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For the last few weeks, the Nationals offense has been heavily reliant on James Wood and CJ Abrams. However, with Abrams out of the lineup, and Wood not having the best game, it was on the supporting cast to get the job done. Led by Nasim Nunez, the Nats were able to put six runs on the board and win the game in extra innings.

Nasim Nunez does a lot of great things on the baseball field. He is an incredibly smooth defender and is one of the best baserunners in the league when he gets on base. However, he is not known for his bat, and has gotten off to a pretty dreadful start at the plate. Even after this game, he is just hitting .195 with a .505 OPS. 

The great thing about this Nats offense though is that different guys have stepped up when needed. Today was Nunez’s time to shine. He drove in four runs on two ultra-clutch hits, including one in the 10th inning to break the game open. 

There have been times this season where Nunez seemed like he was trying to do too much. After shockingly hitting four home runs last September, Nunez may have fallen in love with his power too much. You could tell during some at bats that he really wanted to lift the ball. Today, he was not trying to do too much, which is when he is at his best. 

Nunez should be trying to get on base whatever way he can. Whether that is bunting or selling out for contact, putting the ball in play should be Nunez’s main focus. He still struck out twice today, but in the biggest moments, Nunez was staying within himself.

This game was not all about Nunez though. The other big hero was Jake Irvin, who had his best start of the season. Coming into this game, Irvin had an ERA of 6.00, but I thought he was pitching a lot better than he was last year. Today, the results matched his improved stuff. He had 16 whiffs, the most he has had in a game since June of 2024.

Seeing those whiffs is a great sign for Irvin. When he was at his best in the first half of 2024, he was getting solid whiff numbers. He was not overpowering, but he had enough in the tank for hitters to respect him. Irvin has actually been a big strikeout guy to start this season, with 34 in 29.2 innings. He was not even striking guys out like that in his big first half a couple years ago.

Today, his curveball was a whiff monster. He got 11 of his 16 whiffs on the hook. You do not see a ton of big slow curve’s like Irvin’s anymore, but they are so nice to watch. Irvin’s command of the curveball was absolutely outstanding today. He was putting it right at the bottom of the zone or putting it slightly out of the zone. It was just too much for hitters not to swing at and he had White Sox batters fishing all afternoon.

Honestly, I think Blake Butera’s hook for Irvin was pretty quick. After a disastrous sequence from Keibert Ruiz turned a strikeout into having a guy on second, Irvin buckled down. He got two more strikeouts, but Butera had seen enough. With a lefty coming up, he went to Mitchell Parker. While Parker got out of the inning, I would have preferred to see Butera stick with his starter.

It was another shaky game for Butera today. He stuck with Mitchell Parker for a bit too long and Cionel Perez almost gave me a heart attack. However, I do like that he went to Brad Lord for a single inning high leverage spot in the 10th inning. Lord is more than a long man, and should be treated as such.

It was a gritty win for the Nats. They drew 10 walks, and consistently had guys on base. The floodgates did not truly open until the 10th inning, but the Nats pressure eventually paid off. It was a nice win, and now they will go for the series win tomorrow.

HOUSTON — Giancarlo Stanton avoided an immediate placement on the injured list after leaving Friday’s game with a tight right calf.

That hardly means he is in the clear.

As of Saturday afternoon, the Yankees were trying to give Stanton more time to see if he could improve enough to steer clear of the 10-day IL, though landing on it still seemed like the most likely scenario just to make sure it did not turn into a longer-term injury.

“I feel better than [Friday],” Stanton said before the Yankees’ 8-3 win over the Astros on Saturday night. “I’m going to try to get to 24 hours or maybe [Sunday] to see where we’re at and then decide what to do.”

Stanton had not yet undergone any tests on his calf, though he could in the coming days. In the meantime, he was spending his day in the training room getting treatment.

“It’s not ideal,” Stanton said. “That doesn’t mean great or terrible.”

Manager Aaron Boone acknowledged that the Yankees could err on the side of caution and put Stanton on the 10-day IL to give him time to recover, even if the calf injury does not rise to the level of a strain.

