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In a surprising move, the Yankees placed Austin Wells on the injured list just ahead of Saturday’s soon-to-be-postponed with the Boston Red Sox. To replace Wells, the choice to fill in as the backup catcher is J.C. Escarra, returning to the big league club one day after getting sent down in favor of righty-hitting Ali Sánchez, who now might well take the bulk of the workload behind the dish — or at least a platoon split with the lefty Escarra.

Wells hits the shelf with what’s diagnosed as cervical headaches, potentially an issue that he has been dealing with for a while in what’s been up to this point a terrible campaign for the 26-year-old. Normally a very serviceable hitter behind the plate, especially adjusting for his position, Wells hit the IL with a .533 OPS, the worst among Yankee regulars.

Due to the nature of this IL replacement, it’s difficult to put a specific timeline on Wells’ return, and almost regardless of it, catcher remains a place the Yankees might look to improve at the deadline, even if midseason catcher trades are generally rare these days. Although Escarra was (very) recently with the big league club, he had scuffled for much of the season as well, batting .177 in 62 at-bats.

Here’s hoping that Wells’ injury isn’t too scary and he can safely recover. It’s a painful diagnosis.

Earlier this week, the San Diego Padres’ lineup took a major twist as the club decided to designate Nick Castellanos for assignment and release him two days later.

Before Friday night’s 5-0 loss to the New York Mets, Manny Machado met with reporters and talked about how the clubhouse was disappointed with the departure of Castellanos.

“The news got everybody by surprise,” Machado said. “I don’t really try to put myself in a [General Manager’s] shoes and why they’re doing the decisions. Obviously, we just care about Nick and what he meant to us in the clubhouse.”

Over the offseason, Castellanos was released by the Philadelphia Phillies and quickly signed with the Padres on a 1-year deal of $780,000.

Because Castellanos was originally released by the Phillies in the offseason, his release will only cost San Diego $296,141 due to his prior deal of $20 million.

Castellanos’ release comes after a poor start to the 2026 season, where he had a .560 OPS, with 4 home runs, 20 RBIs, and 34 strikeouts.

His struggles at the plate were due to offspeed pitches and breaking balls.

Last year, he was hitting .283 against offspeed pitches but this year he declined to .063 average. Against breaking balls, he had another drop, hitting .220 last season and now hitting .171 this season.

The Padres’ lineup has struggled this year, ranking as one of the worst in baseball in almost every hitting category. The reality was that San Diego needed to find ways to get better, even if that meant cutting ties with favorites in the locker room.

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Machado said that Castellanos was a favorite in the clubhouse and was a teammate he will remember forever.

“He was awesome,” Machado said. “He had some really big at-bats for us, and I think those memories won’t go away. He did a lot of good things for us.”

While it’s been less than a week since Castellanos was released, Machado added that he hasn’t spoken to him yet but plans to in the future.

“I think [that’s] tough news when you hear it,” Machado said. “I kinda want to give him his time before we wanna talk and see where his head is at.”

On paper, we should have won this game. On paper, Eduardo Rodriguez is a vastly superior pitcher to Zack Littell, the well-traveled journeyman who took the mound for Washington this afternoon on Corbin Carroll Mystery Bobblehead Day. Of course, baseball game aren’t played on paper, and before he’d even recorded his first out of the game, everyone’s favorite hologram had already given the Nationals their margin of victory.

Hologram Eddie didn’t look sharp to start off—his pitches weren’t landing where he wanted them. Either he was missing badly or leaving pitches in bad places, and for the second game in a row the leadoff batter reached, and was driven in by a dinger that went over the fence. Today it was a James Wood bloop single to left, followed by a Curtis Mead homer over the wall in left center. He then walked old Diamondbacks farmhand Andres Chaparro on five pitches, before LuJames Groover bailed him out by starting a nice 3-6 double play off the bat of CJ Abrams, and then catching a Dylan Crews pop up in foul territory. 2-0 Washington

To be fair, ERod settled in after that, pitching around a leadoff single to start the second and recording outs to the next eleven he faced, and fourteen of the next fifteen. Not too shabby after the rocky start to the first inning.

