It turned out to be a sign of things to come when Shohei Ohtani hit a homerun on the first pitch from Randy Vasquez to give the Los Angeles Dodgers a 1-0 lead over the San Diego Padres at Petco Park. The Dodgers would go on to add three more runs to their total, while the Padres were held without a run in a 4-0 loss.

Vasquez was not as sharp as the Friar Faithful have come to expect and when facing not just Ohtani the hitter, but also the sub-one ERA Ohtani on the mound, the start from Vasquez proved costly. The San Diego right-hander allowed three runs on six hits over 4.1 innings with three walks and no strikeouts. It was the shortest outing for Vasquez since April 15 when he lasted just four innings against the Seattle Mariners.

The Padres offense was held to just five hits. Three came off Ohtani who completed five scoreless innings with two walks and four strikeouts. The other two hits came off reliever Kyle Hurt who pitched a scoreless innings despite the hits. Fernando Tatis Jr., Gavin Sheets, Ramon Laureano, Nick Castellanos and Bryce Johnson each had a hit in the game. Johnson came into the game in the top of the fifth inning to replace Jackson Merrill in center field after he appeared to be experiencing some discomfort in his torso following an attempt to rob the first inning home run by Ohtani.

San Diego dropped the third game of the series and lost the series to Los Angeles, 2-1. The Padres have an off day on Thursday and will return to action on Friday against the Athletics at Petco Park at 6:40 p.m.

Padres News:

• Alex Verdugo had a short-lived tenure with the San Diego organization and was released by the team earlier this week.

• Lucas Giolito made his first start for the Padres and his velocity was down compared seasons past. He said he expects that to change as he gets more starts under his belt.

• Infielder Jose Miranda looked like he had a legitimate chance to make the San Diego roster out of Spring Training, but he struggled in the minors which resulted in him being released by the team.

Baseball News:

• Kyle Harrison and the Milwaukee Brewers dominated the Chicago Cubs in win.

• Trey Yesavage leads Toronto Blue Jays to 2-1 win over New York Yankees.

• The Tampa Bay Rays scored four runs in the eighth inning to win and get their sixth sweep of the season.

• Arizona Diamondbacks second baseman Ketel Marte lead his team past the San Francisco Giants, 6-3.

• Texas Rangers get ninth inning win over Colorado Rockies.

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The Los Angeles Angels hope to avoid a sweep as they host the Athletics tonight in Anaheim.

My A’s vs. Angels predictions see the Halos grabbing a much-needed win with ace Jose Soriano on the bump. Read on for more analysis of tonight’s game with my MLB picks below.

Who will win A's vs Angels today: Angels moneyline (-108)

Jose Soriano has been flat-out one of the most effective starting pitchers in baseball, taking the leap from solid rotation piece to bona fide ace. 

The right-hander has a 2.41 ERA through 10 starts primarily thanks to his elite swing-and-miss stuff. He rides a 93rd percentile whiff rate en route to a 28% strikeout rate. 

When he’s not striking batters out, he’s doing the next-best thing — inducing soft-contact (75th percentile in hard-hit rate) grounders (81st percentile in ground ball rate).

The Los Angeles Angels are a different team with their flamethrower on the hill, winning 70% of his starts.

COVERS INTEL:The A’s hit the ball to the opposite field more than any other team (31.7% in May). That’s not typically a viable approach against Soriano, who has the seventh-lowest Oppo% (16.6%) among qualified starters.

A's vs Angels Over/Under pick: Under 8.5 (-115)

One thing about betting on the Angels is that it’s difficult to count on much run support from the lineup, which has a league-worst 54 wRC+ against RHP this month. 

Luis Severino allows too many baserunners (1.57 WHIP) for me to rely on him to lead his team to victory, but he could help keep this a low-scoring game against the Angels.

His 107 Stuff+ ranks 12th among qualified starters, and this is the second consecutive season in which he’s been more effective on the road (3.56 ERA). The A’s have an uninspired 93 wRC+ in away games.

