Worldwide Sports News

The Athletics and Kansas City Royals battled in the rubber game of their three-game series Thursday afternoon in West Sacramento. After exchanging early blows, the Athletics took the lead and never gave it back, fending off several Royals comeback attempts to win 6-3.

The Royals scored first against A’s starting pitcher Jeffrey Springs. The first batter of the game, third baseman Maikel Garcia doubled. With two outs and the bases loaded, outfielder Starling Marte singled to right, giving his team an early 1-0 lead. Springs proceeded to limit the damage by striking out Carter Jensen, the lone lefty in his team’s lineup, to end the inning and get out of the bases-loaded jam.

The A’s immediately answered back against Kansas City’s starting pitcher Noah Cameron. Shortstop Jacob Wilson singled to right and then designated hitter Shea Langeliers doubled down the left field line past Garcia at third. With one out, right fielder Colby Thomas walked to load the bases. That set the stage for third baseman Darell Hernáiz, whose hard-hit infield single off of Garcia’s hand scored Wilson to tie the game at one. Like his counterpart, Cameron got out of a bases loaded jam by retiring the next two A’s hitters.

Garcia showed his wrist was ok, hitting a two-out solo home run in the second inning that just eluded leaping left fielder Carlos Cortes to put his team back in front.

Once again, the A’s answered. Lawrence Butler walked, Wilson singled and Langeliers lined his second double in as many innings to score Butler and tie the game. The team’s potent offense was not done yet. First baseman Nick Kurtz, who struck out in an RBI opportunity in the first inning, crushed a two-RBI double to give the Athletics their first lead of the game.

With two outs, Kurtz scored from second when Royals second baseman Nick Loftin threw errantly to first after ranging to field the grounder off Hernáiz’s bat.

With the A’s holding a 5-2 advantage heading into the third inning, it was the Royals turn to rally. However, Springs finally turned in a shutdown inning, striking out Jensen for a second-straight at-bat as the Royals stranded two runners on base.

Following three laborious innings, right-handed reliever Luis Medina replaced Springs, who went to the clubhouse with the team’s trainer. According to the team’s MLB.com reporter Martin Gallegos, Springs exited the game with right hip soreness.

As a result, the team had to turn to their bullpen earlier than they would have liked. Medina got the first two hitters he faced out before the Royals loaded the bases via a double, walk and a hit by pitch. The A’s reliever averted disaster by getting first baseman Salvador Perez to harmlessly fly out to Butler in center field.

In the middle innings of this game, the Athletics offense went quiet, although Cortes did single in the fifth, extending his hitting streak to ten games. Cameron settled down after his early struggles. He allowed just two more hits and worked into the sixth inning before being removed with one on and one out.

Medina ended up getting the win. He threw 51 pitches over 2 2/3 scoreless innings. The Royals squared up several pitches against the A’s long reliever, but failed to bring a run home. Scott Barlow replaced Medina with two Royals on base and two outs in the sixth. He got Kansas City’s outfielder Lane Thomas to ground out as the Royals continued their struggles with runners in scoring position.

Seeking insurance runs, Langeliers led off the bottom of the seventh with his third double of the afternoon. Today was the first time he had ever hit three doubles in one game. With first base open, the Royals intentionally walked Kurtz, extending his record-breaking walk streak to 19 consecutive games. Hernáiz made the visitors rue that decision as his third infield single of the game scored Langeliers to pad the A’s lead.

In the top of the eighth, the Royals got one back. Facing left-hander Brady Basso, catcher Elias Díaz hit his first home run of the season over the right-field fence to trim the deficit to three. That was the closest they would come. Right-hander Jack Perkins only gave up one hit in a scoreless ninth, securing his third save and more importantly the series victory.

Tomorrow, the first-place A’s begins a weekend series against fan-favorite Stephen Vogt’s Cleveland Guardians. Right-hander J.T Ginn is scheduled to start for the A’s. He is good to go despite exiting his last start early with arm soreness. Ginn will be opposed by Guardians’ left-hander Joey Cantillo, who is 1-1 with a 2.97 ERA through his first six starts of the season.

First Pitch (CT):6:40 PM
TV: Twins.TV
Radio: TIBN/830 WCCO/102.9 The Wolf /Audacy App
Know Yo’ Foe: Bluebird Banter

Bad news: The Twins keep losing extremely winnable games either due to offensive ineptitude, a bullpen built like it’s 2003, or a combination of the two.

Good news: every other team in the AL is also bad.

