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Rarely have the top 25 targets at Major League Baseball’s trade deadline been so fluid.

So, let’s do it again.

As teams bob their heads above or dip below the .500 mark, the notion of buyers and sellers shifts day to day, perhaps hour to hour. And while some of the best names expected to be on the move won’t change, others land on the list with dispatch, a poorly-timed losing streak shifting their fate.

With that, a look at the top two dozen-plus one names that could be on the move as the Aug. 3 deadline draws closer, based on their possible impact, the likelihood of their availability and the fit of their contracts:

1. Luis Arráez, 2B, Giants

You don’t hear his name very often these days, simply because his departure has been such a foregone conclusion. Yet his hitting ability combined with an .811 OPS will loom large down the stretch and in the postseason, a crucial part of a healthy offense.

2. Luke Weaver, RP, Mets

Practically untouchable in his last 17 games, giving up one earned run with a 19-3 strikeout-walk ratio. Weaver closed games for the 2024 AL champion Yankees and would smoothly take over a high-leverage role for a playoff team.

3. Robbie Ray, SP, Giants

His 4.49 FIP would seem to belie his 3.16 ERA, but facts are facts: Ray has given up three or fewer runs in 18 of his 21 starts. Like Arraez, easily movable and plug-and-playable.

4. Zach Neto, SS, Angels

Now this one would be interesting. Neto swings hard and plays hard, and should provide close to 30 home runs from the shortstop position – while offering a contending team three years of control beyond this season.

5. Tarik Skubal, SP, Tigers

He’s moved on up from nine to six in these rankings as the Tigers are once again in danger of falling on the wrong side of the buy-sell fence. Obviously, the top talent potentially on the market, but this is the American League, where nobody’s out of it until 5:59 ET on Aug. 3.

6. Michael Wacha, SP, Royals

He has limited no-trade protection and makes a reasonable $15 million in 2027. Better yet, he’s a workhorse and veteran of five postseasons

7. Adrian Morejon, RP, Padres

While Mason Miller is the high-velocity king causing a hubbub on the rumor mill, Morejon, a pending free agent, much more closely matches the Padres’ objective of playing the middle of this deadline. Morejon is the best lefty reliever who should be available, with a 1.08 WHIP.

8. Jake McCarthy, OF, Rockies

An excellent buy-and-flip maneuver by the Rockies as McCarthy has an .842 OPS (117 adjusted).

9. Sandy Alcantara, SP, Marlins

Will they or won’t they? A ghastly 12-game losing streak sent the Marlins from playoff position to below .500 and a franchise crossroads. Will the Marlins truly be serious about contending? Because Alcantara gives them their best chance to win this year and next, when he has an affordable club option. Otherwise, he’ll make a playoff-bound club very happy.

10. Isaac Collins, OF, Royals

A switch-hitting outfielder with a .344 OBP and a dash of speed? Eminently useful. Perhaps not the sexy move Yankees fans might want to shore up their outfield, but Collins will be useful for somebody.

The deadline for signing 2026 MLB draft picks was at 5:00pm ET on Monday. The Toronto Blue Jays had 19 picks in this year’s draft, having forfeited their 2nd and 4th round selections for signing Dylan Cease after he rejected the San Diego Padres’ qualifying offer but receiving a compensation pick in the fourth round for the Mets’ signing Bo Bichette.

The table below shows the picks, their signing bonuses (per sportrac.com), and their net effect on the Jays’ bonus pool:

As a reminder, bonus amounts in the top 10 rounds form a team’s total bonus pool. Teams can exceed their pool by up to 5% with only a tax, but there are extreme penalties for going beyond that and in practice teams never do it. The pool covers all players drafted in the first 10 rounds and any bonus amounts in excess of $150,000 for players drafted in rounds 11-20.

The Blue Jays’ draft pool this year was $5,543,100, the second smallest ahead of the Dodgers. They’ve exceeded it by $212,125, 3.83%, so they’ll pay some tax but continue the trend of no team ever having exceeded the 5% threshold.

Strategically, they’ve clearly decided to hang their draft on first rounder Cole Carlon and fourth rounder Will Brick. Carlon got most of his slot bonus, while they were forced to go way over slot to pay Brick the equivalent of borderline first/second round money. To get there, they reached slightly on Ryan Cooney in the third round to find a player they like who would sign for a cut relative to slot, and mostly punted rounds 5, 6, 8, 9, and 10 by signing lower profile college guys who would sign for very little, allowing them to reallocate their slot money to Brick. That puts a lot of weight on two players, but if they think he’s a first round talent then they’ve done well to get two prospects of that calibre with this little capital to spend.

