Worldwide Sports News

Shohei Ohtani’s slump is over.

His statement game in San Diego this week made sure of that.

On the latest episode of the Dodgers Post podcast, that’s what California Post baseball writers Dylan Hernandez and Jack Harris discuss.

They break down Ohtani’s ever-evolving usage, how he seems to feel about it, and why Wednesday’s game –– in which he hit a leadoff home run and pitched five scoreless innings –– was so important at this stage of the season.

Later, the two also break down Andy Pages’ epic battle against Padres closer Mason Miller on Tuesday night, and why it felt like such a seminal early-season moment in this Dodgers’ campaign.

They also review the Dodgers’ overall play during their series win over the Padres, which put the club back in first place in the standings.

And as always, they finish with predictions for this upcoming week, as the Dodgers head to Milwaukee for a three-game series against the Brewers.

All that and more on this latest edition of Dodgers Post.

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José Caballero is healthy again, and as Aaron Boone indicated when he first went down with a fractured right middle finger, Caballero remained the starting shortstop Friday against the Rays in The Bronx — with Anthony Volpe still on the roster, but not in the lineup.

How the Yankees plan to utilize Volpe remains to be seen, since he didn’t play any position besides shortstop in his minor league rehab assignment nor after he was optioned to Triple-A Scranton/Wilkes-Barre before he got the call to the majors to replace the injured Caballero.

Volpe had some encouraging games at the plate and defensively — as well as on the bases — but he entered Friday hitless in his last eight plate appearances with three strikeouts and botched a double play ball at short in Thursday’s loss to Toronto.

Caballero had impressed through his first 40 games with all aspects of his play.

The Yankees expected him to be a pest on the bases and to hold his own on offense and at short before Volpe returned from offseason surgery on his left shoulder and reclaimed the starting shortstop job — with Caballero reverting back to the super-utility role he was acquired last year from Tampa Bay to play — but Caballero instead provided above average defense and was a spark in the lineup on an everyday basis.

All that led Boone to say, when Caballero went on the IL, that he would likely get his job back upon his return to health.

“He’s played as well as anyone out there,’’ Boone said at the time. “That would be my expectation.”

In a matchup of the top two offenses so far in MLB this season, the Atlanta Braves will be taking on the Washington Nationals. The Nationals have continued their strong offensive showing leading MLB in runs and doubles while being fourth in OPS.

The Braves are right behind them scoring the second most runs while being second in OPS trailing the Dodgers by .002. The Braves are also second in HRs, first in hits, and first in slugging percentage.

What will be interesting in the game today is the Braves have Elder pitching, who has a 2.01 ERA but the Nationals were originally supposed to have Miles Mikolas pitching with a terrible 6.91 ERA. Mikolas has the fourth worst ERA of any pitcher with at least 40.0 innings pitched, while Elder is in the top ten best. However there was a change and Richard Lovelady will be getting the start with his much better 3.61 ERA in 20.2 IP.

It is a bit unfortunate for the Braves that the pitching change happened because Michael Harris has been great in his eleven at-bats against Mikolas with a .455 average and 1.000 OPS. Matt Olson has two HRs and a 1.067 OPS in fifteen at-bats, and Austin Riley has a .278 average and .816 OPS in eighteen at-bats. It is a much different story with Lovelady because no one has faced him in more than two at-bats.

Before the lineup was dropped, the biggest question was whether Ronald Acuña would be in the lineup. He apparently had a bone bruise yesterday, but wanted to start tonight.

With who the Braves are facing tonight, and Acuña’s history of struggling against Mikolas, it would not be a shock if the Braves decided to rest him for a game.

Turns out Ronald Acuña was good enough to start and will lead off and play RF.

As for the Nationals and their hot offense, their best players will be in the lineup for them tonight with James Wood leading off and C.J. Abrams hitting cleanup.

Garcia has had fourteen at-bats against Elder and has been successful with a .357 average and .971 OPS. Abrams leads the team with sixteen at-bats and has a .912 OPS against Elder.

First pitch is at 7:15 EDT.

Good afternoon everyone, it’s time to dive back into the mailbag and answer some of your questions. Remember to send in your questions for our weekly call by e-mail to pinstripealleyblog [at] gmail [dot] com.

