Worldwide Sports News

For some reason, I’m not anywhere near as angry as I should be after another loss in which the Red Sox lineup looked like it was reenacting something out of the Deadball Era. Tonight, some of the highlights lowlights included:

• Batting Mickey Gasper – A 30-year-old with a career .495 OPS – second in the lineup.
• The bats lasting a grand totals of just 16 pitches at the plate over the first three innings.
• The team once again failing to generate the hit they desperately needed late in the contest as the tying run was stranded in scoring position in each of the final three innings.
• Scoring two runs or fewer for the tenth time in the last 14 games at Fenway Park.

But do you know what surprised me the most about tonight? The Red Sox almost won. On paper, this game should have been a rocking chair victory for Philadelphia, and instead the game ended with a drama filled ninth inning where, less surprisingly, the Red Sox bats failed to deliver once again. But just under the surface of another pitiful night at the plate were signs that this Red Sox team might be on the verge of turning a corner. They include:

• Brayan Bello pitching well again in the bulk role
• On a night with no Roman Anthony or Willson Contreras, Wilyer Abreu came up in a big spot in the seventh inning, worked an eight pitch at bat, and hit a ball that would have been a home run in 29 of the 30 ballparks. The result sucked, but that had all the makings of a game changing moment.
• The defense once again looked as solid as ever and kept the listless offense in the game.
• Marcelo Mayer smoked a ball 106mph with the tying run on third to end the seventh inning.

Perhaps it’s just that Happiness = Reality – Expectations, and my expectations were so low for this game that I was somewhat shielded from another letdown. However, I’m also getting this overwhelming sense that the Red Sox pitching and defense is legit. If they’re turning a Brayan Bello bulk game against one of the hotter teams in the sport into a 2-1 affair against a guy like Zack Wheeler when the lineup is missing key pieces, that’s actually not the worst result in the world when you isolate it out from the waterfall of garbage performances we’ve seen at Fenway this season.

Ultimately, this Red Sox season is going to come down to the pitching and defense being able to outlast the offense being this historically feckless. Maybe they won’t, and they certainly didn’t tonight, but part of the reason it’s this noticeable is because they’re wasting plenty of good outings, and if they’re going to start getting those from Brayan Bello in addition to Payton Tolle and Connelly Early, games like tonight are eventually going to start flipping in the other direction.

Three Studs

Brayan Bello: 6.1 innings of one run ball out of the bulk role. A huge step in the right direction.

Wilyer Abreu: Went just 1-4, but looked good defensively again, and came within a few feet of having one of the best at bats of the whole season.

Zack Kelly: Threw up a scoreless top of the ninth and gave the bats one last chance when they were starting to show signs of waking up.

Three Duds

Jarren Duran: 0-4 from the top of the lineup with two strikeouts. He’s hitting .189 on the season.

Jovani Moran: Started the game to face the lefties at the top of the Phillies lineup before Bello came in for the bulk role and gave up a solo blast to Kyle Schwarber.

Caleb Durbin: But more specifically, the decision not to have Caleb Durbin bunt when he came up in the eighth inning. We know Durbin’s in there for his glove, and when Carlos Narvaez led off the top of the eighth with a single, it was the perfect opportunity to move him over to second with the top of the lineup coming up. Instead, Durbin flew out to center field as part of his 0-3 night at the plate.

Bonus Dud

The NESN cameraman: Below we’re going to see the play of the game we’ve referenced a few times already, and the camera angle here is going to make it look like we’re watching the space shuttle take off instead of a warning track fly ball to end an eight pitch Wilyer Abreu at bat.

Play of the game:

Death, taxes, and the Tampa Bay Rays defeating the Toronto Blue Jays in the year 2026.

Drake’s 15th project, Iceman, is set to debut May 15, and Shane McClanahan sure had Blue Jays bats frozen Tuesday evening in “The 6ix”, as McClanahan went five innings, allowing only one hit and one walk while striking out seven.

That 97 MPH fastball was the final pitch of his outing and also extended his career-long scoreless innings streak to 21.2, and his season ERA down to 2.27. ‘Sugar Shane’ might be back, folks.

As far as the run support, the Rays jumped on Blue Jays southpaw Patrick Corbin early.

In the first inning, Jonathan Aranda singled, followed by a Junior Caminero single, and Jonny DeLuca driving in Aranda with a two out RBI double. 1-0 Flappy Boys.

In the third inning, Caminero singled, Ben Williamson doubled, and Cedric Mullins delivered with two outs with a two-run single of his own to give the Rays a 3-0 lead.