Dean West, in the seventh round, is the only other player in the first 10 to sign anywhere close to slot. West was a relatively well regarded prospect, #302 on Baseball America’s top 500, and the Jays must have liked him and decided they could get one near-full-value pick in while still saving up enough money. 11th rounder Brayden Martin, #227 on BA’s list, got a little over the $150,000 late-round amount as well, indicating another place where they felt that they could make a value pick up.

At the back of the draft, the Jays picked three upside players who were potentially in a position to command over $150,000. 20th rounder Eddie Rosado has opted to take $150,000 to sign instead of following his college commitment to St. Joseph’s University while it appears that 19th rounder Cole Travers will go to Texas A&M and 18th rounder Jake McCoy will go through with his transfer from South Carolina to Tennessee rather than turning pro. Travers and McCoy declining to sign is not a surprise. The former has a top college offer, and the latter will receive a medical redshirt after missing 2026 undergoing Tommy John surgery, allowing him to enter the 2027 season as a junior in line for a significant bonus. Both likely fell out of the top 10 rounds only because of high bonus demands, and were probably picked mostly as insurance in case a medical issue with Carlon or Brick allowed the Jays to sign them significantly below their expected bonus, creating an unexpected cash surplus.

Later this week I’ll review the Jays’ top 40 prospects, graduations, departures, additions and risers to paint a picture of the state of the farm as we head into the trade deadline.

New York Post | Dylan Svoboda: The Padres have inquired about Dax Kilby, the Yankees’ 2025 first-rounder and their number-two prospect behind George Lombard Jr., per The Post’s Joel Sherman. The Yankees also have a scout monitoring the Padres as rumors continue to swirl around Mason Miller, San Diego’s all-world closer who could be on the move. New York has also been linked to Adrian Morejon, a left-handed Padres reliever who would likely warrant a smaller return.

NBC Sports | Eric Samulski: Carlos Lagrange has begun throwing in his return from injury. The 6-foot-7 right-hander has been on the shelf since July 3rd with a capsular sprain in his right shoulder. The initial plan was that he’d be shut down for at least six weeks, so this update puts him nearly three weeks ahead of schedule. Lagrange, the Yankees’ number-two pitching prospect, was transitioned to the bullpen during the season in hopes he could help the big-league club in that capacity down the stretch. He wowed in spring training with his 100-mph fastball before starting the season at Triple-A Scranton/Wilkes-Barre.

The Athletic | Brendan Kuty: ($) Ali Sánchez’s three-run homer Monday was his first in the big leagues, 2,179 days after making his debut with the Mets in 2020. The unheralded journeyman has carved out a role in New York, backing up Austin Wells. And, while Max Fried praised his “quality at-bats,” he’s drawn more admiration from the club for his work behind the plate, learning to work with a veteran staff midstream after his call-up last month. Sánchez’s run of play with the Yankees has come during a difficult time for his native Venezuela. The backstop has been wearing the letters “VZ” stitched into his cap to honor his homeland after devastating earthquakes on June 24th killed more than 5,000.

New Y ork Daily News | Gary Phillips: As the Yankees look to augment their catching corps ahead of the trade deadline, they signed veteran Christian Bethancourt to a minor-league deal. The right-handed hitter, who posted a .775 OPS in 206 at-bats with the Cubs’ Triple-A affiliate earlier this season, was cut loose a couple of weeks ago. He provides veteran depth as the team pursues a more high-profile upgrade. With Sánchez out of options, the Yankees would likely lose him if they add another catcher via trade, leaving them with only the left-handed J.C. Escarra as a viable option in wait at Triple-A.

The Athletic | Ken Rosenthal: ($) As Major League Baseball pushes for a salary cap under the guise of competitive imbalance, Rosenthal opines that the current season refutes their argument. With the Trade Deadline approaching, 21 of 30 teams sit within two games of a playoff spot while the big-market Mets, Giants, and Blue Jays are each at least 5.5 games out. This flies in the face of the league’s “Level the Playing Field” ad campaign, which Rosenthal decries as a “spurious” attempt to influence fans against the players and towards a cap with a potential lockout looming.

WASHINGTON — Toronto pitcher Shane Bieber’s start against the Washington Nationals was anything but a walk in the park.

The former Cy Young Award winner issued walks to six of the nine batters he faced — including three with the bases loaded — before departing after two-thirds of an inning Tuesday night in the BlueJays’ 8-6 loss. In his previous 149 pitching appearances, the 31-year-old right-hander’s high for walks was five.

According to Stathead/Baseball Reference, Bieber is the 11th pitcher in major league history to walk at least six while recording two outs or less, and the first to do so since Florida’s Ryan Dempster on Oct. 5, 2001, at Atlanta.

