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The Dodgers started their homestand on a strong note, as home runs from Kyle Tucker and Miguel Rojas helped defeat the Tampa Bay Rays on Monday.

In Eric Lauer’s previous start in Pittsburgh, he allowed a pair of two-out home runs to Bryan Reynolds and Ryan O’Hearn. This time on Monday, after getting two outs on eight pitches, Lauer allowed a double to Junior Caminero before Ryan Vilade tattooed his first pitch halfway up the left field pavilion to make it a 2-0 Tampa Bay lead. The Rays decided to play small ball in the second, as Taylor Walls brought home a run on a suicide squeeze, giving Tampa Bay a three-run lead.

The Dodgers went down in order in the bottom of the first against Nick Martinez. They responded with a double from Mookie Betts in the bottom of the second before Max Muncy hustled out an infield single. Kyle Tucker picked the perfect time to smack his first home run at home in two months, as he scraped one over the right field wall to tie the game at 3. It is the first time that Tucker has homered at home as a Dodger while wearing his jersey no. 23.

Tucker showed off his cannon in right field as he gunned down Johnathan Aranda at the plate for the third out of the third inning to keep the game tied at three.

After allowing the early three runs, Lauer managed to keep Tampa Bay off the board over his final four innings on the night despite having to navigate through heavy traffic on the bases. It’s his first quality start since his Dodger debut on May 26 against the Colorado Rockies

Martinez outperformed Lauer after the Tucker home run by retiring eight in a row until Tucker collected his second hit of the night. He was unable to complete six innings, as an 11-pitch walk to Freddie Freeman and a walk to Max Muncy signaled his departure, and Kevin Cash brought in the southpaw Cam Booser to face Tucker and Ryan Ward. Booser struck out Tucker for the second out, and Dave Roberts countered Booser by pinch hitting Alex Call for Ward. The decision ultimately failed, as Call went down swinging to keep the game tied with the go-ahead runner in scoring position.

The Dodgers decided to bring in another pinch hitter in the bottom of the seventh, replacing Alex Freeland for Miguel Rojas against the left-hander Steven Matz. Rojas swung at the first pitch, and sent it over the left field wall for his first home run since April 20, giving the Dodgers their first lead of the night. It was also Rojas’ first home run at home on the year.

The Rays put the leadoff man against Will Klein in the top of the eighth, as Vilade singled the other way to put the potential tying run on base. Vilade scattered his way to third with two outs, and against the left-handed hitting Cedric Mullins, Alex Vesia was called to get the final out. One flyout of Mullins later, Vesia kept the lead intact. Tanner Scott retired the side in order to secure the save as the Dodgers completed yet another comeback win.

Game particulars

• Home runs— Ryan Vilade (4); Kyle Tucker (6), Miguel Rojas (2)
• WP— Kyle Hurt (2-1): 1 IP, 1 hit, 0 runs, 0 walks, 2 strikeouts
• LP— Steven Matz (4-4): 2 IP, 2 hits, 1 earned run, 0 walks, 1 strikeout
• SV— Tanner Scott (8): 1 IP, 0 hits, 0 runs, 0 walks, 1 strikeout

Up next

The Dodgers host the middle match of their three-game set against the Rays on Tuesday (7:10 p.m. PT, SportsNet LA). Justin Wrobleski looks to bounce back after a rough outing in Pittsburgh, and he faces Drew Rasmussen.

CINCINNATI — An already thin Mets pitching rotation lost a key component Monday as a giant question mark is set to return.

Christian Scott was placed on the injured list with a right hip impingement that isn’t deemed serious, according to manager Carlos Mendoza, and Kodai Senga will return to take Scott’s spot in the rotation Tuesday.

Scott, who has pitched to a 3.10 ERA in nine starts this season, felt discomfort in the hip following his last start and didn’t feel better following his side session Sunday.

A subsequent MRI revealed the impingement.

Scott received a cortisone shot in the hip.

“We’re hoping this is a minimal [absence],” Mendoza said before the Mets lost 12-0 to the Reds.

Enter Senga, who was originally under consideration for another minor league rehab start following a solid outing Thursday for Double-A Binghamton.

The right-hander has spent the past six weeks rehabbing lumbar spine inflammation.

The Mets received promising results early this season from Senga, before a plunge that Mendoza has attributed to the right-hander’s back ailment.