In the sixth, Taylor Walls scored on a wild pitch from Tommy Nance, and in the seventh, ‘The Rig’ Ryan Vilade homered to extend the lead to 5-0.

Once we got to the bottom half of the seventh, things got scary.

Toronto would not only bat around, but tie the game to make it 5-5.

The bullpen would hold them there, and the game went to extras.

Cedric Mullins would act as the ghost runner in the 10th, and Taylor Walls would drive him in via, you guessed it, a single.

And who else but Aranda to drive him in vis the sacrifice fly to give the Rays the lead.

Garrett Cleavinger entered in the bottom of the 10th to shut the door for good, as Toronto would score once more. Andres Gimenez grounded out to Junior Caminero, who had two errors on the evening, to end the game 7-6.

Tampa Bay is now 19-3 against the American League, and remains the top dog in the junior circuit.

The Rays and Jays will do it again from Rogers Centre on Wednesday, cumulating a stretch of 13 games straight, starting at 7:07 PM EST.

All Shohei Ohtani needed to snap his two-week home run drought?

How about Ice Cube in the broadcast booth.

On Tuesday night, the Dodgers did a stadium-wide Ice Cube bobblehead giveaway, featuring the LA entertainment icon in a Dodger blue low-rider along with the team’s last two World Series championship trophies.

To honor the occasion, Ice Cube was on hand –– throwing out the first pitch, announcing the traditional “It’s Time for Dodger Baseball” call before the start of the game, then joining the team’s television broadcast on SportsNet LA in the bottom of the third inning.

It was while Ice Cube was on the air that Ohtani came to the plate and went deep for the first time since April 26, and only the second time in his last 109 plate appearances.

Shohei Ohtani hadn’t homered since April 26th but Ice Cube showed up so that changed pic.twitter.com/0dZK9K19iW

— Jomboy Media (@JomboyMedia) May 13, 2026

As Ohtani’s drive sailed out to left-center field, Ice Cube injected excitedly on the TV call.

“Yes! There we go. Yeah, yeah!” he said. “Couldn’t have scripted it better.”

Before the blast, Ice Cube was in the middle of a discussion with Joe Davis and Orel Hershisher about his life-long Dodgers fandom, and role as the team’s unofficial hype man during their back-to-back World Series titles.

Over the last two years, he’s been part of plenty of memorable moments at Chavez Ravine, including a pregame concert during the 2024 World Series, more live performances at their championship parades, and opening day ceremonies in which he drove a blue low-rider onto the field to deliver the Commissioner’s Trophies to the team –– which inspired Tuesday’s bobblehead design.

“This is one of the craziest things that ever happened to me,” he said. “I love the Dodgers. I love being a fan. I like to just fan out … And then to be asked to be a part of it, against the Yankees, it was next level. I’ve just been on Cloud 9 ever since, for two years straight.”

That continued when Ohtani went deep, leading Davis and Hershiser to lay out so he could analyze the replay of Ohtnai’s swing.

“He smacks this thing, goes yard, the man,” Ice Cube said of Ohtani. “How great is it to be a Dodger fan right now, to see that.”

Timely hitting and some clutch home runs helped propel the White Sox (20-21) to their third straight win, defeating the Royals (19-23), 6-5. Four of the seven South Side hits were for extra bases, with three dingers and a double, including two clutch bombs that both took the lead at different points in the game. The pitching struggled early, but the offense carried its weight by keeping the Good Guys in the contest until the bullpen established itself late in the game, with the final two arms not giving up a hit.

While it definitely wasn’t his best outing, Erick Fedde mostly did his job, eating five innings for the Good Guys, allowing two runs on six hits with a walk and two strikeouts. In today’s game thread, I referenced how Fedde has been making a habit of surrendering home runs, and naturally, he gave up two more in tonight’s start: a solo shot each for Bobby Witt Jr. and Salvador Pérez in the top of the first, 2-0.

The South Siders chased a two-run lead for the first four frames, but Fedde was able to settle in a bit after the round-trippers, hoping the offense would wake up. The Sox finally had an opportunity after loading the bases in the bottom of the third, with a base hit from Sam Antonacci starting things off, followed by back-to-back walks from Munetaka Murakami and Miguel Vargas. After four straight balls, Colson Montgomery came up to the plate in a prime situation, but he struck out on pitches that almost certainly would have been balls. Why he was even remotely considering swinging after so many balls in a row is beyond me — just one of those at-bats.