Bieber said he had difficulty gripping the ball and struggled with his command as a result. Bieber didn’t walk anyone in his previous start Thursday, when he allowed one run in seven innings against Tampa Bay.

“You have to find a way to get through it, right, and I wasn’t able to do that tonight,” Bieber said. “Ultimately, I follow up what was maybe my best start as a Blue Jay with what was definitely my worst.”

Bieber is the first Cy Young winner to have such an outing, although Hall of Famers Bob Feller and Christy Mathewson did, too. Bieber won the AL Cy Young in 2020.

Bieber threw 42 pitches, with only 15 strikes. He is the second player this season to throw that many pitches with so few strikes. Kansas City’s Eric Cerantola threw 14 strikes in a 42-pitch relief outing against Tampa Bay on June 30.

“I have no excuses,” Bieber said. “I have to find a way to get out of that first inning. Dry my hands off and change shirts and eat up innings after that. That’s what I was trying to do and unfortunately I wasn’t able to. I don’t think I’ve ever had anything like that happen.”

Washington’s James Wood led off the first with a walk, and Luis García Jr. followed with a grounder to second. Dylan Crews then earned a free pass, and CJ Abrams followed with a well-placed infield single.

The typically free-swinging Keibert Ruiz followed with a four-pitch walk that scored the first run, and Daylen Lile drew another walk that pushed in another run. Nasim Nuñez hit a sacrifice fly before Jorbit Vivas loaded the bases again with the inning’s fifth walk, prompting a mound visit from Toronto pitching coach Pete Walker.

Jacob Young then took six pitches — three balls and then two called strikes followed by a slider well outside the zone — to force in a fourth run. That prompted manager John Schneider to head to the mound and end Bieber’s outing.

It was Bieber’s seventh start of the season after missing almost three months with elbow inflammation. He was limited to a combined nine regular-season starts over the previous two seasons after undergoing Tommy John surgery in April 2024.

“Kind of just the last thing we thought was going to happen with him right there,” Schneider said. “When you get up to that pitch count in the first, with him, with his history and everything, just didn’t want to push it.”

Reliever Brendon Little got Wood to ground out to end the inning.

CHICAGO — Carlos Lagrange may still be a long shot to impact the Yankees this season — assuming he is not traded in the next week — but his progress from a shoulder injury has at least kept the door open.

The top pitching prospect, who was diagnosed with a capsular sprain of the right shoulder July 3, has resumed throwing on flat ground after about a four-week shutdown — two weeks shorter than the club originally estimated for him.

The 23-year-old Lagrange, who was in the midst of a transition from starter to reliever in hopes of helping the Yankees bullpen in the second half, still has a ways to go to even potentially make himself an option. But the earlier-than-expected return to throwing at least keeps the possibility in play for the time being.

“We’ll see,” manager Aaron Boone said Tuesday before the Yankees’ 3-2 win over the White Sox when asked if he expected Lagrange to become a consideration at some point this season. “He has started throwing again, so you never know for sure. But we’ll just listen to his arm and body and hopefully, as he starts his throwing progression, things go well and he puts himself in position to be in the conversation. But impossible to know right now.”

On Tuesday, Lagrange posted video to social media of himself throwing, though Boone said he actually started throwing “a handful of days ago.” Lagrange last pitched at Triple-A on June 28, with the shoulder diagnosis coming a few days later.

The Yankees are still expected to add a high-leverage reliever or two before Monday’s trade deadline, but if Lagrange is not used in a package to make that happen, his rehab process will be worth monitoring to see if he can become a wild card late in the season.

One of those bullpen targets the Yankees are believed to be pursuing is Padres stud closer Mason Miller.

It remains to be seen whether the Padres will actually make him available, but Boone was asked for his thoughts on the hard-throwing righty.

• CHECK OUT THE LATEST MLB STANDINGS AND YANKEES STATS

“Feels like a speculative question cloaked in an opinion on a player,” he said with a grin. “Look, obviously he’s one of the game’s great closers and has been now for a few years. Tremendous stuff. I don’t even know if he’ll be moved or not. He’s probably as good as is out there right now in that role.”

The Yankees signed veteran catcher Christian Bethancourt to a minor league deal Tuesday and added him to the roster at Triple-A Scranton/Wilkes-Barre for depth.

The 34-year-old, who has played 427 career big league games, had been at Triple-A for the Cubs this season, batting .262 with a .775 OPS in 59 games.

Turns out, Shohei Ohtani’s knee injury is not the only complicating factor in his uncertain status as a pitcher.

Speaking to reporters for the first time in almost three weeks on Tuesday night, Ohtani revealed that his right bicep is also not 100% at the moment.

Manager Dave Roberts added that Ohtani’s bicep did not respond well to a bullpen session he threw in Philadelphia last week, and is part of the reason why he has not attempted another bullpen session since then.

