 across the past 10 H2H meetings, and yesterday's 8-3 final shows this matchup still has teeth. Trust the trend.

Yankees vs Astros odds

• Moneyline: Yankees -127 | Astros +122
• Run line: Yankees -1.5 (+102) | Astros +1.5 (-156)
• Over/Under: Over 9.5 (-108) | Under 9.5 (-104)

Yankees vs Astros trend

The Yankees have covered the run line in 23 of their last 35 away games for +14.05 units and a 37% ROI. Find more MLB betting trends for Yankees vs. Astros.

How to watch Yankees vs Astros and game info

Yankees vs Astros latest injuries

Yankees vs Astros weather

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Who is he and where did he come from?

He’s Chad Samuel Tracy and he comes from the land of baseball lifers. While he is decidedly not the Chad Tracy who spent the bulk of a mid-sized career with the Diamondbacks in the early part of this century, this Chad Tracy has spent his entire life around the game. Chad’s father Jim played professional baseball for eight years, breaking through to the Majors with the Cubs for 87 games while otherwise bouncing around between places like Pompono Beach, Florida and Yokohama, Japan.

Chad never knew his father as a ballplayer, as he was born one season after his old man finally put his glove away for good. But he always knew his father as a coach. Jim Tracy got his first minor league managerial gig with the Peoria Chiefs when Chad was just two years old and then spent the next 20 years coaching in some capacity, culminating in his 11-year stretch as a big league manager with the Dodgers, Pirates, and Rockies.

Naturally, Chad himself was a ballplayer. He starred as a catcher at Pepperdine University, winning the West Coast Conference Player of the year award in 2005 before being drafted by the Texas Rangers in the third round. Tracy spent the next eight years in the minors, slowly climbing the ladder and eventually playing 390 games at the AAA level but never cracking the majors for so much as a cup of coffee.

After spending two years in the independent Atlantic League, the then-28-year-old Tracy finally gave up the dream and followed his father’s footsteps into the manager’s office, making his debut with the single-A Burlington Bees in the Angels organization the very next year. He would go on to spend seven years with the Angels, the last four as their Minor League Coordinator before being hired to lead the WooSox by Chaim Bloom in 2022.

Is he any good?

I will happily die on the hill known as Mount None of Us Actually Knows Whether a Baseball Manager is Any Good. Baseball is not a sport like basketball or soccer, where coaches develop certain tactical schemes and distinct styles of play. It’s not football, where the head coach is often the final decision-maker on roster moves. Baseball is ultimately a players’ game. Modern managers are tasked with keeping the roster focused and engaged for 162 games while implementing the front office’s player personnel plan.

Having said that, there obviously are managers who are better or worse than others when it comes to creating and maintaining a winning clubhouse culture (Terry Francona on the former hand, Bobby Valentine on the latter). Tracy has a few things going for him to suggest he could be a good fit for this Red Sox team.

First and most importantly, he has a ton of experience coaching a lot of players on this Red Sox roster. Roman Anthony, Marcelo Mayer, Ceddanne Rafaela, Wilyer Abreu, Connelly Early, Patyon Tolle, Brayan Bello, Connor Wong, and Jarren Duran all spent significant stretches playing under Tracy at Worcester. Notably, all of them arrived at Fenway as developmental successes.

Secondly, he does have a winning track record. Tracy’s WooSox teams went 323-295 during his tenure. Win-loss records in the minor leagues don’t really mean anything, obviously — winning isn’t the point in the minor leagues. But you’d certainly rather have a manager used to winning rather than losing. Tracy won enough and was respected enough that his managerial peers voted him as the International League’s “best managerial prospect” two years in a row in 2023 and 2024.

And finally, it’s often said that great players make poor coaches, the theory being that baseball came so easily to them that they struggle to communicate how to play the game to players of lesser talents. If there’s any truth to that, then perhaps the inverse is also true. Tracy spent eight years grinding in the minors and came tantalizingly close to reaching his dreams, only to, like Moonlight Graham, watch them pass him by like strangers in a crowd. Perhaps his particular background makes him a better baseball communicator than most.

What’s he doing in his picture up there?

He appears to be praying, only with a baseball subbed in for the rosary. And that’s the perfectly romantic image of a minor league lifer, isn’t it?

What’s his role on the 2026 Red Sox?

That’s the big question. Right now he has the interim tag attached to his job title and we haven’t yet heard whether Craig Breslow will attempt to find a full-time manager during the season. Tracy may end up being a mere placeholder.