Meanwhile, our offense was unable to do anything against Littell, who was perfect through 3 2/3 innings before plunking Gabriel Moreno with two outs in the bottom of the fourth. His no-hit bid ended when Pavin Smith singled to lead off the fifth, and the shutout bid ended two outs later when LuJames Groover, in his sixth plate appearance in a major league game, hit a blooper to shallow center that rolled past Nationals center fielder Jacob Young and went to the wall. Initially I hoped it would be a triple, but it was scored as a single and a two-base error on Young, but it gave the young man his first big league hit and his first RBI as well, as Pavin Smith came around to score:

Tommy Tory then walked, but Ketel Marte rolled over on a grounder to second on the first pitch he saw, so Groover didn’t get to score his first run in the bigs. Great job, Ketel. 2-1 Washington

And that was it for the offense. Entirely. Well, except for a Corbin Carroll walk to lead off the bottom of the sixth, but that was promptly erased by Moreno rolling over to second for a double play. Great job, Gabi. After that, we didn’t have another baserunner.

Meanwhile, ERod pitched a clean sixth, and with only (?!) 85 pitches thrown, Torey Lovullo sent him out to start the seventh. That was a mistake, as the first pitch he threw went over left field fence, and after recording an out, he gave up a triple to center. Great job, Torey. Juan Morillo came in from the bullpen, was greeted by a squeeze bunt for which his only play was to first, so two more runs were in. 4-1 Washington

Jonathan Loaisiga pitched a scoreless eighth, and Drey Jameson, just up from Reno, gave up two more in the top of the ninth, to bring us to our final score of 6-1 Washington, because, as noted above, the offense couldn’t produce even another baserunner. Boo. Hiss.

Loss Probability Added, courtesy of FanGraphs

Tiny Little Bright Spot: LuJames Groover (3 AB, 1 H, 1 RBI, +9% WPA)
Holographic Dimness: Eduardo Rodriguez (6 1/3 IP, 6 H, 4 R, 4 ER, 1 BB, 5 K, 1 HR, -10% WPA)
Total Eclipse: The Rest of the Offense (25 AB, 0 H, 1 BB, 5 K, -47% WPA)

The Gameday Thread Diamondbacks vs. Nationals Discussion was sparsely attended again today, and again it was probably just as well, given the product the team put on the field, with a less than whopping 146 comments at time of writing. Precious few went what now passes for Sedona Red, and I’m departing from “popular acclaim,” such as it was, to give this one to AZNailgal520 for shouting out one of our number who could not be with us today and also capturing pretty perfectly the vibe of the whole sad undertaking that was this ballgame:

So we will try to avoid the sweep tomorrow, and if you are willing to pay the Peacock streaming service for the privilege, you can watch the festivities starting at 12 noon AZ time, as Michael Soroka takes the ball for us and Curt Cavalli goes for Washington. We don’t have Peacock, so if I “watch” at all it will be with the MLB Gameday open in a browser tab. But I hope some of you can join us, if you dare, because otherwise it will be a sad and lonely Gameday Thread Diamondbacks vs. Nationals Discussion for whoever is doing the guest recap tomorrow.

As always, thanks for reading, and as always, go Diamondbacks!

The Yankees are in a bit of an odd state heading into play on Saturday against the Red Sox at Yankee Stadium. They already know that they’re going to be without Aaron Judge for at least the better part of two months (if not more) due to a stress fracture in his rib. They’ve lost four of their last six games, including a home series loss to the Guardians that saw the AL Central leaders rough up two previously unflustered aces in Cam Schlittler and Gerrit Cole. They lost the series opener against Boston last night thanks to some gopher-ball antics from Ryan Weathers and some defense and approaches at the plate that certainly left fans wanting.

The latest weirdness includes the catching situation. They’ve received very little production at the plate from the Austin Wells/J.C. Escarra tandem, and they decided to demote Escarra after last night’s game, seemingly with the desire to at least get a right-handed hitter in there in former big leaguer Ali Sánchez. He will start behind the plate on Saturday night. Then at 6:45pm ET — a little under an hour before first pitch — they reactivated Escarra because Wells needs to go on the IL with cervical headaches that sound downright painful, per the Cleveland Clinic. What a joy.

Oh, and the relish on top of this bizarre sandwich is that there are thunderstorms in the Tri-State Area and the game won’t begin on time. The Yankees announced this at about the same time as the Wells IL move, and they confirmed the rain delay at 7:17pm ET. Reports indicate that they expect to play before too long and that the storms will pass soon, but that’s where we are.

Hang in there and take care of yourself, especially if you’re dealing with neck pain like Wells.

Update

They banged it. The doubleheader won’t be until August though, they’ll just have a normal game tomorrow.

Manny Machado might think “Moneyball” is fool’s gold.

The seven-time All-Star third baseman is in the middle of what is — so far — his worst season in the major leagues.

