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Infielder Eddie Castorena, 75, wore two braces under his Old Spice uniform, one for his knee and one for his back.

Big Red catcher Tony Spallino, 67, was moving pretty well behind the plate, hoping he won’t need a second hip replacement.

His teammate Agustin Quezada, 83, limped through the dugout between innings, leaning on his bat as if it were a cane.

“When I first started, it was like, man, it smells like Bengay here,” said Big Red utilityman Ruben Enriquez.

But there is no glory in compromise, and no thrill like blasting a ball into the gap and circling the bases, no matter how many paramedics it might take to get you home. So the games go on every Thursday at Smith Park in Pico Rivera, home of the Go-Getter softball league.

“I never played baseball before. Never. I learned here, and I love it,” said Isabel Enriquez, 73, who plays several positions for Big Red and made a sure-handed catch of a towering fly ball to left in a game against the Force.

Reflexes are generally good and the bats still have some pop in them, for the most part, especially for players closer to 50 than 80. When it comes to chasing after a ball or sprinting the basepaths, the effort is there, even if the feet can’t always deliver what the heart desires.

“I hope when I’m their age … I’ll be flexible and be able to run down the basepath like that,” said Pico Rivera Mayor Johnny Garcia, who stopped by to take in some of the action in a league that’s more than 30 years young.

Lorenzo Sanchez, who pitched Rolling Thunder to a 14-2 win over the Warriors, wore a boyish smile and looked nothing like 83. He said that in 15 years of lacing up his cleats, he could only recall one minor muscle pull.

“I’m in good condition,” Sanchez boasted.

“I try to emphasize to my new players, go out with the grandkids, do some running and throw the ball back and forth,” said Rolling Thunder manager Gil Perez, 76. “Some of them do and some of them don’t.”

Perez and his wife, Deborah, 71, who plays catcher, work out regularly.

“I’m doing 2½-minute planks,” said Deborah, referring to the exercise in which you get into a push-up position and hold it for as long as you can. “So my core is pretty tight.”

Several players encouraged me to get out of the press box and onto the field.

I’d love to, I said. But I’ve had two knee replacements.

That drew a sharp, one-word response from Dichosa “Dee” Quezada, Agustin’s wife and a loyal spectator who watches every game from a lawn chair behind the backstop.

“So?” she asked with a withering glare.

Read more:Half a century on the beat, and thank you very much

I wouldn’t be the first, Dichosa told me, saying there was a guy with two knee replacements on a team from Anaheim.

In years past, one former Go-Getter used a walker to get to the field, swung a mean bat, and let a pinch-runner take over after she banged out a hit.

And then there’s Spallino, with the hip replacement, who told me he tried to come back too soon after his 2017 surgery. A little more rest did the trick and that hip is still holding up, Spallino said, “but I’m having problems with the other one now.”

The players have a sense of reassurance in knowing that former softballer Lupe Diaz, a retired registered nurse, comes to all the games with her first aid kit. Once, several years ago, there weren’t enough tools in that kit.

“I remember it like it was yesterday,” Diaz said. “I was catcher, and I was getting ready to throw the ball back when I saw this player lying on the ground in the outfield.”

Diaz raced out and began CPR on the fallen fielder, whose heart had given out, while someone called 911.

“I brought him back and they carried him to the dugout,” she said.

The player recovered at the hospital but died about two weeks later, as Diaz recalls.

On Thursday, Big Red outfielder Art Montano, 77, swung at a pitch and missed. He ended up hammering a sharp single to right, but he was still frustrated by the earlier whiff.

“My vision’s not like it used to be,” Montano said, and sometimes the brain isn’t reacting quickly enough to messages sent by the eyes. “Let’s say the ball is pitched, and you’re waiting on it, and the brain is telling you it’s right there, but you can’t pull the trigger.”

In the Rolling Thunder rout of the Warriors, outfielder Uvaldo Davila showed off a slick glove and a strong arm, and after banging out a hit, he scampered around the bases to score. But back in the dugout, he said he’s been battling a big challenge.