But Tracy is someone who was almost certainly going to become a big league manager one day. And as he prepares to make his debut this afternoon, he’s well-positioned to succeed, managing a roster he’s familiar with that should be performing a lot better than it has so far. If the Sox are able to get things in gear over the coming weeks and months, then maybe Breslow won’t need to post an opening on the Red Sox LinkedIn page after all.

You win some, you lose some. However, the Atlanta Braves have yet to lose a series this season and are the only MLB team to achieve this feat. Although they can’t repeat getting a sweep against the Philadelphia Phillies, they have an opportunity to bounce back from yesterday’s rainy day loss.

Chris Sale, boasting a 2.79 ERA and 4-1 record this season, has been impressive from the start. The last outing for the slider master was last Saturday (4/18) against the Phillies, in which he went through seven innings, only giving up one run and seven total strikeouts.

There’s no need to hammer down what must be done to return in top shape for today’s matchup to secure the win. Sale is set to hold it down on the defensive end. Will the offense be ready to reflect that and get some runs on the board early?

Though yesterday didn’t turn out in the Braves’ favor, the Phillies could sleep well at night with satisfaction that they had a game to go their way, finally breaking their 10-game losing streak.

Aaron Nola (5.06 ERA) will be facing the Braves for the first time this season, but his opponents won’t be walking into unfamiliar territory, as at least five of the Braves have over a 1.000 OPS batting against him in the past.

Nola, with the second-best ERA on the Philies’ starting pitching staff, takes every experience head-on. He mentioned earlier this year, while paying for Team Italy in the World Baseball Classic, that it’s fun for him and many other starting pitchers when they can take their experiences and come up with ways to get multiple guys out in different ways over a course of time.

The pitch that the Braves should look out for is not just his leading four-seamer, but the filthy knuckle-curve that he uses just as much in his arsenal.

The task is clear…the skies, not so much. Another rainy day for the ballgame, but the show must go on. Will the Braves continue their series win streak, or will the Phillies find a way to take advantage of yesterday’s win and pick up where they left off?

Game Info

Game Date/Time: Sunday, April 26, 1:35 p.m. ET

Location: Truist Park, Atlanta, GA

TV: BravesVision

Streaming: MLBTV

Radio: 680 AM / 93.7 FM The Fan

Bringing a team on the verge of 11 consecutive victories to a screeching halt was the seemingly impossible task for a struggling Roki Sasaki on Saturday. On his first ever bobblehead day, Sasaki did what he could to allow the Dodgers to pounce on Chicago Cubs starter Colin Rea, and it resulted in his first win of the season.

Sasaki managed to pitch into the sixth inning of a 12-4 Dodger victory and while he allowed four runs over that span— including three solo home runs— he tallied a season-high five strikeouts with the biggest improvement being only one walk allowed. The biggest difference compared to his first four starts was an increase in both usage and velocity on his splitter, which he threw 48 times while generating a first pitch strike rate of 90 percent.

There is still more to be desired for the still unfinished project, as noted by Sonja Chen of MLB.com, but Sasaki is hoping to not worry about the length of his starts and instead lean more on the efficacy of what he can do on the mound.

“The first couple games, I couldn’t go deeper. It was kind of frustrating,” Sasaki said through interpreter Kensuke Okubo. “But right now, I’m just focused on what I can do, and then at the end of the season, I just want to be who I want to be.”

Links

In our early season predictions post, I mentioned that I planned on attending Saturday’s game against the Cubs, and it’s always nice to see a Dodger win and get a Roki Sasaki bobblehead. But it was the 50-year anniversary and commemoration of Rick Monday’s iconic American flag rescue that stole the show, and it became even more emblematic when during the seventh inning stretch, “God Bless America” was the prelude to the usual ballpark anthem.

While his two former teams competed, Monday later admitted during the game’s broadcast that he had no idea that the Dodgers would be honoring him and felt “very humbled,” per Beth Harris of the Associated Press.

“I had no idea they were going to be here or present me with an honor. Very humbled,” Monday said later on the radio broadcast of the game.

Shohei Ohtani has been on a recent offensive slump since the Dodgers road series in San Francisco, as he is now 2 for 19 over his last five games, striking out eight times and recording zero extra-base hits. While having the everyday leadoff hitter slumping in this manner is worrisome, Dave Roberts has faith that Ohtani will manage to quickly turn a new page at the plate, per Michael Huntley of the Orange County Register.

