Category: Baseball

CITI FIELD (New York) – In a bubbly Mets clubhouse, Luke Weaver finished speaking to the media, passed Clay Holmes at his locker and said, “I warmed it up for you.” Holmes chuckled. A beat later in his own scrum, Holmes told reporters: “Winning is fun.” Tyrone Taylor, who was walking to the showers, interrupted Holmes’ interview and shouted, “Yeah!” Sitting at their lockers nearby, Craig Kimbrel and Tobias Myers laughed at the exchange.

It’s no surprise the Mets were in good spirits after snapping their 12-game losing streak with a long-overdue 3-2 win against the Twins on Wednesday. But, it was eyebrow-raising to witness the scenes of players smiling, tapping each other on the backs, and staying positive before the streak came to an end. 

Hours before Wednesday’s game, Mets pitchers Nolan McLean and Brooks Raley were running around the clubhouse barefoot. They’d pulled some couches to the side to open up the space. They were jumping and laughing, shooting some shots on the basketball net that hangs above the door to an equipment room. 

Right next to them was a much more serious vibe. Pitcher Sean Manaea sat down on a couch across from a teammate to continue their game of chess. Manaea was hunched forward, elbows on his thighs and hands on either side of his head, in deep concentration. All the while, Latin pop music blared from the speakers and Mets players who walked in and out of the clubhouse were genuinely upbeat. 

The Mets (8-16), having fallen to the NL East basement after experiencing a dozen consecutive losses for the first time since 2002, were refusing to let their dreadful situation take control over them. Despite their humiliating downfall being dissected on national news, and the outside noise and pressure reaching all-time highs, the Mets seemed to really believe, in their heart of hearts, that they’re better than this.  

So, too, did the hopeful souls who remained in the crowd on a chilly night at Citi Field on Wednesday. Weaver was preserving a tiny, one-run lead with two outs in the top of the ninth, and the elation from the stands was infectious. You could feel it building. Despite everything they’ve been through in the past two weeks, Mets fans let themselves believe a win was on the way. What else could they do?

“It’s tough, man,” said closer Devin Williams, who has coughed up seven earned runs in his last three outings. “I’ve never been a part of something like this.”

Fans showed up with makeshift signs that declared Wednesday would be the night that the 12-game losing streak would end. It was “Bark in the Park” night again, and there were dogs in the building the last time the Mets won a game, too. Maybe the innocent, unconditional trust from hundreds of puppies in the stands helped quell the nightmare on the field. 

After all, the Mets tried everything to notch their first win since April 7. Before Tuesday night’s loss, an SNY broadcaster burned sage outside Citi Field. The Mets booth lit candles and hung horseshoes from the ceiling. The pain would have to end eventually, Mets players maintained throughout the past two-plus weeks. The clubhouse boasted too much talent for this to go on much longer. 

It finally worked on Wednesday. In the ninth, Weaver pounded the strike zone against Twins centerfielder Byron Buxton. Weaver got ahead in the count, 1-2, and the crowd got on its feet, imploring those who weren’t yet standing to get up and cheer. Weaver toed the rubber and hurled a changeup in the dirt. Buxton whiffed. It was over. 

As players poured out of the dugout and onto the field, Weaver was frozen on the mound. He looked up to the sky and considered all it took to get to that moment. 

“As a team, it’s not very often we have such a talented team where everything just doesn’t really click in the right way,” Weaver said. “It’s quite an impossible feat, but we made it possible.”

There’s adversity, and then there’s the sorcery that seems to afflict this Mets franchise. As much as the players felt a weight being lifted after securing the win, it was bittersweet. Trouble just keeps coming. 

Wednesday’s win saw Juan Soto return from the injured list with a right calf strain, only to see Francisco Lindor exit the game with left calf tightness. He grimaced in pain after rounding third base in the fourth inning and immediately left with a trainer. The day one superstar player returned, the other superstar player suffered an identical injury. For the Mets, truth is stranger than fiction. 