Overall, Senga owns a 9.00 ERA in five starts for the team this season.

He finished last season at Triple-A Syracuse following a second-half nosedive.

In his last minor league rehab appearance, he pitched six innings and allowed one earned run on one hit for Binghamton.

“We have been saying we wanted to see results, which we had his last outing,” Mendoza said. “But with him, not only the result but how he feels after he pitches.”

Senga threw a bullpen session Sunday, according to Mendoza, and received the green light a day later.

“He’s ready to go,” Mendoza said. “He’s telling us that he feels 100 percent. He was on board with, ‘Hey, if you want me to go to the minor leagues and pitch again [on rehab], I will do it, but I am ready to compete on the big league level.’ For him to be very vocal about it is a real good thing.”

Francisco Lindor played in a simulated game, receiving at-bats, running the bases and playing defense.

Mendoza said that routine will continue throughout this week before it’s decided if the shortstop, who is rehabbing a calf strain, will need a minor league rehab stint.

Tobias Myers (who started Monday) and Jonathan Pintaro were recalled from Syracuse before the game.

Daniel Duarte was optioned.

Infielder Zack Short was claimed off waivers from the Tigers.

In a game that should have been a battle of Cole Carrigg vs. Pete Crow-Armstrong, and one where the Rockies rookie out-produced Chicago’s All-Star center fielder, it was the bullpen that snatched defeat from the jaws of victory on Monday night.

Carrigg hit a three-run homer in the eighth inning and drew a bases-loaded walk earlier in the game, taking credit for every Colorado Rockies run and outshining reverse cycling-hitting PCA, but Juan Mejia and Seth Halvorsen combined to walk three Chicago Cubs in the bottom of the ninth, including Halvorsen’s four-pitch walk to Matt Shaw with the bases loaded to lose the game.

Don’t walk this way

Seven different Rockies pitchers combined to walk nine Cubs and give away the game. Rockies starter Michael Lorenzen, who gave up one run in five innings, only issued one walk.

“[Eight bullpen walks] is never ever going to lead to wins. Michael walked one. He threw the ball very well, I thought. He kept us right in the ball game. He was efficient,” Rockies manager Warren Schaeffer said after the game. “That’s two really, really good starts in a row for him, which is huge for us and huge for him. I am happy for him.”

The walk-fest started in the sixth when Antonio Senzatela gave up a two-out walk to Moisés Ballesteros. He came around to score on a Shaw triple to put the Cubs up 2-1.

In the eighth inning, after the Rockies rallied to take a 4-2 lead, the Cubs used Victor Vodnik’s control problems to cut the lead to one. Vodnik, who rejoined the team earlier on Monday after being on the IL since May 20, gave up a single to Pedro Ramírez and a walk to Michael Conforto. Crow-Armstrong made the Rockies pay with a sac fly to make it 4-3 Colorado, and despite another walk to Alex Bregman, the Rockies entered the bottom of the ninth with the lead thanks to Juan Mejia striking out Michael Busch on 98.2-mph high heat.

Mejia’s mojo didn’t carry over to the ninth as he started off by walking Seiya Suzuki, who didn’t have a hit and had struck out twice in the game. Ian Happ then hit a grounder to Hill, who airmailed a throw to second base to center field, putting runners at the corners with no outs. A frazzled Mejia then walked Nico Hoerner to load the bases. At that point, Schaeffer pulled him from the game.

Seth Halvorsen came in, but the problem remained the same.

Halverson immediately gave up a game-tying single to Ramírez and then threw four straight balls to give Shaw the walk-off walk win.

“If you are going to walk eight guys in the bullpen, you aren’t going to win very many games,” Schaeffer said. “It’s a shame. Eight walks on the road in the tough environment, that’s just not going to fly.”

Despite the outcome, Schaeffer still brushed aside questions about having an established closer. He listed all six relievers that came in the game on Monday and said they could do it, but that “we just couldn’t get it done tonight.”

Carrigg continues to crush

If the first seven games of Carrigg’s MLB career are any indicator, the center fielder, who finished the game at shortstop, is going to be something special. In his first 27 at-bats, the 24-year-old switch hitter has seven hits, eight RBI, three homers, six runs scored, three walks, and six strikeouts.

He flashed his potential when he came to the plate with two outs and two runners on and smashed a four-seam fastball from Caleb Thielbar 105.1 mph to left field.