“And G’s on board with that too, but we also don’t want to race to the IL 12 hours after when hopefully something isn’t too serious,” Boone said. “We’ll be smart about it, G knows that, that we don’t want this to turn into a long-term situation. So we’ll proceed accordingly.”

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As of two hours before first pitch Saturday, the Yankees did not yet have a player on the way from Triple-A Scranton/Wilkes-Barre just in case, though Jasson Domínguez would be the likely candidate to be called up if Stanton ends up on the IL. In that scenario, it may just be a temporary call-up until Anthony Volpe is ready to return from the IL, likely at some point next week.

The 36-year-old Stanton, who is all too familiar with lower-body, soft-tissue injuries, sustained the calf tightness on a trip around the bases in the sixth inning Friday. He said he felt it while jogging from first to second on a walk by Jazz Chisholm Jr.

“It felt weird,” Stanton said. “Then my secondary [leads] at second kept feeling weird.”

While at second base, Stanton motioned to the dugout in an attempt to get attention and exit the game, though it did not happen until he got to third base on J.C. Escarra’s single off the left field wall.

“If I felt weird, let’s [not] wait and sprint and make it feel worse,” Stanton said. “So I just wanted to get out [of] there before any more hard steps to set me back if it was something.”

Boone remained hopeful that Stanton caught it before it turned into something more severe.

“Whether that turns into a day-to-day situation or a short IL, we’ll see,” Boone said. “We’ll let the next several hours play out and see where we’re at.”

Stanton, meanwhile, quickly shut down any talk of him being frustrated about another injury despite doing everything in his power to try to avoid this.

The Yankees had been giving him regular days off in an attempt to keep him healthy – which worked last season after he missed the first two and a half months to deal with tennis elbow in both arms, which he is still managing on a daily basis.

“None of that matters, really,” Stanton said. “It’s just, what’s the deal with me and then decide what’s best for the team.”

A potential IL trip would allow the Yankees to push back a decision on whom they would remove from the roster to make room for Volpe when he finishes his rehab assignment, which could come by the time they return home next Friday.

But the more pressing concern was Stanton’s health.

“I’m sure there’s a part of him that’s ticked off about it,” Boone said. “But there’s also, one of the great things about G is he’s very honest and deals with what’s in front of him. He’s very good at compartmentalizing everything. Regardless, hopefully this is something that’s a short-term thing.”

The Mets have been hit hard by injuries, but not in their rotation.

Consider their starting pitcher options: the four currently in the group; David Peterson, who finds himself in a kind of rotation purgatory; Sean Manaea; Tobias Myers (if stretched out); a just-optioned Christian Scott; and Jonah Tong, whose swing-and-miss stuff has begun to tick up with Triple-A Syracuse.

A team with many issues — including maximizing what is a talented crew of starting pitchers — does not have a depth issue.

Which is one more reason Kodai Senga needs to figure himself out quickly.

The leash cannot be long for Senga, whose turn manager Carlos Mendoza would not guarantee after his last blow-up, although the club decided to give the right-hander another start and a few more days of rest.

That start will come in Game 2 of Sunday’s doubleheader against the Rockies at Citi Field, where Senga will be under as much pressure as can exist April 26.

The Mets, losers of 13 of 15, cannot continue to trust Senga if the duds keep mounting.

A season that began with hope — two solid outings with better velocity than last season — has quickly derailed, with Senga allowing 13 earned runs in 5 ²/₃ innings in his past two starts.

“We’ve seen flashes from Kodai. We haven’t seen the consistency,” president of baseball operations David Stearns said Friday. “We’re banking on the flashes and him continuing to get into the rhythm of the season, but we need some more consistency.”

The flashes have included those nine strikeouts in six two-run innings against the Cardinals in his season debut.

There are times, even within poor games, that he looks like the All-Star and potential ace he was in 2023. And there are reasons — really, there are — to be optimistic that he is still that pitcher.

Senga’s stuff itself continues to trend the right way.

His four-seamer averaged 95.7 mph when he pitched to a sub-3 ERA in ’23 and 94.7 mph last season.

Through four starts this year, he is registering 96.3 mph with the pitch.

He has pitched to an 8.83 ERA with an expected ERA of 3.92.