OLDY MOLDY asks:When was the last time a Yankees team carried one or more regular players batting under .200 into the All-Star break?

You don’t actually have to go too far back, as I believe Joey Gallo in the 2022 season would be the last time the Yankees had a regular starter below the Mendoza line at the All-Star break, though they had many close calls in the years since. Just last year the team had both Austin Wells and Anthony Volpe in danger of the feat batting in the .210s, and they also had the black hole situation at third base where a rotation of guys were hitting rather poorly there — Oswald Peraza was hitting below .200, but he was a sharing the starting job with the corpse of DJ LeMahieu who managed to pull a decent .266 mark off.

That kind of illustrates the flaw in worrying too much about batting average though — we all know LeMahieu was a net negative for the Yankees in 2025, but by batting average he was tied for fifth-best on the team with a guy in José Caballero who didn’t join the roster until LeMahieu had already been released. It’s far from a great indicator of offensive production, but even with the hindsight of the analytical revolution it is jarring to see three Yankee starters under the mark. Two of those starters, Wells and Ryan McMahon, have been various shades of awful at the plate so it’s not like they couldn’t do with some more hits landing, but Trent Grisham at least looks a little more respectable with his total body of work, not to mention the luck he’s had drilling pitches right at defenders.

The Yankee offense needs to find some more consistency, there’s no question about that. It starts with the bottom of the lineup graduating from being automatic outs, but unfortunately there’s been little indication that things will change anytime soon. With the backup options also mightily struggling though, they’ll need to soldier on for a bit and prove that the team doesn’t need to consider making some drastic moves as we get closer to the trade deadline and the rumor mill starts to churn.

ReadingYankee asks:The Yankees bats are the one area we seem to be underperforming. When fully healthy, and I realize that is a foolish thing to suggest would ever happen, how should the best Yankee line up produce when compared to some of the best teams in baseball right now?

The thing is that they’re damn near close to healthy offensively. Giancarlo Stanton has been out for a while, yes, but that’s a fact that most assumed would happen at some point in the season, and Caballero has missed a couple of weeks and will be gladly welcomed back to provide a bit of a spark in the middle/lower half of the lineup, but otherwise? What you’ve seen is what you can expect with this offense, which overall isn’t a bad thing — they’re third in hitter fWAR and wRC+, with a negligible difference between them and second place in the former category.

The thing is that they’re carried entirely by their top three hitters in Ben Rice, Aaron Judge, and Cody Bellinger, with the only other effective batters throughout the season being Caballero and their platoon hitters in Paul Goldschmidt and Amed Rosario. That leads to a lot of volatility if one or two of the big three aren’t clicking, and they’ve had that problem with Judge in the middle of a slump for the last couple of weeks. Adding back some floor raisers will do wonders for avoiding a result like the Yankees’ most recent road trip, but as you noted it’s foolish to assume that they’ll get Stanton and Cabby back and just deal with no other issues health-wise the rest of the way. Jazz Chisholm Jr. has gotten hot since stepping (literally) into Stanton’s pants, and if the Yankee second baseman can transition this into playing like his old self through the summer then that’ll be do a lot to revamp their feast or famine outlook and keep them among the premium offenses in the league.

The Ghost of Pop Logan asks:I can recall multiple instances where the Yankees pitching lab (the Gas Factory) has been credited with adding velocity to young arms acquired in the draft. Are there any examples of adding velocity to established pitchers acquired via trade or free agency?

Part of what made the Yankees’ initial success with their bullpen diamond in the rough finds was their ability to do this, and both Clay Holmes and Luke Weaver’s time in pinstripes showcased a tick up in velo to prove just that. The current roster doesn’t any cases like that, but that speaks more to the struggles of this current bullpen and the elite status of their rotation being a product of signing already-great starters and supplementing them with their own developed prospects.

Over the past two weeks the Jays are 7-6. The offense has scored 2.0 runs per game. No sorry, 4.2 runs per game.

Hot

Brandon Valenzuela: Played in 11 games, starting 9. Hit .300/.382/.433 with 1 double, 1 home run, 4 RBI, 4 walks, and 5 strikeouts.