“He’s been absolutely awesome,” Schaeffer said. “The homer in Wrigley, down one in the eighth, what do you say about that? The kid’s first seven games, and he’s doing that already? That’s impressive. He’s not scared of anything. He’s a breath of fresh air. It’s fun watching him play.”

Willi Castro picked up where he left off from his two-homer, seven-RBI game on Sunday by starting the game with a pair of singles. He was part of the Rockies recording a single in each of the first five innings, but they were never able to advance a runner to second base through five innings against Shota Imanaga.

That finally happened in the sixth when Castro drew a leadoff walk. Tyler Freeman traded places with him after hitting into a fielder’s choice and TJ Rumfield flied out. Hunter Goodman followed with a single and his hit was enough to chase Imanaga from the game.

Phil Maton entered the game, only to hit pinch hitter Troy Johnston to load the bases. Carrigg then came to the plate, and stood in for a great, eight-pitch at-bat to draw an RBI walk and tie the game.

Jake McCarthy grounded out to end the inning with the bases still loaded, but at least the Rockies were on the board. Imanaga finished with a similar line to Lorenzen’s: one run on five hits and one walk in five innings, but only with three strikeouts.

Lorenzen, Rockies could have overcome PCA’s cycle

Crow-Armstrong punished Lorenzen early, hitting a 434-foot homer to center field with the wind blowing out in the first at-bat of the game. With a 1-0 lead, Alex Bregman followed with a single up the middle and it seemed like the Rockies were in for a long night.

Then Lorenzen turned it on, responding by striking out Michael Busch and Seiya Suzuki before getting Ian Happ to fly out. Over the next four innings, Lorenzen held the Cubs scoreless, despite threats every inning. Lorenzen escaped two runners in the second (two singles), a leadoff triple by PCA in the third and a one-out double by PCA in the fifth.

PCA completed the reverse cycle, the first cycle of his career and the first at Wrigley Field since Mark Grace did it in 1993, in the seventh inning when he hit a single of Brennan Bernardino.

As a small bit of solace for Rockies fans, Bernardino then picked off Crow-Armstrong at first base.

Lorenzen finished with five strikeouts — three on the four-seam fastball and two on the sinker. That helped him overcome the five hits he surrendered.

When he left the game entering the bottom of the sixth, after throwing 89 pitches, the Rockies and Cubs were tied 1-1.

The Rockies have now lost 10 straight at Wrigley Field.

Up Next

The Rockies and Cubs will be back at it on Tuesday night with first pitch slated for 6:05 p.m. MDT. Ryan Feltner (2-2, 5.20 ERA) will start for the Rockies, while Edward Cabrera (4-3, 4.86 ERA) will be on the mound for Chicago.

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On the day that the Mets placed starter Christian Scott on the 10-day IL and announced Kodai Senga would make his return from injury to start Tuesday, they needed the plan of Tobias Myers as the opener to set them up for a low-stress opening game of a three-game set in Cincinnati. 

Two pitches into the home half of the first, the Reds had a man on second. Four batters into the game, the Reds were up by three, and manager Carlos Mendoza was once again behind the eight-ball: David Peterson would have to be used, and the Mets would be down a bulk man in the bullpen should Senga’s return go the same way that Myers’ return to the big leagues did in Monday’s 12-0 loss.

Despite the recently recalled Jonathan Pintaro gamely delivering 3.2 innings after Myers managed to record just four outs before hitting the upper limit of his pitch count, Peterson was required to get the final nine outs to save the rest of New York’s bullpen.

"It sucks, it sucks. You feel like you've let a team down,” Myers said of his feelings after exiting the game with the Mets down nine after two innings. “The team's been playing really well the last couple of weeks, too, so it's definitely a blow to me for sure."

Now, entering the rest of the series, the Mets will be counting on Senga and Nolan McLean on Wednesday to provide length and protect a bullpen that has already thrown 314.2 innings (fourth most in MLB) through 72 games. (That number another way: 4.1 innings per game.)

Asked about his level of concern in piecing together the rotation, Mendoza said they’ve been doing the piecing together for “quite a bit now.”

“Guys will continue to get opportunities, and guys will need to step up,” the manager said after the game. “We got a lot of guys in there that are more than capable. And we need those guys to step up, especially right now when we're banged up.”

