Worldwide Sports News

It’s been a long and exhausting season for the Angels, but it appears the team has helped at least one fan rediscover his love for baseball.

New York Times award-winning sports author Jeff Pearlman released a video on TikTok, revealing the Angels have rekindled his passion for the sport.

“In the last [month] I’ve gone to probably like five games, three of the five just by myself, and you may think, ‘What kind of loser goes to a baseball game by himself?’ It’s [the] best,” Pearlman said during the TikTok video. “I buy a ticket really high up. … I get free parking because I park offsite, and I just love it.”

“I love the feel of the ballpark, I love the look of the ballpark, I love the green, I love the national anthem, the seventh-inning stretch, I love that the Angels always do these really cheesy giveaways.”

Despite the Angels having a poor record (39-61), Pearlman said he enjoys being able to watch baseball at an affordable price and called it the “cheapest, best bang for your buck ever.”

Pearlman went on to compare how cheap the Angels tickets are compared with Dodgers tickets. He said he’s happy not having to spend $40 to park and spending over $100 for a ticket.

Pearlman is a New York Times best-selling author who writes about football, baseball and basketball. He also wrote a biography on Tupac Shakur.

Some notable books Pearlman has written about LA sports in his career include “Showtime: Magic, Kareem, Riley, and the Los Angeles Lakers Dynasty of the 1980s,” and “Three-Ring Circus: Kobe, Shaq, Phil, and the Crazy Years of the Lakers Dynasty.”

Now attending Angels games for the experience to watch baseball in its purest form, Pearlman said he’s been taking photos with fans in attendance and leaving free copies of his books across the stadium. He enjoys getting a cold brew coffee from the Rise Espresso Bar in the stadium that includes cold foam and Cocoa Puffs.

The 2026 season has been another tough one for Angels fans, and the franchise might lose 100 games in a season for the first time.

Fans at Angel Stadium have been voicing their frustrations toward ownership this year. Earlier this season, they organized protests toward owner Arte Moreno, urging him to sell the team due to another losing season.

The protests have also been happening inside the stadium as fans have been participating in the Tarps Off movement, which has included regular chants of “Sell the team,” echoing from the right field seats.

Pearlman admitted he has mixed feelings about Tarps Off but called it “entertaining.”

“My new happy place is going to Angels games, parking for free, knowing I have a $5 ticket, watching the game, presuming the Angels are probably going to lose,” Pearlman said. “Just relishing in the moment.”

The Tampa Bay Rays did not allow a hit in the third inning Sunday afternoon at Fenway Park.

The Boston Red Sox scored three runs anyway.

A walk, a hit batter, another walk, a passed ball, an error, and a groundout turned a tied game into a three-run Boston lead, sending the Rays toward a 6-1 loss and a four-game sweep. The defeat extended Tampa Bay’s season-high losing streak to five games while Boston won its 13th straight.

Before the third-inning unraveling, Victor Mesa Jr. provided the Rays with one of the more exciting ways imaginable to take a lead.

Mesa opened the second by driving a ball into the right-center-field gap and never stopped running, racing around the bases for an inside-the-park home run. It was his seventh homer of the season and gave Tampa Bay a 1-0 lead without the ball ever leaving Fenway Park.

The Rays threatened to add more. Richie Palacios singled and stole second. Taylor Walls followed with a walk, but Sonny Gray retired the next three batters to strand both runners.

Boston immediately answered.

Caleb Durbin opened the bottom of the second with a single, stole second and advanced to third when Hunter Feduccia’s throw bounced away into centerfield. Andruw Monasterio then doubled into left field to tie the game. Feduccia recovered by throwing out Jarren Duran attempting to steal second, helping Shane McClanahan escape without further damage than a 1-1 tie.

The Rays created another scoring opportunity in the third. Cedric Mullins walked, and Chandler Simpson doubled, placing runners at second and third with one out. Gray responded by striking out Mesa after an unsuccessful Rays challenge and retiring Palacios on a fly ball.

Those missed opportunities became more costly during the no-hit blunder of the third inning.

McClanahan walked Jahmai Jones before retiring Ceddanne Rafaela. Wilyer Abreu was then hit by a pitch, and Willson Contreras walked after a Red Sox challenge confirmed ball three.

With the bases loaded, a passed ball by Feduccia allowed Jones to score the go-ahead run. Durbin followed with a grounder to Junior Caminero, but Caminero’s throw hit Abreau as Abreau scored, Contreras moved to third, and Durbin advanced to second.

Romy Gonzalez completed the damage with a groundout that brought Contreras home. Boston had turned three free baserunners and two defensive mistakes into a 4-1 lead without recording a hit.

Gray made sure the lead held.

After allowing Jonathan Aranda’s leadoff single in the fifth, the right-hander retired Caminero, Mullins and Simpson in order. Another opportunity disappeared in the sixth when Walls grounded into an inning-ending double play after Palacios walked.

Contreras then supplied Boston’s only necessary insurance. Rafaela singled to open the bottom of the fifth, and Contreras drove McClanahan’s next pitch into the right-center-field seats for his 22nd home run, extending the lead to 6-1.

McClanahan finished with six runs allowed, four earned, on five hits and three walks over five innings. He struck out three, matching his season low, but the line reflected an afternoon when missed locations and defensive mistakes compounded one another.