Why is this guy bunting? He’s been terrific over the last two weeks. There is a downside, teams are running wild on his, 14 steals, 3 times caught, though a 17.6% caught stealing rate isn’t all that bad. The Yankees stole 5 bases against him Monday, but only 1 more in the other two games when he was behind the plate. Whoever decided we should pick him up (for Will Wagner, who is hitting .212 in AAA this year) deserves a raise. He’s taken the number 1 catcher spot in Kirk’s absence and I can’t imagine they wouldn’t keep him on the team when Kirk is back.

Ernie Clement: Played in all 13 games, starting 11. Hit .349/.370/.558 with 3 doubles, 2 home runs, 7 RBI, 2 walks and 6 strikeouts.

Started 7 games at second, 3 at short, 1 at third. I hate that he swings at pitches head level, almost ground level, and well off the plate, but that’s who he is and he’s making a nice career out of it. Unfortunately, he’s not a free agent until 2029, when he’s 33, so he’s likely to miss out on the big money. But then the $4.6 million his is making this year isn’t all that bad. He leads the league in doubles.

Daulton Varsho: Started all 13 games. Hit .360/.407/.540, with 4 doubles, 1 triple, a homer run, 7 RBI, with 2 steals, 4 walks and 13 strikeouts.

He’s been terrific. He’s even hitting lefties well this year. He is a streak hitter, but his strikeout rate has dropped from 28.4% last year to 19.3% this year. His defense hasn’t been quite the same as in the past, he has a 1 above average this season. Last year he finished with a +8. I don’t know why. maybe he’s been nursing something (that isn’t showing up in his batting). Or maybe he’s just not getting the jump he used to. There has been times when he’s made the wrong first step. Hmmm looking at his Baseball Savant page, his spring speed has dropped. Last year he was 77th percentile. this year 51th percentile. going from 28.4 feet per second to 27.3 Maybe he is cursing something.

Jesús Sánchez: Played in 12 games, 9 starts. Hit .429/.438/.500 with 2 doubles, 1 homer, 2 walks and 6 strikeouts.

He’s not providing the power we expected. But hitting over .400 over the last two weeks suggests he’s been hot. I am slightly worried his little injury is more than just getting the wind knocked out of him. Defensively….he’s a bit awkward out there. Fangraphs says he’s a -2 Outs Above Average in the outfield which scans with the eye test.

Cold

Vladimir Guerrero: Started 13 of 13. Hit .178/.298/.244 with 1 home run, 6 RBI, 8 walks, and 4 strikeouts. And 2 steals.

2 starts were as DH. Yeah he’s slumping. I thought he’s with more strikeouts than walks over this two weeks, because he seems to be swinging at a lot of stuff off the plate, which is unusual. He hasn’t taken his bat troubles onto the field (well, other than going most of the way to second base for that one play). I don’t know what’s going on with him, but I hope it ends soon. We really need him to get hitting. His career high for stolen bases is 8, he has 4 now (and hasn’t been caught, he’s picking his moments well).

Andrés Giménez: Played in all 13 games, starting 10. Hit .158/.233/.342 with 2 home runs, 1 double, with 10 RBI, 1 steal, 2 walk and 10 strikeouts.

He had that two home runs game and that incredible at bat the other day (11 pitch walk). And yet, he hit .158 over the past two weeks. And he’s hitting .361/.390/.583 with RISP, .181/.200/.289 with no one on base. It is weird. Last year he was some better with RISP (.661 OPS RISP, .569 with none on). Career he has a .779 OPS with RISP and a .696 in all situations. I’m dubious of these things being skills. The Jays, this year, as a whole, have a .742 OPS with RISP and .676 in total (surprise I bet, I thought they never hit with RISP). It is normal to hit better with RISP, because…well, the pitcher’s obviously not doing well. He’s not pitching a no-hitter, he’s got guys on base. But, this year, Andrés is doing much much better with RISP. Why I don’t think it is a real skill is, if you could hit like a Hall of Famer, why not do it all the time? He’d be a very rich man.

Kazuma Okamoto: Started 12 of the 13 games. Hit .133/.216/.178 with 2 doubles, 4 RBI, 5 walk, and 18 strikeouts.

