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Orel Hershiser reflects on what Cristopher Sánchez's streak demands originally appeared on NBC Sports Philadelphia

LOS ANGELES — Orel Hershiser remembers the tight games before he remembers the number.

Before the Cherry Hill native became tied forever to 59, there were smaller calculations. A leadoff double. A hitter he wanted to avoid. A one-run lead, or no lead at all, with a Dodgers lineup giving him little room.

That rings true to Cristopher Sánchez’s scoreless stretch.

The Phillies’ ace has gone 44 2/3 consecutive innings without allowing a run. Last Wednesday, he passed Grover Cleveland Alexander for the longest scoreless streak in franchise history. He sits 14 1/3 innings from Hershiser’s major-league record, set in 1988.

Hershiser was a 29-year-old right-hander then. He won the National League Cy Young Award, led the majors with 23 wins, led the NL with 15 complete games and then took home NLCS and World Series MVP honors.

Sánchez is a 29-year-old left-hander now. He finished second in the National League Cy Young Award race last season after going 13-5 with a 2.50 ERA across 32 starts. This year, he has pitched like the favorite, with a 6-2 record, a 1.47 ERA and nine quality starts in 12 outings.

They are the only two pitchers in baseball history to make five starts in a calendar month and not allow a run.

Even so, Hershiser sees more than the chase.

“I think people forget it’s a team,” Hershiser said. “It’s a team record.”

That answer frames Sánchez’s streak better than the number alone.

The Phillies enter Tuesday with one of baseball’s worst offenses, third-worst in OPS and second-worst in on-base percentage. Since Sánchez’s streak began, their pitching staff has ranked third in ERA, though.

They have needed every zero.

Hershiser pitched through a similar season in 1988. The Dodgers won the World Series with a .657 regular-season OPS, the second-lowest by any champion since the Dead Ball Era.

From July 1 through the end of the regular season, they had the worst OPS in baseball. Their pitching staff finished with the second-best ERA in the majors.

The Dodgers scored just 18 total runs in those seven Hershiser starts, a streak that ran from Aug. 30 to Sept. 28.

“One of the things that probably helped me during the streak was our team wasn’t scoring very much,” Hershiser said. “It wasn’t like I had any 6-0 games where I could trade outs for runs.”

A larger lead would have changed his approach. Hershiser would have chased quick outs. He would have treated the game differently.

“I wouldn’t have worried about the streak,” he said. “I would have just said, ‘I want to get this game over with. I want to save my pitch count. I want to pitch nine innings.’”

The Dodgers did not give him that choice.

“Because the games were so close,” Hershiser said, “I think it made it extra special to prevent the run.”

Sánchez has pitched through a similar stretch. His starts have become the surest day on the Phillies’ schedule.

“You can’t go 30 innings,” Hershiser said, “without having a good team.”

He was not talking only about run support.

He meant the catcher. The defense. The positioning. A scoreless streak leaves no margin for sloppiness.

“Somebody’s got to pick the baseball up and throw it to first and not throw it away,” Hershiser said.

He still remembers the plays behind his own streak.

John Shelby made spectacular catches in center. Steve Sax made plays at second. The Dodgers made diving stops. In San Francisco, with runners on first and third, Los Angeles failed to turn a double play. Then the Giants’ Brett Butler was ruled out of the baseline, giving the Dodgers the double play anyway.

Hershiser still recalls it as one of the breaks that kept the streak alive.

He saw similar moments in Sánchez’s last start against San Diego. Balls reached the warning track. Justin Crawford crashed into the wall in center field to save a run.

Sánchez created the streak. The Phillies have defended it.

When asked what holds a scoreless streak together, Hershiser started with the backstop.

“The relationship with your catcher,” he said. “The ability for the data guys now to put the fielders in the right place, too. In my day, I moved the fielders with my eyes and my body language.”

The sport has changed. The work has not.

Sánchez still has to execute.

Hershiser built his streak, and his career, on command, feel and contact. He did not chase strikeouts unless the game called for one.

“I didn’t play go out and dominate,” Hershiser said. “I played hit it early, hit it weakly, hit it at somebody.”

Sánchez works from a similar base, with more swing-and-miss.

His sinker runs. His changeup fades. His arm slot gives hitters a tough look. His delivery hides the ball long enough for the movement to play.

“Deception,” Hershiser said.

The longtime Dodger sees the connection. He also sees the separation.