The Rays finished with eight hits to Boston’s six but went 0-for-15 with runners in scoring position. Even after Feduccia doubled in the seventh and Walls and Feduccia reached to begin the ninth, Tampa Bay could not push across another run.

With this series in the books, the Rays look to get back to winning baseball as they finish their road trip in Toronto. Nick Martinez is scheduled to start against the Blue Jays with a 7:07 pm first pitch.

The Mariners have played 100 games. 50 of those games have been wins. 50 of those games have been losses. Eight of the wins came in a heady run in late May to early June that made it feel like the team had turned a corner and was poised to claim a commanding lead in the AL West, only to be followed by a string of losses that suggested that no, actually, this was the same inconsistent, frustrating team that’s been playing since March. High expectations have made the losses sting, badly, making the record at times feel worse than it is – the 2026 Mariners have at no point been worse than five games under .500, and that was back in the very early days of the season. But it hasn’t felt like that. The play has been so inconsistent that even this 50th win, a 6-3 triumph over the Giants to start off the second half with a series win, doesn’t necessarily feel like a turning point so much as Lucy lowering the football for Charlie Brown once again.

Maybe blame Friday night’s abysmal 7-0 shutout loss against the drain-circling Giants, but even yesterday’s joyful Julio-fueled walkoff win seemed to pale in the harsh light of the series finale, with former Mariner Robbie Ray on the mound for the Giants – recently off back-to-back eight-inning shutout performances – against Logan Gilbert. It was a rough start to the game for Gilbert, who walked off the mound in the first having surrendered two runs: one on a no-doubter Bryce Eldridge home run where he pounced on a first-pitch fastball at 98 mph and pummeled it over the wall, and another on a ground ball base hit off the bat of Casey Schmitt that split J.P. Crawford and Colt Emerson; Schmitt would advance to second and score on another ground ball base hit from Heliot Ramos past a diving Cole Young.

Dan Wilson spoke pregame about the necessity of being patient against Ray and forcing him to get in the zone and wait for your pitch, but that message appeared lost on many of the Mariners hitters for the first few innings. The Mariners got some pressure on Ray in the second inning by following the Wilson 14 Point Plan (all 14 points involve waiting for Ray to throw the ball in the zone): J.P. Crawford singled with two outs, rapping a sharp slider past the second baseman, and then Julio worked a very good at-bat, fouling off and taking pitches before walking on the eighth pitch of the at-bat. Unfortunately, that brought up the lefty Cole Young with two outs, and Young was not on message:

Progress: sometimes it is linear, and sometimes, not so much.

The Mariners got on the board in the fourth thanks to some good old-fashioned chaos. Arozarena hit a ball right at Giants third baseman Casey Schmitt who decided it would be nice to send the ball on a scenic tour of Seattle, allowing Randy to get to second; he advanced to third on a Cal Raleigh flyout and scored easily on a Josh Naylor single. Naylor then stole second, because he is a chaos demon wearing polyester pants, and then scored on a game-tying single from Weston Wilson. It is important to have a niche, and in this inning everyone was tucked snugly inside their own personal niches: Randy being a Grade A Annoyance in the box and on the bases, trailing a cloud of chaos behind him like Pigpen; Josh Naylor singling on a pitch located at eye level and causing every Little League coach watching to wail in agony; and Weston Wilson being Professionally Right-Handed.

The Mariners weren’t able to add on but did keep the pressure on Ray, as Colt Emerson followed with a single and J.P. Crawford walked to load the bases for Julio Rodríguez. Julio flew out to end the inning, but the Mariners had managed to put 79 pitches on Ray by the end of the fourth.

Unfortunately, Logan Gilbert wasn’t able to deliver a shutdown inning in the fifth. Maybe it was the long layoff, but Gilbert wasn’t sharp when he came out for thie fifth, walking leadoff hitter Willy Adames on some not close pitches. Adames advanced to second on a bunt and scored on a go-ahead RBI double from Luis Arraez, who got on a slider that didn’t slide enough. Gilbert rebounded to strike out Eldridge on a slider, but the Giants now held the lead.

The Mariners were able to tie it back up in the bottom of the inning, taking advantage of a tiring Robbie Ray. Ray spammed Young with sliders off the plate again, like he had in the first at-bat, but this time Young made an adjustment, getting a slider on the plate and pulling it sharply (101.3 EV) into right field for a leadoff single. Randy followed him with a single of his own, this one at 105.7 mph off the bat, taking over the honorary Dom Canzone big brother role of “anything you can do, I can do better.” The Giants pulled Ray for righty Sam Hentges, who got Cal Raleigh to ground into a double play on a curveball, but the run still scored, tying things back up. But with two outs, the Mariners couldn’t continue to add on.

However, this time Gilbert was able to deliver the shutdown sixth, capping his day at 95 pitches and ten strikeouts – pretty good work, considering how the day had started. Also of note: Gilbert delivered contact-monster Luis Arraez back-to-back strikeouts in his first two at-bats, the first time Arraez had struck out more than once in a game all season, a fact eagerly shared by Bryce Miller when Logan came into the dugout. When informed actually Miller was underselling it and that this was the first time that’s happened to Arraez in two years, Gilbert couldn’t contain a look of wonder and an involuntary “golly.”