A's vs Angels odds

• Moneyline: A's -110 | Angels -110
• Run line: A's -1.5 (+135) | Angels +1.5 (-180)
• Over/Under: Over 8.5 (-115) | Under 8.5 (-110)

A's vs Angels trend

The A’s are 6-16-1 O/U in their last 23 road games. Find more MLB betting trends for A's vs. Angels.

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We step outside the lab again today to take a look at the argument for an Astros tear down. There are two main reasons why a rebuild makes a ton of sense. So, we should take a look at what that looks like and the whys and what fors for a decision as seemingly rash as this. Isn’t this giving up on the season? Indeed it would be and that is the first thing we should take a look at.

In a previous post, I looked at the Astros current math problem. They sit at 20-30 as I write this. In order to win 85 games they would need to finish 65-47. That’s assuming that 85 wins sneaks you into the playoffs. That’s a 94 win pace over a full season. I don’t think any of my colleagues picked them to win that many games. I had them pegged at 85 wins and that was assuming good health for guys like Hunter Brown. I just don’t see .580 baseball as very likely from here on out.

However, the Astros usual course is to continue trying to win and then adjusting for the next season on the fly. If it means that players depart for free agency then so be it. You get your compensation pick (when you tender them a qualifying offer) and hope that your farm system can pick up the pieces. Framber Valdez took the spot of Gerrit Cole. Jeremy Pena took Carlos Correa’s place. Kyle Tucker replaced George Springer. You get the idea.

Reason One: The farm system is barren

You cannot expect someone to come up and replace the stars. In the span of another year plus, you are on pace to lose Jeremy Pena and possibly Hunter Brown (more on that later). There isn’t anyone in the farm system there to take their spots. So, you are essentially just losing guys for the sake of losing them. This dive bombs us into the real reason why a rebuild is necessary. Simply put, you are on a hamster wheel and there is no good way to get off.

Even if you could re-sign Jeremy Pena or Hunter Brown then you would be committing all of your resources to keeping a team together that is not currently good enough to win. Jose Altuve and Carlos Correa are going to continue to get older and less effective as that nucleus gets older. The younger guys behind them will also continue to get more expensive.

There are only two ways around that hamster wheel. The first is to spend money like the Dodgers. We aren’t even sure what the CBA will look like after the season and if that will even be legal. However, it is nearly impossible to envision Crane spending upwards of 300 million on the roster. The other way to get through it is to fill enough holes with young players that you can compete. Neither of those scenarios seems likely.

Reason two: You aren’t likely re-signing Hunter Brown or Jeremy Pena

It just isn’t likely for any multitude of reasons. For one, both are in line for one of the long-term megadeals that the Astros simply don’t pay. For another, we aren’t even sure that they would deserve that kind of pay day even if we were willing. Given the recent history of the Astros, I seriously doubt they would sign any pitcher to a contract beyond two or three seasons. This could be an industry wide thing.

Pena has the look of a three or four win player moving forward. Fangraphs would peg that as worth between 25 and 30 million a season, but it is hard to see the Astros giving a deal beyond five seasons at that kind of money. I personally would not blame them. If that is a given then playing them until they are free agents is a foolish option. As we saw with Kyle Tucker, you could get as many as three useful players for a player with one year left until they become a free agent.

Imagine having more than a season. Teams that make deals at the deadline can demand a king’s ransom because the acquiring team gets them for two pennant drives. You could then get between six and eight players if you deal them separately, If you dealt them together you could demand multiple top 100 overall prospects and probably some current big league talent.

A roster without Pena and Brown would likely not compete in any circumstance. So, you might as well trade the likes of Paredes, Walker, Abreu, Hader, and Meyers. If you managed to jettison all of them you could be looking at between five to ten additional prospects. That is a total of 10 to 16 prospects between all of those players. The coup de gras would be Yordan Alvarez, If you got a Juan Soto type deal you could see another four or five prime prospects coming. We are talking a total of 20 prospects.

