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?

Here’s something I’ve tweeted in recent days, but it’s also a good conversation to have here.

The collapse of batting average across MLB is astounding! As of yesterday, there are more qualified hitters batting under .200 (17) than there are guys batting .300 or better (15). These are not the scrubs pinch hitting a couple times a week; these are the everyday players! 

Compare this to 30 years ago (1996) and there were 48 guys batting .300 or better. Meanwhile, the guy with the lowest qualified batting average in the entire sport in 1996? Delino DeShields, and he hit .224, a full nine points worse than the next guy. 

Batting average has correctly been minimized in importance over the last couple of decades, but Dear Lord has the pendulum swung too far in the other direction (and this is coming from a full blown nerd!). So what do you think OTM? With more guys hitting under .200 than over .300, does MLB need to make rule changes in the next CBA to incentivize contact?

Talk about this and whatever else you’d like in this thread, and as always, be good to one another!

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The Pittsburgh Pirates and St. Louis Cardinals wrap up a three-game series this afternoon with the rubber match at 1:15 p.m. ET at Busch Stadium. 

My Pirates vs Cardinals predictions are eyeing Pittsburgh to grab another victory in the finale with Braxton Ashcraft on the hill. 

Read more in my MLB picks for Thursday, May 21. 

Who will win Pirates vs Cardinals today: Pirates moneyline (-122)

The Pittsburgh Pirates shut down the St. Louis Cardinals on Wednesday, winning 7-0 behind a four-hit game from rookie Konnor Griffin. The Bucs' pitching staff allowed just five hits, containing a Cards offense that has struggled with consistency. Braxton Ashcraft takes the mound today for the visitors, and he's been impressive. 

The right-hander owns a 3.09 ERA, and that lowers to 2.16 on the road across four outings. Coincidentally enough, all six earned runs he's allowed away from PNC Park were to the Cards last month in a tough start. But Ashcraft has improved immensely since that outing, compiling a 2.11 ERA across three May appearances. His last road start was a seven-inning, one-run outing against the San Francisco Giants. 

As for the Cards, they hand Dustin May the ball. He owns a 4.50 ERA at home this season, and Pittsburgh's lineup has hit him around. They're batting .400 across 40 at-bats, and the Pirates are one of the top offensive ball clubs in the big leagues, averaging 4.9 runs per game. The visitors will keep it rolling here. 

COVERS INTEL: May owns a BABIP of .338 so far this season, compared to .298 in 2025. 

Pirates vs Cardinals Over/Under pick: Over 7.5 runs (-108)

Four of the last five meetings between the Pirates and Cardinals have cashed the Over, and Wednesday's matchup finished just below today's total. While I do expect Ashcraft to have a solid outing, the Cards have hit him around before, and they could do some damage. 

As for May, he's had minimal luck against Pittsburgh's lineup, with several key players swinging it well against him. The right-hander also has a career-worst 52% hard-hit rate, and the Bucs have scored 13 runs across their last two contests. 

The St. Louis bullpen has also been poor, compiling a 4.53 ERA, and it surrendered four earned runs on Wednesday. 

Pirates vs Cardinals odds

• Moneyline: Pirates -122 | Cardinals +117
• Run line: Pirates -1.5 (+138) | Cardinals +1.5 (-144)
• Over/Under: Over 7.5 (-108) | Under 7.5 (+104)

Pirates vs Cardinals trend

The Pittsburgh Pirates have covered the Run Line in 28 of their last 45 away games (+8.20 Units / 13% ROI). Find more MLB betting trends for Pirates vs. Cardinals.

How to watch Pirates vs Cardinals and game info

Pirates vs Cardinals latest injuries

Pirates vs Cardinals weather

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Worcester: L, 2-7 (F/11) (BOX SCORE)

This game fell apart in extras, namely the eleventh, and to be honest, the WooSox should have had it won earlier than that. The pitching was solid throughout the night, starting with Jake Bennett striking out eleven Red Wings (Nationals AAA) and allowing one run. Bennett’s pitch count was only at 73 so he could have conceivably gone longer, but the bullpen was fine throughout the night and recorded 8 more Ks.