“He’s a groundball machine, which I was,” Hershiser said. “But he’s a better strikeout pitcher than I was.”

That gives Sánchez another way out of trouble. Hershiser had to choose his strikeout spots. Sánchez creates more of them.

Still, Hershiser values movement over pure velocity.

“A big leaguer can time a bullet,” Hershiser said. “So I would rather you throw the ball 94 with late movement than 99 as straight as a string in the middle.”

Nothing Sánchez throws is flat. His sinker and changeup move late, and they look similar long enough to force early swing decisions.

The modern game adds another layer.

Hershiser finished his streak with 10 scoreless innings in extras against San Diego, an unheard of effort nowadays.

But he does not view the current game as easier. Starters throw fewer innings, but clubs demand more of them.

“They’re also asked to throw at a higher effort level,” Hershiser said. “Everything’s being measured.”

He does not dismiss the information, but he rejects the idea that it captures every decision from the mound.

“From 30,000 feet, [the analytics] might be right,” Hershiser said. “But from ground level, I’m not sure they’re right.”

Sánchez’s streak lives in that gap between what the data says and what a pitcher still has to feel from the mound.

Now he has to see the Padres again on Wednesday to continue the chase.

“It’s not a streak until you start entering into the hierarchy of streaks,” Hershiser said.

Once his name moved up the list, the questions followed. USA Today. The Associated Press. The Los Angeles Times.

Hershiser reduced the job to the next pitch.

“I can throw one more sinking fastball away,” he said. “I can bounce one more curveball when I get ahead.”

Sánchez now faces that same narrow task.

The next pitch.

Dodgers legend Don Drysdale, whose record Hershiser chased, worked around the team then as a broadcaster and mentor at the time. As Hershiser moved closer, Drysdale gave him space.

“He was very much a gentleman,” Hershiser said.

Hershiser now watches from the other side.

Fellow Dodgers Clayton Kershaw, who reached 41 scoreless innings in 2014, and Zack Greinke, who reached 45 2/3 innings in 2015, got close. Greinke stopped almost exactly where Sánchez sits now.

Hershiser said his family and friends root harder against challengers than he does. He does not guard the record like property.

So he watches Sánchez with respect, not fear.

He knows the stress.

“The record is a record,” Hershiser said. “It’s not going to make or break or change my life anymore. It already did.”

This spring training, there were two Mariners stories that stood out: Emerson Hancock, who showed up to camp with increased velocity and an expanded arsenal; and Cole Young, who showcased improvements on both sides of the ball. The question, as it always is in spring, was if those improvements would be sustainable.

Tonight, the calendar freshly turned to June, those two players—along with rookie Colt Emerson (who had his own spring training storyline) and not-rookies Josh Naylor and Randy Arozarena—combined to deliver the Mariners their seventh straight win, continuing to buoy the team above the .500 mark they’ve so miserably been circling most of this season, as the Mariners defeated the Mets 3-2.

It didn’t necessarily seem that this would be the case. After the Oakland series, the Mariners had lulled some people (not me) into a false sense of security in their ability to perform against left-handed pitching, something that’s been a bête noire for the team all season given the lefty-heavy nature of the roster, the injuries/ineffectiveness of their right-handed options, and the overall stop-and-start nature of an offense that was designed to do damage from top to bottom. That wasn’t the case today as the Mariners hitters struggled against Sean Manaea, making boatloads of quick, weak-contact outs. The only damage against Manaea was a left-on-left home run in the third (technically Manaea’s second inning, as the Mets used an opener because it’s apparently 2016 in the Bronx) by Colt Emerson, his second big-league barrel:

That is just…an objectively beautiful swing from Colt “the scouting reports love to lie about me” Emerson.

But one solo home run over six innings will, generally, Not Cut It, even when the person on the mound is Emerson Hancock, spinning another gem. Hancock was very good today, but not perfect, and that not-perfect caught up with him on two solo homers, both in three-ball counts: one game-tying in the fifth and one go-ahead in the sixth (and to Marcus Semien! Just his second of the year!)

But this feels like damning with faint praise for Hancock, who again was very good, showing off yet another wrinkle in his pitch mix by digging deep in his arsenal to add in his rarely-thrown curveball (he threw six today, after having thrown only 16 all year), dialing up his cutter usage against a lefty-heavy Mets lineup. The north-south movement of the curveball provides a solid counterpoint to Hancock’s more east-west arsenal, such as his cutter, which he was able to spot on both sides of the plate tonight and throw at varying velocities in seemingly any count.