“I was diagnosed with Parkinson’s about eight years ago,” said Davila, 64, who told me his hand tremors are getting worse, and his neurologist told him he may soon have some balance issues.

“I’m taking medicine,” Davila said, and he intends to keep playing as long as he can, because softball is “better than medicine.”

The Force, this season’s strongest team, showed no mercy on Thursday, routing Big Red by a score of 21-1 to improve to 8-0.

Read more:Benny Wasserman handled the heat -- in life and in the batting cage

“We have a lot of good hitters and no drama,” said Force journeyman Lee Wabash, 75. “In the past, there were a lot of arguments. But this team has it together.”

At one point, with nobody on base, a Force batter hit a routine grounder. Big Red’s second baseman fielded it cleanly, but threw to second instead of first.

“Senior moment,” a disappointed Big Red teammate muttered in the dugout.

In the sixth inning, several Big Red players noticed that their pitcher had gone missing. They looked around and spotted him in the parking lot, pedaling away on his bicycle.

“Rick!” one player called out, to no avail.

“He’s going home,” said another.

But two games remain in the regular season, so there’s still time to find a groove. And then all six teams qualify for the playoffs.

Anything can happen, said Ruben Enriquez, and just showing up to get some exercise and be with friends is a victory in itself.

“Better to play,” he said, “than to rot away at home.”

steve.lopez@latimes.com

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This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.

Is Brett Baty this year’s Mark Vientos – a young(ish) Mets player finally seizing a big-league chance and changing the trajectory of his career? 

Maybe. Obviously, there’s much more for Baty to show. But on nights like Saturday, it’s tempting to believe that Baty can be a bigger deal than a guy who’s had MLB at-bats every season since 2022 but can’t seem to stick around. 

At Citi Field, Baty clubbed two home runs and was basically the entire Mets offense – the successful part of it, anyway. He drove in all five runs in a 6-5 loss to the Cubs, setting his career high for RBI in his second career multi-homer game. The Mets were 1-for-10 with runners in scoring position, failing to cash in on whatever traffic they created, but Baty kept homering to keep them close.

“He’s been killing it since he came back up,” said teammate Tylor Megill, who knows a thing or two about re-emerging from the minors. “I mean, the biggest thing you can do is not pout about it. Stuff like that (getting sent down) happens. Take it like a man, go down there, work, keep working. Don’t lose your confidence, because at some point, you’re gonna be back up. You’re gonna help this team. 

“He’s been a completely different player since he came back up… He’s hitting the ball really well.”

“He's not missing fastballs,” added manager Carlos Mendoza. “I feel like when he gets in trouble, he’s fouling them off… Even, I think, breaking balls in the strike zone, he's hammering them too. So anything on the strike zone he's putting barrels on.”

Baty was recalled from the minors on May 5. Over the past two games, he’s 4-for-8 with three home runs. One of his homers Saturday night was to right-center and the other to left field, his opposite field.

Mendoza noted that Baty lost his spot initially this season because of a roster crunch. But Baty was batting .204 with a .597 OPS when he was sent down. Those are the numbers of a vulnerable player, even if Baty has worked to add versatility to his skill set. Mendoza regularly expresses confidence in Baty’s defensive ability at third base and at second, which the Mets wanted him to learn so he could be more versatile. 

“He’s getting opportunities and he knows he belongs in the big leagues,” Mendoza said. “He’s a really good big-league player. He’s got skills. He’s got tools and we see it… So I think it’s just the confidence now that he knows he belongs here.”

Baty talked after Saturday’s game about how he’s been challenging himself in the batting cages, looking at different pitch types, trying to get his heart rate up while there to help simulate game conditions. He’d rather dip into the technical aspects of hitting than attach heavy meaning to one game.

Still, it must be hard not to think about the ways he fits into this roster after a big night like Saturday, right?

“No, not until y’all (reporters) bring it up,” Baty replied.

Maybe he doesn’t look at one game as a referendum on the state of his career. And maybe that outlook will help him find his way in the majors. But one night like Saturday shows a pretty high bar for a former first-round pick still looking to cement himself as a Met. 