“He’s a very smart player,” Roberts said. “He certainly deserves more leash and more opportunity than essentially anyone.”

Triple-A: Memphis Redbirds (STL) 8, Norfolk Tides 7

The Tides were leading by two runs going into the eighth inning before the Redbirds put up a five-run eighth inning to take the lead. Norfolk scored two runs in the bottom of the ninth but left the tying run stranded at second when Silas Ardoin struck out looking on a pitch that was challenged by the Redbirds and overturned to become strike three.

Cade Povich started for the Tides and went six innings. He allowed one run in each of the first three innings, two on solo home runs. He got stronger after that, though. Over his final three innings, Povich did not allow a hit.

The offense scored three runs in the bottom of the fifth and then broke the tie with a two-run seventh before falling behind for good in the eighth. Christian Encarnacion-Strand had a single and triple and picked up three RBI. Willy Vasquez had a three hit night, and Ardoin reached base three times with a single and two walks. Jud Fabian singled and walked.

Box Score

Double-A: Chesapeake Baysox 3, Akron RubberDucks 2 – F/12

The Baysox managed to win this game despite being no-hit for the first 6.1 innings of the game. They scored one run in the third inning when Griff O’Ferrall walked, stole second, and came around to score on two wild pitches. That tied the game at 1-1, a score that held until the 11th inning. It took until the bottom of the 12th, but an RBI single by Maverick Handley secured the walk-off.

It was a big game for Handley, who had two of the team’s four hits. He broke up the no-hitter in the seventh, got the winning hit in the 12th, and also had a walk for good measure. Ethan Anderson had one hit as leadoff batter, while Aron Estrada’s miserable start to the season continued. He went 0-for-4 and his OPS is just .490 through 18 games.

It was a bullpen game for the Baysox. Christian Herberholz started and struck out four in 2.1 innings. Six Baysox pitchers combined to strike out 15.

Box Score

High-A: Frederick Keys 4, Wilmington Blue Rocks (WAS) 1

The Keys scored all the runs they needed in a two-run first inning, but they added two more in the sixth for good measure. In the first, they loaded the bases on an infield single by Ike Irish and walks from Nate George and Wehiwa Aloy. After a strikeout, Braylin Tavera hit a ground ball to shortstop. Instead of it being an inning-ending double play, the Blue Rocks made a throwing error that resulted in two runs scored. Their third run also scored on an error, but Irish had a proper RBI double to knock in the final run.

Irish was the only batter with two hits. George was hitless but walked twice. Aloy reached just once with the first inning walk.

Hans Crouse was the opener and pitched a scoreless first before Twine Palmer took over in the second. Palmer pitched five innings with two hits and one walk. He struck out six. His only run allowed was unearned and scored when Tavera made an error in center field to put a runner on third. Palmer then threw a wild pitch to bring in the run.

Box Score

Low-A: Delmarva Shorebirds 4, Wilson Warbirds (MIL) 1

The Shorebirds won this game with two two-run home runs. Edwin Amparo went deep in the second inning with Joshua Liranzo on base. In the seventh inning, it was Liranzo’s turn. His homer knocked in Stiven Martinez. Liranzo and Martinez both had two-hit games, while Amparo reached three times with the homer and two walks. DJ Layton singled and walked, while Jordan Sanchez went hitless with three strikeouts.

Four Delmarva pitchers held the Warbirds to just three hits, but they walked a whopping nine. Starter Kailen Hamson didn’t allow a hit in 3.2 innings, however he did walk five.

Box Score

Today’s Schedule

• Triple-A: Norfolk vs Memphis, 1:05. Starter: TBD
• Double-A: Chesapeake vs Akron, 1:05. Starter: Trace Bright
• High-A: Frederick vs Wilmington, 3:00. Starter: Carson Dorsey
• Low-A: Delmarva vs Wilson, 2:05. Starter: Kiefer Lord

Toledo Mud Hens 2, Omaha Storm Chasers 0 (box)

Toledo and Omaha each had five hits on Saturday, but the Mud Hens were the only team to score in a 2-0 win over the Storm Chasers.

Sawyer Gipson-Long outdueled Mitch Spence in a battle of minor-league veterans. Both went five innings, but Gipson-Long was better, allowing just two hits and no walks while striking out three. The only time Omaha threatened to score off SGL was in the fourth, when Tyler Tolbert got to third base with one out. Gage Workman made a nice play to home to get the tag out and preserve the shutout.