The Cash considerations

If you traded all of the players listed you would be looking at upwards of 120 million in player salary savings. Between 1998 and 2000 the Seattle Mariners dealt or allowed three of their stars to walk. They won 114 games in 2001. Obviously, that is the absolute ceiling of what we are talking about here, but the blueprint is there. You cannot just consider the players you get back for those players. You must also consider the financial savings from cutting their salaries from your roster.

Those Mariners used the money to sign good but not great players that made that roster deeper. No, they did not win the World Series that season and they were never THAT good again, but they were constantly above .500 and in the hunt even though they dealt three Hall of Fame level players. The St. Louis Cardinals dealt all of their expensive players away this past season and they currently sit at 28-19.

The difference between this and a traditional rebuild is that Crane has shown he is willing to spend up to the current tax line. If you couple the right prospects with 120 million worth of free agents then you could return to competitiveness immediately. You also restart the clock on star level players so that you aren’t necessarily churning veterans every year. You could build something.

I’m not sure Dana Brown is up to this task. That is the downside. However, if you couple these moves with another solid draft then your farm system goes from being one of the bottom five to one of the top five. It’s time to start building the next great era of Astros baseball. This one is winding down. It has happened to all dynasties before. The 1990s Braves feels like the most compelling comparison point. Those Braves got old. These Astros are getting old. No one wants to sit around and watch the 2010-2014 Astros again. A teardown would prevent that kind of prolonged pain if handled correctly. What do you think? Is it time to start the teardown?

Remember yesterday, when I brought out the old line: “No team is as bad as it looks when it’s on a long losing streak”?

I dunno. Maybe I’m wrong about that. The Cubs sure looked that bad in losing to the Brewers 5-0 Wednesday evening at Wrigley Field, being swept by their division rivals and now on a five-game losing streak.

The Brewers both dominated the Cubs pitching-wise and schooled them in several aspects of the game.

Edward Cabrera got out of the first inning scoreless despite allowing two hits. Nico Hoerner then led off the bottom of the first with a double.

I mean, I really could just stop this recap right there because the rest of the game was all Brewers and not Cubs. The thing about Nico’s double is — he took a really wide turn around second, thinking “triple,” but then had to quickly scoot back to first. I guess he really wanted third base because then he tried to advance on a medium-deep fly ball to left-center.

Hoerner was called safe, but it was overturned on review [VIDEO].

If you did not see this game — that was the only time the Cubs had a runner past first base.

In the second, the Brewers played that annoying kind of baseball that has made them good and drives us nuts. First, they got a catcher’s interference call on review [VIDEO].

Then Cabrera walked Joey Ortiz.

And then this happened [VIDEO].

I dunno. (I think I’ve said that before.) I’m obviously not in Pete Crow-Armstrong’s head and have no idea what’s on his mind or what he was thinking there, but something is clearly off with him. If it’s still the incident with the Sox fan, well, that’s in the past and gotta move on from it. PCA always wears his heart on his sleeve and his intensity level is something we don’t see from too many players. Often, that intensity serves him well. Recently, it has not. Honestly, given everything that’s happened to him this year, maybe Craig Counsell should have given him Wednesday off, which would have given him two full days (with today’s off day) for a reset.

PCA talked about all this after the game, and listening to this clip, he didn’t sound real good [VIDEO].

If Joe Maddon were managing this team, I think he’d tell PCA to take the off day and not think about baseball at all.

Anyway, that play made it 3-0 Brewers, and you’re thinking this is 20/20 hindsight but honestly my first thought after that play was, “This game is over.”

And it was. The Cubs had just three more baserunners the entire game — walks to Seiya Suzuki in the second and Michael Busch in the eighth, and a single by Alex Bregman in the seventh. Busch was erased on a double play, and that along with the DP on Nico in the first meant that Brewers pitchers faced just two over the minimum. Starter Kyle Harrison struck out 11 Cubs and reliever DL Hall added two K’s. It’s like the Cubs were just going through the motions after that Little League home run in the second. I’d like to hope I’m wrong about that.