The Giants sent righty Adrian Houser out to the mound for the sixth, allowing Luke Raley to step in for Weston Wilson and immediately make his presence known. This is just the Mariners’ second pinch-hit home run of the year, and I’d forgive you for not believing who hit the first. Hilariously, this is Raley’s second pinch-hit homer, and they both have come against the Giants. Again, it’s important to establish your niche.

With the Mariners clinging to a one-run lead, Eduard Bazardo took over on the mound for Gilbert. Jung Hoo Lee immediately hit the most annoying BABIP flyball single ever off the Bazardvark, which must have really ticked him off because he then rattled off about as filthy a string of strikeouts as I remember from him this year: first he put Willy Adames in a blender on a sweeper, then nailed Grant McCray on the same sweeper for a three-pitch strikeout. Nine-hole hitter Drew Cavanaugh actually made Bazardo work, getting ahead 3-1 and then fouling off a couple pitches, but he too was subject to the bite of the Zard Dog, who punched Cavanaugh out looking on an absolutely filthy sinker.

Everybody has a niche, but Cole Young’s has been harder to pin down this season. Sometimes it’s Gold Glove Cole; sometimes it’s Clutch Cole when there’s runners in scoring position; quietly it’s been Iron Man Cole, playing in every game this season, a feat only accomplished by five other players in MLB. Lately, though, it’s been Cole Power. With Julio aboard on a leadoff single, Young saw a first-pitch changeup from Houser he liked the look of and promptly sent it over the right-field wall for two very important insurance runs. Even more importantly for me, people who enjoy symmetry, this made three runs scored via small ball/chaos ball vs. three runs scored via home run, the optimal mix for this lineup.

With the bullpen breathing a little easier, Gabe Speier and Andrés Muñoz combined for two shutout innings to keep the Giants pinned in place. Speier had to do a little wiggling to get around a four-pitch walk to Eldridge, but posted a zero. Muñoz, by contrast, pitched maybe one of the most dominant innings he has all season, striking out Heliot Ramos on three pitches (heater-slider-slider), getting Jung Hoo Lee to ground out on a slider, and then striking out Willy Adames on three pitches – two heaters at 100 followed by another wicked slider. Muñoz has looked much, much sharper of late, but the effort from the bullpen today was superb, something Dan Wilson says is partly due to the willingness to attack that having a multi-run lead offers.

“It helps guys to get into the ballgame and have confidence that we’re going to take home a victory…anytime you can give them an extra run, an extra two runs, it makes all the difference in the world, because then they’re able to attack. In a one-run or a tie game, these guys are nails. But you give them a little extra lead, they’re going to make you pay.”

I might not be convinced these Mariners have turned a corner, but I’m not the one who needs to be convinced. Postgame, Logan Gilbert expressed confidence in not only the team’s recent record, but also how they’ve gotten there.

“We know where we’re at. It hasn’t been exactly what we wanted up to this point, but Dan keeps talking about how everything’s right in front of us. Division’s wide open. Won three of the last four, so that’s huge, and the way we’ve done it too, any time in the past I feel like we’ve gone through it a little bit – it’s kind of like a walkoff win is huge, with the momentum, so we got that walkoff hit, we came from behind today, clawed back, the offense did great, so those are two really scrappy wins. I think that’s what kind of gets us going.”

Luke Raley echoed Gilbert’s sentiments.

“We know the talent that’s in the clubhouse. It’s pretty clear we haven’t put it all together, but we know it’s there, and we know how we can play. We’ve seen flashes of it, but the consistency hasn’t been there. But we all believe that it’ll show up. We’re going through it a little bit right now. But the way to look at it is, we’ve won three out of our last four, and hopefully we can start getting some momentum and run with it…It’s kind of a cliche answer, but I feel we’ve had some good at-bats where we’ve hit balls hard and they’re outs and we just haven’t come up with the big hit. And Cole [Young] had the big swing yesterday, and it can be as easy as one swing. Just change the momentum, change the confidence, the the team starts rolling. That’s all it takes in baseball. And I hope that was the swing, and I hope we can roll from there, but if it isn’t, we’re going to keep working to get to that point.”

It can be as easy as one swing. It can also be as difficult. But it’s a lot easier when everyone knows their niche, and after today, where the Mariners stacked 11 hits up and down the lineup and scored on balls both small and long while striking out seven times against three walks, it feels like maybe – maybe – they’re starting to find it.

PHILADELPHIA — Francisco Lindor has been a shell of himself since returning from the injured list, but Sunday he was the whole player.

The Mets shortstop homered in his first plate appearance and didn’t stop until he had reached base five times in his team’s 6-1 victory over the Phillies at Citizens Bank Park.

Lindor began the day with a .594 OPS since his return from the IL on June 24 (he missed two months with a calf strain).

His defensive play has been just as shaky.

So, are the Mets about to receive a dose of the Lindor who has been a key figure in this lineup since 2021?

“I am extremely confident, and there’s no other option,” Lindor said when asked about returning to his All-Star level. “I have to play to a higher standard. I have to play to the level that the organization wants me and I have to play to the level that I expect myself to be.”

Lindor delivered a 3-for-3 performance with three RBIs from the cleanup spot.