Ohtani has dealt with what he described as minor bicep discomfort a couple times earlier this season, most recently during a July 3 two-way start in which the Dodgers’ star last took the mound in a game.

That night, he said his bicep tightened up on him during an at-bat as a hitter, leading him to be removed from the game early.

Though Ohtani has not made another pitching start since then, the Dodgers had previously attributed the break only to the lingering left knee injury he has been dealing with since mid-June.

Then came Tuesday night, however, when Ohtani disclosed his bicep problem following the Dodgers’ 7-6 loss to the Mariners (a game in which he went 3-for-4 at the plate with his first home run since the All-Star break, while continuing to serve as the Dodgers’ designated hitter).

“There too, it’s a judgment of to what degree I can push it,” Ohtani said in Japanese, describing the precautions being taken with his bicep as similar to those with his knee. “It’s still July. What judgment will be made in August and September can be decided then.”

Speaking after Ohtani’s press availability, Roberts also confirmed that Ohtani’s bicep is also a reason he has not thrown a bullpen session, or even played catch from flat ground, since last Wednesday’s 31-pitch bullpen in Philadelphia.

“I think in the bullpen in Philadelphia, [his bicep] just wasn’t responding [afterward], nor was his knee,” Roberts said. “There is an effect on the lower half to the compromising of the upper half, the arm. So trying to mitigate that, we stopped the throwing, stopped the bullpens. Hopefully No. 1, take care of the knee, and then not try to have him create velocity with the arm that’s not 100%.”

Earlier on Tuesday, Roberts said the Dodgers have not decided when Ohtani might begin ramping up as a pitcher again.

“I’m not sure the next time he’s planning on throwing,” Roberts said, “let alone throwing a ‘pen.”

Even amid Ohtani’s recent physical ailments, the Dodgers have repeatedly expressed confidence that the 32-year-old will be able to return to pitching this season, and that he will be part of their rotation come the playoffs in October. 

Ohtani noted on Tuesday night that his knee has felt “much better” since receiving a lubricant injection over the All-Star break, and that his injuries have not impacted him offensively.

“I guess anything’s possible, but for me, it’s highly unlikely [he doesn’t pitch in October],” Roberts said Tuesday night. “We’re doing all this [right now] number one to make sure that he’s in a good spot health-wise. But given where we’re at in the calendar, if the knee continues to get better, the arm continues to feel better, I would expect him to pitch.”

Still, Roberts did acknowledge on Tuesday afternoon that Ohtani has missed enough time as a pitcher at this point that, once he does begin ramping on the mound again, he will have to rebuild stamina in order to return to making full-length starts.

The uncertainty surrounding Ohtani’s status also could factor into the Dodgers’ approach ahead of next Monday’s trade deadline –– and their potential pursuit of two-time Cy Young winner Tarik Skubal, in particular –– though general manager Brandon Gomes downplayed that notion in an interview with The California Post on Tuesday afternoon.

“We feel very good about our pitching,” Gomes said, while also referencing the progress fellow injured starters Blake Snell and Tyler Glasnow have made recently in their recoveries.

Still, questions about Ohtani’s health will persist, especially now that his knee is not the only thing that isn’t 100%.

“For now, I think it’s best to wait,” Ohtani said. “We lost today, but as a team, without a doubt, we’re in a good position. So whether I should force myself to pitch through this is something I think I should decide while talking to the team. I think the team’s judgment is that we’re not there yet.”

One of the magical things about writing about baseball for a living is that, against all odds, every game seems to have its own story. 162 times a year the San Francisco Giants play someone, plus a few dozen more times in the spring and, on a few blue moon occasions, a handful of times after the regular season. And almost every time, a story somehow emerges. In great games and awful ones, through promising seasons and lost ones, baseball almost always delivers.

You’ve heard of scorigami. Well, this is a phenomenon I refer to as storygami.

And sometimes it fails. Sometimes they just lose in such bland fashion, in the midst of such a bland season, that I find myself itching to just clean the toilet so I can procrastinate writing about what happened.

That happened on Tuesday, as the Giants lost 8-2 to the Milwaukee Brewers in a game that was far more one-sided than the one-sided score suggests. The Giants just … lost. As you’ve come to expect them to do. As they’ve proven themselves far too capable of over the past few months.

Perhaps the story was that it was a doomed day for the Giants. It began, after all, with the news that Casey Schmitt has a torn meniscus, and will almost certainly miss the rest of the season. It continued with the sadness that Trevor McDonald will undergo Tommy John surgery, and will almost certainly miss the entirety of next season. It peaked with the revelation that Harrison Bader suffered an injury setback after the second serious scooter crash of his big league career. And then it nestled into bed with a long, lifeless, feckless, dreamless, hopeless, joyless loss.