“I think [the cutter] gives you an option early,” said Hancock postgame. “It gives you an option behind in the count, or even late. And I think with that pitch, all my pitches, I’m just trying to be as creative as possible, be able to have as many options as I can.”

But it looked like Hancock was on his way to being a tough-luck loser despite pitching so well – six innings, seven strikeouts, no walks and just the two homers – until the seven inning when the Mets, who have been using Manaea as a swingman, replaced him with Brooks Raley, who loves giving up home runs to Mariners like Josh Naylor loves shoes. Naylor immediately made them pay for that decision, skying a game-tying home run to right field.

The Mariners couldn’t add on after that despite a Cole Young single, so Dan Wilson went to Matt Brash in the eighth. Brash hit the first batter he faced, MJ Melendez, but Cole Young was able to bail him out on a nicely turned double play and then Matt helped himself out with a truly vicious strikeout of Marcus Semien. The only bummer about that inning was that Josh Naylor disappeared, replaced by Patrick Wisdom at first base; Dan Wilson later confirmed Naylor was removed with back spasms, felt on the home run swing, and he is day-to-day.

But back to that double play for a second: this was an inflection point in the game, with the Mets threatening against Brash, who was shaky in his last outing. Young’s heads-up play (I strenuously object to the official MLB video title for this clip which is “Mariners turn interesting double play”), where he successfully fields the ball, tags the runner, fires to first cleanly, and makes sure he doesn’t obstruct the runner, all in a matter of moments, is the kind of reflexive, instinctual play Young used to make in the minors all the time but disappeared at the big-league level in his rookie season as he struggled to get his bearings at second base. Not that this is a doubt by now but the improvements from spring training did make the trip north.

“That was a really heads-up play,” said Wilson. “I gotta believe he took a page out of Naylor’s book from the other day, too, very similar kind of play…that’s what we’ve seen at second base all year from Cole…we talk about his slow heartbeat, and that was another moment where he just did what he had to to get the double play. Huge for us.”

Young himself deflected when asked if he was indeed taking a page out of Naylor’s book, saying he wasn’t exactly sure what the rule was but he “figured it out.” How did he figure it out?

“I asked the umpire,” he said. “I honestly didn’t know, but good to know, now.”

Andrés Muñoz pitched the ninth for the Mariners, facing Luis Torrens and the top of the lineup, and it was nice to see Muñoz put together a clean 1-2-3 inning. It was less nice to see Julio go down hacking against Devin Williams in the bottom of the inning, followed by Victor Robles grounding out and Randy Arozarena also striking out hacking, sending the game to extras for the second day in a row.

Gabe Speier took the tenth to face the lefties stacked in the middle of New York’s lineup. Speier opened the inning by striking out Juan Soto in a full count, prompting the Mets to put in pinch-hitter Mark Vientos for lefty Jared Young, owner of one of the Mets’ two home runs that night. Speier struck him out. When this series is over Mets and Mariners fans might have some similar bellyaching to do about platoons. Speier followed that up by getting rookie A.J. Ewing to pop out, keeping the Mets’ Manfred Man standing at second. It was maybe the sharpest we’ve seen Speier all year, and if the upshot of the piggyback is it allows vintage Gabe Speier to re-emerge, I might have to reconsider my reservations.

The Mets called upon yet another lefty, A.J. Minter, to deal with the Mariners in the bottom of the tenth, curious given that Patrick Wisdom was leading off instead of the injured Naylor – but again, Wisdom couldn’t make the most of the platoon advantage, striking out. However, Randy Arozarena was the runner at second, and having drawn a couple of throws and generally made a pest of himself, he took off for third as Wisdom struck out, putting the winning run on base with just one out and making Cole Young’s job a little easier.

I have been sitting on these numbers for a while because the sample size is so small but we’ve gotten enough to where Young finally has over 50 plate appearances in high-leverage situations. In those situations, his slashline is .273/.396/.500. Dan Wilson has praised Young’s “slow heartbeat” multiple times this season, but it’s different when you see it in action. Young took a cutter off the plate away, and Minter went back to the same spot; he reached out and flicked a little hit into left field for the game-winner, exactly one year and one day after his debut walk-off (this one traveled just a bit further).

If the Mariners are going to keep control of the AL West while their starting catcher and biggest off-season acquisition are shelved, it’s going to need to come from contributions from players like these: a rookie sensation Emerson, a resurgent Hancock, a sophomore no-slump Young. So far, all three are proving their spring awakenings are here to stay.