His little hot streak ended. I said, jokingly, that he should move up in the box a bit. I really don’t think moving a few inches in the box really changes anything, but I think getting out of your head is likely a good thing. I was reading a book about tennis and it said not to judge your game as you are playing. It suggests you have two parts to your brain, one that says ‘that was a bad shot’ and the other hears that and says ‘that’s because you are a bad player’. Once you tell yourself you are bad, you’d play bad. The Pro who’s giving me occasional lessons says ‘remember the good shots, forget about the bad’. But if I do that there are two hours out of the day that are missing….I remember going to play tennis and I remember driving home, nothing in between. But, it is important not to carry bad shots (or bad at bats) with you. He knows me know and tells me I have 15 seconds to curse myself over a bad shot, then I have to let it good. On good days, I can do that. I think moving to a different spot in the box, or say at the back of the court, can give you something that will chase the bad thoughts away. I don’t know if that’s Kazuma’s problem, but I do believe that moving in the batter’s box does less for you physically than it would do mentally.

Davis Schneider: Played 8 games, starting 6. Hit .125/.263/.123 with no extra base hits, 1 RBI, 3 walks, 9 strikeouts and 1 steal.

Speaking of cold and needs to get out of his own head. Last year, near the end of the season, the commentators talked about how Schneider would decide that today he would copy the stance of some player when he was in the batter’s box. I really admit, I thought it was silly, you should be you. But it is something that would get you out of your head. Chase any negative thought away and get you playing on instinct. It seems to me that Davis could use that. He’s a likable guy….but he’s gotta hit and we don’t seem to be getting closer to where he will hit.

George Springer: Started 11 games. Hit .217/.265/.370 with 1 doubles, 2 homers, 3 RBI, 3 walks and 11 strikeouts, with 1 steals.

Played 3 games in left, 1 in right, the rest at DH. He’s been incredible. I would have bet that he was finished after last season. Happy to be wrong. He’s got 27 home runs on the season. He’s only DHed this season and it hasn’t gone well. These last two weeks have been a little better than what he has been doing, but not much.

Myles Straw: Played in 12 games, 5 starts. Hit .091/.167/.091 with no extra base hits, 2 walks and 7 strikeouts..

He’s had 2 hits in the base 2 weeks. He’s a +1 outs above average, but that’s just 194.1 innings. Are any of the right-handed platoon players hitting at all?

Tyler Heineman: Play in 5 games, starting 4. Hit .000/.000.000 with 1 RBI and 1 sac bunt.

He has thrown out 4 of 5 base stealers in the last two weeks. Before this last two weeks, he threw out 3 of 15 base stealers.

Yohendrick Pinango: Played in 11 games, starting 7. Hit .219/.286/.344 with 1 double, 1 homer, 4 RBI, 3 walks and 7 strikeouts.

Not terribly cold, but a .629 OPS definitely isn’t hot. I’m not worried, he’ll get the swing back quick. I really like watching him play. FanGraphs has him at a +1 OAA and he has looked good in the outfield.

IL

Anthony Santander: Might get into a game before the end of the season. Who knows.

Alejandro Kirk: He’s catching and throwing and hitting. Should start a rehab soon. Back sometime in early June with any luck.

Addison Barger: Might start throwing and hitting soon.

Nathan Lukes: He’s played two rehab games. 2 hits, 1 homer, 3 RBI, 2 walks in 6 PA. Could be back soon.

The annual draft is the easiest way for a baseball team to add talent cheaply. To keep things cheap, Major League Baseball has limited the amount of money teams can spend on signing bonuses, with penalties in place for anyone who goes over their limits. The San Francisco Giants are in a unique position this season to defy those rules and stock up on a lot of young talent by spending a lot of money and taking the punishment.

Let us preface this article with a caveat: The San Francisco Giants are unlikely to “blow up the draft” as Jarrett Seidler of Baseball Prospectus suggests. It’s an expensive strategy and a risky one. The league might really hate it. And it relies on a team developing high school draftees into successful major leaguers, something the Giants have not excelled at in the last decade.