And on Friday night, after a 1-for-4 game that included grounding into a double play in a 5-0 loss to the Mets, Machado took the opportunity to go off on the state of baseball and what he perceives as an over-reliance on analytics.

“The game’s evolving, man. It’s definitely getting harder to play. It’s definitely getting more strategic,” Machado told reporters after the Padres’ 10th loss in the last 11 games. “I just wish we can get the analytics out of the way. I think there’s too many stats out there. Too many stats, way too many numbers. I don’t even know half of the stuff that goes up there. I look at the board sometimes, and I even ask some of the guys, like, ‘What is WCCVBB, whatever it is? What are these names that are being created?’

“I mean, it’s just crazy to even keep up with.”

Machado, a three-time Silver Slugger winner, has seen his more traditional, back-of-the-baseball-card stats hit new lows.

Through 60 games, he’s hitting .175/.262/.355 with a 73 OPS+ — all of which would be career lows if the season ended today.

His advanced stats, whether or not he’s looked, have painted a slightly better picture (his hard rate still ranks in the 66th percentile), but his expected batting average an slugging are both below career norms.

The Padres, even at 32-30, have disappointed so far this season for a team that came in with high expectations.

On top of Machado’s struggles, Fernando Tatis Jr. only hit his first home run of the season on May 30 in what has been an inexplicable power outage.

Machado said baseball still boils down to one thing as the Padres look to get their season back on track.

“At the end of the day, it’s about competing,” he added, according to The Athletic.

“You got to go out there and compete and take away all those analytics, take everything you could possibly think of, and go out there and try to catch the ball and make more outs, right?

Let’s hope this one goes better

The state of the Yankees’ catching position has not been good this season, but now it is in flux.

In a span of 24 hours, the Yankees went from optioning J.C. Escarra to Triple-A and calling up Ali Sánchez to placing Austin Wells on the injured list shortly before Saturday’s game with “cervical headaches” and calling Escarra back up.

When Aaron Boone spoke to reporters two and a half hours before the scheduled first pitch between the Yankees and Red Sox on Saturday, there was no indication that Wells was dealing with something physically, other than him struggling mightily at the plate for most of the season. 

The right-handed hitting Sánchez was in the lineup on Saturday night, but that was believed to be only because the Red Sox were starting lefty Ranger Suárez. 

Now, the Yankees will have to figure out how to split the workload between Sánchez and Escarra while Wells — who had started 45 of the Yankees’ 63 games before Saturday — is on the 10-day IL. 

If the Yankees had known that Wells’ physical issues were serious enough for an IL stint, they presumably would not have gone through the hassle of telling Escarra he was being demoted to Triple-A on Friday night.

“It just felt like, with our catchers struggling a little bit offensively obviously, just felt like the opportunity exists for Ali to get up here and give us a different look, and give J.C. a chance to go down there and play a little more regularly,” Boone had said before the Yankees changed course.

“There’s some things he’s working on offensively that I really — not only has he already done a great job behind the plate, but I do feel like there’s an offensive player in there at this level. But I think some regular reps down there hopefully will serve him well and hopefully Ali can come up here and provide a little bit of a spark and a different look too.”

Andrew Painter’s rocky rookie season was beginning to turn a corner in the middle of May when he put together a strong three-start stretch between the Boston Red Sox, Cincinnati Reds, and Cleveland Guardians. He finished six innings in two of those starts and allowed two runs or less in all three. He then met the Los Angeles Dodgers in Dodgers Stadium and hit another bump in the road, allowing four runs on seven hits in less than four innings of work.

This start was sort of a new defining mark for a young pitcher that is trying to find his way. Painter entered today with an ERA well over 5 and a FIP well over 4. The fastball has been getting hammered but the slider and splitter have shown promising results when he has good feel for them.

In the first, Painter hit Sam Antonacci in the elbow guard and walked Miguel Vargas on eight pitches before Caleb Cotham walked up to the mound.

That early mound visit did not help. Andrew Benintendi slapped a single into left field for a run and then Colson Montgomery walked on six pitches. First four batters up, each of them reached base.

Painter was able to get a pair of outs but did not put hitters away. He got to two strikes against Chase Meidroth but the White Sox second baseman put a sweeper in play to move the runners and drive in a run. Painter got to two strikes again to Jacob Gonzalez but hung a splitter enough for a ground ball instead of a strikeout. 3-0.

It got worse when Drew Romo took a two-strike slider down the right field line for Chicago’s fourth run of the inning as boos began to roar that the television broadcast couldn’t hide.