And to top all that off, Cabrera left the game with a blister [VIDEO].

Obviously, the last thing the Cubs need is another starting pitcher injury. Fortunately, blisters aren’t serious and perhaps he won’t even miss a start. Cabrera threw reasonably well; the error on PCA made all three of the runs that scored on that play unearned.

Cubs relievers, with one notable exception, threw well. Trent Thornton, Hoby Milner, Ryan Rolison and Daniel Palencia combined for 5.1 shutout innings, allowing two hits and two walks, with six strikeouts.

And then there was Phil Maton, who allowed Milwaukee’s fifth run in the seventh, giving up two hits and a walk and wild-pitching in the run [VIDEO].

At this point, I’ve got to think maybe there’s some other injury to Maton that can put him on the IL again and get someone in the pen who can actually get outs. Who would that be? Here’s the Cubs’ 40-man roster, maybe you can figure it out. And I know this has become a meme but… maybe the Cubs really should stop signing former Astros relievers.

Here, let me show you one positive Cubs highlight. Nico made a nice stop and jump throw for an out in the seventh [VIDEO].

Here are postgame comments from Counsell [VIDEO].

A “sad note,” as he called it when he sent it to me, about this game from BCB’s JohnW53:

This was the 305th regular-season game since 1901 in which the Cubs made two or fewer hits — one of every 64 played.

It was the 49th since July 31, 2012, the last time the Cubs made no more than two hits and committed three errors. They made one hit and three errors that day, in a 5-0 loss at home to the Pirates.

They made one hit and two errors in a 5-0 loss at home to the Dodgers on May 31, 2016.

They made two hits and two errors in losses at Washington by 4-1 and 6-1, on June 13, 2016, and June 27, 2017.

They also made two and two in a 9-0 loss to the Reds at home on May 6, 2023.

Back to that line I quoted at the top of this recap… No, of course no team is as bad as it looks during a long losing streak. We know this Cubs team is better than that. Hopefully they begin looking that way starting Friday.

Even with this losing streak and being swept, the Cubs are just 1.5 games behind the Brewers, in a virtual tie with the Cardinals for second place in the NL Central (three percentage points behind). The team will certainly enjoy this off day, their first after playing nine days in a row, and then will begin a three-game series against the Astros Friday afternoon at Wrigley Field. Jameson Taillon is the Cubs’ listed starter for Friday. At this time the Astros don’t have a starter listed. Game time Friday is 1:20 p.m. CT and TV coverage will be on Apple TV (how to watch).

Ha, this isn’t really even a question, except in the rhetorical sense. I just wanted to have an appreciation post for Dominic Smith, so this is it.

It would’ve been enough for Smith to have those two big April hits and then fade into obsolescence. Two huge game-swinging mashes for a guy signed to a split deal with a $1.25 million salary in the majors would’ve been plenty. As I did in an earlier post about him, that would’ve been reminiscent of Pablo Sandoval, and it would’ve been fine. We still remember Pablo Sandoval.

But that’s not what Smith has done at all. He’s kept raking. His rolling 100-PA xwOBA hasn’t been below league average since the start of April, and it hasn’t even been below .350 since April 14. Nor is he egregiously outhitting it: a .370 wOBA and .378 xwOBA is both really good and nothing to sideeye for any reason.

It’s easy to say that Smith has never had a season quite like this one, except in 2020. He was crazy-good that year, and he’s still got a ways to go this year before matching his PA total from that shortened season (106 so far, 199 in 2020). But in every other year, he really didn’t do much: in his other eight seasons, he had an xwOBA in the .320s four times, and something lower the other four times. In other words, in a non-shortened season, his career-high xwOBA was .325.

Since I lured you in here with a question that presumably has an answer, I’ll give you a brief, non-nuanced version.