That 4.91 ocean of a difference ranked as the ninth highest in baseball entering play Saturday, when the Mets were rained out.

In 2023, opposing hitters averaged an 89.0 mph exit velocity against Senga.

This season, the ball has left their bats at 89.4 mph. Despite the numbers and especially the ERA, he is not exactly getting crushed.

More discouraging, though, is Senga’s recent command and seeming inability to pitch through adversity.

In 5 ²/₃ innings of disasters against the A’s and Cubs, Senga walked five.

With plenty of traffic — made worse by poor fielding behind him in Chicago — a pitcher accustomed to simply turning to his forkball and striking his way out of danger has folded.

Opposing hitters are hitting .333 with a 1.176 OPS against him with runners in scoring position.

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Some of that, surely, is due to poor luck.

Some of that, surely, is on Senga.

“I’m not getting ahead, not getting first-pitch strikes, getting to hitter’s counts,” Senga said through an interpreter last week at Wrigley Field. “It’s obviously not a good sign, but at the same time I am not all that far off.”

The Mets, too, believe he can turn a corner — or else Manaea would have been saved for this turn or maybe Myers would have been stretched out or Tong would have been summoned.

There is a lot riding Sunday for the Mets and a pitcher who is making $15 million this season and $15 million next season.

“This is a guy that’s very meticulous about his work and his mechanics and things like that,” Mendoza said, “but he’s just got to go out there and do it.”

The Civil War that’s been bubbling beneath the surface between Alex Cora’s and Craig Breslow’s philosophies on how to run the Boston Red Sox finally came to a head on Saturday evening. The rumbles started with this tweet from Jared Carrabis …

… And were confirmed within the hour across the baseball universe.

Noticeably not on this list is pitching coach Andrew Bailey, who aligns with the Breslow / Sabermetrics side of the coin.

The timing of this seismic shakeup is very much worth noting. It comes just hours after the club’s most complete win of the year — A 17-1 beatdown over Baltimore — and has shades of the Rafael Devers trade, which occurred right after a sweep of the Yankees last June.

Zooming out a little more, the horrific 10-17 start the Red Sox got off to also feels like the perfect opportunity for those in the front office to clean house of the guys who didn’t see eye to eye with them. Despite all the struggles, the strong starting pitching is still very much in tact, and eventually that’s going to start to matter. So this could be a very tactical move from the front office to time Cora’s departure with what they see as the nadir of the early season. If so, it will be viewed as both brilliant and diabolical, depending on which side of the war you find yourself.

In the meantime, the Red Sox still have another game to play tomorrow in Baltimore, and taking the helm will Chad Tracy, who is getting promoted from his post in Worcester to interim manager. This makes sense as the roster is both filled with young guys who are very familiar with Tracy (Roman Anthony, Marcelo Mayer, Connelly Early, Payton Tolle, ect), and Tracy also seems very dialed into the in game details. Just today in Worcester he caught the Mets batting out of order:

We’ll have much more on this and everything else that comes with it here at Over The Monster in the coming hours and days.

The next big item appears to be a press conference scheduled for tomorrow morning that will include both Sam Kennedy and Craig Breslow. (Have your spiked coffee ready!)

Long-term, only time will tell if today marks the turning point in a fun, memorable season, or the beginning of a total circus act.

With the 2026 NFL Draft coming to a close we head into the undrafted free agency period.

For the Arizona Cardinals there are not a lot of spots where they can add players, as even General Manager Monti Ossenfort said they have space for 6-8 signings.

Yet, the undrafted free agency for the Cardinals has delivered some nice talent throughout the years and hopefully 2026 will be no different.

We will update the names as they come along with hopefully a solid source and keep everyone up to date on what the Arizona Cardinals are doing, and as always, we will do a deep dive into every undrafted free agent after they have officially signed with the team.