Worcester lacked an extra base hit besides Matt Lloyd’s solo shot and also went hitless in eight chances with runners in scoring position. But they played with their food for too long and, by virtue of Wyatt Olds allowing five runs (four earned) in the eleventh, the food got all over them. Bennett is suffering from being a young minor league option… or should I say young with options (ba dum tiss) behind one of the best rotations in baseball. It’s good to know he’s mowing them down consistently in Triple-A.

Portland: W, 9-4 (BOX SCORE)

Catastrophic news as Franklin Arias’ OPS is about to dip under 1.000 with another hitless night (he did, though get on base with a walk). The horror! To be honest, though, behind the rest of the lineup and a good five innings out of Hayden Mullins, a guy who’s becoming the dependable workhorse of Portland’s rotation, the Sea Dogs didn’t need Arias to put away the Fightin Phils’ (Phillies AA). Johanfran Garcia got his sixth home run of the season in the fifth inning and Nelly Taylor had two doubles. This was a feel good win where everyone contributed: even though every single batter struck out at least once on the night, everyone aside from the nine-hole hitter got on base once, as well. The result was a 7-0 lead after two and a game that the Sea Dogs could coast through.

Greenville: L, 4-6 (BOX SCORE)

After losing most of the month, the Drive won two consecutive games for the first time since late April Sunday and Tuesday. That did not continue on Wednesday against Frederick (Orioles High-A). This was more like a defensive death by a thousand cuts, as the Keys got the Drive for 17 hits but just six runs, and the Drive couldn’t match that output by a long shot, gathering just five. Yoelin Cespedes got the game within striking distance with a two-run shot, his eighth of the year, in the ninth inning, but it was too little, too late.

Salem: : W, 8-3 (BOX SCORE)

After getting taken for sixteen runs by the Howlers (Guardians A) on Tuesday, the RidgeYaks came back and allowed just three hits, and just one extra-base hit. Salem had another productive lineup as eight of their nine hitters got a knock and even the one that didn’t got a walk. They also got a home run to clinch the game (albeit all the way back in the fourth inning) out of Andrews Opata. Opata also swiped his twentieth bag of the season. This game was really never within losing distance for Salem.

Have a…. uh… thermodynamic Thursday?

The last three games have been an adventure with the Yankees bullpen, and not a particularly fun one either. Yes, they secured the win in two out of three, but boy have David Bednar and Camilo Doval put Yankees fans through the wringer in the ninth inning against the Mets and the first two against Toronto. Doval’s final out to secure the save against on Tuesday night is the moment we’ll look at this time on Sequence of the Week.

We join Doval with two outs in the ninth. The back of the Yankees bullpen is short following Bednar and Fernando Cruz’s exertions in the previous two games, leaving Doval as the lone remaining option to close out this game. It’s been far from smooth sailing for the flame throwing righty, Vladimir Guerrero Jr. cutting the Yankees’ lead to one with a sac fly after Doval gave up an Andrés Giménez walk and Ernie Clement single to open the frame. After the Vlad Jr. sac fly, Daulton Varsho reached on an infield single when Doval forgot to cover first base on the grounder to the right side, putting runners on the corners and bringing the Blue Jays’ team leader in home runs Kazuma Okamoto to the plate.

Renowned during his San Francisco days for his triple digits cutter, Doval instead starts Okamoto off with a sinker — a pitch he has been working on behind the scenes with Matt Blake and the rest of the Yankees pitching coaches.

This is pretty close to a perfect pitch — a 100-mph sinker right on the bottom shelf of the strike zone. It’s a called strike if Okamoto doesn’t swing, but commanded to a location where it’s almost impossible to do damage. It’s honestly impressive that Okamoto recognizes it as a strike — given it started off the plate away before tailing back into the zone — and is able to catch a piece and tap it foul.

Following the excellent execution of the first pitch sinker, Doval tries to keep the muscle memory of that release point by targeting the same location with the same pitch.

He manages to achieve the same lateral release point, but this sinker is elevated relative to the previous one. This makes it a more hittable pitch, but it appears that Okamoto is in fight-off mode, perhaps hunting a pitch inside, and he fires a late, off-balance swing and fouls it off to the right.