The stats were bonkers in this one.

The Rockies drew 10 walks and added two more free passes through hit by pitches, which should lead to numerous runs. On defense, the Rockies committed four fielding errors, which should result in a loss. When it comes to pitching, Kyle Freeland gave up a grand slam to Jose Siri.

Through it all, the Rockies persisted, rallying for two comebacks — including a five-run eighth inning — to pull out a hard-to-believe win on Monday night.

With the game tied 8-8, the Rockies had to dial up another comeback in the ninth. It was small, but mighty enough to win as Kyle Karros singled, Jake McCarthy doubled and TJ Rumfield hit a sac fly to drive in the winning run.

“That was not a normal game. They gave 12 free passes. We kicked the ball a bunch tonight and threw it around sloppily, but somebody’s got to win that game,” said Rockies manager Warren Schaeffer. “I thought the boys showed incredible resilience, bouncing back multiple times, just sticking with it and throwing up really good at-bats all night long, despite the horrendous defense.”

Big hits in the 8th

After the big hits had been elusive all game, they finally came in the eighth inning for the Rockies. Sterlin Thompson and Kyle Karros led off the frame with back-to-back doubles. When Thompson scored, it cut the Angels lead to 6-4. Jake McCarthy followed with a walk and Tyler Freeman singled to score Karros to cut L.A’s lead to 6-5. That’s when Hunter Goodman handled things, hitting his 14th homer of the year and putting the Rockies up 8-6.

The Rockies hit around in the inning, which marked the 10th time this season when the Rockies scored five or more runs.

“We’ve had some good innings this year, but that was a big one,” Schaeffer said.

The Rockies seven, eight and nine hitters, Edouard Julien, Thompson and Karros, combined to draw three walks, produce four hits score three runs and drive in two. That helped McCarthy add more of a spark in the leadoff spot as the outfielder homered, doubled, scored two runs and walked twice.

“Jake was awesome,” Schaeffer said. “It makes such a difference when the bottom of the lineup gets on base like that.”

Nothing is easy

Unfortunately for the Rockies, Jaden Hill wasn’t at his best in the bottom of the eighth. The reliever gave up a leadoff walk and then a single to bring the go-ahead run to the plate. With only recording one out, Hill was pulled for Antonio Senzatela. He gave up a triple to Jorge Soler, which tied the game, but then he got out of the inning.

In the bottom of the ninth, Senzatela got one out on one pitch, but then gave up a single. Siri then hit a groundball to Ezequiel Tovar, who touched second and gunned the ball to first for a double play.

The Angels challenged the out on speedy Siri, but the ruling on the field was confirmed and Senzatela earned the win to improve to 5-0 (even though he also got the blown save).

It ain’t grand

Despite giving up two singles and a long fly ball to the warning track, Kyle Freeland made it through the first two innings with a clean sheet. When he gave up back-to-back singles to Donovan Walton and Jorge Soler to lead off the third, it was a sign of a rough inning to come. Even though he retired the next two batters via two lineouts, including Mike Trout, Jo Adell put the Angels on the board with an RBI single to cut the Rockies lead to 2-1.

Oswald Peraza kept the rally going with an infield hit to load the bases, which teed up a grand slam Jose Siri. In one frame, the Rockies went from up 2-0, to trailing 5-2.

Freeland bounced back in the fourth with a three-up, three-down inning that was capped off with a Trout strikeout. Outside of the satisfaction of striking out one of the best hitters in baseball, the K marked Freeland’s 986th career strikeout, which moved him into second place above Jorge De La Rosa on the all-time Colorado franchise list. He now trails only Germán Márquez’s 1,069.

Freeland finished the day with four strikeouts (987), but gave up six runs (five earned), on seven hits with one walk in 5.2 innings. As proof of the Freeland’s struggles this season, the outing dropped Freeland’s ERA from 8.08 to 8.06. However, Schaeffer was still impressed with Freeland’s outing.

“I thought Free threw the ball well. He maintained his velocity all day, put the ball where he wanted, and the changeup was really working,” said Schaeffer, who blamed the bad defense for too much of the scoring. “He competed against nine right-handers, which is hard to do. Kudos to him. He battled and got us through 5-plus with a bullpen that’s been taxed of late.”