“It sucks,” Mets manager Carlos Mendoza, who seemed deeply distressed at the likelihood that his shortstop would miss significant time. “When you see a guy like Lindor, as tough as he is, I knew right away when he was rounding third base that something wasn’t right there.”

Lindor underwent an MRI on Thursday, and the Mets place him on the IL. Soto’s right calf strain was considered good news, because it was mild, and it happened in early April rather than in a pennant race. But Soto still missed three weeks and 15 games, and the lineup completely forgot how to hit, let alone draw walks, without him.

Through Wednesday, New York’s .285 on-base percentage and .617 OPS are both ranked 30th (last) in MLB. The Mets’ .334 slugging percentage is better than only the Red Sox. Their 78 runs scored through 24 games are the fewest across all big-league teams. The Mets’ 17 home runs are tied with the Marlins for the third-lowest in MLB. Only the Royals, White Sox, and Phillies, who are riding an eight-game losing streak of their own, have a worse run differential than the Mets. 

“We can’t hit the ball right now,” Soto said in the Mets clubhouse on Wednesday afternoon. “We’re struggling.”

During the Mets’ longest losing streak in nearly a quarter of a century, Soto remained in Flushing, recovering from the calf strain. 

Asked if he spoke to the guys during that stretch, to check in and try to lift their spirits, Soto replied flippantly. 

“Not at all,” Soto added. “They’ve been on the road most of the time, so I haven’t talked to them.”

The Mets were on the road for six of their 12 consecutive losses, but that’s neither here nor there.  Even so, nobody ever said he couldn’t pick up his phone and talk to his teammates to check in on them while the losses piled up, and the urgency intensified. 

There will be extra attention paid to the team’s clubhouse culture after president of baseball operations David Stearns dismantled the Mets core and fielded questions about the relationships in the locker room. That noise will only quiet after the team starts winning. While Soto’s honesty went viral online, what mattered most to the organization was that he was back in a Mets lineup that, while he was gone, represented the worst offense in MLB.

“It’s tough to see it,” Soto said of the team’s losing streak. “It’s a little uncomfortable to see it from the outside. But I definitely trust the talent that we have. It’s a tough time, but we’re going to get out of it.”

Soto is back, but without Lindor, it’s going to be tougher. 

We have already learned how ghastly the Mets offense is without two of their top hitters in the lineup every day. Not even Lindor, who was just starting to heat up at the plate, was able to reverse the offense’s disastrous output. It’s no secret that, since he became a Met in 2021, the team tends to go as Lindor goes. A notoriously slow starter at the beginning of the season, the Mets shortstop had just started to get into a groove in the past week. By the time he hobbled off the field in the fourth inning Wednesday, Lindor was hitting .360 (9-for-25) with five RBI and four runs scored in his last seven games. 

“We’ve pushed so hard to simply try and give everything we can, and sometimes, that’s just not good enough,” Weaver said. “The harder you try, a lot of times, the more you fail.”

With the rest of the offense struggling, the Mets will turn to Soto for a spark. Perhaps now, with a win secured, the Mets can play less tight and more free. After all, the urgency and expectations haven’t changed. Even though it’s only April, things can feel late early around here. The Mets are coming off a disastrous 2025 collapse that saw them miss the playoffs for the third time since Steve Cohen took over as the richest owner in North American sports. 

They went from opening this season as a top-five team in baseball, to seeing their playoff chances being cut in half. Entering Thursday, FanGraphs gives New York a 42.6% chance of qualifying for the postseason. 

No team in the history of MLB has made the playoffs after undergoing a 12-game losing streak. The Mets and their $370-million payroll are now vying to become the first. If they don’t? They’d be the biggest failures in the history of baseball — topping the 2025 Mets, who topped the 2023 Mets. 

There’s still a lot of baseball left, and the Mets will need to capitalize on every opportunity to prove they’re actually capable of pulling off the impossible and exorcising their demons.