Which I suppose we now have to talk about.

The Giants have a tendency to lose games in the first inning. Their pitchers are 18th in the Majors in first-inning ERA, while their batters are 25th in first-inning OPS. This tends to create three common outcomes in the first inning: the Giants set the tone for a loss; the Giants narrowly avoid disaster, suggesting that this is their lucky day and they have a trick up their sleeves; and the Giants narrowly avoid disaster, suggesting that this is their lucky day and they have a trick up their sleeves, only to point their finger and laugh at you for buying that nonsense.

This game was the third. It started in dubious fashion, when Landen Roupp gave up a ground ball to the first batter he faced, Brice Turang, but then failed to cover first base in time, resulting in a leadoff single. Jackson Chourio was next and settled for a more traditional single, putting two runners on with no outs.

But thanks to a pair of ground balls — one of which resulted in two outs — Roupp escaped the inning unscathed. And in the bottom half of the inning, after the Giants quickly had two outs recorded against them, Heliot Ramos hit a pop up in the infield that resulted in the most glorious and artful of pop up dances, before ultimately falling behind first baseman Andrew Vaughn, gifting Ramos a single. After Rafael Devers scorched a single of his own, the Giants had a pair of runners on base … and were so close to capitalizing on the Brewers’ gift.

This is where the game transitioned from the second of those aforementioned possible outcomes to the third. The Giants had escaped disaster, gotten lucky, and pulled a rabbit out of their hats, and you thought maybe they actually were going to play a decent game … and then Jung Hoo Lee struck out and it all came crashing back to reality.

From there, it was one disaster after another, but in deeply uninteresting terms. Following the Devers single, the Giants would turn the lineup over twice before registering another hit, when Willy Adames knocked a single in the seventh inning. By that point, the game was already over, due to a series of two-out flubs and self-made failures. In the third inning, it was a leadoff walk that Roupp issued that scored, after a two-out single. That gave the Brewers a run to get their engines started, and the next inning they would really take off.

It started off calmly enough, with Roupp retiring the first two batters of the fourth inning. But he would never retire the third. He walked a batter, gave up a stolen base, hit a batter, allowed an RBI single, gave up another stolen base, and walked another batter. And with that, his night was over, with just 3.2 innings in the books.

The two-out thunder cared not for the shift from Roupp to JT Brubaker, as Turang roped a two-run single on the very first pitch that Brubaker threw, cashing in a pair of inherited runners and pushing the score to 4-0.

A few innings later, Brubaker would, like Roupp before him, begin to leak oil with two outs. In the seventh, he quickly retired two batters, then gave up back-to-back singles. Tony Vitello, who currently has a misdemeanor charge for what he did to Keaton Winn’s right arm and a felony charge for his crimes against Matt Gage’s left arm, mercilessly pulled the plug at a season-high 57 pitches for Brubaker.

But the eyebrow-raising arm usage was only just beginning. In came Jason Foley, a perfectly acceptable choice for the situation, even though he promptly gave up a triple to score both of the runners he inherited from Brubaker before quickly ending the inning.

That seemed likely to be it for Foley, given a host of things I’ll get to in a minute, but no, he came back out for the eighth. No big issue there: he’d thrown just four pitches in the seventh.

Foley gave up a one-out double in the eighth, and then a single, and then a run-scoring fielder’s choice. The score was now 8-0, but hey … at least there were two outs. Except, as we’ve already learned, that’s where the Giants really failed to execute.

With a runner on second and two runs already in, Vitello opted to keep his righty on the mound. William Contreras mounted a six-pitch battle, which resulted in an infield single. And still Vitello kept Foley in. Christian Yelich took four straight balls from a pitcher who was clearly losing it. And still Vitello kept Foley in. Finally, after a five-pitch battle, Foley retired Vaughn, and ended the inning.

It’s here where I remind you that Foley made his season debut 11 days ago, after missing a season and a half with a major shoulder surgery. It’s also where I remind you that he had his rehab assignment shut down and restarted because his body was not reacting well to simulating a Major League workload in the Minors and his shoulder was barking. And it’s where I make sure you’re aware that this was just his fourth outing since returning from said major shoulder surgery that he was struggling to recover from.

He threw 29 pitches in the inning. It was his 215th career game, and at no point in those prior 214 games had he ever thrown 29 pitches in a single inning. The 33 pitches he threw across the two frames was the third-most he’d thrown in a Major League game, and the most in more than four years.

Here’s hoping he doesn’t suffer the same fate that Gage did. But even a blessed and lucky outcome can’t excuse the process that led to him alone on that dirt island.