Tre Wallace, WR, Ole Miss per Jordan Schultz

Elijah Culp, CB, James Madison per Jordan Schultz

Cameron Robertson, Edge, SMU per Aaron Wilson

Ka’ena Decambra, IOL, Arizona per Arye Pulli

Wydett Williams, S, Ole Miss per Bo Brack

It’s hard for me to get overly upset about Alex Cora’s sudden ouster this afternoon. This is a man who returned to the team after a one-year suspension for cheating, after all, which is a very weird thing to have happened. We were always on borrowed time, and for a good amount of that time, Cora wielded considerable power in the organization. This made him very important.

He is not important anymore. He’ s gone, along with Jason Varitek and several others. It’s a full reset at the top for a team resting at the bottom. You get the feeling that the organization had several contingencies for how this season could play out, and chose the “obviously sucks ass in April” option of a total reset rather than let it get any further. I can’t say I care too much either way or expect it to meaningfully affect the team’s performance. They do in fact stink.

From a 30K-foot-view, or just one in the mirror, the Red Sox need to move on from the 2018 team’s ethos forever, and getting rid of Cora is the last link in that now-diminished chain. He was only thing tying the franchise to their golden era and made us look bad just by showing up. Now that Red Sox aren’t trying to win a World Series for sure, it’s an honest question whether Cora is the right guy for that assignment, or if he even wanted tio be. Neither of the answers truly matter, but I can’t imagine he’s too broken up about it.

Point-blank, it was time for everyone to move on. And to be clear… that sucks. As the last guy standing who physically represented the singularly great 2018 title, Cora’s continued presence served as a bridge to the decreasingly recent past when the team aimed high and hit their goal, and then some, not just as the best in the league but as one of the best teams ever. John Henry tore it apart after that. This was just cutting the last string to that era. The Red Sox are dead; long live the Red Sox. Just don’t get your hopes up.

Alex Cora, who never traded Mookie Betts, did not lowball Alex Bregman and won a World Series championship as Boston Red Sox manager, was fired by the team on Saturday, April 25, the club announced.

Chad Tracy, the manager at Class AAA Worcester, will serve as interim manager.

Cora, 50, was 620-541 in eight seasons as Red Sox manager, sitting out one season in 2020 due to his role as bench coach during the Houston Astros' sign-stealing scandal. He led the club to 108 victories and then the World Series title in his first season in 2018, and in 2024, his contract was extended through 2027.

Yet even after Saturday's 17-1 victory at Baltimore, the Red Sox are off to a 10-17 start, although most of their woes can be tied to an anemic offense that lost Bregman to free agency, traded slugger Rafael Devers one year ago and is trying to make do with rookies like second baseman Marcelo Mayer and 5-foot-6 third baseman Caleb Durbin.

SAN FRANCISCO — With one swing, Casey Schmitt got the ultimate redemption.

After making outs on the bases in each of the Giants’ past two games, including one early Saturday that cost them a run, Schmitt quickly made the 38,589 inside Oracle Park forget all about it.

Schmitt’s baserunning error looked pivotal when he came to the plate with the score tied at 1 in the sixth inning against the Marlins. It became irrelevant as soon as the rocket off his bat landed in the left field stands for a tiebreaking two-run home run that proved to be the difference in a 6-2 win.

“It led to the strategy of hit a home run,” manager Tony Vitello joked of the pair of outs Schmitt made at second base. “That way they can’t back-pick you at second base.”

Robbie Ray labored through five innings, pitching around three walks and traffic on the bases in all but one of his frames, but did enough to earn the decision despite his pitch count sitting at 74 after three.

“At times it looked like he went off to war and came back,” Vitello said. “But then you look up at the scoreboard and he got five innings done for us and kind of set the tone for the game.”

What it means

The start was Ray’s sixth of the season and the fifth time he’s taken the ball following a loss. Ray helped stop a losing streak for the third time, improving his record in those starts to 3-2 with a 2.30 ERA.

The win was the Giants‘ first over the Marlins (13-14) at Oracle Park since August 2024, snapping a six-game home losing streak that was tied for the eighth longest against an opponent since the ballpark opened in 2000.

Who’s hot

Schmitt has been one of the Giants’ best hitters early this season despite starting the year as a bench bat. He had been in a bit of a rut, going 4-for-21 entering the game, but his third home run of the season raised his OPS to .854, the best mark of any of San Francisco’s regulars.