The Mets could’ve moved on from Baty numerous times. But they have not. There was a time when observers wondered if Vientos would make a huge impact on the Mets and he finally did – Vientos’ emergence was one of the biggest stories of their 2024 season. 

Can Baty duplicate that this season? He’s got another chance now. His numbers aren’t overwhelming. But nights like Saturday will make the Mets – and the rest of the baseball world – pay plenty of attention. 

His career arc is not set yet.

That's now two starts in a row forTylor Megill that haven't looked like the ones the Mets were beginning to get accustomed to from earlier in the season.

After "laboring" through 4.2 innings on Saturday against the Chicago Cubs, Megill allowed four earned runs on seven hits and two walks while striking out seven. Much of that damage came in the first inning where a run scored before the right-hander could even record an out and needed 28 pitches to finally get out of the inning after eight men came up to bat.

"Obviously ran into some trouble early there in the first inning," Megill said after the 6-5 loss. "Quick runner on third and then just trying to make pitches and limit damage and obviously ran up the pitch count there."

Following Megill's arduous first inning, he pitched a clean second but was ambushed once again in the third, throwing two pitches which resulted in a run for the Cubs. To his credit, Megill was able to right the ship during the inning and struck out two sandwiched in between Francisco Alvarez helping out his pitcher with a pickoff at first base.

"I think probably after the second inning, [I] kinda switched the gameplan going four-seam and had a lot of success with that," he said.

The final run Megill allowed came in the fourth when Dansby Swanson took him deep with a 1-2 count to lead off the inning. Of all the pitches he threw, that was probably the biggest mistake.

"Missed pitch over to Swanson on the 1-2," Megill said. "[I] was trying to go down away and shot it up and in, right in his little hot spot for a solo shot. But I think after that I switched the gameplan around and had success."

Overall, Megill's final line wasn't disastrous and after a rough first inning that got his pitch count up he only threw 77 pitches (50 strikes) on the evening.

A silver lining in what was a vexxing night at Citi Field? Sure, but Megill will take it.

"I think after that first inning, [I] did a really good job limiting pitches throughout there," he said. "Obviously got pulled there in the fifth, but pitch count was kinda where it needed to be. After getting pulled, looking back at it after the first inning [I] managed well."

Still, in Megill's last two starts he's allowed a combined eight earned runs in 9.2 innings. In his previous six starts, the right-hander allowed six earned runs across 31 innings.

It would be foolish to think that Megill, or any pitcher, would be able to pitch at the level that Megill had been pitching to start the season. However, in Megill's case, the recent string of mediocre starts is only somewhat troubling because of his history.

Throughout his career, the 29-year-old who is in his fifth year has made a habit of pitching extraordinarily well in the first month of the season, as evidenced by his 10-4 record and 2.45 ERA in 17 starts in March/April.

In two May starts this season, Megill has a 7.45 ERA.

Obviously it's a small sample size and the right-hander still owns a 3.10 season ERA and is part of a Mets staff that continues to lead the league in ERA.

In fact, manager Carlos Mendoza isn't concerned about the two recent blips from his starter.

"We’re pretty confident with his ability, his maturity, the guys that we got in here," Mendoza said. "... He was pretty good two outings ago. I think it’s just one of those where today probably wasn’t at his best and I feel like just the life on the fastball – I thought he got better. I saw 94-95 in the fourth and the fifth and he got some swings-and-misses at the top, but early on I didn’t see that."

Megill's next chance at proving he's not headed toward the same path he's been going throughout his career will likely come next weekend in the Subway Series when the Yankees host the Mets for a three-game series.

The Dodgers were a perfect 5-0 this season when facing former Cy Young Award winners.

On Saturday night at Chase Field, however, they finally met their match.

Despite missing his last scheduled start because of shoulder inflammation, Corbin Burnes had his way with the Dodgers' powerhouse lineup in a 3-0 win for the Arizona Diamondbacks, throwing seven shutout innings to ensure the Dodgers will do no better than split this four-game series between National League West rivals.