After a better second inning, Painter returned to the third and ran into more issues. Montgomery crushed a fastball to leadoff the inning. Then, it was Jacob Gonzalez who crushed his first career home run on a hanging splitter that still hasn’t landed.

The rookie right-hander was able to push things to 4.2 innings with no remaining damage but it’s once again another concerning start. In 11 big leagues starts and 12 appearances overall, Painter has a 6.21 ERA and a FIP over 5. Given the lack of other starting pitching options, the Phillies might be forced to let him figure things out but this is the kind of beginning that at least warrants a conversation of being demoted.

Again, things are tricky because the Phillies next best option is probably Alan Rangel, someone with just 14 innings of big league experience as a 28 year old journeyman.

The White Sox did not need anything else as Tanner Banks, Tim Mayza, and Chase Shugart combined for four and a third innings of work. Banks specifically gave them two and a third which probably saved the bullpen an extra arm for tomorrow.

Alec Bohm caught a hanging Sean Burke cutter in the fourth and then Brandon Marsh crushed a fastball a couple of innings later. With the game at four runs, the Phillies began to make things interesting in the middle of the sixth.

JT Realmuto worked a seven-pitch walk, then Bryson Stott won a challenge that allowed him to reach first base on five pitches. Adolis García kept his hot streak going by slapping a down-and-away slider to right-center for an RBI single.

Mattingly then called for Edmundo Sosa to hit in Justin Crawford’s place when Will Venable went to left handed reliever Sean Newcomb in a high-leverage spot. Sosa struck out looking on a slider.

The Phillies would not get the tying run to the plate the rest of the way and the game fizzled out.

Aaron Nola gets the ball tomorrow against David Sandlin, who is making his third career start and has a 8.10 ERA in his first ten innings of work.

For ‘tis the sport of baseball to have the engineer of infield hits and great defense hoist with his own petard. The Marlins stole the Rays’ playbook and beat them at their own game with infield hits, excellent defense mixed around some timely extra base hits while employing a Jonny Bullpen plan to stifle the Tampa Bay offense.

The Marlins were led by Javier Sanoja who went 3 for 4 with a home run and Esteury Ruiz who drew 3 walks in 4 plate appearances thereby doubling his season walk total over his first 54 plate appearances with Miami.

Shane McClanahan was cruising through the first four innings until he rolled an inside first-pitch slider to Javier Sanoja, who was able to get his hands in just enough to yank the pitch over the left field wall for a home. Those frustrations leaked into a walk to Esteury Ruiz, who easily stole second base and advanced to third on the wild throw. McClanahan was able to strike out Connor Norby, but another hanging breaking ball resulted in a double to the opposite field gap by Joe Mack. That was quickly followed up by two infield singles to load the bases, but a beautiful 6-4-3 double play turned by Taylor Walls and Ben Williamson kept it at a two-run game.

Things just fell apart for McClanahan after his emotions got to him in the 5th, and then the first four batters in the 6th reached base. The linescore could have been much worse had Liam Hicks had an extra biscuit at breakfast, as Dave Wills used to say, as Hicks just missed a grand slam off Casey Legumina:

The Rays had their chances in the middle innings, but failed to execute while Nick Fortes and Taylor Walls went 1 for 3 in challenges leaving the club without any challenges after the 6th inning. That would come back to haunt the team in the 9th. The 5th inning began Richie Palacios becoming the first baserunner for the Rays after Norby was unable to cleanly pick a throw from Sanoja. Kevin Cash then tried to use Ben Williamson’s bat to ball skills for a hit and run, but the contact hitter was shut down on three pitches. Cedric Mullins was hit by a pitch just ahead of Walls grounding into an inning-ending double play.

The Rays had a chance to tie the game after the Marlins big 5th inning with Victor Mesa Jr and Yandy Diaz each singling around a Nick Fortes strikeout. Fortes was called out on strikes twice in the at bat, but replay saved him the first time while he then burned the last team challenge on an obvious strike. The hit by Mesa Jr broke up the no-hitter before that, and Diaz hit the ball so hard to right that Mesa Jr could only advance one base. This set things up nicely for the Rays with Jonathan Aranda and Junior Caminero up, but both had terrible at bats against former Rays reliever Calvin Faucher.