Second on the leaderboard is Jung Hoo Lee, who reached base three more times — including a pair of doubles — to raise his OPS to .773. Lee slugged a solo homer in his last at-bat the previous night and is batting .404 (21-for-52) with seven extra-base hits dating back to the start of their last road trip.

Drew Gilbert and Heliot Ramos each added solo home runs as the bottom half of the lineup contributed the bulk of the Giants’ offense. Through the first two games of this series, the Giants’ 5-9 hitters have combined for 15 hits and eight RBIs (.429 BA) opposed to seven hits and two RBIs from the top four of their order (.200 BA).

The Giants’ three home runs matched a season high for a team tied for the fewest in the majors (18).

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Who’s not

Despite his contributions at the plate, Schmitt made two costly — and strikingly similar — mistakes on the bases the past two games.

Lee’s first double in the second inning should have put the Giants (12-15) ahead 1-0, but Schmitt had been erased at second base after initially hustling in safely on a bloop hit down the left field line.

Schmitt made the turn at second and lost his footing. He attempted to scramble back to the bag, but he couldn’t make it back before the throw from Kyle Stowers.

Schmitt pounded the ground in frustration. For good reason: The play almost exactly replicated the way he made an out the previous night, overrunning second base on an infield chopper from Lee.

Vitello believes it wasn’t a coincidence that Schmitt’s big moment followed a couple slip-ups.

“He wants to win, and so when an obstacle comes up, the one thing he does is he gets a little more determined,” Vitello said. “Maybe it was, but in my mind it wasn’t a coincidence that maybe he was a little more determined to get the job done there.”

Up next

The Giants will go for their third consecutive series win in the rubber match Sunday. They will have RHP Landen Roupp (4-1, 2.28 ERA) on the mound against RHP Max Meyer (1-0, 3.96) in the series finale.

Zack Wheeler's encouraging return helps Phillies halt slide, by the numbers originally appeared on NBC Sports Philadelphia

ATLANTA — It was exactly what the Phillies had hoped for. Zack Wheeler is back, healthy and already helping in the win column.

The Phillies needed the lift badly. The history books in South Philadelphia had been getting too much use lately, and for all the wrong reasons.

Their ace helped stop that Saturday night, turning in a strong five-inning, two-run, six-strikeout outing against his hometown Braves in the Phillies’ 8-4 win over Atlanta, their first victory since April 13.

A major question surrounding Wheeler’s recovery from thoracic outlet decompression surgery was whether his velocity would take a steep enough hit to affect the level of dominance that led to two runner-up finishes in National League Cy Young Award voting since he signed with the Phillies before the 2020 season.

At Truist Park in his season debut, it was hard to see much reason for concern.

“That’s why you kind of take rehab games with a grain of salt,” Wheeler said. “Once you get up here, it’s a different game. Adrenaline’s going, things matter, and we lost 10 games in a row.”

That mattered to him.

“If we’ve lost 10 games in a row and I’m the next guy up, obviously I want to stop it,” Wheeler said. “That’s always kind of been my thing over the years. If we are in a little slump, I want to be the stopper.”

From the start, he looked the part.

Wheeler opened by striking out Ronald Acuña Jr. and Drake Baldwin. He got Acuña swinging with a 96.5 mph fastball up and away, then got Baldwin to chase a sharp curve after getting ahead with a 95 mph heater.

Wheeler threw eight pitches above 95 mph in the first inning and only three the rest of the night. It looked like understandable adrenaline from a pitcher throwing his first big league pitch since Aug. 15 of last year. Either way, it was a good reminder that the velocity is still in there.

Wheeler noticed it, too. Asked what he thought when he saw 96 mph, he grinned.

“Cool,” Wheeler said.

Thomson was not surprised the fastball ticked up when the lights came on.

“I’ve been telling you guys all along, I can’t guarantee it, but I would think that the adrenaline will kick in once he gets into one of these games,” the manager said. “I think the adrenaline did kick in, and he rose to the occasion.”

And it was not just the radar gun that stood out.

WHEELS AHEAD

What should keep Wheeler effective on the back end of his career — whether the top-end velocity fully returns or not — is his command, both with the four-seam fastball and with the rest of his mix.