Deesha Thosar covers Major League Baseball as a reporter and columnist for FOX Sports. She previously covered the Mets as a beat reporter for the New York Daily News. The daughter of Indian immigrants, Deesha grew up on Long Island and now lives in Queens. Follow her on Twitter at @DeeshaThosar.

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There is always baseball happening — almost too much baseball for one person to follow themselves.

Don’t worry, we’re here to help you by figuring out what you missed but shouldn’t have. Here are all the best moments from last night in Major League Baseball:

Dodgers lose again, Ohtani’s streak over

The Dodgers had a chance to take back sole possession of first place in the NL West on Wednesday, but despite a strong performance on the mound for Shohei Ohtani, Los Angeles dropped another game to the Giants. Ohtani went six innings while scattering five hits and no walks, striking out seven; basically the second the bullpen was tapped, the Dodgers ran into trouble.

Jack Dreyer took over for Ohtani in the seventh after the righty threw 91 pitches, and proceeded to give up consecutive singles to right fielder Jung Hoo Lee left fielder Heliot Ramos. No. 9 hitter and catcher Patrick Bailey — one of the most “he’s in there for his defense” backstops around who came into the game batting .145/.217/.145 — then took Dreyer deep for his first home run and first extra-base hit of the season.

That’s a good little bat flip right there from someone without a lot of experience delivering that sort of thing.

The news did not improve for the Dodgers after this. The Giants didn’t score again, but they didn’t have to: Los Angeles couldn’t manage a single run against Tyler Mahle, who was as effective as Ohtani but through seven frames, then relievers Caleb Kilian and Ryan Walker managed what Dreyer could not and kept the shutout going. Ohtani’s on-base streak also met its end here, as he went 0-for-4 with a strikeout and no walks of any kind. Still, it finished tied for second among Dodgers’ players all-time, and tied for 25th in MLB history.

Despite that string of excellence, Ohtani hasn’t actually been at his best throughout the streak. He’s batting a not-very-Ohtani-like .258/.382/.472 this season, which amounts to a still-great 142 OPS+, but his combined OPS+ over the last three seasons is 184; he led the majors in 2023, and the National League in each of the last two years. That’s not the level of performance he’s displayed to this point, and there might even be some concern from the Dodgers over it.

Dodgers manager Dave Roberts is considering changing Ohtani’s role, either moving him down in the lineup on days that the two-way star pitches or having him sit rather than hit at all. Los Angeles has the lineup depth for it, and it’s not like Ohtani would stop hitting and pitching. He just might not do it in the same game as often. It’s something to watch out for, at least, especially if getting a little more rest — but not sitting entirely, he would still be pitching — can help him fully get back on track at the plate.

Bonk

Hitting a foul pole at all is already rare enough — it’s a big ballpark, and the pole is only so wide. Hitting the top of the foul pole? Well it’s not impossible, we know that for sure thanks to Pirates’ center fielder Oneil Cruz.

Cruz crushed this ball, too — you would have to in order to get it high enough to clank that high off the pole. He took a 79.7 mph cutter that didn’t cut from Rangers’ reliever Jalen Beeks and sent it back at nearly 117 mph, with its projected distance via Statcast — you know, if there weren’t a giant pole in the way of it — at 432 feet. What a shot.

The Pirates were already ahead 5-4 at this point, but Cruz’s three-run dinger sealed the deal for Pittsburgh. Texas fell to .500 at 12-12, while the Pirates moved into a tie for third place in the NL Central at 14-10.

Well, at least the Phillies were down by a lot

What an unsatisfying way to lose a ballgame. As said, though, the Phillies were already down 7-2 to the Cubs at this point, so at least it wasn’t a situation where Philadelphia was both down its final strike and a swing of the bat away from tying or coming from behind to win. No, the Phillies were already losing by quite a bit with the minimum currency left to do something about it, and this ABS challenge merely put them out of their misery.