Aranda swung at one pitch the entire at bat, and it was a curveball down around his ankles after taking a first-pitch fastball and a well-tunneled curveball for the first two pltches of the plate appearance:

Caminero then followed that up by chasing a sweepter well out of the zone which went harmlessly off the end of his bat into an easy 4-3 putout to end the inning. This same duo was again given the chance to plate multiple baserunners in the 8th innings, but Aranda struck out on three consecutive 99-mph fastballs from Michael Peterson while Caminero was once again pitched up and in by Miami and got Caminero to swing at three consecutive fastballs that were not in the zone to ogo from a 2-0 count to a strikeout:

The Rays tried to make a game of it in the 9th against former teammate Pete Fairbanks with a leadoff walk by Williamson and then a one-out and two-strike bunt by Taylor Walls bringing Victor Mesa Jr to the plate with his dad in attendance, but Mesa Jr’s seeing eye single was snagged by Liam Hicks just before it got into right field who got it over to Fairbanks at first in the nick of time. Chandler Simpson was called onto pinch hit for Nick Fortes and fought off some tough pitches to go from 0-2 count to draw a walk and bring Yandy Diaz to the plate. Diaz singled before Simpson could even have a chance to steal a base providing Aranda with an opportunity for redemption from his previous two at bats. Aranda earned a nine-pitch walk after spoiling off several tough fastballs. Fairbanks was then pulled after 39 pitches to have Tyler Zuber come in and face Junior Caminero with the bases loaded.

Caminero quickly fell behind with a well-placed first pitch fastball up and then one a bit higher that was called strike two but could not be challenged. It was all for naught as Caminero would strike out chasing yet another pitch out of the zone after fouling off a hanging slider that should have been crushed:

Simpy put, while the offense mostly failed to show up until the 9th inning, the 2-3-4 hitters in this game went 0 for 13 with 7 strikeouts and left 13 runners on base is why this game ended up as it did. Perhaps it was the challenge of facing a different pitcher each time they came up, but the quality of at bats from the heart of the order was simply not there when the opportunities came up. The rubber match is Griffin Jax against Sandy Alcantara, who held the Rays down the last time the two teams tangled back in St. Pete on May 16th.

Will Warren versus Ranger Suárez represents the perfect pitching matchup to highlight the difference between these two teams in the success of developing starting pitchers in-house. While the Red Sox felt compelled to go outside the organization and spend big on a mid-level starter—in other words, someone who wasn’t necessarily signed to anchor the rotation—the Yankees filled out their staff with the likes of Warren and are way better off for it.

The pitcher with the best winning percentage in the AL this season, entering this game with seven wins and just one loss, Warren has benefited from outstanding run support, such as the 13 runs the Yankees scored at the A’s in his last start. Accustomed to pitching on the road as of late, this will only be Warren’s second start at home in the last 30 days. Normally that wouldn’t warrant mention, but the splits in 2026 are stark enough for Warren that it is worthwhile bringing it up. Warren enters this game with a 3.96 ERA in 36.1 innings at home, nearly two runs higher than the 2.25 mark he has on five starts away from Yankee Stadium. This difference hasn’t affected Warren’s record (4-1 at Yankee Stadium), but that has more to do with the level of support from the offense than anything else.

The emphasis on run support for Warren is even more pertinent when you consider that the Yankees will be facing a left-hander without their two lefty mashers, Aaron Judge and Giancarlo Stanton. Stanton’s been out for quite some time, but Judge’s recent injury dramatically affects this offense in a way that can’t possibly be overstated. The production Ben Rice and Cody Bellinger have brought to the table against southpaws increases its importance tenfold with the lineup’s current construction.

The positive side about this specific matchup is that Suárez has reverse splits, allowing way more damage against left-handed hitters. While righties have an OPS below .600 against the Red Sox starter, lefties are up to a .770 mark. These splits show up in the track record against individual hitters. Back from their NL East days, Jazz Chisholm Jr. has a .300 batting average in 20 at-bats against Suárez. Ryan McMahon also has terrific numbers in a sizeable sample size against the Red Sox starter, but one couldn’t pass up Amed Rosario and his two homers in nine at-bats against the southpaw.

Please note that we are in a rain delay to start the game. Also, the catching situation is a mess with Austin Wells suddenly going on the IL and J.C. Escarra already back after being demoted following last night’s loss. Former big leaguer Ali Sánchez was expected to make his team debut behind the plate regardless, but just know that it’s all strange.

[Update: They postponed tonight’s game. See the linked story for more.]