Anyway, you made it this far in this article, so here, have a treat. Bryce Eldridge did something cool.

Shohei Ohtani hit the night’s first home run. Max Muncy belted the one with the most historical significance.

But, on a warm summer night at Chavez Ravine on Tuesday, it was the Seattle Mariners who best took advantage of the hitter-friendly conditions, racking up five home runs of their own in a 7-6 win over the Dodgers.

A first-pitch temperature of just 77 degrees belied the sultry feel that surrounded Tuesday’s slugfest, when the ball was carrying from the start behind a light breeze to straightaway center.

At first, the Dodgers capitalized, with Ohtani opening the scoring with a leadoff home run in the first that snapped a nine-game long-ball drought.

After the Mariners ambushed Justin Wrobleski with three home runs over the next three innings, the Dodgers stormed back in front on Muncy’s solo shot in the fifth –– one that tied him with Eric Karros for the most home runs in Dodger Stadium history.

Up 5-4 at that point, however, the Dodgers failed to hold on.

Wrobleski gave up a career-high fourth home run in the sixth, when Dominic Canzone took him deep to straightaway center field at the end of his six-inning, five-run start.

Then, Canzone came back up in the eighth and delivered the decisive blow against reliever Alex Vesia, uncorking a two-run drive to break the 5-5 tie.

In addition to getting outslugged, the Dodgers were also less clinical in situational opportunities.

They had the bases loaded with no outs in the third, but only scored once on a Freddie Freeman double-play.

They sent eight batters to the plate in a two-run fourth inning, but also left the bases loaded after Kyle Tucker stopped at third on an RBI single from Ohtani –– despite third base coach Dino Ebel trying to wave him home to plate another run.

Then came a failed rally in the ninth, when Dalton Rushing led off with an infield single and Ohtani laced a double in the gap that the Mariners outfield couldn’t cleanly handle –– allowing Rushing to score and Ohtani to reach third with no outs.

Max Muncy later walked and stole second without a throw, putting the tying and winning runs in scoring position. But Mookie Betts grounded out to finish the night with yet another wasted chance.

What it means

The five home runs the Dodgers allowed on Tuesday tied the most they’ve given up this season. And the four that Wrobleski yielded left the young left-hander looking particularly flummoxed, as he was charged with his most runs in a start since May 22.

The first blast off Wrobleski was simple enough: A first-pitch fastball that Raleigh was on time for.

The other were more frustrating: All of them coming in two-strike counts, and two of them on fastballs above the strike zone.

“We didn’t do the greatest job of kind of adjusting to their game plan, and they got me,” Wrobleski said.

“Clearly their plan was to get on the fastball, or get on stuff that was up in the zone,” Roberts echoed. “He didn’t change eye levels enough, and so that’s why he gave up a lot of slug … They were hitting the ball out of the ballpark. So that’s kind of the tale of the run prevention tonight.”

Who’s hot

Since hitting his last home run at Dodger Stadium on May 31, Muncy had had 59 chances to tie Karros’ record during the team’s last three homestands.

A first-half-closing slump prevented it from happening then.

But a second-half-opening surge helped it happen now.

After hitting three home runs on the team’s post-All-Star-break road trip, Muncy finally matched Karros’ all-time Chavez Ravine mark of 130 career long balls by jumping on a hanging slider from Castillo in the fifth.

Muncy now has 21 homers this season, trailing only Shohei Ohtani for most on the team.

While Muncy had to wait a while for his record-tying blast, he reached Karros’ milestone far quicker than the former first baseman did.

Where Karros needed 798 games and 2,879 at-bats to get to 130 career Dodger Stadium homers, Muncy did it in just 516 games and 1,648 at-bats.

With up to 2 ½ more seasons remaining on his contract, Muncy will have plenty of time to distance himself on the leaderboard (assuming Ohtani doesn’t catch him first).

Who’s not

Those worrying that Ohtani’s knee injury was finally beginning to impact his swing.

That had become a question after the two-way star slumped during the team’s road trip, in which he went just 7-for-38 with no home runs.

But then, seemingly refreshed by Monday’s off day, Ohtani rediscovered his swing with a 3-for-4 performance, following up his leadoff blast with an intentional walk in the third, his RBI single in the fourth, and a double in the ninth that nearly keyed a game-saving rally.

“Tonight,” Roberts said, “he looked like himself.”

That didn’t mean, however, that Ohtani’s knee is back to 100%. Instead, the two-way star revealed after the game that he is also battling a bicep issue, one that has become another factor in his continued absence from pitching.

Up next

The Dodgers will look to bounce back on Wednesday, when Eric Lauer (5-5, 4.83 ERA) will face right-hander Emerson Hancock (6-4, 3.16 ERA).