“I think that he was going to bring his best tonight,” Dodgers manager Dave Roberts said. “And we really didn't get a whole lot of good swings against him."

In a stark reversal from Friday night’s 25-run thrill ride, when the Dodgers needed a five-run rally in the third inning and a six-run come-from-behind outburst in the ninth to earn their lone win through three games this weekend, a pitcher’s duel ensued under a closed roof at Chase Field on Saturday.

Dodgers starter Dustin May was good, dotting the corners of the strike zone with his wicked sinker-sweeper combination en route to a 6 ⅔-inning, two-run, five-strikeout outing — his longest since returning from a second career elbow surgery this year.

“He was in a good rhythm, he was getting ahead in counts, he put guys away when he needed to,” Roberts said of May, who lowered his ERA to 4.08 on the season. “I thought he pitched really well."

May’s only two mistakes came on a couple first-pitch sinkers over the middle of the plate: One that Corbin Carroll hit for a leadoff triple in the third inning, leading to one run; and another that Eugenio Suárez clobbered for a 455-foot homer in the sixth.

“I was working the sinker to both sides of the plate, and I had just two poorly executed sinkers, and they took advantage of it,” May said. “It's the big leagues, and that's what they do."

Burnes, however, was better the whole way, flashing the form that made him a Cy Young winner in 2021 with the Milwaukee Brewers and $210 million free-agent signing for the Diamondbacks (21-19) this winter.

Read more:Dodgers continue ‘to bet on’ Michael Conforto, but can he break unthinkable early slump?

“[He was] being Corbin Burnes,” said first baseman Freddie Freeman, one of four Dodgers' batters who went hitless on a day the team collected only five total. “He’s one of the best pitchers in the game for a reason … Just had everything going today.”

Burnes erased a leadoff single in the first from Friday night’s hero, Shohei Ohtani, with an immediate double-play from Mookie Betts. He stranded two runners on base in both the third and fourth innings, easily extinguishing the two best threats the Dodgers (26-14) generated against him. And he finished the day giving up just five hits and two walks (one of them was intentional) while striking out five.

Entering Saturday, some of the Dodgers’ most impressive wins this season came against former Cy Young arms. During their 8-0 start to the season, they won against both of last year’s winners, Tarik Skubal of the Detroit Tigers and Chris Sale of the Atlanta Braves. They knocked off Jacob deGrom and the Rangers in Texas last month, when their own Cy Young candidate, Yoshinobu Yamamoto, outdueled deGrom in a low-scoring affair. In the last two weeks, they had battered Miami’s Sandy Alcantara twice, beating up on the NL’s 2023 winner as he works his way back from Tommy John surgery.

Burnes, however, was on a different level Saturday, complementing his signature cutter with a mix of curveballs, changeups, sinkers and sliders to turn in his best performance in a Diamondbacks uniform.

Between Burnes and Arizona reliever Ryne Nelson, who finished the game with a two-out save, the Dodgers forced Diamondbacks pitchers to make just 107 throws in what was their third game being shut out this season.

“Especially when he’s at the bottom of the zone [with his cutter], it’s hard to hit those,” Freeman said of Burnes, who was also aided by a favorable strike zone from home plate umpire John Tumpane. “He was commanding the zone and getting some calls … We were ready for him, and he was just really good today.”

While the loss ended the Dodgers’ perfect record against Cy Young winners, it continued a more troubling trend for the team of late.

Since that 8-0 start, the Dodgers have played 11 games against teams currently above .500. With Saturday’s loss, they are now 3-8 in those contests, and will now need a win Sunday to avoid dropping a fourth-straight such series.

“We probably do got to play better against teams with winning records,” Roberts said, “but I'm not carrying too much weight into that one right now."

Sign up for more Dodgers news with Dodgers Dugout. Delivered at the start of each series.

This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.

Brett Baty homered twice Saturday night, but his big game was not enough for the Mets, who lost to the visiting Chicago Cubs, 6-5, in front of 41,423 at Citi Field. 