How to watch

Location: Yankee Stadium — Bronx, NY

First pitch: 7:35 pm ET TBD (rain delay)

TV broadcast: FOX

Radio broadcast: WFAN 660/101.9 FM, WADO 1280, WEEI 93.7 FM, WCCM 1490 AM (SP), WESX 1230 AM (SP)

Online stream: MLB.tv

For updates, follow us on BlueSky, Twitter, and Instagram, and like us on Facebook.

It’s no secret that the San Diego Padres are in a slump.

After the Padres lost their sixth straight game in a 5-0 loss to the New York Mets, Manny Machado met with reporters and was asked if the team needs to find a sense of urgency.

“You guys want to hit the panic button, you guys have all been talking about it, you have all been negative about everything we’ve been doing, and we already know what we’ve been doing,” Machado said.

“We haven’t been really playing well. …Try to keep out the negative stuff out of our heads and again like I said, you just gotta try to stay positive going forward.”

On May 18, the Padres were 29-18 and just got ahead of the Dodgers for first place in the National League West. But since they dropped the series winning just one out of two games, they’re 32-30 and are just hanging on to stay above .500.

Over their last 13 games since the Dodgers series, the Padres are 3-10.

Their struggles are primarily due to the team’s lack of offense as they are ranked at the bottom in almost every hitting category, including batting average [.215], on-base percentage [.289], slugging [.356], runs [235], and RBIs [229].

The only hitting category they are close to being in the middle of the pack with the rest of the league is in home runs [63], sitting tied at 18th with the New York Mets and Detroit Tigers.

“We don’t wanna go 0 for 20, we don’t wanna go 0 for 40,” Machado said. “We were two games, three games from winning a division last year. So every game matters.”

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Earlier this week, the Padres’ lineup was shaken up after the club decided to designate Nick Castellanos for assignment on June 3, and release him two days later.

Castellanos was in the middle of the worst season in his career, slashing .191/.221/.339 while hitting just 4 home runs and striking out 34 times.

Another reason for their struggles is also due to the slow start of Fernando Tatis Jr., who finally hit his first home run of the season on May 30, against the Nationals.

Ironically, while the Padres have been stuck in this cold stretch, Tatis Jr. has started to heat up at the plate, hitting .380 with 19 hits and 3 RBIs.

But like the rest of the Padres lineup, Machado has also been caught in a slump, hitting .175 with a 73 OPS+.

“There’s nobody more frustrated than everyone in here,” Machado said. “At the end of the day, stay positive, keep going forward, we have a lot of baseball to be played still.”

We zoomed through the first third of the season and now the St. Louis Cardinals have just 100 games to go in this rebuild season. Unlike most rebuilds, this one has been fun and honestly, maybe we are spoiled by being fans of the Cardinals. That was one of the topics of conversations on Cardinals on My Time with Cardinals Twitter Vibe King @JandySTL.

In our talk about this fun campaign, we both had to take stabs at the Pittsburgh Pirates wondering how their fans can be so upset about rebuilding if this is how easy it is. The meat of our conversations, though, centered around the vibes and energy that can be seen and felt in Busch Stadium these days. It is a different team than fans our used to and this refreshing injection of youth in St. Louis has engaged fans and lost many a shirt.

The Cardinals 2026 season is already a major win

Seemingly every game, Jordan Walker makes us believe a little bit more in his resurgence. With 100 games to go, we are no longer discussing small sample sizes and have moved into end of the year awards. JJ Wetherholt appears to be the real deal for the long-term and while the rest of the roster may have some holes or uncertainties, the Cardinals are in an intriguing spot as a franchise. The trade deadline, some eight weeks away could bring decisions for Chaim Bloom and company, but the main thought is that he will remain future-focused rather than looking to clinch a 2026 postseason berth.

That could spell the end of Cardinals tenures for players like free agents to be JoJo Romero, Dustin May, Ryne Stanek or for older players like Lars Nootbaar and Riley O’Brien. Assuming that at least a couple of those guys are dealt to World Series hopefuls, the Cardinals will look to replace them from the minor leagues or in the trade return. What that means will differ, as Chaim could try to toe the line of competing and retooling like he did by acquiring major league arms Hunter Dobbins and Richard Fitts among prospects.

Without getting too far into trade possibilities, Jandy and I discussed what a realistic trade deadline looks like for this iteration of the Cardinals. We came to the conclusion that, even if we see those guys go, the drop off at the major league level may not be too tough to swallow.

As we hit the summer months, my podcasting schedule gets a little wonky. I will continue to record as often as possible, but make sure you follow and subscribe to the channel for the latest episodes. Keep the feedback and comments coming. Thanks as always!

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