Still, brutal. Cubs’ catcher Miguel Amaya challenged the umpire’s call here, with Philadelphia’s own backstop, Rafael Marchan, up at the plate with two outs, a 1-2 count and the Phillies down by five with a runner on. The pitch was a little borderline, sure, but it’s also the kind of pitch that a hitter was supposed to protect against with two strikes even before ABS could ensure that a pitch that kissed the edge of the zone like this would be called correctly. ABS ensured it was a strike, yes, and that ended the game, but Marchan got caught looking at a sweeper he should have tried to foul off to stay alive.

The Phillies have now lost eight in a row, while the Cubs have won that many consecutive matchups. That surge has Chicago half-a-game behind the Reds in the NL Central, while the Phillies now find themselves tied for last in the NL East despite the Mets losing 12 in a row. And that’s because…

The Mets won! But…

Starting with the good news (for New York, anyway): the Mets won, and are no longer riding a 12-game losing streak. It didn’t look like things were trending that way, not when Twins’ center fielder Byron Buxton once again struck via homer, to tie things up in the sixth. 

It also didn’t help when Buxton made an incredible catch in center with the Mets threatening to build a meaningful lead in the eighth over Minnesota.

New York didn’t fall apart this time, however, like happened on far too many occasions as they dropped a dozen Ls in a row. The run first baseman Mark Vientos drove in before Buxton’s diving grab ended up being the last one that the Mets needed, as Luke Weaver stayed in the game after coming on in the eighth, and pitched a scoreless ninth. He even got Buxton — representing the go-ahead run — to strike out to end the game.

Here’s the bad news, though: on the same day that star outfielder Juan Soto was activated from the IL — he was out during the entirety of the losing streak and then some — shortstop Francisco Lindor exited early with a calf injury. He’ll undergo an MRI to determine the extent of the damage and next steps, but New York might go from down one star to down another, all on the same day.

Ahaha what

In less depressing news: 

That’s Mariners’ starter Logan Gilbert catching a ball, sort of. He took a comeback in the jersey, somehow between the buttons, right through the gap in the material — right into his jersey. The slowed down video of this is incredible, so be sure to keep that playing long enough to see it in action.

Gilbert knows the ball is… somewhere. He keeps putting his glove out to catch it before it drops, as he feels it moving around, not understanding that it isn’t stuck somewhere on his top but inside of it. It was ruled a hit for right fielder Carlos Cortes, because what else are you going to do in that situation? Gilbert didn’t catch it; his jersey did.

Naylor walks it off for Mariners

There was more to the Mariners-Athletics game than just a whacky non-catch, however. This was an exciting ballgame. The A’s went up 2-0 in the top of the first, and the Mariners cut that lead in half in the bottom portion of the inning with a sac fly. The Athletics added a run in the top of the third, and so did the Mariners — this time on something a little more exhilarating than a sac fly: a Cal Raleigh homer.

Raleigh has now homered in three-straight games, and his OPS+ for the season is up to 92+ after a horrid start to the season. Over his last 12 games, the M’s catcher is hitting .265/.315/.551 with four of his five dingers and a pair of doubles. That’s not completely back to where he can be, but it’s a hell of a lot closer than .481 OPS he had to that point.

Seattle managed to go up 4-3 in the bottom of the seventh when center fielder Julio Rodriguez grounded out but pushed a run across, anyway. The A’s erased that in the ninth against closer Andres Munoz, however, when 2025 American League Rookie of the Year Nick Kurtz went yard to tie it up.

All that did was create a more dramatic finish for the Mariners. Joel Kuhnel came on in relief for the Athletics, and allowed a leadoff single to third baseman Leo Rivas. The top of the order and shortstop J.P. Crawford then came up and immediately hit into a double play, which made it seem like this wasn’t going to be the Mariners’ inning and extras were all but guaranteed. Again: drama! Raleigh then singled to put a runner back on, and Rodriguez hit a follow-up single to put Raleigh into scoring position. First baseman Josh Naylor was up next, and he delivered.