As I write this, there are only 3 teams in the entire American League with a record over .500, and none of them are in the AL Central. Despite this losing streak and sitting at 13-18 overall, the Twins sit just 2.5 games back of both the division and a Wild Card berth on the final day of April. The record isn’t ideal, but if you told me that going into the season, I would be absolutely thrilled.

Bailey Ober will do his best to keep the bullpen from factoring into the game, but he’ll have to do it facing Jays starter Kevin Gausman, who looks to have regained his All-Star form in his age 35 season. Ober has reinvented himself despite the lack of velocity, relying on movement and deception to induce weak contact rather than the strikeouts he used to generate. He’s walked way too many batters this season, especially compared to his historic numbers, but especially now that he doesn’t have the strikeout stuff he used to.

Toronto’s lineup has been ravaged with injuries early this year, but that is beginning to turn already with All-Star George Springer making his return after fracturing his toe in the last series between these two clubs. They’re still missing All-Star catcher Alejandro Kirk, starting outfielders Addison Barger, Nathan Lukes and Anthony Santander, and an entire starting rotation that several teams would consider an upgrade.

Meanwhile, Austin Martin gets the start in right field as Matt Wallner continues to struggle. Gausman’s signature pitch is his filthy splitter, something that works much better against lefties than righties, so that also likely played into Derek Shelton’s decision to give Martin some run. His .476 OBP helps too, of course.

Lineups

Somehow, the White Sox have managed to meet the wildest of expectations in the first month of the 2026 season. Get embarrassingly swept? Check. Sweep the defending AL pennant-winner? Check. Lose several players for the season? Again, check. Be somehow one of the best but also worst teams in several hitting and pitching categories? You guessed it, check.

In the first article of a monthly series examining the health of the franchise from minors to majors, I’m diving into what has and hasn’t worked for Chicago in April, and realistic improvements the Sox need to make.

The gap between quality andquantity prospects still exists
The Sox still haven’t figured out how to put “calculated” and “call-ups” in the same sentence. Only two of the 14 guys promoted from Triple-A seem to be panning out. Sam Antonacci assumed his role as the spark plug in the lineup and has repeatedly shown that sometimes you have to play the cards you’re dealt and walk your way to home plate. He has demonstrated that he can stay true to the player he was in the minors by avoiding strikeouts — only three in the month — and inducing walks, resulting in a .347 OBP that has helped keep offensive pressure and momentum going throughout the game.

Noah Schultz’s seven runs and 18 strikeouts/no walks in his first three games have led many to believe he’ll be a complementary lefty arm alongside Anthony Kay in the rotation. Every other call-up arm has gone through the cycle of being optioned back to Charlotte or outright DFA’d. 

Braden Montgomery is the next top prospect awaiting a debut, and his arrival will make or break the next two years of the White Sox farm system. If he can stay afloat and contribute at least a 1.2 WAR or better, which would signal adequate contributions from a rookie, the South Siders will be able to wipe the carousel of failed prospects from their minds and feel confident that they can at least identify and maintain a semblance of a talent pipeline. If Montgomery, reasonably and humanly, struggles, there will be much more finger-pointing at the minor league brain trust.

Balance is the key to sustained success
April has seen a turn away from extremes toward a more gradual balance. Chicago’s -3 run differential and 13-13 record mark the emergence of sustained, watchable baseball. For the first time since June 2023, the team’s monthly record was at .500 or better. These baby steps may seem rudimentary, but they are a big leap for the franchise. 

Beyond the watch test, several key stats back this up. Only 33% of the lineup has a negative WAR, and no one has a WAR worse than -0.6 (cough, cough, Andrew Benintendi). And only one pitcher currently on the 26-man roster has a negative WAR — Jordan Leasure. Finally, the only category the Sox rank last in between team hitting and pitching metrics is doubles, which doesn’t say much about their ability to hit or get on base. Even after their 20 strikeouts against the Brewers on Opening Day, the Sox have surprisingly laid off pitches outside the zone to place 12th-best in chase percentage (28.7%). 

Given where they were a year ago, this team has some good stuff going for them. It’s hard to nitpick when they’re playing how they are, especially after winning three of their last four series. Though Munetaka Murakami is by far the best player on the team, the rest of the pack isn’t that far behind. As the headline says, things could be much worse. 

Summary Metrics

Prospect Confidence (Percentage of prospects that are contributing meaningfully?): 15%

Average Innings Watched (Average number of innings fans have patience for): 6 1/3

Rebuild Index (1 is full rebuild, 5 is sustaining current pace, 10 is aggressively pursuing the World Series): 4

Barry Bonds has come company in the record books:

A’s first baseman Nick Kurtz.