The general concept is that the Giants go over their allotted bonus pool. Like, way over. Teams get to spend a certain amount of money on all their draft choices, based on where their draft picks are. When the Giants traded Patrick Bailey for the No. 29 pick, they added $3,720,200 to their draft pool and now have $17,350,600 to spend on their draftees, which is the 4th-most in baseball.

What happens if a team spends over its pool? If they go 1-5% over that number, they pay a 75% tax on the overage. Go 5-10% over the pool and they forfeit a first-round pick, along with paying the 75% tax. 10-15% over means the team loses a first- and a second-rounder and pays a 100% tax on the excess, and anything more than 15% over the drat pool costs two first-rounders and the 100% tax.

So teams are disincentivized towards overspending. However, the nature of the penalties means that if a team is going 15% over their pool, going 100% over the pool just costs them money.

Say the Giants spent $20M on signing bonuses. That would mean they’d lose their first-round picks in 2027 and 2028 and pay a penalty of $2,649,200. Pretty harsh! But if they spent $50M on bonuses, they would have to pay $32,649,400 in penalties — but still only lose the two picks. That’s what BP called “burning the drafting ships,” named after what conquistador Hernan Cortes did upon reaching the New World, to let his crew know there was no going back to Spain. It’s also what Los Angeles Rams general manager Les Snead simply calls “F—- them picks.”

The nature of the draft means that’s a high-risk strategy, but New York Mets owner Steve Cohen believes high draft picks are highly undervalued.

A dollar-for-dollar tax is expensive, but the draft pick penalty for the Giants this season would be unusually low-risk. Since they moved up in the draft lottery this season, they can pick no higher than 10th in 2027, no matter how the rest of the year goes. They might be bad in 2027, though recent history suggests the team will still try to be good. If the Giants were to make any other trades like the Bailey deal, they could theoretically add more picks and increase their bonus pool further.

Essentially, the Giants would commit to meeting the demands of hard-to-sign players. These would primarily be high school players, who have more leverage than a college junior since they can threaten to simply go to college and collect that sweet NIL money. Rolling the rice and returning to college as a senior is riskier.

There has been chatter that the Giants are interested in “floating” UCLA shortstop Roch Cholowsky down to their No. 4 pick by offering a record-setting bonus, though he’s facing the same risk of one of the top three teams taking him instead and daring him to go back to school. For context, the biggest signing bonus in MLB draft history is $9.25M, which is what No. 2 pick Chase Burns and No. 3 pick Charlie Condon both signed for in 2024.

The San Diego Padres employed a similar strategy in the 2016-17 international signing period. They paid out $40.8M in bonuses, which cost them $37.4M in penalties, and limited how much they could spend on international free agents the following season. It also got them a boatload of young talent.

Will the Giants do this? Almost certainly not. It seems like it would deeply unpopular with the league and other teams, and the prize — a lot of very talented, very young players — is unreliable. Baseball would probably change the draft rules if a team like the Giants went rogue.

The Padres’ haul was impressive on paper but most of the players washed out, with the biggest success story being Adrian Orejon, who was an All-Star reliever last season. Still, San Diego was able to use some of these players in trades for players like Blake Snell, Adam Frazier, and Mike Clevinger, even if they didn’t pan out in the Plymouth of the West.

Still, it’s only money, and whatever else you can say about them, the Giants have shown they’re willing to spend. Whether they’re willing to upset the structure of the baseball draft is another thing.

The Mets have called up Jonah Tong, who ranked third on Amazin’ Avenue’s list of the organization’s top prospects coming into the season. In a corresponding move, the team has designated Craig Kimbrel for assignment.

After getting called up last year, Tong started five games for the Mets and had a 7.71 ERA. He started this season in Triple-A Syracuse, and in nine games and 38.0 innings there, he has a 5.68 ERA. His last start was notably difficult, as he allowed seven runs (six earned) in five innings. Nevertheless, the Mets seem to believe that he can provide immediate support at some point this weekend, as Tobias Myers is set to start tonight against the Marlins.

Kimbrel had a 6.00 ERA in 14 games and 15 innings for the Mets, and his last appearance on May 20 was the longest of his career at 2.2 innings. During that outing, he gave up a two-run home run to Jacob Young of the Nationals.