He used all of it to get ahead Saturday. Wheeler posted a 70 percent first-pitch strike rate. For context, he finished at 61.1 percent last year.

The tone-setter early was the four-seamer. He opened 11 counts with it and landed nine for strikes. That lets him open up the full six-pitch mix once he gets ahead.

And that is what allows Wheeler to dictate at-bats instead of reacting to them.

That was one of the things he liked most about the outing.

“Just executing,” Wheeler said. “I thought I hit my spots pretty much all game.”

SWEEPER SWEEPIN’ & THE CHASE

The pitch is already becoming another Phillies calling card under pitching coach Caleb Cotham.

Of Wheeler’s non-fastballs Saturday — including the sinker and cutter — the sweeper was the one he threw most, at 14 percent.

It had noticeably more bite, and the numbers backed that up. The pitch spun at 2,791 rpm, a jump of 122 rpm from last season. Against right-handed hitters, it also showed a 7-inch increase in drop compared to his 2025 average, according to Statcast.

Since Wheeler introduced the pitch in 2023, he has thrown it at least 12 percent of the time every season, and opponents have never hit better than .200 against it.

It was not a pitch he landed consistently in the zone Saturday — its strike rate was just 42 percent — but that almost made it more interesting. If it keeps that kind of action and becomes more tempting for hitters to chase, it could be even sharper as his starts build up.

Wheeler said the pitch had quietly been one of his better ones throughout the buildup.

“It’s probably been one of my best pitches so far in all the games I’ve been throwing,” Wheeler said. “Spin getting back into things is always kind of the last thing to come.”

The Phillies’ right-hander generated a ton of swings outside the zone. All six of his pitches finished with at least a 20 percent chase rate. His overall chase rate sat at 44 percent.

Wheeler’s highest chase rate over a full season came in 2024, when he finished in the 95th percentile at 33.8 percent. Against an Atlanta lineup that featured five hitters with an OPS north of .850 — not including Acuña — that was a strong sign.

OUTSIDE THE NUMBERS

Wheeler also admitted the night carried more anxiety than he let on beforehand.

“You think about this moment,” Wheeler said. “I just wanted to get it over with, just keep moving on. The anxiety of it, part of it. I’m glad it’s done.”

The hard part was not just the rehab. It was not knowing how his body would respond once he got back into a major league game.

“It’s just the unknown, right?” Wheeler said. “You hear a lot of bad stories when stuff happens. You don’t hear a lot of good.”

And after all the uncertainty, Wheeler made sure to acknowledge the people who helped get him back.

“I’ve got to thank everybody, honestly,” Wheeler said. “Everybody from my wife to my kids, keeping me happy and my head straight. And Paul [Buchheit], we worked together all offseason. It means a lot to me.”

THE BALL BOUNCED THE PHILLIES’ WAY

After the hour-long rain delay, the Phillies’ offense got off to a quick start, and Atlanta’s defense helped.

In the first inning, Adolis García lined a sinker in front of Mike Yastrzemski in left. Yastrzemski dove, the ball got past him, and García wound up at third with a run-scoring triple.

Then, in the eighth, with the Phillies trailing 4-3, Kyle Schwarber lifted a ball to center. Braves center fielder Eli White stumbled, the ball got away, and Schwarber cruised into third with another triple. On the next pitch, Bryce Harper tied the game with a sacrifice fly.

The Phillies entered the night with the second-lowest batting average on balls in play in baseball at .257. If that holds, it would be their lowest BABIP in 86 years, since the 1940 Phillies posted a .254 mark. For one night, at least, a little good fortune showed up.

The game was pushed to extras, and the Phillies turned that opening into their best inning in nearly two weeks.

Trea Turner worked a walk. Schwarber worked another. Harper punched a two-run single through the left side to give the Phillies a 6-4 lead. Brandon Marsh followed with a two-run hit of his own to make it 8-4.

For a team that had been waiting on the big swing too often, the 10th inning was built differently. It was walks, contact and the type of line-moving at-bats Thomson has been looking for.