An early road advantage

The Rockies jumped out to a 1-0 lead in the first when Tyler Freeman drew a walk and advanced to second on a throwing error on a failed pick off at first. Troy Johnston took advantage with a slow single up the middle to plate Freeman and put Colorado up 1-0.

McCarthy doubled to lead with a walkoff homer. The 397-foot shot to center field was his fourth of the season.

In the fifth, Thompson hit an RBI single to cut L.A.‘s lead to 5-3. Through seven innings, the three runs on four hits were all the Rockies could muster. Going into the eighth, the Rockies were 2-for-9 with runners in scoring position and had left 10 runners on base. They also had drawn eight walks and were hit by two pitches.

In other words, the Rockies had their chances, but couldn’t capitalize. It didn’t help that in the game the Rockies struck out 11 times — five recorded by Ezequiel Tovar. Schaeffer was still happy with his team’s offensive approach.

“The whole game, even though we did punch out 10 times, I thought the at-bats were excellent tonight,” Schaeffer said.

Freeman hit a foul ball off his foot late in the game and didn’t return to field in the bottom of the eighth. Schaeffer said the Rockies will know more on Tuesday about the severity of the injury.

Up next

The Rockies and Angels will be back in action Tuesday at 7:38 p.m. MDT. Tomoyuki Sugano 菅野 智之 (4-4, 4.01 ERA) will get the start for the Rockies, while LHP Grayson Rodriguez (2-1, 7.53 ERA).

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It was a frustrating start to the season for Sean Manaea. 

The left-hander struggled to find his velocity during spring training and he ended up landing in more of a mop-up role out of the Mets’ bullpen early on. 

Instead of putting his head down, Manaea keep on grinding. 

He put in a ton of work with pitching coach Justin Willard, and is finally starting to see all of that paying off.   

The veteran has found more success with an uptick in velocity over his past few outings, leading to him receiving an opportunity in the Mets’ starting rotation. 

“You have to give him credit,” Carlos Mendoza said. “When it was hard for him he was basically the last guy out of the bullpen and he never put his head down -- you saw him doing long toss and all of the drills we put him through.

“When you see the velo now starting to come up, we know the strike-showing ability, but now the cutter and the sweeper throwing strikes -- that’s the guy that we saw in 2024.”

And that’s the guy that the Mets saw on Monday night, as well.

Manaea was absolutely spectacular serving as the bulk reliever for the first time this season, piecing together his best and longest outing to this point. 

He lost a left-on-left matchup with 20-year-old Colt Emerson, allowing a solo homer to right in the bottom of the third, but otherwise cruised his way through Seattle's lineup. 

The southpaw gave up just one other baserunner on a walk and struck out four over 5.0 innings. 

Manaea’s velocity increased again, and he's now held his opponent to one run in three straight appearances. 

“I’ve just been taking things day-by-day,” he said. “Just building each day and coming in with a plan, and slowly but surely I’ve just been feeling really good on the mound.”

It remains to be seen if it’ll be as a straight starter or bulk reliever again, but Manaea is in line to take another turn in the rotation the next time around. 

Record: 32-27. Pace: 88-74. Change on 2025: +4.

May finished in rough shape for the D-backs beating swept in Seattle. For much of tonight, it looked like June would start the same way. While Eduardo Rodriguez had kept the team in the game, the Arizona bats appeared still be circling on a luggage carousel at Sky Harbor. They had managed just one hit through five innings from Dodgers’ starter Emmet Sheehan, and it looked like the one run the visitors had scored would be enough. However, home-runs from Tommy Troy in the sixth, and Nolan Arenado in the seventh gave the D-backs a lead, and Ketel Marte added welcome insurance in the eighth, becoming the first Arizona hitter to reach double digits in home-runs for 2026.

Rodriguez started off with a crisp 12-pitch first, retiring the Dodgers in order. Corbin Carroll then doubled into the right field corner with one out in the bottom of the inning. I’m sure he was hoping for another three-bagger, but a decent carom off the fence meant Corbin stayed, wisely, at second. Neither Geraldo Perdomo nor Nolan Arenado could get him home, however. Worth noting: that was the only baseball for the Diamondbacks to touch the outfield grass all night. E-Rod had a much more stressful second inning. The first two reached, and it required some good defense by Ildemaro Vargas (below), coming home to nail the runner, before Rodriguez left the bases loaded, and the game still scoreless.