His changeup was his best pitch, drawing four whiffs on five swings, but his fastball played well to contact with just one hard hit and an average exit velocity of 78.1 mph in seven batted ball events.

The Mud Hens scored two off Spence in the third. Luke Ritter led off with a double to right field, Ben Malgeri walked with one out and Workman doubled both in. Workman had the only other hit off Spence, a two-out single in the first.

Toledo threatened in the fifth, loading the bases — Ritter walked, Max Clark reached on an error and Spence intentionally walked Workman to set up the force out — but Corey Julks flied out to strand all three runners.

Enmanuel De Jesus was good (I know, shocking), allowing just two baserunners over two innings in relief of Gipson-Long. He struck out a pair and retired his first four batters before giving up a single and a walk. Grant Holman got the eighth and struggled out of the gate. He worked around a leadoff walk and a single to strand both runners.

Ricky Vanasco gave up a two-out double in the ninth, but he got the final out of the game on three pitches right after.

Clark: 1-4

Workman: 2-3, 2B (9), 2 RBI, BB, K

Gipson-Long(W, 1-2): 5.0 IP, 2 H, 0 R, 0 BB, 3 K

Coming Up Next: The Mud Hens go for win No. 5 in a row on Sunday at 2:05 p.m. ET in Toledo.

Erie SeaWolves — POSTPONED

Coming Up Next: Erie and Binghamton will play a straight doubleheader on Sunday, starting at noon ET.

Lake County Captains 3, West Michigan Whitecaps 2 (box)(F/10)

West Michigan and Lake County battled to a 1-1 tie at the end of regulation, but the Captains outscored the Whitecaps in extra innings to win on Saturday, 3-2.

Neither team scored until the seventh inning, when Lake County took a 1-0 lead on a leadoff home run from Jace LaViolette. The 2025 first-round pick out of Texas A&M had two of the Captains’ seven hits, including a leadoff double in the first.

West Michigan’s pitching was sound for the most part. Gabriel Reyes threw 4 1/3 shutout innings, giving up just three hits. Walks were a bit of a problem, but he worked around all four of them — two in the third and two in the fourth. On the brighter side, Reyes drew a game-high 11 swing-and-misses.

Ryan Harvey replaced Reyes in the fifth with one out. It started out rough with a walk and a hit batter, but he retired the next five batters in a row. Logan Berrier took over in the seventh and gave up the homer to LaViolette. He stranded men on the corners after allowing a single, throwing a wild pitch and walking a batter. Berrier went 1-2-3 in the eighth.

Zack Lee retired the side in order in the ninth, holding the game at 1-0. That’s when West Michigan manufactured a run to extend the game.

Cristian Santana singled to open the ninth. He moved to second on a Juan Hernandez groundout and got to third on a wild pitch from Michael Kennedy. Junior Tillien grounded out to short, allowing Santana to cross the plate.

Duque Hebbert relieved Lee in the 10th, but he gave up a two-run homer to Nolan Schubart, which ultimately decided the game thanks to the runner placed on base at the start of the inning. Hebbert gave up a double after the homer, but he retired the side without allowing any more damage.

Bryce Rainer added a run for the Whitecaps in the bottom of the 10th, but that’s all they got. Rainer put together his first multi-hit game at High-A. He had three singles: two infield base hits to third in the third and 10th, and a grounder through the left side in the sixth.

Rainer: 3-5, RBI, K

Santana: 2-4, R, 2 K

Reyes: 4.1 IP, 3 H, 0 R, 4 BB, 4 K

Coming Up Next: The Whitecaps have a chance to tie the series on Sunday at 2 p.m. ET.

Lakeland Flying Tigers 6, Tampa Tarpons 1 (box)

The Flying Tigers scored as many runs as the other three teams in the organization that played on Saturday. The result was a convincing 6-1 win against the Tampa Tarpons to take a 3-2 series lead.

Lakeland took an early 2-1 lead in the second when Edian Espinal singled in Jude Warwick and Carson Rucker. Warwick reached first on a one-out single, and Rucker walked before both were moved into scoring position by Anibal Salas’ groundout to the right side.