“That’s what we’re looking for,” Thomson said. “Those type of at-bats where you’re trusting the guy behind you and moving the line. Eventually, you’re going to pop a ball and create a crooked inning.”

Harper’s go-ahead swing was not complicated. That was enough.

“I want to win,” Harper said. “To get in that box in that situation and come through for the team, it’s a good one.”

Coming into the night, the Phillies were batting .100 with runners in scoring position since April 14. They were 3-for-11 in the victory. A step in the right direction.

“That’s what makes a great baseball team,” Harper said. “Everybody trying to do their job.”

At the end of the day, the 10-game losing streak is over. Wheeler is back. The Phillies finally got to shake hands again.

“Obviously, man,” Harper said with a laugh when asked what it felt like to be in the handshake line again. “We haven’t won a freaking game.”

On Saturday night, finally, they did.

The Red Sox are shaking things up in a massive way.

The team fired manager Alex Cora and four members of his coaching staff on Saturday, Boston announced..

Hitting coach Peter Fatse, bench coach Ramon Vazquez, third-base coach Kyle Hudson and assistant hitting coach Dillon Lawson were all let go.

Game-planning coach Jason Varitek — a two-time World Series-winning Red Sox legend — is being reassigned to another role within the organization, according to multiple reports.

Triple-A skipper Chad Tracy will take over the big league manager job on an interim basis.

Though the Red Sox won 17-1 over the rival Orioles on Saturday, they have massively underperformed expectations with a 10-17 start.

Boston, which made the playoffs as a wild-card entrant last year, sits in last place in the American League East on Saturday night.

“Alex Cora led this organization to one of the greatest seasons in Red Sox history in 2018, and for that, and the many years that followed, he will always have our deepest gratitude,” Red Sox owner John Henry said in a statement. “He has had a lasting impact on this team and on this city. He has led on and off the field in so many important ways. These decisions are never easy, but this one is especially difficult given what Alex has meant to the Red Sox since the day he arrived.

“I want to thank Alex, our coaches, and their families for everything they have given to this organization. They have been part of this club in a way that goes beyond the field, and they will always have our respect and gratitude.”

The offense has been one of the worst in the game, with the team’s OPS (.667) ranking in MLB 26th. The Red Sox have hit 18 home runs as a team, tied with the Giants for the lowest total in baseball.

The team’s young core has largely flopped, as Roman Anthony (.686), Marcelo Mayer (.661) and Jarren Duran (.549) all hold sub-.700 OPS marks. Veteran shortstop Trevor Story has an abysmal .198/.235/297 slash line as well.

The pitching, though, hasn’t been much better; Boston’s 4.44 ERA ranks 21st. Garrett Crochet, last year’s AL Cy Young runner-up as been far from ace-like with a 6.30 ERA and 1.47 WHIP through six starts. One of the team’s big prizes in free agency, left-hander Ranger Suarez (4.00 ERA, 1.15 WHIP), has, so far, mostly not lived up to his five-year, $130 million deal.

The firing ends Cora’s eight-season Red Sox run that started with an impressive high in 2018 with a franchise-record 108 wins and a World Series crown.

But two years later, Cora agreed to leave his managerial post after his alleged role in the Astros’ 2017 sign-stealing scandal while he was their bench coach.

The Red Sox, however, re-hired Cora in 2021 before the team made a run all the way to the ALCS. Boston would make the playoffs just one more time in his tenure, losing to the Yankees in the wild-card round last year.

He finishes with a 619-541 record.

I have no idea whether this was a good game or not. It was a game in which Bryan Woo gave up four home runs for just the second time in his career; it was a game in which Dominic Canzone and Connor Joe both had pinch-hitting game-tying RBI hits. It was a game in which Cooper Criswell struck out three; it was a game in which Cooper Criswell surrendered a go-ahead home run to a guy who’d only hit 27 home runs over 1,685 professional PAs. It was a game in which Josh Naylor stole two bases; it was a game in which Jordan Walker was caught stealing and grounded into a double play. Truly the best of times and the worst of times.

We begin at the beginning, with Julio hitting a two-run home run in the top of the first, going all the way to the upper deck. Personally, I think this was the most majestic Julio home run since the final game in Kansas City in 2023. Any others come to mind?