In fact, here’s probably a good place to praise the Arizona defense tonight. Vargas and Jorge Barrosa may both be unable to hit water if they fell out of a boat, but their gloves stood up in this one. Barrosa had a couple of excellent diving plays in center field. In addition to saving a run at home, Vargas started a key double-play in the eighth inning, after Shohei Ohtani had singled to put the then-tying run on base with no outs. All three plays can also be found on the reel above. It wasn’t all good. Tommy Troy whiffed on a diving catch attempt in the third inning, which helped set up the game’s opening run for LA. But he’s hardly a natural left fielder, and given subsequent events, we will forgive him.

Yes, this game was definitely one where the W goes to the pitching and defense. Rodriguez was hardly overpowering, with just three strikeouts from the 24 batters faced. But he ground his way through six innings, and stopped the Dodgers from extending the lead. One of Eduardo’s Ks was quite amusing, however. He faced Miguel Rojas, and on 1-1, threw a pitch called a strike by home-plate umpire Rob Drake. Rojas challenged, and it was overturned by the narrowest possible margin, less than 0.1”. The next pitch was another strike… until another successful Rojas challenge, by a 0.1” margin. Rodriguez threw two more strikes, the last one surviving Rojas’s third challenge of the at-bat, for a K.

As noted above, Arizona was clinically unable to deal with Sheehan’s slider through five innings. He had retired fifteen D-backs in a row, through the first out of the sixth. Then Troy atoned for his role in the Dodgers’ run, by depositing his first MLB homer into the left-field bleachers, tying the game at 1-1. It was suddenly a brand-new ballgame, with three innings left. Arenado certainly seemed to think so, chasing Sheehan from the game in the seventh, after catching a slider for his eighth home-run of the year. Then, just when we were thinking Paul Sewald would have to protect the narrowest of margins, Troy dropped down a perfect two-out bunt, and Marte lasered his 10th over the fence, for a 4-1 lead. [All three HR and the bunt above]

Rodriguez left after six innings, allowing one run on five hits and a walk with three strikeouts. That reduced his season ERA to 2.24. through a dozen starts. It’s the lowest to that point for Arizona since Patrick Corbin’s 1.98 ERA after twelve appearances in 2013. He didn’t quite get the 100th win of his career this evening, but I’d say he deserved it. The W instead went to Taylor Clarke for his scoreless seventh with a pair of strikeouts. Clarke now has an 0.36 ERA over 24.2 innings since his disastrous Opening Day outing in Los Angeles. With a little help from Vargas, Garcia faced the minimum in the 8th, and Paul Sewald completed the win, notching save #15 with a 1-2-3 ninth (and that’s the OVER officially locked in there for Place Your Bets!)

It’s not often a team will win a game while going just 0-for-2 with runners in scoring position. But the D-backs did so tonight, with another comeback victory. Not a great night for the offense, batting 5-for-29 overall, with no walks. But the home-runs were just enough, and if five hits is rarely enough to prevail, it certainly helps when your pitching holds the opposition to just one run. It was just what was needed after a very dispiriting series against the Mariners (whom, I note, walked off the Mets for their seventh win in a row tonight – so it’s not just us!). Hopefully that’ll set the tone for the rest of the series. Cardinals lost, so we’re back in sole possession of the second wild-card.

Click here for details, at Fangraphs.com
No place like home: Eduardo Rodriguez, +20%
Home is where the HRs are: Troy, +17%; Arenado, +17%; Garcia, +12%
No fixed abode: Geraldo Perdomo, -9%

Thanks to all who showed up in the GDT, gritting it out when things looked tough. 269 comments isn’t at all bad for a Monday night. We were all on top form, with a slew of Sedona Red comments, a number reaching eight or more recs. Well-played everyone. But I have to give it to ercil:

Tomorrow, it’s the same two teams, as this four-game set continues. Starting for the D-backs will be the pleasant surprise which has been Michael Soroka, with another 6:40 pm first pitch. See you there!

Red Sox legend David Ortiz told the Associated Press that despite his old ballclub’s current position in the standings, owner John Henry really does care about his team. 

Ortiz said that Henry was “worried” and that he had spoken to Henry recently about the downturn for the AL East team. 

“He knows the direction of this team and he’s worried about the team’s situation more than what people think he is,” Ortiz said, while speaking with the AP at his celebrity golf tournament. 

The Red Sox are currently 25-33 and sit dead last in the division. 

“He’s worried. We had a conversation. I can see. I’ve known John a long time, him and the whole team — him and [chairman] Tom Werner, the whole group, they’re working on figuring things out to get this ride better,” Ortiz also said. 