Asked about what the plan will be for this spot in the rotation, Mendoza said it is something the club will have to figure out.

“We have a few days before we have to worry about the next turn. And we'll have those discussions, but people have to step up here,” he said.

Myers ‘digging’ for answers

In three outings with Triple-A Syracuse after he was sent down in late May, the right-hander didn't allow an earned run over six innings, with one hit, a walk, and a HBP against him to four strikeouts.

Myers allowed seven of the 11 batters he faced to reach base, with three walks, three singles, and a home run allowed.

What went wrong for the right-hander on Monday?

“His ability to throw strikes,” Mendoza said. “A couple of walks there, he got behind hitters and then he needed to come into the strike zone, and they clipped him. They were aggressive with the fastball.

“When you’re getting behind and giving that team free passes, you put yourself in a position where it’s dangerous.”

Myers said they are in “the process of digging deep" into why his command was off.

"It’s tough to face major league hitters when you’re behind most of the time,” Myers said. “This is something I've seen on the mound with my delivery a little bit mechanically, today specifically. So we’re kinda digging deep on that.”

Not crisp with RISP

The Mets had chances to claw their way back into the game, collecting six hits and drawing six walks, but came away empty-handed every time as they left 12 men on base and went 1-for-12 with runners in scoring position, as Bo Bichette, who doubled with the bases empty in each of his first at-bats, accounted for the lone hit with a man in scoring position.

“That’s a tough one, there,” Mendoza said of the lack of clutch hitting.

After going down rather tamely in the first three frames, the Mets got traffic against Reds starter Chase Burns, but left the bases loaded with one out in both the fourth and fifth against the hard-throwing righty.

“We were facing a pretty good arm and – we didn’t score any runs, obviously – but we put together some good at-bats,” Mendoza said. “We created traffic but couldn't get the big hit. We had bases loaded, less than two outs, three times, and we couldn't cash in.”

Hitting with runners in scoring position has been an issue for the Mets all year. The team's .671 OPS and 184 RBI both rank second-worst in the big leagues.

Mendoza added that “even though we were down big in the second inning, I thought the guys continued to put together some really good at-bats, but, again, not enough.”

“Turn the page. Come back tomorrow, you got two more here and an opportunity to win the series,” the manager continued. “We got punched today, the first couple of innings, got down big, but you gotta flush that one. Come back tomorrow ready to go.”

Once again, an Astros (33-41) starter could not get through 5 innings. Tonight, Kai-Wei Teng (L, 3-6) couldn’t get out of the 4th, and an already overtaxed pen looked the part as Houston fell to the Detroit Tigers (30-42) 9-3 at Daikin Park.

This marks the 4th straight start that Teng could not get past 5 innings, and the second straight he couldn’t even get into the 5th. Teng allowed 5 ER on 6 H in 3.1 IP, walking 2 and striking out 9. He also allowed 3 HRs and hit 2 batters. Both hit batters came in the first inning, one loading the bases and the next driving in the Tigers first run.

Teng has now allowed 6 HR in his last 17.1 IP over his last 4 outings. His velocity was also down nearly 2 MPH, as noted by Astros beat reporter Chandler Rome of the The Athletic.

Down 1-0 in the top of the 2nd, Teng allowed a 2-out HR to Kevin McGonigle. The solo shot gave the Tigers a 2-0 lead.

In the top of the 3rd, Teng allowed a 2-run HR to Colt Keith with 2 outs, pushing the deficit to 4-0. That was immediately followed by Spencer Torkelson’s 12th HR off the season, and it was 5-0 Detroit.

Houston started to claw it’s way back in the bottom of the 3rd. With 2 out, Christian Walker drew a walk, and the Isaac Paredes launched his 10th HR of the season to make it 5-2. Jose Altuve sent the next pitch 410 feet to left-center for his 7th HR and deficit was reduced to 2, at 5-3.

Astros manager Joe Espada wanted to get one more inning from Teng, especially with the pen being heavily taxed the last 2 games, but Teng could only get one out in the 4th before being replaced by Steven Okert.

Okert inherited runners on 1st and 2nd with one out, but got a pair of strikeouts to escape the jam unharmed.

A.J. Blubaugh was summoned for the 5th, and gave up a leadoff triple to Dillon Dingler. After a strikeout and a walk, a passed ball by Christian Vazquez allowed Dingler to score from 3rd, extending the lead to 6-3. Blubaugh would go 2 innings, allowing only the unearned run.