Finally coming alive in the fifth, the South Side bats posted a five-spot, first tying, then taking a three-run advantage to turn the game on its head. Drew Romo cut the lead in half after mashing his fourth home run since being called up, possessing a 1.092 OPS while holding a batting average below .200 (.192). Romo struck out for the rest of his at-bats, so perhaps the average makes sense.

To keep the inning rolling, Antonacci drove a double out to center to pick up his second hit and put the game-tying run into scoring position. As he already had a hot bat, Vargas was set up perfectly to drive him in with a base hit and tie the game up at two. Vargas has driven in at least one run in his last three games and has seven RBIs this month after accumulating nine in the entire month of April.

Mune struck out to bring Colson up, who put together a much better at-bat than earlier in the game and worked a base on balls to put another runner on. That brought up Chase Meidroth, who blasted his third bomb of the season into the White Sox bullpen, putting the Good Guys up, 5-2.

So quickly after taking the lead, the White Sox imploded once Fedde was replaced by lefthander Tyler Schweitzer, who only made it through one out before giving up two runs to bring the Royals back within one, 5-4. In the blink of an eye, the win fizzled out before Fedde’s eyes. Will Venable decided to go with Grant Taylor a bit earlier than expected. Unfortunately, the one hit he allowed in the final 2/3 of the inning was the tying run, also charged to Schweitzer, before striking out Witt to end the inning.

Taylor made it a nail-biter returning in the seventh, giving up back-to-back singles to start the frame, but struck out both Carter Jensen and Jac Caglianone before forcing a ground out to end the inning. Despite having to clean up Schweitzer’s mess, he was still assigned a blown save. Seranthony Domínguez is typically more of a ninth-inning kind of guy, but he was turned to in the eighth as the Good Guys worked to keep the game tied at five. Three-up, three-down for Domínguez was exactly what the Sox needed to get the bat back in their hands.

Even if you were given 10 guesses to predict who won the game for Chicago, you probably wouldn’t get it because it was a pinch-hit, go-ahead blast from Derek Hill to put the South Siders up one, 6-5. The best part was that the pitch was below the strike zone, but Hill muscled it enough to clear the left-center wall and put the ball into the bleachers.

Out for the ninth was southpaw Bryan Hudson, who has been nothing short of excellent in his 21 appearances (20 innings) this season. Hudson wrangled the Royals for a 1-2-3 inning to earn his second save of the year, but not without a little more help from Derek Hill, who made a diving catch out in right to rob a clutch hit from Witt. Hudson has maintained a sub-1.00 ERA (0.90), and tonight’s save also secured the W for Seranthony.

Wednesday is Noah Schultz Day. The lefty will be going against righthander Seth Lugo. We’ve got another night game tomorrow, so join us at the same time and place — 6:40 p.m. CT — to watch some quality baseball and hopefully get the club to .500.

On the night where Christian Yelich returned to the lineup, one of the biggest punching bags of the offense had the big performance.

Joey Ortiz has taken a lot of heat this year from fans for his slow start at the plate. Understandably so, Ortiz entered Tuesday’s game with a .181 average, a .443 OPS, and a 27 OPS+. He had just one extra-base hit on the season.

That changed on Tuesday night at American Family Field as Ortiz secured the first Brewers hit of the night and their first run in one swing, lifting a 395 foot home run to left. That’s his first home run since July 19th, 2025.

“In the cages before the game, I was watching William (Contreras) and I was like ‘I wanna be like William today’ and it worked out so maybe I’ll do that tomorrow, too.” Ortiz said. “I went in there, fooled around with William a little bit and it actually (made me) lock in, so it’s funny how it happens.”

“The whole team was so excited for him. That was one of the neat things of today, was to see how the team reacted to him hitting one. I mean, it was like a walk off” Pat Murphy said

The Padres answered with a pair of runs in the top of the fourth on a 2 RBI single up the middle by Nick Castellanos.

The Brewers then punched right back in the fourth inning, sending 10 men to the plate. It all started on a William Contreras one out double off the top of the wall in right field. Then Jake Bauers walked and Garrett Mitchell lined a single to center to load the bases for Sal Frelick.

Frelick then hit a 60.6 MPH dribbling ground ball through the left side of the infield, with the shortstop Xander Bogaerts playing up the middle, he wasn’t even close enough to get to that baseball, allowing two runs to score on a ball that barely made it 10 feet into the outfield grass.