Boston has gone through a hellish season thus far, which has included a purge of the coaching staff in April that included firing manager Alex Cora and five other coaches. 

“I sat down to talk to John, and he wants to figure it out. He wants to have the formula to go back to the old days,” he said. “It’s not like he just gives up. Sometimes people don’t understand that the way that this game goes, that it’s hard to stay up there.”

The rough season has led to even further frustration from Red Sox fans, who from 2004-2018 had seen Boston win four World Series titles. 

A plane flew over Fenway Park last month calling on the Red Sox’s current ownership group to sell the team. 

“When you worry, you worry about everything in general. You worry about the team, you worry about the fans and you worry about how everything is moving around,” Ortiz said. “I tell you, the boss is, he’s working, he’s working. He’s working on putting the pieces that moving forward things get better around here.”

Only time will tell if Ortiz’s faith is correctly placed in Henry and the Red Sox ownership group to turn the team around.

Two hits over nine innings were enough to give them a chance Monday night, but the Mets weren’t going to extend their winning streak without a third.

That hit never arrived.

Instead, the Mariners’ win streak continued to a seventh straight game, as Cole Young’s walkoff single against A.J. Minter sent the Mets to a 3-2 loss in 10 innings at T-Mobile Park.

Randy Arozarena, the automatic runner to begin the inning, stole third base, leaving the Mariners 90 feet from the win. Young’s bloop to left with one out followed, snapping the Mets’ winning streak at four games.

“We had a good gameplan going in, but we just weren’t able to execute as much as we wanted,” said Jared Young, whose fifth-inning homer accounted for half the Mets’ hits and scoring.

Marcus Semien was the other half of the offense, with a sixth-inning blast that put the Mets ahead.

“It was a good game, a well-played game by both teams,” manager Carlos Mendoza said. “There was a lot of good pitching from both sides and obviously coming into the series we know the type of pitching staff they have.”

It’s a staff that entered the day with a 3.46 ERA that ranked fifth in MLB.

In a performance barely seen from the left-hander since his breakout 2024 season, Sean Manaea contained the Mariners in a bulk relief role.

Manaea, in his longest outing of the season, allowed one earned run on one hit and one walk with four strikeouts over five innings. Manaea was moved into this more prominent role in recent days, essentially switching spots with David Peterson, who has become a lower leverage reliever.

“I was just attacking guys and throwing everything for strikes,” Manaea said. “I just felt it was a good pitching performance.”

Brooks Raley surrendered the game-tying homer an inning after Manaea’s removal. Mendoza said he didn’t consider allowing Manaea to pitch that seventh inning because his velocity began to drop in the sixth and he was already at his season’s longest outing.

Austin Warren served as the opener and worked a perfect first inning before plunking Arozarena to begin the second. Manaea was summoned and walked Young with one out before getting Rob Refsnyder to ground into an inning-ending double play.

Manaea surrendered a homer to Colt Emerson with one out in the third for the game’s first run. Emerson hit an 0-1 sweeper into the right-field seats for the fourth homer surrendered this season by Manaea.

Young homered leading off the fifth to tie it 1-1 after Emerson Hancock had retired 12 straight batters to begin the game. Young jumped on a 3-1 four-seam fastball and cleared the fence in left-center for his second homer in three games. Young began the day with an .837 OPS since returning last week from surgery to repair a meniscus tear in his left knee.

A.J. Ewing’s diving catch in center field robbed Young of a hit to begin the bottom of the fifth. Manaea retired Refsnyder before Mitch Garver’s loud fly to left field became the third out.

Semien continued his hot stretch with a homer leading off the sixth that gave the Mets a 2-1 lead. Semien began the day with a .954 OPS over his previous seven games. The blast was his sixth this season and second in as many games. Semien’s season has been a disappointment overall, after arriving in the trade that sent Brandon Nimmo to Texas in the offseason.

“He’s a guy that doesn’t panic, that is the biggest thing,” Mendoza said before the game. “He’s a guy that has been in this league for a long time and he understands there’s going to be stretches where it’s hard, but he doesn’t panic. He knows his foundation. He sticks to what he believes and what got him here so far.”

Josh Naylor homered against Raley leading off the bottom of the seventh to tie it 2-2. The hit was only the Mariners’ second of the night. Raley allowed a two-out single to Young before Luke Weaver recorded the final out.