Astros bats would go quiet from here on out, mustering only 3 hits.

Jayden Murray, recalled today to replace Alimber Santa (who would not have been available after working the past 2 games), allowed 2 runs in two innings of work on a 2-run HR by Colt Keith, his second of the game , to make it 8-3 Tigers.

In the 9th, Bryan Abreu allowed a solo shot by Keith, his 3rd HR of the game and 4th of the season, to account for the final score.

________________________________________________________________________

Hunter Brown (1-0, 0.84 ERA) is expected to be activated to start tomorrow’s game, facing off against former teammate Framber Valdez (3-5, 4.40 ERA).

C Yainer Diaz is also expected to be activated for tomorrow’s game to catch Brown.

_________________________________________________________________________

Yordan Alvarez went 2×4 tonight, raising his average to .328. That leads the American League.

Isaac Paredes and Jose Altuve hit back-to-back HRs in the 3rd. Both players sat Sunday for rest.

Astros pitchers struck out a total of 18 batters tonight. It is the 3rd time in franchise history the team has lost a game in which it’s pitchers struck out 18 batters.

Teng has allowed 14 ER in his last 12.1 innings. He has allowed 4 HR, hit 4 batters, and walked 7 in that time. His ERA has risen from 2.57 to 4.31 in those 3 appearances.

The bottom 4 hitters in the Astros lineup tonight (Trammell/Meyers, Smith, Matthews, Vazquez) combined to go 2×16 with 6 of the Astros hitters’ 10 K this evening. None of them scored or drove in a run.

Cubs 5, Rockies 4

Graphics via FanGraphs.

Hitting for the cycle: Pete Crow-Armstrong, +0.13 WPA

Bullpen implosion: Juan Mejia, -0.42 WPA

Comment of the Game

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After a pair of disappointing losses and a rainout at home against the Guardians, the Tigers hit the road for the Lone Star State, the Bluebonnet State, the Home of the Whopper (I assume) for the opener of a three-game series against the Astros in Houston. It didn’t exactly go as the Tigers initially envisioned it, I imagine, but in the end Detroit came away with a comfortable 9-3 victory on Monday night — and, holy mackerel, did Colt Keith have a night.

Troy Melton woke up with lower-back tightness, so Drew Anderson got the spot start. (Get well soon, Troy. Please.) Anderson has generally been solid whenever in the game he’s been asked to pitch; he made a similar start back on May 20 against Cleveland and he pitched into the fifth, giving up no runs, two hits, and striking out seven. He’s been decent recently, too: in June coming into today, Anderson had pitched 5 2/3 innings, giving up seven hits and two runs across five relief appearances.

Facing the Tigers was Kai-Wei Teng, a right-hander from Taiwan in his first season in Houston. He’s had some mixed results so far in his career in North America, spending time with the Giants the last two seasons. Like almost all of his colleagues on the Houston pitching staff, he’s been walking a ton of batters — about 4.2 per 9 innings — so it was important that the Tigers needed to be patient against Teng to get runners on base.

The Tigers loaded the bases with two out in the first after a pair of walks and a hit-batsman. Keith then got clipped by a very, very wild pitch that nicked his back-foot calf pant-leg to force in a run, putting the Tigers up 1-0. With the bases still loaded, Spencer Torkelson struck out on a sweeper for the third out, and what a strange inning: two walks, two hit-by-pitches, three strikeouts, and no balls in play. (Do not say Teng “struck out the side.”)

Anderson had a similarly silly first inning: he struck out three, but walked a pair and gave up a single; fortunately there were no runs scored. Sheesh, if you were going to show a young pitcher a tape of how not to pitch an inning of baseball, show him either halves of this one (or both).

Kevin McGonigle tattooed a fastball in the second, smashing a solo home run to right field for a 2-0 lead.

The next batter, Gleyber Torres, swung-and-missed and appeared to re-aggrivate that oblique injury from which he’d just returned from the Injured List. It was a problem last year, it’s been a problem this year, and you have to wonder for how long he’ll be on the shelf this time. Hao-Yu Lee came into the game in Torres’ place.