The Giants’ legendary slugger set numerous marks that still stand on his way to becoming the sports’ all-time home run king. One of them fell Thursday, in a Triple-A ballpark, no less.

Kurtz, 23, surpassed Bonds’ modern-day record when Royals reliever John Schreiber intentionally put him on base in his last plate appearance of the A’s 6-3 win Thursday at their temporary home in Sacramento.

It was his 19th consecutive game with a base on balls. Few other hitters had come close since Bonds ended the 2002 season with walks in all of his final 18 games.

Bonds, in addition to the single-season and all-time home run records, holds the top-three single-season walk totals in MLB history. He ended the 2002 campaign with 198, second only to the astounding 234 free passes opposing pitchers issued him in 2004.

Kurtz, the No. 4 overall pick in the 2024 draft, has earned his own reputation as a fearsome lefty in short time. He was the American League Rookie of the Year and the AL Silver Slugger winner at first base last year, batting .290 with 36 homers and a 1.002 OPS in his first big-league season.

But nobody is Bonds.

Over the course of his 18-game streak, Bonds drew 34 total bases on balls — 14 intentional passes. He struck out only seven times and batted .409 with a 1.389 OPS.

Kurtz, to his credit, has five homers in his 19 games to Bonds’ four during his streak. He has produced a respectable .963 OPS. But he has also struck out 25 times — more than his number of walks (24). Only four have come intentionally, fewer than Shohei Ohtani or the Nationals’ James Woods in that span.

Bonds extended his streak by walking in the first two games of the 2003 season, including a pair of intentional passes on Opening Day. The only player in MLB history with more consecutive games with a walk is the Tigers’ Roy Cullenbine, who went 22 in a row during the 1947 season.

That puts Kurtz in a tie for second on the all-time leaderboard for the single-season record with Ted Williams, who also walked in 19 consecutive games in 1941.

Just six others have drawn a walk in 15 straight games since Cullenbine in 1947: Yankees first baseman Nick Johnson (2003), Braves third baseman Chipper Jones (1999), Rangers infielder Toby Harrah (1985), Phillies outfielder Lenny Dykstra (1980) and Braves infielder Darrell Evans (1976).

Freddy Peralta said following his last outing that the thought of working deep into games has come into his mind at times early on this season.

While the right-hander had struggled to complete six innings over his first six outings in a Mets uniform, Carlos Mendoza said that he wasn’t too concerned.

“He’s an ace, he’ll get there,” the skipper emphasized. 

And just five days later Peralta was able to get there, as he delivered the Mets six efficient innings in what ended as a disappointing series finale loss to the Nationals. 

It wasn’t always pretty, though, as he was hurt by his own error at one point. 

After issuing a leadoff walk in the second, Peralta botched a comebacker which could’ve been a routine double play had it been let go to the shortstop or fielded cleanly. 

Instead, he threw it away and the Nats scratched across the first two runs of the game. 

“You know, mistakes happen,” he said. “I knew that [Ronny] Mauricio was behind me but the reaction of the play that I had there was just trying to catch the ball and then I felt stupid because I made the error, but things happen.”

Washington struck again in the third, but then Peralta settled in nicely after the Mets’ offense picked him up, retiring the next eight before running into trouble in that elusive sixth inning. 

Thoughts of those struggles began to creep back in as he issued back-to-back walks, but the righty was able to calm himself and retired the next two to escape the threat.

“I’m not going to lie when that happened it came into my mind again,” Peralta admitted. “I was just focused and telling myself I have to get the job done and I was able to do it -- still getting better and I know there’s a lot more in there.”

Peralta finished with three runs (one earned) on four hits, three walks, and six strikeouts as he completed six innings for just the second time this year. 

The effort ended up being wasted, though, as Luke Weaver gave up a go-ahead two-run homer to CJ Abrams in the top of the eighth to result in another ugly Mets loss. 

“I think it’s frustrating because we all want to win,” Peralta said. “We’ve been putting the work in every day to win but this game is really hard and things are not going our way right now.”

George Springer is back in the lineup and hitting lead off in the first of four games against the Twins.

And Pinango is in the lineup too. It looks like they are going to give him some playing time. Brandon Valenzuela gets a start again, after a great game yesterday.

Austin Martin is having a great start to the season, with a .311/.476/.426 line in 27 games

And there is a bunch of ‘injury news’:

• Addison Barger will start a rehab assignment Sunday. It might be as short as three games.
• Jose Berrios will throw his between start bullpen in Buffalo tomorrow and then they will decide if he will start against the Twins Sunday or have one more start with the Bisons.
• Alejandro Kirk has started throwing the ball, but he won’t be hitting or catching for a bit yet.

The life of a manager: