Childhood Nats fan Bryce Eldridge jokes about how Brandon Belt broke his heart originally appeared on NBC Sports Bay Area

One of the Giants’ most iconic MLB playoff home runs during their five-season run of dominance from 2010 through 2014 actually was tough for top prospect Bryce Eldridge to watch.

Eldridge, a native of Vienna, Va., grew up a Washington Nationals fan. During the 2014 National League Division Series between his favorite team and his future organization, the then-9-year-old was playing on a travel ball team.

On Oct. 4, 16 days shy of Eldridge’s 10th birthday, Brandon Belt connected for a legendary 18th-inning solo homer off Nationals pitcher Tanner Roark to give the Giants an eventual 2-1 Game 2 win and a two-games-to-none lead in the best-of-five series.

“I stayed up for that game,” Eldridge told NBC Sports Bay Area’s Alex Pavlovic on “Giants Talk,” which debuted Thursday. “That was probably 2014 and I was at a baseball tournament in Delaware. Maryland or Delaware. Belt hit that homer? Yeah, I was up for that. Broke my heart.

“My travel team, obviously, we’re all from the D.C. area, we were all at The Greene Turtle [Sports Bar and Grille] watching that game. Ended up going back to the hotel because it went on all night. On the East Coast, it was, I don’t know, probably 2 a.m. when that game ended.”

Belt and the Giants eliminated the top-seeded Nationals in four games and went on to capture their third World Series title in five years.

Because of those three titles, Eldridge, still just 20 years old, is very familiar with the Giants.

“I grew up watching them dominate and [win] those three in five years that they did it. I grew up watching them beat my Nationals in the playoffs,” Eldridge told Pavlovic. “I knew they had a rich history. Obviously, being a left-handed hitter, I kind of grew up idolizing Barry Bonds as well and what he was able to do. I just know so many great people have played for this organization and there’s a lot of rich history and winning. And that’s something that’s important to me.”

Now, Eldridge is crushing homers on a nightly basis at Triple-A Sacramento, and he’s on the brink of making his MLB debut either in September this year or sometime early in 2026.

In 89 games between three levels this season, Eldridge is slashing .260/.334/.518 with 17 doubles, 23 home runs and 75 RBI. Sixteen of those longballs have come in 53 games with the River Cats.

If Eldridge is on the Giants’ 26-man roster to begin the 2026 season, he won’t have to wait long to play close to home, as San Francisco plays in Baltimore April 10-12 and in Washington, D.C. April 17-19.

That 10-day stretch next April could end up being quite the full-circle moment for Eldridge.

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For both the Dodgers and San Diego Padres, the assignment over the next few weeks figured to be simple:

Take care of business and beat the teams you’re supposed to.

After all, the Dodgers are beginning a stretch of 15 straight games against clubs below .500. The Padres, meanwhile, will play 13 of their next 16 games against opponents with losing records, the lone exception being the 68-67 Cincinnati Reds.

It appeared to be an opportunity for each contender to stack up wins, build late-season momentum and try to wrest away control of a division race that the Dodgers currently lead by two games.

The only problem: They both flunked their first test on Friday.

Beating the bad teams, it turns out, isn’t always as easy as it seems.

In Los Angeles, the Dodgers suffered a lackluster 3-0 loss to the underperforming Arizona Diamondbacks, managing just three hits and getting only one runner in scoring position en route to suffering their seventh shutout this season. The Padres, meanwhile, were knocked around by the tanking Minnesota Twins in a 7-4 defeat earlier in the evening.

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It meant, for one night, the standings remained static.

Instead of catapulting themselves into exceedingly soft portions of their schedules, both teams stumbled to equally disappointing results.

At Chavez Ravine, the Dodgers’ loss snapped their four-game winning streak — halting their recent upswing both on the mound and at the plate.

Starting pitcher Blake Snell gave up three runs in 5⅓ innings and battled through a stark drop in fastball velocity. After entering the night averaging 95.4 mph with his heater, Snell was stuck closer to 93 mph in his first start since the birth of his second child last weekend.

“I had a busy week, man. A lot going on,” Snell said of his velocity drop. “I’m not worried about [it]. I know what’s going on. So it’ll come back. I’m zero worried about it. I mean, I was aware of it. But I’m not gonna push it. It is what it is. It’s what I had today. Just gotta be better.”

Though he struck out eight batters and allowed only four hits, one of them was costly: a two-run home run by Blaze Alexander in the fourth, on a fastball over the plate that clocked in at only 93.4 mph. Snell’s night ended after two more knocks brought in a third run in the sixth, with Corbin Carroll hitting a leadoff double and scoring on Gabriel Moreno’s RBI single.

The bigger problem for the Dodgers (77-58), however, was their offense.

Arizona starter Zac Gallen entered the night in the midst of a dismal contract season, beginning play with a 5.13 earned-run average despite improved form in August. Against the Dodgers, though, he was lights out, yielding only two hits in six scoreless innings with eight strikeouts and three walks.

“We just obviously couldn't figure anything out,” manager Dave Roberts said. “We just really couldn't put anything together all night long."

Indeed, even more troublesome was the Dodgers’ inability to generate much against the Diamondbacks' bullpen — a woebegone unit that has spoiled Arizona’s playoff aspirations by ranking 26th in the majors with a 4.73 ERA.

Andy Pages managed a two-out single in the seventh but was left stranded. After that, the Dodgers’ only other baserunner came on a walk from Teoscar Hernández in the game’s penultimate at-bat.

"This was the first one in a while ... that we've seen sort of a lackluster performance,” Roberts said, his club unable to extend its momentum after a sweep of the Reds. “Obviously you've got to give credit to Gallen, too. But it was one of those nights that I just didn't see the at-bats that we've been seeing the last week."

Of course, things didn’t go much better for the Padres (75-60) on Friday, either.

Before their game in Minnesota, the team announced that shortstop Xander Bogaerts was going on the injured list with a foot fracture, which could keep him out for the rest of the regular season. Then, Nestor Cortes followed up his six shutout innings against the Dodgers last week with a three-inning, three-run clunker that was punctuated with an ejection.

The night served as a missed opportunity for both NL West pace-setters; the Padres squandering a chance to cut the Dodgers’ two-game lead in half, only for the Dodgers to whiff on an opening to grow their lead at the top of the standings.

And in the coming days and weeks, both clubs will have to try to take care of business better. Because with no head-to-head matchups left between the Dodgers and Padres in the regular season, beating bad teams — and avoiding ugly losses like Friday’s — could dictate who ultimately wins the division.

“We've got to play well,” Roberts said. “Whether it's the schedule or a tougher opponent, I don't really think it matters. We got to go out and play good baseball and take good at-bats and just stack wins."

Freeman, Call back in action

Despite the loss, the Dodgers did get good news on the injury front Friday, with both first baseman Freddie Freeman and outfielder Alex Call back in action after missing Wednesday’s game.

Freeman had been battling a neck stinger, but returned to the starting lineup and drew a walk in an otherwise 0-for-3 performance. Call avoided an IL stint after having a flare-up in his back on Tuesday, and came off the bench as a pinch-hitter for a groundout in the seventh.

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This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.

The Mets wouldn't have called up rookie Jonah Tong if they didn't think he could help them win games down the stretch and secure a wild card berth -- if not the division.

But it's one thing to hope for an outcome, and seeing the results first-hand and that's what Tong gave the Mets on Friday night against the Marlins. While he wasn't as great as Nolan McLean was in his MLB debut, Tong showed the team enough when he picked up the win after his five strong innings to warrant another start at the big league level.

In Tong's five innings, he allowed just one earned run without allowing a walk and struck out six batters. He worked in and out of trouble and the atmosphere or moment never seemed to big for the right-hander. And if you ask his new teammates, Tong has already made an impression.

"He was excellent. Glad that he’s here on this team with us," Luis Torrens said through an interpreter. "He’s a tremendous personality, tremendous person. Glad he’s able to share these moments with us moving forward.

"He’s the type of personality that’s easy to manage. He’s one of those guy that’s excited and happy to be here. It was really easy to work with him. His presence, it feels like he’s immediately been integrated with the guys. It’s been a smooth transition."

"Putting out some 23-inch, 97 mph fastballs. That’s impressive," Brandon Nimmo said of Tong's night. "Really happy for him. Got a great, long career ahead of him. Extremely nice kid and happy for him that he got to enjoy that moment. I hope he soaks it in and I know it can go by pretty quickly...It was a blast to watch him pitch."

The Mets will insert Tong into a newly formed six-man rotation for the time being. And while they hope he can build on his debut, if he delivers what he gave them on Friday, the team knows Tong can be a contributor down the stretch and even in the postseason.

"He can help us a ton," Torrens said. "The type of arm that he has, he’s the type of pitcher for the next month of the season and, God willing, beyond in the playoffs, he’s one of those impact arms that can help us a lot." 

Starting pitching has been the Mets' weakness for most of the season, but with the call-ups of McLean and Tong, there's an energy surrounding the team that continues to shine through in every game they pitch. 

After Friday's win, the Mets are now firmly in a playoff spot -- 5.0 games ahead of the Reds -- and still within striking distance of the Phillies for the NL East title (5.0 games). And both young pitchers are expected to play big roles in whatever happens with the 2025 Mets in the final month and beyond.

"You feel [the energy]. I think the whole team was in the dugout for the first pitch. Everybody wanted to see that, wanted to watch that," Carlos Mendoza said. "They are going to feed off each other and when you see what the potential that could be, and they are contributing right away. Yea, obviously exciting. I don't want to put too much pressure on them, but definitely something, especially where we're at in the schedule and the meaning of every game moving forward, to get performance like that, it's pretty impressive and we're going to need them."

The Mets' offense was historic on Friday night, at least in franchise standards.

The 19 runs scored were the most the Mets have ever scored at home in their 64-year history. Six home runs contributed to that mark, with 12 coming in the first two innings alone.

New York chased Marlins young phenom Eury Perez after just two outs in the first inning and never looked back. One way the Mets got to Perez was by being on his fastball.

"He didn’t have his best stuff today, but he’s a really good arm," Mendoza said of Perez after the win. "[Juan] Soto staying on the fastball, and [Brandon Nimmo] the same thing. We knew we had to be ready for the fastball and we did that. It comes down to attacking the fastball and not missing."

Soto and Nimmo provided three of the team's six homers in the win. Nimmo launched two, one off Perez in the first inning, which capped off five straight Mets getting on base to start the game.

"The guys were on his fastball pretty well," Nimmo said after the game. "He has an elite fastball. Guys were able to put it in play and have quality at-bats against him, keep the line moving…he’s a good young arm. The guys did a good job of turning the fastball around."

If you want some more historical facts about the Mets' offensive onslaught on Friday, here are a few:

• Tonight marked the fourth time in franchise history that the Mets scored five or more runs before recording their first out of the game
• The team’s 12 runs through the first two innings of tonight’s game were the most in franchise history, breaking the previous high of 10 set on four separate occasions
• The Mets had 20 plate appearances through the first two innings of the game, a franchise record 
• The team’s seven runs in the second were tied for their most in any inning this season. Their five runs in the first inning were tied for their most in any opening frame this season

"Good at-bats, up and down the lineup," Mendoza said of the performance. "We got to a really good starter today. Hit the ball out of the ballpark, went the other way when we needed to with two strikes. With runners in scoring position, we controlled the strike zone. Offensively, we know what we're capable of. It was good to see Nimm, Pete, Soto, all of those guys putting together some really good at-bats. It's always good when you're talking about records and things like that. It was a good performance."

"It’s a testament to this offense and what we’re capable of," Nimmo said. "We’ve seen it during the Phillies series and over the last 10 days. Guys really coming together and putting good ABs. It shows what this offense is capable of when it’s clicking. We did it against good arms, too. I’m very impressed and proud of this offense and what we’re capable of."

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Helsley has been dealing with a pitch tipping issue, which he believes is the cause of his struggles with the Mets.

The right-hander allowed a leadoff double in his one inning of work. While there were some hard-hit balls and a nifty play by Francisco Lindor and Alonso ended the inning, putting up a zero and getting out of trouble was good for Helsley.

 "The fact that he's making adjustments, he's trying. It was a different hand positions today, threw strikes, got out of the inning. It was good to get him some work. There's only so much you can do dry side, and getting on the mound. But when you're facing batters in real competition, that's what's going to tell you. For him to get that inning was good."