In the third inning and with a runner on base, Keith launched his first home run of the night deep to right-centre to put the Tigers up 4-0. Torkelson followed with a home run of his own, his twelfth of the year, off the left-field foul pole for a 5-0 lead.

Anderson departed with two outs and a runner on first in the bottom of the third, and Jacob Waugespack relieved him. It did not go well, as Old Friend™ Isaac Paredes smacked a home run for a 5-2 score. Jose Altuve, a thorn in the Tigers’ side for years, completed Houston’s own back-to-back trick to narrow the lead to 5-3.

The first two times through the Tigers lineup, Teng faced 18 batters: he struck out nine of them, walked two, hit two, and gave up three home runs. That’s just silly. Not long after, having given up a pair of singles to put runners on the corners with one out in the fourth, Teng departed for a lefty and Jahmai Jones pinch-hit for Kerry Carpenter.

Now, I know, by the numbers, you sometimes have to look at the lefty-righty thing. But really, in the fourth inning, in a two-run game at the time, do you really want to pull Carpenter from the game in favour of Jones? Knowing Carpenter is now gone for the remainder of the contest? That’s two at-bats (at least) that you’re getting Jones instead of Carpenter. I’m no major-league manager, but that just feels… wrong.

Dingler led off the fifth with a triple, and after a one-out walk he scored on a passed ball to make it 6-3. Then, in the top of the seventh, Keith blasted his second tater of the night, scoring Dingler again, for an 8-3 lead.

And if you thought Keith was done — remember, coming into tonight he had exactly one (1) home run so far this season — well, he wasn’t. Here’s his third home run:

That is a silly, short left field, but hey, the Tigers spend half the year in a park in which 410 feet to straightaway centre is an out. Dimensions give, and dimensions take away; just relax and enjoy one of our fellows hitting three dingers in a game, alright?

Final score: Tigers 9, Astros 3

Notes and Corrections

• Further research has uncovered that the Home of the Whopper — i.e., Burger King — is, in fact, Jacksonville, Florida. Bless You Boys apologizes for the error
• Did you see that, after taking two out of three on the weekend against the Dodgers, the Chicago White Sox are tied for the lead in the American League Central? As Clark Griswold once said, “I wouldn’t have been more surprised if I’d woken up with my head sewn to the carpet.”
• On this day in 1789, Josiah Henson was born as an enslaved person in Maryland. Eventually, after a tough early life — as you can imagine — he made it to freedom in Canada with his wife and children in 1830. They settled near Dresden, Ontario, starting the Dawn Settlement and Henson became a pastor and a community leader, a soldier in the Canadian Militia, and eventually met Queen Victoria. His homestead near Dresden is now the Josian Henson Museum of African-Canadian History.

Dongs, taters, bombs, dingers, moonshots, in play run(s). Whatever you call them, there’s few things better than when your favorite team hits them and worse than when they give them up. In this case, the good guys hit one more than their oppenents and a couple of them was all it took to take home a win.

Things got off to a quick start for the Twins. After a leadoff double by Austin Martin, Texas starter McKenzie Gore got Byron Buxton and Kody Clemens, but a well-earned walk from rejuvenated Royce Lewis let Josh Bell bang a three-run dong and take an early lead. With rookie Mike Paredes on the mound, an early cushion was much appreciated.

Gore settled in from there, retiring 14 of the next 15 Minnesota batters before a Byron Buxton bomb broke the dry spell. And I’ll use this opportunity to take a brief detour into “Why Byron Buxton is the Best.” Buxton now has 23 home runs, third in all of baseball and trailing only Yordan Alvarez and Kyle Schwarber, two of the best home run hitters in the league over the past decade. Buxton has also done it in 30 fewer PAs than Schwarber and 40 fewer than Alvarez. Famously, Alvarez and Schwarber play almost exclusively at DH while Buxton is still one of the best defenders and base runners in baseball at age 32. Since the start of 2024, Buck’s .554 slugging percentage is fourth in baseball among qualified batters, trailing only Alvarez and the two reigning back-to-back MVPs, Aaron Judge and Shohei Ohtani.

Buxton has always been one of the most valuable players in MLB on a rate basis but never put it all together due to his injuries. But somehow in his 30s, Buxton is healthier than ever and is straight up one of the best power hitters in baseball without any caveats. He’s a surefire All-Star starter and STILL one of the most exciting players to watch. The Twins have been disappointing the past three years, but none of that is because of their star.