Ewing’s diving catch on J.P. Crawford’s sinking line drive completed Weaver’s perfect eighth inning. The right-hander recorded his 12th straight scoreless outing.

Devin Williams worked a perfect ninth, making it seven straight batters retired by the Mets following Young’s single in the seventh.

PHOENIX –– For most of this season, the Dodgers have been watching the San Diego Padres in their rear-view mirror.

After Monday night, they might need to make sure the Arizona Diamondbacks are not sneaking up in their blind spot.

In the first of a four-game series at Chase Field, the Dodgers lost 4-1 to a resurgent D-backs team, which has won 15 of its last 22 games to move within a half-game of the Padres for second place in the National League West.

Neither division rival is exactly pushing the Dodgers right now. Even with Monday’s win, the D-backs remain 5 ½ games back in the NL West race.

But this week’s series does provide an opportunity for Arizona, which has recovered from a 17-20 start behind an expectedly good offense and, unexpectedly, an even better pitching staff in recent weeks.

“They’re resilient, they’re athletic, they can defend … and they’re playing great baseball,” Dodgers manager Dave Roberts said before first pitch Monday.

In the nine innings that followed, that remained the case.

Left-hander Eduardo Rodriguez flummoxed the Dodgers over six one-run innings, continuing his bounce-back campaign by escaping a couple early jams. 

In the top of the second, the Dodgers had two aboard with no outs, and the bases loaded with two outs, but came up empty. In the third, they had runners on second and third after back-to-back doubles from Shohei Ohtani (who had three hits on the night) and Andy Pages, but managed just one run on a Freddie Freeman grounder.

After that, the Dodgers (38-22) wouldn’t put another runner in scoring position –– getting robbed of a couple hits along the way by diving snags from Dbacks outfielder Jorge Barrosa in center.

“It certainly changes the complexion of those innings,” Roberts said of the catches. “That could have been a difference maker.”

The D-backs 32-27, meanwhile, erased the early deficit on solo home runs from Tommy Troy and Nolan Arenado in the sixth and seventh innings, then a backbreaking two-run blast from Ketel Marte in the eighth.

Down the stretch, a once-shaky D-backs bullpen also closed the door with three shutout innings. 

And suddenly, this early June series feels a little extra important.

What it means

For the first time in three weeks, the Dodgers have dropped two of three games.

And in both defeats, lackluster offense was to blame.

It’s hardly time to worry yet, with the Dodgers still averaging nearly six runs per game during a 14-4 stretch going back to May 13.

But even after getting 6 ⅓ strong innings from Emmet Sheehan, who gave up just two runs to lower his ERA to 4.50, their offense couldn’t get him off the hook for the loss.

“I thought we had some good at-bats and barrelled up some balls,” outfielder Kyle Tucker said. “But they made some nice plays and we just weren’t able to get the runs across, so just kind of how it goes sometimes.”

Who’s hot

Sheehan, who finally rediscovered his typical fastball velocity.

All year, the right-hander has struggled to dial up his heater, which had fallen from averaging 95.6 mph last season to 94.2 mph this year. But on Monday, it was up nearly two ticks, sitting at season-best 95.9 mph and topping out at a season-high 97.2 mph.

The extra life helped Sheehan be extra efficient in what matched his longest start of the campaign. After giving up a double to Corbin Carroll in the first inning, he retired his next 15 in a row on just 62 throws. For only the second time this year, he pitched into the seventh.

The only problem with Sheehan’s night were two mistakes that went over the fence. In the sixth, he left a 1-0 heater down the middle to Troy, who drove it out to left for his first career home run. In the seventh, Sheehan hung a first-pitch slider to Arenado, who launched another solo blast that chased Sheehan from the game.

Who’s not

Tucker, once again.

Coming off a two-hit game on Sunday that the Dodgers were hoping had snapped his previous 1-for-16 slump, the $240 million offseason signing went hitless once again on Monday, drawing an eight-pitch walk his first time up before stumbling to an 0-for-3 performance.

“I just need to do it more consistently everyday, rather than just every now and then,” Tucker said of his inconsistent production. “So, just come back tomorrow and try to get better at it.”

Tucker’s batting average on the season is now down to .238, and his OPS to .722. Among the team’s everyday players, only Mookie Betts has worse numbers (and he missed a month with an oblique strain).

Up next

The Dodgers will look to bounce back on Tuesday, when Eric Lauer will take the mound for his second start with the team. He’ll face right-hander Michael Soroka (7-2, 3.25 ERA).