Baseball is a cruel game. Last night (well, probably two nights ago by the time you’re reading this), Ceddanne Rafaela played hero with a grand slam that drove in all the Red Sox runs.

Tonight, he swung at a pitch that might have been outside state lines with the tying runs on base to cap off an extremely lamentable eighth inning.

Three batters earlier, Romy Gonzalez grounded into this double play, which while not quite as infuriating, proved every bit as costly.

Outside of those two at bats, four of the first five Red Sox batters reached base in the inning. It was exactly the frame where a team like the A’s, who had lost 24 of 30 entering tonight, should’ve blown the game, and it was exactly the frame where the Red Sox, winners of 23 of 27 entering tonight, should’ve won the game.

Instead, the offense reverted to pumpkin form, and the group that couldn’t buy a big hit to save their life over the first two and a half months of the season resurfaced. They went just 1-9 with runners in scoring position, wasted six walks (not a single one of them scored), hit into three double plays, and only had one run on the board going into the ninth inning in a park that wants to be minor league Coors Field.

Adding to the frustration, it also kind of felt like a game the Sox might have won if Curtis Mead was in there batting second instead of sidelined with a broken wrist. That spot in the lineup ended up having an average leverage index of 1.54, and Romy Gonzalez went hitless from it. There’s no way to know exactly how this game would’ve panned out if Mead was in there, but I would’ve liked to have seen it.

There’s also a second guess to be had from Chad Tracy tonight, who let Jake Bennett go out for the seventh inning. Ultimately, this resulted in Brain Serven hitting his first major league home run in four years, which turned a manageable 1-0 deficit into a 3-0 hole, and set the stage for the irritating squandering that ensued in the top of the eighth.

The argument against Tracy would go like this: Bennett’s had a tendency to hit a wall when he gets beyond 75 pitches all year, and his velocity went from a very impressive 96 mph early to several ticks off that later in the game.

At the same time though, I get where Tracy’s coming from. He used the high leverage part of the pen yesterday and didn’t want to use them again in a game the Sox were trailing, and he also doesn’t really have any other great options. All this underscores why the Sox need to have more bullpen depth on their shopping at the trade deadline. There’s such a drop off between the Chapman / Whitlock / Slaten / Guerrero part of the pen and everything else. They need something to bridge the gap.

Three Studs

Let’s give all of these to the right buttons Tracy pushed. Specifically, all three pinch hitters / defensive subs who nearly dragged the Red Sox back into the game.

Masataka Yoshida: Pinch-hit to lead off the eighth with a single.

Anthony Seigler: Followed up Yoshida’s pinch-hit single with a pinch-hit walk. He also put this charge into the ball to end the game, nearly tying things up.

Connor Wong: Hit a two-run bomb in the ninth to get the Red Sox within one after coming into the game defensively.

Three Duds

Ceddanne Rafaela: See the at bat in the eighth inning.

Romy Gonzalez: Went hitless, including the costly double play in the eighth.

Ryan Watson: Another guy who is here because of something that happened in the eighth inning. In his case, he coughed up a run that turned out to be the game winner after Wong’s shot in the ninth.

Looking Ahead:

The Red Sox will send Patrick Sandoval to the mound for the third game of this series tomorrow against Jacob Lopez, and it feels like a pretty important one given how cold the bats have looked at times in recent days. With the Dodgers lurking on the schedule this weekend, you’d like to grab enough wins on the front part of this road trip to prevent any potential damage there from exploding into an ugly overall trip to California.

Weird things happen when the Colorado Rockies and San Diego Padres get together, and tonight’s game was one of many such occasions in the history of this rivalry. The first of two in San Diego had it all. Terrible defense, many different pitchers, chair interference, multiple ejections from the Padres’ bench—including manager Craig Stammen—and finally a walk-off loss after more than three hours.

“We all kept going,” manager Warren Schaeffer assessed after the game. “Back and forth ballgame, really good big-league ballgame in terms of back-and-forth. Some big offensive moments. Two big at-bats for [Ezequiel Tovar] today. Big homer from [Mickey Moniak], Willi [Castro] — a couple of good walks from Willi, and Cole [Carrigg] just moving the line.

“Scoring 7 runs on the road, that’s pretty good,” he continued. “[We] scored against their bullpen a little bit, it’s a really good bullpen. But then on the other side of the ball, we had four errors. Errors and walks, walks and errors. You’re not going to win in the big leagues if you walk guys, especially late in the game and then you make errors in big moments.”

Not Very Loren-Zen

Right-handed starter Michael Lorenzen was the first of many pitchers utilized by the Rockies in tonight’s… let’s call it “interesting” affair against the Padres. Lorenzen, despite a string of solid starts in recent memory, was looking to rebound after getting hammered hard by the Washington Nationals his last time out.