The Mets were 1-for-10 with runners in scoring position and left six men on base. 

The Mets (25-15) fell to 14-4 at home this season. The two likely contenders meet again Sunday to decide their three-game series

Here are the takeaways...

-Baty's first shot, a three-run homer off Cade Horton in the fourth inning, got the Mets back close after they fell behind, 4-0. The second one, a two-run blast to the opposite field off Julian Merryweather in the eighth, gave the Mets a late glimmer. Baty, who also homered Friday night, has four home runs this season. 

-Down by one run in the seventh, the Mets built a threat against reliever Daniel Palencia, whose fastball hits triple digits. With one out, Tyrone Taylor lofted a soft single to center and then Francisco Lindor walked, putting the tying run at second and the potential go-ahead marker at first. But Palencia struck out Juan Soto with a gutsy 3-2 slider, getting a swing-and-miss with the 87 mph pitch. Then Palencia retired Pete Alonso on a ground ball to end the threat.

-The Cubs took a 2-0 lead in the first inning against Tylor Megill, who had not allowed an earned run at Citi Field prior to Saturday. Pete Crow-Armstrong, the former Met prospect, led off the game with a single to center, stole second and went to third on a throwing error by Francisco Alvarez on the steal attempt. After a walk to Kyle Tucker, Seiya Suzuki singled in PCA. Megill got two outs sandwiched around a walk, but then gave up another run. Dansby Swanson drilled a hard shot toward third that Baty knocked down with his glove. But Baty’s throw to first wasn’t cleanly handled by Alonso, though Swanson probably would’ve been safe anyway. Tucker scored on the play.

-Megill (3-3), who had a 1.09 ERA over his first five starts of the season, lasted only 4.2 innings and allowed four runs on seven hits. He struck out seven and walked two. In addition to the two runs he gave up in the first inning, Megill also gave up an RBI single to Michael Busch in the third inning and a 404-foot solo homer to Swanson in the fourth that bumped Chicago’s lead to 4-0. It was Swanson’s eighth home run of the season. It wasn’t a tremendous outing for Megill, obviously, but there were moments, including when he got Busch to swing weakly and miss at a pretty slider in the first. Busch missed the ball by about a foot. Megill’s season ERA sits at 3.10 now through eight starts. 

-The Cubs used an opener to start the game and Brad Keller threw a scoreless first frame, which included strikeouts of both Lindor and Alonso. He was replaced after the first by Horton, a 23-year-old righty who is the Cubs’ top pitching prospect. Horton, the seventh overall pick in the 2022 draft, made his MLB debut and allowed three runs in four innings while striking out five and walking none and earned the win.

-Alvarez got a scare in the third inning when he was hit on the left hand by Horton’s 95 mph fastball. It was the same hand Alvarez had surgery on after suffering a broken hamate bone there in spring training. He was in obvious pain after getting plunked Saturday, but he remained in the game. The broken hamate bone cost him time earlier this season – Saturday was only his 11th game so far.

-Miguel Amaya hit a two-run single off Max Kranick in the eighth inning to extend the Cubs’ lead to 6-3. 

-Edwin Diaz threw a 1-2-3 ninth for the Mets, including a strikeout of Suzuki, the Cubs’ No. 3 hitter.

Game MVP: Brett Baty

Baty, who had his second career multi-homer game and finished with five RBI.

Highlights

BRETT BATY HOMERS ON BACK-TO-BACK NIGHTS! 🍎

(via @MLBONFOX) pic.twitter.com/Tu500yWvs2

— SNY (@SNYtv) May 11, 2025

BRETT BATY'S THIRD HOME RUN IN TWO DAYS!

(via @Mets) pic.twitter.com/pQlx9BFdQM

— SNY (@SNYtv) May 11, 2025

What's next

The Mets and Cubs finish their three-game series with a Sunday matinee on Mother's Day. First pitch is scheduled for 12:05 p.m.

RHP Griffin Canning (5-1, 2.50 ERA) aims to keep his terrific start to the season going and will face off against LHP Matthew Boyd (3-2, 2.75 ERA).