He also walked twice, allowing him to reach base five times in a game for the fifth time in his career.

“I’m putting in the work, and the coaching staff here is helping me a lot,” Lindor said. “We have three hitting coaches and they are all sending me videos and all putting in the time. And [bench coach] Kai [Correa], we all know Kai doesn’t stop.”

Lindor committed a throwing error a day earlier.

Last Sunday he failed to turn a potential game-ending double play on a routine grounder, costing the Mets a victory.

Correa, who oversees the team’s defense, told The Post that Lindor is still trying to catch up from the time he’s lost this season.

Before his calf injury, Lindor missed most of spring training due to hamate bone surgery.

“The biggest thing for him is he’s trying to close the gap on the lack of a normal offseason, the lack of a normal spring training,” Correa said. “The multiple serious issues, injuries, consecutively, without continuous play or a rehab assignment. Some of the things you see are mental mistakes that manifest as physical mistakes. It comes from the lack of game flow, where he’s out there and not doing things without thought.”

The Mets can only hope to receive a steady flow of production from Lindor as they attempt to avoid finishing as a complete embarrassment.

“We know who [Lindor] is and he has a long track record of being really good,” interim manager Andy Green said. “The day before the All-Star break, that ended up being a tough day [on the botched double play], but he was swinging the bat really well, and made a ton of good plays that day. It’s good to see him come out, enjoy playing baseball, play it really well and lead us to a win.”

The St. Louis Cardinals were ready to play the waiting game with the Arizona Diamondbacks All-Star starter Eduardo Rodriguez, but Andre Pallante and the bullpen would eventually blow a 7-run lead late in the game to make it a nail-biter which would end in heartbreak fashion.

Andre Pallante has a history of baffling the Diamondbacks and that trend continued for the first 5 innings of Sunday’s game in Arizona. More about the awful 6th inning later. While he was keeping the Diamondbacks hitless, the St. Louis Cardinals had a smart approach to wait out Eduardo Rodriguez and make him throw strikes. That would lead to a big breakthrough in the top of the 3rd inning.

Lars Nootbaar was the first example of Cardinals patience as he worked a walk to lead off the top of the 3rd inning. He would score on a triple from Blaze Jordan into the left-centerfield gap giving St. Louis a 1-0 lead.

Blaze would score on a smart at-bat from JJ Wetherholt as he guided a single past Nolan Arenado doubling the Cardinals lead to 2-0.

The Cardinals weren’t done doing damage in the 3rd as Iván Herrera singled and Jordan Walker kept his 10-game hitting streak alive smashing a double off of the left field wall scoring Wetherholt and making it 3-0 Cardinals.

But wait, there’s more. Alec Burleson hit a 92 mph Rodriguez sinker into left center scoring both Herrera and Walker giving the Cardinals a commanding 5-0 lead.

The St. Louis Cardinals would continue to pile onto their lead in the top of the 5th inning as Alec Burleson would begin the rally with a one-out single. After Masyn Winn flied out for the second out, Jose Fermin and Lars Nootbaar walked to load the bases. Blaze Jordan would come through with a clutch two-strike single to right scoring Burleson and Fermin and giving the Cardinals a huge 7-0 lead.

Andre Pallante with an assist by the Cardinals bullpen would allow the Diamondbacks to climb back into the game in the bottom of the 6th inning. Del Castillo would lead off with a double followed by a single by Waldschmidt. Ketel Marte then singled in Del Castillo to get the Diamondbacks on the scoreboard subtracting from the Cardinals lead making it 7-1 with runners on first and third with none out. Pallante then walked Perdomo to load the bases and then two batters later walked Moreno to push another run across making it 7-2 St. Louis. That would result in manager Oli Marmol removing Pallante and bringing in Ryne Stanek. He would get Kepler to pop out to shortstop, but would walk Locklear with the bases still loaded and getting Arizona back within striking distance as the Cardinals lead was down to 7-3. Stanek would get out of the inning when Blaze Jordan made a diving grab on a ground ball from Nolan Arenado and Alec Burleson made a fine scoop at first to end the Diamondbacks long bottom of the 6th inning.

After Ryne Stanek gave up a leadoff single to Del Castillo in the bottom of the 7th inning, it was George Soriano to the rescue (or at least that was the hope). He successfully got Waldschmidt and Marte out, but Perdomo slapped a single to left field that Jose Fermin misplayed which not only allowed Del Castillo to score, but Perdomo, too as he circled the bases for a little league home run cutting the Cardinals lead down to a nerve-racking 7-5.

The Cardinals narrow lead would disappear in the bottom of the 8th inning. After St. Louis reliever Gordon Graceffo got the first two outs, Locklear singled bringing up Nolan Arenado. Gordon unfortunately grooved an 88 mph slider and Arenado jolted it over the left field wall tying the game at 7-7.

Arenado’s 2-run homer would make the 9th inning a 7-7 shootout. In the top of the 9th, Masyn Winn grounded out to lead off the Cardinals 9th, but Jose Fermin followed with a single and Lars Nootbaar then drew his 4th walk of the day. Blaze Jordan then flew out to center for the second out which brought up JJ Wetherholt. He would face Diamondbacks reliever Juan Morillo. He would ground out to end the top of the 9th inning.