Zach MacDonald made it a 5-0 game in the fifth with a three-run homer. MacDonald was a single shy of the cycle today, hitting a ground-rule double in the third and a triple in the seventh. It’s always a little funny when they can’t do the easy one, but what a showing from the 2024 15th-rounder, who has a 1.078 OPS on the year. MacDonald’s home run brought in Jordan Yost (single) and Thayron Liranzo (ground-rule double).

The Flying Tigers’ only other hit on the day was a solo home run for Carson Rucker in the eighth. The game was all but wrapped up by that point, with Tampa trailing 6-1 heading into the ninth.

Left-hander Caleb Leys made his third start of the season, and he was solid through four innings once again. He went four innings, giving up one run on three hits and three walks while striking out two. While effective, those strikeout and walk numbers need to be a little better. Last week he sat down five batters and gave up just one free pass. Still, Leys has a 1.33 ERA and 1.13 WHIP over his last two starts.

He was a bit too in the zone with his slider today, with a 70% zone rate. All three batted balls were hard hit, but he still drew a 46% whiff rate on them. His fastball isn’t fooling anybody, but it’s not drawing hard contact either. The only run Tampa scored came off Leys in the first. Engelth Urena hit a triple with one out and scored on a groundout.

The bullpen was elite for Lakeland today. Luke Hoskins took over in the fifth and gave the Flying Tigers two innings of one-hit ball. Donye Evans worked around a two-out error for a hitless seventh, and Jan Caraballo closed things out without allowing a baserunner.

Caraballo was the most impressive of the bunch, striking out four of the six batters he faced. Six of his 10 sliders thrown were strikes, including four whiffs on five swings.

Yost: 1-4, R, K

Liranzo: 1-3, 2B (1), R, BB

MacDonald: 3-4, 2B (4), 3B (2), HR (7), R, 3 RBI

Leys: 4.0 IP, 3 H, R, ER, 3 BB, 2 K

Coming Up Next: Lakeland goes for the series win on Sunday at noon ET.

Good morning, baseball fans!

Another week of San Francisco Giants baseball is coming to a close today, which means it’s time for us to share our favorite highlights of the week!

I think this week’s winner is pretty obvious. Patrick Bailey, hitter of walk-off grand slams against the Los Angeles Dodgers in 2025, got the hit of the week this week with a three-run home run in Wednesday’s 3-0 win over the Dodgers. Man was a one-man offense in that game, so we couldn’t NOT give him a weekend shout out!

What were your favorite highlights of the week?

What time do the Giants play today?

The Giants wrap up this weekend series against the Miami Marlins this afternoon at 1:05 p.m. PT.

Well, that was annoying. The Phillies were who the Braves thought they were, and they let them off the hook. The Braves took a game to extras and lost, but it required:

• One single evading Mike Yazstremski for a run scoring triple
• Yet another needless pickoff
• One double evading Ronald Acuña for a triple
• One single evading Eli White for a triple to set up a late tying run
• Playing the back half of the game in a rain storm with multiple lighting strikes near the stadium
• Placing Jose Suarez in a high leverage situation

When you step away from it, you are encouraged and appalled. The good news is that this stretch resembles their 26-4 run in mid-2023. They had to really do something dumb on the bases, have brutal BABIP, or make a poor bullpen decision to lose a game. The bad news is the losing-side of the bullpen and the back end of the bench are pretty dreadful. We already knew early that parts of the bullpen weren’t great, but injuries make the bench look very thin right now.

The good side of the bullpen is impressive: Raisel Iglesias (when available), Robert Suarez, Dylan Lee and Tyler Kinley. Somewhere in the middle is Aaron Bummer. Outside of that is Carlos Carrasco, Joel Payamps, swingmen Jose Suarez and Martin Perez (perhaps Reynaldo Lopez as well?), and a host of unattractive options at Gwinnett.

The Braves’ left fielders are a combined .206/.294/.299 with a 70 wRC+. That’s ninth worst in MLB, and Mauricio Dubon’s 11 plate appearances are keeping it from being much lower. The Braves can jettison Eli White for his latest brain fart. But that would leave them with three outfielders (glares at Jurickson Profar) and Dubon, and the best of the Gwinnett lot is probably Ben Gamel with his career 1.9 WAR and no starts in CF since 2021. Once Sean Murphy and Ha-seong Kim return, the bench will start to look better, but right now it’s not great.

Things are great. The offense is crushing it and no game feels out of reach. The starting rotation is way better than it deserves to be coming out of Spring Training. So I’m gonna forget about Saturday for now and going to try to ignore the back third of the roster for now.