That 2-0 start to the game felt pretty good knowing that Bryan Woo was taking the mound, but the good feelings were short-lived as Woo opened his outing with back-to-back home runs, his first and second dingers of the year. But those bad vibes were quickly eradicated by Mitch Garver picking up an infield hit and scoring on Will Wilson’s first big-league home run, coming in his first at-bat as a Mariner. And back and forth it went the entire game.

Was Woo bad or do we just shake it off? Let’s be real here, four home runs is a lot. And he was genuinely missing middle-middle pretty regularly—this wasn’t some Chicago wind storm or something. But on the other hand, you can’t get too worked up about an off day from a guy who’s had so much consistency that he literally holds the franchise record for most consecutive 6 inning games to open a season. All I know for sure is that, for today, pulling him after three innings was the correct move.

For the offense, I don’t know that I’d make that much of it, considering how exhausted the Cardinals pitchers looked. Starter Matthew Liberatore didn’t make it through four innings either, and the red birds ultimately had to use seven relievers today, three of whom were working for the second day in a row, and their best reliever had to toss 39 pitches.

Overall, the 33 combined hits this afternoon ties the MLB record for a nine-inning game, tying a 1932 contest between Cleveland and the Philadelphia Athletics. This was by definition an outlier.

Still, while the rational part of your brain chalks this up to an oddball out of 162, the id can’t help but be excited by seeing all those balls find grass or bleacher seats. The Mariners’ 19 hits helped raise their team wRC+ from 16th in MLB before the game to 9th afterwards. 

Two of the biggest contributors helped re-spark the offense right as the game felt like it was settling down in the seventh inning with the score 9-7. The typically light-hitting Mitch Garver, who’d already supplemented his infield hit with a should-have-been home run that was robbed, ended up getting his second hit of the day by clanking one off the third baseman’s glove. Cole Young, who’s not supposed to hit lefties but had taken one deep earlier in the game and just missed another big fly (instead settling for a double off the wall in the deepest part of the park) got his third hit of the day with a laser up the middle.

The online Mariners fandom then lost their minds at a sequence in which Leo Rivas bunted and then Dan Wilson brought in his fourth sub of the game, asking Connor Joe to pinch hit for Luke Raley. The Cardinals predictably countered by bringing in a righty of their own. Aaron Goldsmith barely concealed the skepticism in his tone when he took us to break with, “The Mariners would apparently prefer Connor Joe against Riley O’Brien to Luke Raley against JoJo Romero.”

I tend to think the peanut gallery is overblowing their hatred of Dan’s pinch-hit decisions (and also putting way too much blame on the manager when the strategy comes from a consensus among the whole Baseball Ops team). And yet, this particular call is hard to defend—bringing in a worse hitter to face a better pitcher is almost never the high-percentage move. But today’s game being what it was, of course it worked out anyway as Joe hit a 108-mph single the other way, tying the game at 9-9.

For as rough a day as Bryan Woo and the entire Cardinals pitching staff had, the Mariners’ bullpen actually held things together pretty well. The relief corps covered six innings with just 91 pitches and only needing four guys to do it. Aside from the home run off Criswell, they barely allowed a scratch. So the 9-9 tie held to go into the ninth.

This is where things got weird again.

J.P. Crawford caught the defense sleeping by squaring to bunt with the bases empty for just the ninth time in his career. Garver walked to reach for the third time. Between reaching three times, having a home run robbed, and catching Jordan Walker stealing, Garver gets his first-ever Sun Hat Award. Cole Young fought a nine-pitch battle only to take one off the foot, loading the bases for . . . Leo Rivas.

As predicted (by some), Little Leo has suffered from over-exposed-itis this season, coming into the game with a .224 wOBA that felt even worse than that. But he’s got a knack against these Cardinals, having walked them off in the 13th last September to complete a sweep and inspiring what’s probably the best call of Goldy’s career. Facing a guy who throws 100 and has been one of the best relievers of the year, Rivas did it again, hitting a line drive into center field to take the lead at 11-9. So look, it didn’t make a lot of sense and I don’t know if the game was good or bad, but it sure ended good.