Instead, Lorenzen gave up a lot of contact in an inefficient start. He threw 93 pitches in just four innings while also giving up eight hits with a walk and only two strikeouts.

Yet somehow Lorenzen gave up relatively minimal damage despite the contact. In the second inning he walked a batter with two outs before giving up two singles and a double to score two runs. A third run could have scored on the second single—one of Fernando Tatis Jr’s five base hits—but a well timed throw home from Jake McCarthy in right field ended the inning.

Lorenzen came out for the fifth inning but gave up another single to Tatis Jr. When another runner reached via a fielding error by Edouard Julien at second base, Lorenzen’s night ended. Juan Mejia allowed a single out of the bullpen that allowed another run to score before ending the inning via a double play.

“I thought Mike battled and competed,” Schaeffer said. “[He was] inefficient and (got) behind in counts. [His] pitch count rose quickly tonight. They fouled balls off — a lot of foul balls — but he battled. He got us into the fifth inning.”

Bullpen vs Defense

The Rockies utilized five relievers in this first of two games against the Padres with mixed results. After Mejia helped the Rockies escape the fifth with only one run scoring and recorded the first out of the sixth, he completely lost the strike zone and walked back-to-back batters. None of the balls in Xander Bogaerts’ at-bat were particularly close to the strike zone.

Mejia was then lifted for Antonio Senzatela—who needs to start rebuilding some of his trade value—who gave up back-to-back singles and a run to score. He then induced a double play, but the game was tied and this began an exhausting back-and-forth that would last the rest of the game.

When the Rockies pulled ahead in the top of the seventh, the Padres followed suit in the bottom. Lefty Brennan Bernardino saw his streak of now 20 straight appearances without allowing an earned run continue, but he allowed an inherited runner to score after Senzatela gave up a walk and a single to start the inning. A fielding error by Willi Castro would allow another run to score and the game was tied once more.

The Rockies again took the lead in the eighth only to end the inning with a tie. Victor Vodnik gave up a leadoff single to Fernando Tatis Jr to start the inning, and a fielding error by McCarthy on a Manny Machado line drive saw him score from first base. Machado was caught on an ill-advised attempt to steal third base but once again the damage was done.

In the bottom of the ninth inning it came down to the embattled Jimmy Herget to try and get the game to extra innings.

Herget entered tonight’s game in a truly miserable slump. In his last four appearances he had given up ten earned runs on nine hits—three of which were home runs—and walked five batters with just three strikeouts. A leadoff single by Jackson Merrill was a bad sign. An even worse sign was yet another error—the Rockies’ fourth of the game—when Hunter Goodman threw the ball into center field while Merrill attempted to steal second. Merrill advanced to third instead. Herget then gave up back-to-back walks before a sacrifice fly brought in the game winning run to cap off a very long and very odd ballgame.

Schaeffer was asked about the compounding errors after the game.

“I think they’re all separate. I think they’re each individual moments in time,” he said. “These guys are professionals, they’re big-league ballplayers and they know how to turn the page. It’s not like a Little League team where you’ve got to bring them all together and say ‘Let’s go. Let’s stop making errors.’ It was just a bad night defensively, that’s all. We’ll turn the page and we’ll be good again tomorrow.”

A solid enough offensive effort

The Rockies put up a fight on the road in San Diego, but it wasn’t enough to make up for terrible defense and pitching struggles.

Castro kicked off a four-run third inning for the Rockies with his 11th home run of the season. He needs just one more to tie his career high of 12, set in 2024 when he was an All-Star for the Minnesota Twins.

A bizarre blooping, bouncing double from Julien kept the inning going, and a single by McCarthy helped the Rockies capitalize on the opportunity. Mickey Moniak then walloped his 17th home run of the season to cap off the frame.

Moniak went 2-for-5 with three RBIs, but also struck out three times against Padres pitching in front of his hometown crowd.

Also playing in front of friends and family—which we were reminded of constantly—was rookie Cole Carrigg. Carrigg had a strong night at the plate, going 3-for-4 with a run and no strikeouts.

On the other hand, it was a difficult evening for Goodman and TJ Rumfield. The duo combined for seven strikeouts while going 0-for-10 at the plate.

The Rockies scored twice more in the seventh inning thanks to doubles with runners on by Tovar and Moniak, then once more in the eighth when Tovar drew a bases loaded walk.

However, they went down flailing against the truly artful filth of Padres closer Mason Miller.

Coming Up Next

Rookie righty Gabriel Hughes will take the mound for tomorrow’s second game of this miniature series. The Padres have not announced their starting pitcher yet. First pitch is scheduled for 2:10 PM MDT.

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