For the Cardinals to reach extra-innings, it would need the arm of Luis Gastelum to keep the Diamondbacks from scoring. He would strike out Ketel Marte and get Perdomo to ground out bringing up Jorge Barrosa who Gastelum would strike out also. Very impressive bottom of the 9th for Luis.

The Cardinals would start extra innings with JJ Wetherholt as the designated runner on second base. After an errant bunt attempt and nearly being hit in the head by a pitch, Ivan Herrera would guide a single into left field which would advance JJ to third base bringing up Home Run Derby champion Jordan Walker with Bryan Torres pinch-running for Herrera at first. In a play that really must be seen to be believed, Byran Torres would be doubled off first when Jordan Walker broke his bat popping out to short. That bonehead baserunning blunder would mean the Cardinals would not score in their half of the 10th inning after Nathan Church grounded out. Playoff-caliber teams can’t make mistakes like this, but stuff happens.

Luis Gastelum would remain in the game for the bottom of the 10th to try and replicate his excellent 9th inning effort. This time, though, he’d start the inning with Barrosa as the free runner at second. He’d get Moreno to line out to Nootbaar in right without advancing the runner for the first out. That would bring up Max Kepler. He would clobber a double over Lars head in right field off the wall for a walk-off Diamondbacks winner. A stunning defeat.

The St. Louis Cardinals continue their westward trip with a stop in Anaheim to compete with the Los Angeles Angels. Kyle Leahy will start for the Cardinals while the Angels will give the ball to José Soriano. First pitch scheduled for 9:10pm central time at Angel Stadium and the TV broadcast will be available through Cardinals.tv.

The Nats are back to their series winning ways to open the second half. As they have been all season, the Nats were road warriors in Sacramento, winning two out of three. This felt like a must win game for the Nats, who are on the outskirts of the playoff race. With their ace on the mound, the Nats got a curly W.

Speaking of the Nats ace, Foster Griffin was brilliant yet again today. He went seven innings, allowing just one run. Griffin did this despite not having his sharpest stuff, at least in my opinion. He only struck out two, but he had A’s hitters beating the ball into the ground. The Nats All-Star lefty allowed one run or fewer an 8th straight time, which is a Nats record.

Getting a Nationals pitching record is no easy feat despite the franchise being young. Max Scherzer set the bar so high for Nationals pitchers, and doing something that even he could not do is special. Griffin lowered his season ERA to 2.68 in what has been a truly remarkable season. When Griffin arrived from Japan, my hope was that he would be an average starting pitcher. He has been so much more than that this season.

Griffin also did Nats fans a solid by going 7 innings, meaning we only got to see two innings of the bullpen. The basepaths were crowded in the 8th and 9th innings, but the Nats ended up getting the job done with Clayton Beeter shutting the door, albeit in somewhat unconvincing fashion.

On the offensive side of the ball it took the Nats a few innings to figure out the A’s crafty lefty Jacob Lopez. However, by the time the middle innings rolled around, the Nats started to get to him. They scored a run in the third, largely manufactured by Nasim Nunez. After the A’s tied the game in the bottom of the frame, the Nats offense got to work.

Following a Dylan Crews hit by pitch, the new guy, Harry Ford continued his strong start with the Nats. Ford ripped a double into the gap, scoring Crews from first. The Nats top catching prospect was really starting to heat up in AAA, and that has translated to the big leagues so far. I will also point out that Ford stole a strike at the bottom of the zone that made things much less stressful in the 9th inning.

With what he is showing so far, Ford has a strong chance of sticking around even when Drew Millas is healthy. The 23 year old looks confident at the plate and has not put a foot wrong in the field so far. It took a while for him to get going, but it seems like we are finally getting the version of Harry Ford that was expected when he arrived from the Mariners.

Ford delivered in the 4th, but the 5th inning was the Nats big inning. They put up three runs to give them some separation. CJ Abrams hit a monstrous two-run homer to straight away center. That homer gave Abrams a career high, and we are still in the middle of July. Abrams is such an important player for this team, and he wants to prove that he can hold up for a full season. With a .298 average and .886 OPS in July, the early returns are strong.

Dylan Crews quickly made it back to back jacks, to make it 5-1 Nats. This was a much needed homer for Crews, who has really been struggling lately. Even after the homer, I remain unconvinced with Crews, but he has to start somewhere. Now, the goal will be for him to string together good games and start to find his footing in the big leagues.

As we have discussed, this is a huge second half for Crews, who could be running out of opportunities in the nation’s capital. Today was a good start, but we need to see consistency before we anoint Crews.

The Nats just passed the 100 game mark, and they are an even 50-50. As you would expect from a .500 team, there have been ups and downs. However, this season has smashed expectations, and has been so much fun, especially when the bullpen isn’t in the game. The Nats now have a big opportunity in Colorado to win another series and start to build momentum entering the second half. This team will have to show Paul Toboni that buying is the right path, and this series was a good start in that mission.

The Dodgers look to sweep the Yankees in the Bronx on Sunday.

SUNDAY GAME INFO

• Teams: Dodgers vs. Yankees
• Stadium: Yankee Stadium
• Time: 4:20 p.m. PT
• TV: NBC; Streaming: Peacock
• Radio: AM 570 (English), KTNQ 1020 (Spanish)

SEATTLE — So much for that second-half reset.