Doval is now just one strike away from locking down the save. Just one more decent execution of a pitch away from sending all those of a Yankees persuasion home happy. After showing Okamoto a pair of in-breaking sinkers, Doval looks to put him away with a cutter that moves away from the hitter, Austin Wells setting a target low and away.

The key to throwing a good cutter is staying behind and through the ball, something which Doval fails to do here. He almost slings this pitch rather than finishing out in front, causing the pitch to sail wildly inside as it backs up rather than cuts, and Okamoto has to spin out of the way to avoid getting hit.

After mis-executing that cutter so poorly, Doval immediately scraps the pitch and goes back to the sinker. He still has the feeling of having executed two good ones to open the AB, he just has to find that release point again and it should be game over.

Instead, Doval makes a mistake releasing this pitch a hair too early, and it ends up middle-middle. Fortunately for him and his teammates, Okamoto has never quite figured out the correct swing path to match up against Doval’s sinker, and though he is right on time and clubs this ball at 103 mph, he impacts the top of the baseball sending a routine grounder to Anthony Volpe for the game-ending ground out. That is the margin of error that being able to throw over 100 mph affords the pitcher, allowing Doval to get a ground out on a mistake pitch.

Here’s the full sequence:

There is a lot to like from this sequence from Doval. For starters, he managed to find the zone with all three of the sinkers he threw — no small feat considering how much walks have tended to hurt him in his career. They surprisingly haven’t been as big of an issue this year, but his general wildness this campaign has seen him fall behind in counts and then cough up a home run as he is forced into the middle of the zone. I was also impressed by Doval’s ability to immediately flush the previous play when he forgot to cover first. It would be easy to let that moment linger and impact his concentration against Okamoto, but he turned the page quickly and focused fully on this AB.

Finally, I am intrigued by Doval’s progress with this new sinker — a pitch that went from a 12.2-percent usage rate in 2025 to his most used pitch so far in 2026 at a 41.7-percent usage rate. Doval is perennially among the league leaders in ground ball rate and this gives him another weapon to maintain those levels. It’s a pitch I’m excited to analyze more deeply in my new series about the Yankees bringing the sinker back into vogue, so stay tuned! While I’m certainly not ready to say that I trust Doval in spots as high leverage at this, it’s a positive first step toward re-earning the trust to pitch in late-game situations.

Meet the Mets

Zach Thornton’s major league debut didn’t go as well as hoped when he put the Mets in a hole early. The team did attempt to come back, led by two Juan Soto home runs, but the bullpen put the game out of reach and the Mets dropped their second straight to Washington.

Choose your recap:Amazin’ Avenue, Daily News, MLB.com, Newsday, NY Post

Zach Thornton paid tribute to his partially-paralyzed dad, who made it to the stadium to watch his son pitch in his first major league game.

David Peterson will start the finale against the Nats without an opener.

Despite struggling in Triple-A, the Mets are considering calling up Jonah Tong to start against the Marlins.

A.J. Minter will make one more rehab appearance in Triple-A, and he could rejoin the team next week if all goes well.

To make room for Thornton on the roster, Daniel Duarte was optioned to Triple-A Syracuse.

Around the National League East

The Braves took down the Marlins 9-1 behind a dominant performance by Chris Sale.

The Marlins optioned Braxton Garrett to Triple-A after his poor appearance against the Braves.

Aaron Nola struggled in the Phillies’ 9-4 loss to the Reds.

Kyle Schwarber is hitting home runs at an historic pace, but how many home runs will he end up with at the end of the season?

CJ Abrams spoiled yet another pitcher’s major league debut.

Around Major League Baseball

Blue Jays starter José Berríos underwent Tommy John surgery and will be sidelined until the 2027 season.

Shirtless fans have taken over sections of stadiums around the league, but what is behind this new “Tarps Off” trend?

Padres star Fernando Tatis Jr. has yet to hit a home run this season, which might be due to his new closed batting stance.

Cubs starter Edward Cabrera exited his start in the fourth inning with a blister issue on his middle finger.

There are quite a few prospects who have been pleasant surprises for their teams so far this season.

Yesterday at Amazin’ Avenue

Steve Sypa profiled Zach Thornton ahead of his debut.

This Date in Mets History

On this date in 2005, Mets starter Dae-Sung Koo doubled off Randy Johnson in just his second major league at-bat.