Meanwhile, Paredes had his best outing of his young career. He was nearly perfect his first time through the order with a hit batter and a single as the only base runners. Second time through was a little rougher. The first pitch Paredes threw was a cutter down the heart of the plate to Joc Pederson who promptly deposited that ball into the right field bleachers, but those were the only runs allowed on the night. I don’t know if Paredes has a real future in the league (he gave up eight hard-hit balls in under five innings which is not a winning formula for a guy with lackluster stuff) but I’ll reiterate what I said in the game thread: he’s kept the Twins in games in a stretch when pitchers much more accomplished than him haven’t been able to, and that’s worth something.

Even rarer than a solid outing from a 12th-string starting pitcher: the Twins’ bullpen had an easy night. Taylor Rogers, Andrew Morris, Eric Orze, and Yoendrys Gomez combined pitch 4.1 innings of scoreless ball, allowing only a single baserunner on a two-out single. Even better news: Mick Abel is on track to return next week and Kendry Rojas shortly thereafter. May we do everything in our power to have one of the worst bullpens in the game avoid bullpen games going forward. Amen.

STUDS

• Josh Bell: 2-4, HR, 3 RBI
• Byron Buxton: 23rd HR of the season, putting him one behind the league lead
• Mike Paredes and the Bullpen Boyz: 9 IP, 5 H, 2 R, 7 K

DUDS

• Milk Duds, Jared Dudley, Dudley Dursley all have duds but none of them are on the Twins AKA NO DUDS TWINS WIN!!

Pete Crow-Armstrong did the hard part first.

The center fielder hit for the cycle in the Chicago Cubs' 5-4 win Monday night against the Colorado Rockies at Wrigley Field, and he did it backwards. He led off the bottom of the first with a 434-foot home run off of Michael Lorenzen. He tripled in the third inning and doubled in the fifth. He dropped a single in the seventh to complete one of the rarest feats in baseball.

And then in a very PCA-way, he got picked off first base on the very next pitch.

It was the first cycle in the majors this season, the first of his career and just the 13th in Cubs history. It was the first cycle by a Cubs player since Carson Kelly in 2025. Cycles are about as rare as no-hitters. There have been roughly 350 since 1882. There are only 14 natural cycles, which means hitting one in order.

On the very next pitch, after completing the cycle, Crow-Armstrong drifted too far off first. Brennan Bernadino wheeled and threw to TJ Rumfield to catch him.

The Cincinnati Reds entered Monday night’s game against the New York Mets with the second worst run differential in all of Major League Baseball, second only to the woeful Colorado Rockies. Thanks to Eugenio Suárez, they improved that number by a boatload.

Suárez socked a 2-run homer in the Bottom of the 1st inning to give Chase Burns an early 3-0 lead, and expanded upon that later with a grand slam the broke the game wide open. Burns poured in what he typically does when he’s on the mound for the Reds – a scoreless 5.0 IP with 7 K – and JJ Bleday later added a 3-run tater of his own, the combined efforts of which resulted in a massive 12-0 win for the Redlegs on the day.

It was precisely the kind of victory Cincinnati needed to help flush the recent memories of their five consecutive lost series down the loo, in theory. Their offense has been so lackluster that it’s put undo pressure on the inexperienced bullpen with just about every pitch they’ve thrown for weeks, and the end result has been a litany of games that the Reds once led slightly that fell by the wayside late. This time, though, Cincinnati’s offense burst things open and refused to slow down, cinching things before it ever had a chance to get close.

In Suárez, Cincinnati has perhaps the single biggest wild card in the National League. He’s a guy who has twice socked 49 homers in a single season, though this year saw an oblique injury sideline him for longer than he’s ever been out before. Since he returned, he’s not quite been right, but if he once again gets hot as the summer months roll around, the Reds might still have the vaunted slugger in the heart of their order that they hoped they’d get when they signed him to a 1-year, $15 million deal this winter.

That would certainly be something for this offense, who has desperately needed his presence all year and simply hasn’t had it in the form we’d all hoped…yet. If he’s back – and if Elly De La Cruz is back by the end of the week – this Cincinnati Reds club might still have enough legs to be relevant for when Hunter Greene returns healthy to co-ace with Burns.

It’s a lot to ask for, sure, but it sure is easy to dream on the possibilities of that roster after a night like this.