David Hamilton then followed with a bunt single and was able to reach because Matt Waldron looked to third base right away with no one there and couldn’t make the throw to first in time to get the speedy Hamilton. That meant Joey Ortiz was up again, this time with the bases loaded.

Ortiz lifted the first pitch he saw high and deep into centerfield, the crowd erupted, thinking Ortiz had just homered again, but it fell short at the warning track and Ortiz had to settle for a sac fly.

Brice Turang kept the inning going with a 2 RBI double to make it a 6-2 ballgame and Jackson Chourio supplied an infield single that chased Waldron from the game.

The Brewers continued to just hold on after that with the offense falling fairly silent against the Padres bullpen. San Diego got a home run from Miguel Andujar in the 6th, and an RBI double from Andujar again in the 8th.

Brandon Sproat was very good tonight, striking out four Padres in the first two innings and ending up with six strikeouts on the night, tying his season-high. He was pulled after 5.1 IP with 3 earned runs as he seemed to be running out of gas in that sixth inning.

“We were hoping, like hey look we got a nice lead here. Go out there, you can get it done. But then he hung a breaking ball, and then made another pitch down the middle. His stuff was going down, you could see the difference in the stuff. We want to try to work through that and still make pitches. It doesn’t mean just because your fastball is 97 to 95 to 94, it doesn’t mean you can’t be effective. We were hoping he could” Pat Murphy said.

Sproat gets his first MLB win in his 12th career game (10th start), which led to his first career beer shower from the team.

“It got my eyes a little burned, but my hair kind of felt soft after, so I might start using that as shampoo.” Sproat joked after the game.

Shane Drohan got him out of the 6th inning, Bullpen Chad Patrick made an appearance, butting together a 1-2-3 seventh inning. Pat Murphy said pre-game that they have some decisions to make with Patrick and his role in the starting rotation, but that he likes how Patrick has pitched out of the bullpen. After that, it was the back-end of the bullpen 1-2 punch of Trevor Megill and Abner Uribe to slam the door and secure the Brewers fifth straight win.

Joey Ortiz finished the night 2-for-3 with a pair of RBIs, one of his best games in a while. The offense certainly looked more potent with Yelich in the lineup, especially in that 4th inning, even though Yelich finished the night 0-for-4 with a pair of strikeouts.

Tuesday wasn’t Freddy Peralta’s sharpest outing of the season, but the right-hander still found a way to give the Mets six quality innings in a win over the Tigers.  

The first two were where Peralta struggled the most. 

Detroit forced him to throw 21 pitches in a scoreless top of the first, then 27 more in the second as they put two runs on the board on a solo homer and a sacrifice fly. 

Peralta gave up a well-struck double to right leading off the top of the third, but then was able to find himself a nice little groove from there.

“I just had some conversations with [Francisco Alvarez], he was great,” he said. “We just got together, changed up the plan a little bit between innings, and we were able to get outs.”

The righty retired the next eight hitters he faced in order. 

Colt Keith ended that stretch with a two-out single in the fifth, but Peralta threw him out at the plate trying to score on an overthrow after a Riley Greene hit. 

“That was huge,” he said. “I was there, it was a hard sprint for me and I was able to make a good throw home, and Alvy made good tag to get him.”

That out enabled Peralta to come back for the sixth with 89 pitches, and he was able to end his night on a high note, cruising through the inning with help from a pair of strikeouts. 

He allowed just the two runs on seven hits and a walk while striking out seven.

“I have confidence in myself and all my pitches,” he said. “We just changed the way we were using the pitches -- the curveball for the slider, the location of the fastball -- we made adjustments and were able to finish the sixth.”

This marked the second time in three outings that Peralta has completed six innings.

The Kansas City Royals built a 2-0 lead and came back to tie the game at 5-5, showing some fight. But in Major League Baseball, “almost” doesn’t cut it, and the Chicago White Sox where the victors in tonight’s contest.

The Royals struck first. Bobby Baseball smacked a solo home run to give the Royals a 1-0 lead.

The Royals also struck second, in the same inning! Salvador Perez knocked his own solo home run.

At this point, let’s go to a few sentences I said in the pregame:

Welp, Salvador Perez is hitting cleanup, dragging his .233 OBP along with him. Perez wasn’t in the lineup on Sunday, so there was maybe some hope that he’d be further down the lineup when he reappeared. The answer is: no. I’m sure that won’t negatively impact the game at all tonight, but we’ll quote these sentences and see if that’s correct truly or ironically.

The good news is that the sentence was correct (truly), at least here! And Salvy did get another hit later, so he was legitimately productive there in his return to the game. Maybe some more off days are in order, TBH.

On the pitching side of things, the Royals sent Stephen Kolek to the mound in place of the injured Cole Ragans. Kolek, somewhat famously, had started his Royals career with six consecutive quality starts. For four innings, Kolek sure seemed like it would be another quality start. But he ran into trouble in the fifth inning. With one out Drew Romo (seems like a fake name, tbh) hit a home run. Sam Antonacci (also seems fake, who are these people) hit a double. And with Munetaka Murakami up, the looming threat of a Murakami bomb to truly push the game over the edge was a problem.

But it wasn’t Murakami who hit the bomb. That would be Chase Meidroth (seems like a name from a Final Fantasy game, but I digress) two batters later. That gave the White Sox a 5-2 lead.

The Royals bats weren’t done, though. In the sixth inning, Carter Jensen walked and Jac Caglianone hit a rocket line drive out to center field. Were the Royals finally going to do some damage? Yes, as it turns out. Isaac Collins doubled to put runners on second and third. And for the second time in a week, Nick Loftin hit a key RBI double. Later, Maikel Garcia singled him home to tie the game. It was exciting.

The excitement wound end rather unceremoniously. Matt Strahm replaced Daniel Lynch IV, and though he pitched a mostly clean eighth inning, his one mistake was a home run meatball swatted by Derek Hill. That gave the White Sox a 6-5 lead, a lead they would not relinquish as Witt, Vinnie Pasquantino, and Salvy went 1-2-3 in the ninth inning.

Just like that, the Royals are back in last place in the AL Central—well, tied for it at least. They are a dreadful 6-13 away from Kauffman Stadium. Hopefully, they can win some games on the road soon. If they don’t, the season will continue to slip away.

Mariners 10, Astros 2

Funshine Bear: Randy Arozarena, +0.27 WPA

Grumpy Bear: Julio Rodríguez, -0.10 WPA

Game Thread Comment of the Day:

Rays 7 Jays 6 (10 innings)

The nice part about that game was the come back. The Jays were down 5-0. We were continuously told they would never score again. And then they got five runs in the seven to tie things up.

It was a fun game to watch.

In the seventh:

• Andrés Giménez, pinch hitting, flied out.
• Ernie Clement singled to left.
• Daulton Varsho struck out.
• Jesús Sánchez doubled off the left field wall, scoring one.
• Brandon Valenzuela walked on a full count.
• George Springer single in one.
• Yohendrick Piñango doubled bringing in two more.
• Vladimir Guerrero reached on an error by third baseman Junior Caminero, bringing in the tying run. He had a couple of well hit foul balls earlier in the at bat. Then Vlad stole second.
• But Kazuma Okamoto struck out to end the fun.

Patrick Corbin wasn’t good. He gave up 9 hits, and a walk, but just 3 earned. Fairly lucky to have just given up 3.

Tommy Nance game up another run in 1.2 innings, with 3 strikeouts..

Jeff Hoffman gave up a solo home in his inning, with 2 strikeouts.

Ty Rogers pitched a scoreless inning, in a very non-Rogers way. Walk, line out to right, caught stealing (great throw Valenzuela) and a strikeout.

Louis Varland fought his way through a scoreless ninth.

Braydon Fisher had a tough time in the 10th. with the runner on second, he gave up a deep fly to left that Piñango took a strange route on, but he made the catch. Runner to third. Taylor Walls singled one home. Yandy Díaz walked. A wild pitch moved them to second and third. A sac fly to the wall in center (an amazing catch by Varsho, running into the wall) scored a second run. A ground out (that Clement bobbled) ended the inning.

We got one back in the bottom of the inning. Piñango ground out moving Springer to third. Vlad (after two hard hit foul balls, I’m hoping that is a good sign) hit a sac fly. Okamoto walked, but Giménez ground out on the first pitch, against a lefty.

Our defense has been suspect this year and today in particular. Varsho misread a fly ball. Clement misplayed a couple of grounders. Okamoto had a misplay.

We had just six hits, two doubles. Springer and Clement had two each. Piñango and Sánchez had the others.

Jays of the Day: Piñango (0.21 WPA), Varland (0.14), Rogers (0.11) and Vlad (0.12).

Other Award: Fisher (-0.41), Corbin (-0.17), Giménez (-0.15), and Valenzuela (-0.12).

Tomorrow we have our last game with the Rays (for awhile). Dylan Cease (3-1, 2.58) vs. Griffin Jax (1-2, 5.00). It would be nice to win one.