• Smith is swinging at everything. While it’s not the highest z-swing rate of his career, it’s the highest in quite a few years. His chase rate is egregiously high, not just for him, but for anyone. He’s swinging at nearly half of first pitches he sees; previously he was much closer to a quarter, while the league is about one-in-three. He’s not walking, but he’s also not striking out, because he’s up there to hit the ball.
• He’s hunting and destroying four-seamers. There’s nothing special about Smith and non-fastballs, he’s still struggling against them. He’s not even hitting sinkers all that well. But, he has a .560 xwOBA (el-oh-el) against four-seamers thus far.
• He’s not hitting it on the ground. It’s important to know, I guess, that Smith isn’t swinging any harder, nor did he adopt any Braves-esque approach of trading contact for power and trying to hit a dinger on every swing. He’s actually moved back in the box, and his swing is slightly shorter, with no emphasis on swinging harder or anything like that. He’s hunting fastballs, but giving himself a chance to survive the other stuff.

Put these things together, and, well, I think it’s safe to say that part of the reason he’s doing it is because pitchers haven’t adjusted. He’s getting a lot of pitches in the zone, probably too many for anyone that can do what he does. He’s still getting a bunch of four-seamers, which doesn’t have to be the case. Lastly, a lot of his xwOBA is driven by flares; though he’s dropped both ground- and air-based not-useful contact, a lot of the corresponding increase has been in bloops or hard choppers, rather than in good contact and/or barrels. All that said, though, we’re more than halfway through May, and he’s still doing the same stuff he’s been doing in terms of beating up on opposing pitching, so maybe he’ll continue to fly under the radar and rack up awesomeness for a while yet.

Yesterday’s loss to the Reds featured a rather lackluster performance from the Phillies bullpen. Tim Mayza, Orion Kerkering, Brad Keller, and José Alvarado combined to allow 5 runs in 4 innings and doom the Phillies’ chances of mounting a comeback. So naturally, let’s take this off day as a chance to re-assess the trust level for each member of the bullpen.

Jhoan Duran is probably the only reliever with absolute trust right now. The Phillies closer has been dominant since returning from the injured list, allowing only one run on 3 hits and 5 walks, with that run and three of the walks coming in his first appearance back after forgoing a rehab assignment. Duran’s struck out 13 of the 26 batters he’s faced in his six appearances over that span and converted all three of his save opportunities.

However, after Duran is where things get complicated. Chase Shugart has been the most consistently good of the rest of the Phillies relievers, but as Ethan Witte pointed out earlier this week, Shugart has been deployed in almost exclusively low leverage situations, and his pristine 1.53 ERA doesn’t tell the full story. Orion Kerkering has good numbers at first glance with a 2.60 ERA, but he’s still having trouble getting whiffs. Tim Mayza has pitched the most innings out of the bullpen with 22.2 and has been mostly effective, but he now sports a 4.04 ERA after being charged with two runs yesterday. Tanner Banks has regressed heavily from his strong 2025 with a 6.75 ERA and a WHIP over 2. Free agent signing Brad Keller has been uneven and trade acquisition Jonathan Bowlan has been mediocre. José Alvarado has not yet shown that he can recapture his form from before his suspension and injury and has been one of the biggest disappointments on the pitching staff, as he owns a 6.11 ERA after surrendering a two-run homer that was the final nail in the Phillies’ chances yesterday.

As a whole, the Phillies bullpen entered yesterday ranked 14th in ERA (3.88) and 15th in WHIP (1.32). However, they were ranked second in fWAR (2.5) thanks in large part to a strong FIP (3.40) that ranks fourth and an expected ERA (3.12) that ranks second. Their second worst BABIP (.318) does back up that they are due for some positive regression in the more traditional bullpen rankings.

So, what is your trust level in each of the Phillies relievers? On a scale of 1-5 with 5 being absolute trust and 1 being completely untrustworthy, how would you rank the current relievers?