A strong end to the first half gave the Giants a rare dose of good vibes to enjoy over the All-Star break, and a convincing win when play resumed gave them something to dream on.

Reality returned over the weekend, which ended in a second straight defeat and a series loss to the Mariners, a team that looked totally overmatched in their first meeting just 72 hours earlier.

“It’s not ideal, obviously,” said Robbie Ray, who was out of the game by the fifth inning in his shortest start since May. “All we can do is come out tomorrow and put our best game forward.”

Ray didn’t record an out in the fifth inning, Casey Schmitt committed a pair of errors and Tony Vitello’s questionable managerial decision set up Luke Raley for a pinch-hit home run that ultimately proved decisive in Sunday’s 6-3 loss.

The Mariners are one of the majors’ worst teams against left-handed pitching (85 wRC+), and besides a two-run rally started by one of Schmitt’s errors, things had mostly gone smoothly using the combination of Ray and fellow southpaw Sam Hentges.

Everyone enjoying an immaculate summer afternoon at T-Mobile Park could have predicted that Seattle would sub in Raley or Dominic Canzone, two righty mashers with huge platoon splits, once the Giants went in the other direction with their pitching assignments.

Presumably that includes Vitello, who called on Adrian Houser to begin the sixth inning nonetheless. All 14 of Raley’s home runs entering the game had come against right-handed pitchers, and it took only two pitches for that number to increase to 15.

“We thought it’d be Canzone,” Vitello said.

Houser, one of the majors’ most homer-prone pitchers (1.63 per nine innings), took over a tied ballgame and served up a pair of home runs over two innings, putting the game out of reach for the Giants.

He recorded one hard out, then left a changeup over the middle of the plate that Raley smashed over the 380-foot sign in right-center field. Cole Young, who hit the go-ahead homer the previous evening, blew the game open with a two-run shot to right the following inning.

Bryce Eldridge opened the scoring in the first inning with his second home run of the series — his 10th of the season — to straightaway center, and Heliot Ramos drove in Schmitt to give Ray a 2-0 lead when he toed the rubber for the first time.

Seattle tied the score at 2 in the fourth when Schmitt airmailed a throw to first base. The ball careened off the padding in foul territory and back onto the infield dirt, but nobody was at second base to contest the runner from advancing. Earlier, Schmitt let a slow, spinning grounder roll under his glove.

“If you look at today, I know he’s frustrated with it,” Vitello said of the typically surehanded Schmitt, who is filling in at third for the injured Matt Chapman. “But if you look at it in totality, he’s been really good.”

The Giants immediately responded to retake a 3-2 advantage in the top half of the fifth when Luis Arraez doubled home Willy Adames, who drew a leadoff walk and was sacrificed into scoring position.

But just as it did less than 24 hours earlier, the lead evaporated, and so did any positive momentum the Giants had built before boarding their charter flight to Kansas City.

“Right now, it’s a bad day,” Vitello said. “Get on the flight and pouting on the flight isn’t going to change anything, so you do what you do on the flight — play cards, take a nap, whatever — and then when we land, it’s go time against the Royals.”

What it means

Ray’s first time failing to complete five innings since May 31 came at a poor time, with only two more turns through the rotation to go until the Aug. 3 trade deadline, when he should be one of the top arms available.

He was at only 86 pitches when Vitello lifted him for Hentges, but he had surrendered his sixth and seventh hits of the game to begin the fifth, prompting the change.

“I thought he was good,” Vitello said. “… At the time it looked like a fresh arm would be better.”

Who’s hot

Eldridge spent his All-Star break at Disneyland, but he might think Seattle is the happiest place on earth after hitting at the typically unfriendly T-Mobile Park for the first time.

The rookie slugger gave the Giants their first runs of the second half with a homer in Friday’s 7-0 win, reached base three times with a pair of hits in Saturday’s 4-3 loss and bested the marine layer again in his first at-bat Sunday afternoon against Logan Gilbert.

“It was impressive what he did in the first inning, just where he hit it [dead center], the location of the pitch [down and in], how hard he hit it [107 mph] how loud it sounded [very],” Vitello said. “Just kind of picking up where he left off.”

Eldridge is riding a modest five-game hitting streak and has hit safely in six of his past seven games, with three homers and a 1.172 OPS over that stretch.

Who’s not

Two things you haven’t seen much of from Arraez: errors and strikeouts.

That is to say, it’s been an uncharacteristic start to the second half for the Giants second baseman. Arraez kept on hitting, with one apiece in all three games of the series, but flubbed a grounder for only his fifth error Saturday and, a day later, did something even more uncommon.

Arraez was 1-for-9 in his career against Gilbert, who got him to go down swinging in both of his first two trips to the plate. The contact artist had only struck out 16 times this season; it had been more than two years since he last struck out multiple times in one game — July 3, 2024.

Of course, Arraez wasn’t going to be held quiet for long, and he got his revenge in his third at-bat, lining a double down the left field line that gave the Giants a brief 3-2 lead in the fifth.

It was a good reminder that one or two at-bats won’t have any impact on how teams view him going into the trade deadline, when he is widely expected to be on the move.

Up next

The Giants jet to Kansas City, where they begin a series against what should be an angry Royals team Monday night. The home team ought to be out for vengeance after it was handed a 19-2 loss by the Padres while the Giants were closing out their series in Seattle.

Trevor McDonald and Tyler Mahle will make their first starts of the second half in the first two games of the series before the rotation flips back to Landen Roupp for the final game of the road trip. They’ll face All-Star Michael Wacha in the opening game of the series.

Casey Mize didn’t have a great outing, but he was victimized a bit by his teammates in this one as well. A Jo Adell comebacker caught him in the wrist in the fourth inning and he had to leave the game. We’ll hope it’s nothing too serious. The bullpen did a pretty solid job the rest of the way, though it was dicey in spots, but the Tigers just did not swing the bats well as the Angels avoided the sweep with a 3-2 victory. The Tigers head to Chicago now to battle the Cubs.

This started off quite well, actually. Ryan Johnson, a low arm slot right-hander who was the Angels comp pick for losing Shohei Ohtani in free agency, fell behind 2-0 to Kevin McGonigle as the game’s first batter. His next offering was a sinker that got launched to left center field for the rookie’s ninth home run of the year.

Dillon Dingler followed with a pop-up. Colt Keith, coming off a four-hit night, took a 2-2 pitch that nicked the handle of his bat and was caught for an unintentional foul tip strike three. Weird. You can watch baseball forever and you still see something strange happen with regularity. Riley Greene walked on four straight balls, and so it was Spencer Torkelson up with one outs and Greene on first. Tork, coming off a two homer night, whiffed three breaking balls off the edge of the plate away and struck out.

Casey Mize, despite fighting through a recurring groin strain, is having the most effective season of his career. The strikeouts are up, he’s finally getting consistent whiffs off the splitter, and he’s also dialed in the best pair of breaking balls in his career with a firm slider and then a more sweeperish edition at slower speed. The splitter in particular has helped him to smother left-handed hitters almost entirely in the power department. The Angels stacked up right-handed hitters as four of the first five at the top of their order to deal with Mize, so the breaking stuff would be key early on.

Mize quickly got ahead 0-2 with a pair of breaking balls. He missed down with the split as Zach Neto hunted the fastball. Another splitter hung up and was pretty well hit, but Greene caught it right in front of the warning track. Mize whiffed Trout with a firm slider down on the corner. Nolan Schanuel, the lone lefty early on, put up a good fight, fouling off some good 3-2 pitches and finally flicking a little single just over a leaping Kevin McGonigle for a soft serve single. So that made for a longer inning in terms of pitches, but Mize blew Jorge Soler with a well located heater to send us to the second inning.

Kerry Carpenter and Hao-Yu Lee made quick outs to start the frame and James Outman struck out. Mize gave up a leadoff double from Vaughn Grissom. Josh Lowe sacrificed Grisson to third with a bnnt for the first out. Jo Adell flew out to shallow right. So Mize was almost out of it, but Oswaldo Peraza pulled a sharp ground ball and after making a nice diving stop, Keith popped up and airmailed the throw to first in his haste. That scored Grissom and tied the game up. Tyler Heineman was down 1-2, but Mize left a splitter middle-middle, and it got flared into shallow left field for a single that got Peraza to third as he was running on the play. This was less than idea, as it turned the lineup over to Neto.

Mize got ahead 1-2 but Neto laid off a good splitter. Mize lost a slider that ended up right in the upper corner of the zone. Jake Rogers missed the opportunity to challenge and get a strike three. The mistakes were piling up a bit and Mize’s pitch count climbed towards 50 pitches as Neto fouled off foul straight sliders down and away. It felt like it was time to try something else, but Rogers quintupled down and the final slider away drew a whiff to turn away a potential rally. 1-1 game.

Rogers grounded out to open the third, and that turned the Tigers lineup over and brought Mr. McGonigle to the dish. The rookie fouled off a pair of hittable sinkers and eventually popped out as Johnson and his jerky, marionette with tight strings delivery was giving the Tigers some timing issues despite the mediocre stuff. Dingler, the DH in this one, grounded out to third to end the frame.

Mize walked Mike Trout to start the bottom half and his pitch count stood at 54 pitches already. Schanuel ripped a single to right as Mize continued to struggle with his command. He bounced back to put Jorge Soler down 0-2 and got a pop-out to McGonigle for the first out. A double play ball was advised but instead, Grissom made for a lengthy at-bat before whiffing on a splitter for the second out. Trout had a read on Mize and easily stole third on the pitch. After getting ahead of Lowe, Mize missed with a slider and then a high splitter and was visibly getting irritated with himself, but his 72nd pitch was a nasty split that drew a whiff and turned the Angels away. Still, it was going to be tough for Mize to go even five in this one, and Keider Montero was not available after closing out Friday’s game and due to start on Wednesday against the Cubs.

Keith lifted a 350 footer to center for the first out of the fourth. Greene struck out and Torkelson flew out. This what not what Casey Mize needed. He didn’t need a sharp 109 mph comebacker that caught his left wrist above the glove off the bat of Jo Adell either, but that’s what happened to start the bottom half. Mize collected it and made the play, but AJ Hinch and the trainer came out and Mize was flexing his wrist as they took him out of the game. Hopefully there’s nothing broken. It didn’t look that serious but it was a pretty short conversation too. Drew Anderson began warming in the bullpen to take over.

Anderson dropped an evil changeup in for strike three to punch Peraza, beginning his outing in style. The Tigers would need a few innings from the right-hander. Heineman grounded out to Hao-Yu Lee to end the inning. Nicely job on short notice there from Anderson.

Kerry Carpenter was out front on a changeup and popped out to start the fifth. Lee lifted a routine fly ball, and that was 12 straight retired for Johnson. Outman tried to check his swing with two strikes and instead tapped a swinging bunt towards third for a single. Rogers fell behind but stayed patient and drew a walk as Outman danced off base, perhaps occupying a bit of space in Johnson’s head. So McGonigle stepped in for his third plate appearance, this time with a runner in scoring position. Kurt Suzuki had a lefty warming up, but apparently he wasn’t ready yet. Johnson and Heineman absolutely refused to let Kevin extend his arms and threw everything inside, eventually issuing the walk to load the bases for Dillon Dingler.

Johnson’s pitch count was rapidly running up to 90 and this seemed like his last batter. He didn’t give in, spinning a slider off the plate 2-2 to draw a tentative whiff from Dingler and escape the bases loaded jam. Rats.

Anderson fell behind 3-0, worked his way to a full count, and then missed badly with a curveball in a 3-2 count to walk Neto. He then missed with three four straight to Trout. After missing a bases loaded opportunity, this did not bode well for this game. Chris Fetter went out to chill Anderson out. He fired a fastball for a first pitch strike to Schanuel, but a second one in the same spot got labeled for a soft single to center field, and the bases were loaded with no outs. With no choice but to throw it in there, Anderson got ahead of Soler and he just bounced one softly enough to shortstop to get Neto in as McGonigle threw out Soler. 2-1 Angels. Anderson turned to the curveball a little more, and Grissom ripped a hot one-hopper to third. Keith handled that with no chance for Trout to score on it. Anderson got ahead of Lowe but then missed twice for a full count and then yanked a fastball to issue his third walk of the inning. That was it for the mercurial Anderson. The bases were loaded with two outs, and Brenan Hanifee entered. He quickly got Adell to ground out, and the Tigers were very fortunate to end the inning down just a run through five innings.

Lefty Samy Natera was in for the Angels in the sixth, and so Matt Vierling entered to pinch-hit for Colt Keith. Vierling swung over a slider and struck out. So did Riley Greene, and Torkelson lifted a routine fly ball to end the inning.

Peraza started off the bottom half with a grounder up the middle for a single off of Hanifee. Peraza stole second base with Heineman at the dish. A ground out moved Peraza to third. Neto paddled a single through the right side, and it was 3-1 Angels. Neto then stole second as Rogers made an errant throw. Trout grounded out to Lee for the second out. Tyler Holton took over at that point against the left-handed hitting Schanuel and got him to ground out to Vierling in his first chance at third base on the year.

So, the Tigers had really struggled at the plate on getaway day. They were fortunate to be down just two runs. Coming back to steal this one would be great, and the Angels bullpen is not the toughest of tests around. Right-hander Chase Silseth came on for the Angels in the seventh.

Carpenter grounded out to Neto to start the inning. Lee got a 1-2 heater at the top of the zone and slashed a shot into right field for a single. Lee ran with Outman at the plate and slid into second base as the center fielder lifted a routine fly ball to left. Lee had to beat feet back to first base and there were two outs. Zach McKinstry pinch-hit for Rogers but he grounded out.

Eduardo Valencia took over behind the plate for Rogers. McKinstry entered at shortstop, moving McGonigle to third and Vierling to center field. Holton struck out Soler but allowed a single to Grissom. Holton clipped Jose Siri, who pinch-hit for Lowe, but he bounced back to punch out Adell on a good changeup. Peraza popped out to end the inning.

Right-hander Sam Bachman took over for the Angels in the eighth and got McGonigle to fly out to Trout. Dingler grounded out to third, and Vierling tapped one back to the mound. Pretty weak effort there, guys.

Kenley Jansen came on in the bottom half to try and hold the score. He walked Heineman without throwing much close to the zone, but after a lengthy battle he whiffed Neto on a cutter. He spotted another good 2-2 cutter up and away to whiff Trout as well. Heineman stole second on a first pitch to Schanuel that was called a strike but was not really close and correctly challenged, but Schanuel flew out weakly to right. Solid effort from Jansen, but the Tigers needed to wake up immediately at the plate.

Ryan Zeferjahn entered the game looking for the save. He got ahead of Riley Greene but then was scared to give him something to hit as Greene worked a full count and then launched a solo shot just into the seats in right field. 3-2 Angels. Torkelson popped out to second base for the first out, and Kerry Carpenter lined out to left field, so it was up to Hao-Yu Lee. Unfortunately, tonight there was no one on base for him and he popped out as well to end it.

The Tigers are 24-15 since the beginning of June, but of course that just got them back into the conversation. They’ll need to keep up the pace against the Cubs, and then they’ll come home to face the Royals and Orioles before a big west coast swing takes them to the trade deadline.

After the game, Casey Mize was reportedly dealing with a recurrence of groin tightness as well as the shot to the wrist. Not great.