Naylor laced it into left well over the head of third baseman Max Muncy but also well short of left fielder Tyler Soderstrom, and that allowed Raleigh plenty of time to round second and charge home for the winning run. Ballgame, Mariners.

The A’s remain in first in the AL West at 13-12, and the Mariners are still struggling to put things together, especially on the road where Seattle is just 1-8 and has managed to score just 22 runs. If Raleigh is starting to heat up, though, recovering from that is going to be a whole lot easier than it’s been to this point.

Watch out

Angels’ star Mike Trout can hit baseballs very far and very hard. This one was a little bit of both. Trout lined this pitch from Blue Jays’ lefty Eric Lauer into the Angels’ bullpen, 428 feet away, at 113 mph. It got out of the park in a real hurry. Reliever Ryan Zeferjahn was warming up in the pen, and leaped to try to grab the ball, at least partially as a defensive measure for everyone else in the potential path of that thing.

Trout might have a batting average of just .239 this season, but his on-base percentage is .417 and he’s slugging .557 with eight homers. There is a ton of 2026 left, but his 175 OPS+ is the highest he’s produced since 2022 — it’s been awhile since Trout really looked like Trout, and if that baseball could tell you it would probably say he feels a lot like Trout is supposed to, as well.

The Angels ended up defeating the Blue Jays, 7-3, backed by Trout as well as a fantastic performance from starting pitcher Jose Soriano, who threw five scoreless innings with four strikeouts and no walks, with all seven hits scattered. Soriano’s ERA for the season to this point is just 0.24 — he’s allowed a single run in 37.2 innings of work over six starts.

That’s 11 for Alvarez

Yordan Alvarez went deep for the 11th time this season on Wednesday. That’s the league leader in dingers right there.

It also represented the only runs scored in the entire Astros-Guardians tilt — Alvarez, Houston’s DH, drove in third baseman Carlos Correa for a two-run shot off of Cleveland starter Taylor Bibbee; otherwise, every pitcher for both teams was lights out, with the Guardians’ bullpen combining to allow just two baserunners over three innings, and Houston’s four-pitcher slate twirling a five-hit shutout with 10 strikeouts.

Murakami sets rookie homer mark, among others

White Sox rookie first baseman Munetaka Murakami came over from the NPB this offseason, and his modest contract — two years, $34 million — was an admission that there were concerns across a whole lot of front offices that he wouldn’t be able to handle MLB’s high-velocity pitchers. Despite his undeniable power, elite velocity gave him trouble in NPB, so these fears weren’t unfounded. Murakami, though, has had little issue to start, at least: he bashed his 10th long ball of the year on Wednesday, which also happened to be the fifth game in a row in which he went deep.

That tied a franchise record for the White Sox, joining the likes of Frank Thomas and A.J. Pierzynski, as well as the longest streak for a Japanese-born slugger in MLB, which is co-held by Shohei Ohtani. Five games is also the longest streak by an MLB rookie, and this is the 13th time that’s occurred, per MLB.

One streak that isn’t sitting in a tie, though, is what Murakami has done with teammate Colson Montgomery: Murakami has hit a dinger in five games in a row, Montgomery in four, making the two the first-ever pair of teammates with joint streaks of at least four games.

If Murakami can get to six in a row, that’s when he starts getting into the more rarified air, as just 25 players in MLB history have ever managed to pull that off, and a mere six have made it to seven in a row. The record? That’s eight games, pulled off all of three times.

Two dingers and a 20-game hit streak

Ildemaro Vargas has played in 17 games for the Diamondbacks this season. The infielder has recorded a hit in every single one of ‘em. Even better, he also had a three-game hitting streak to end 2025, so, Vargas now has a 20-game streak across seasons following a big night on Wednesday.

But we can make this little tidbit that much more exciting. Vargas extended his hit streak with a homer last night…

…and then added another for good measure later on.

This all led to Arizona defeating the White Sox in spite of the power shown off by Murakami and Montgomery, 11-7. Streaks all around in this series.

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Shohei Ohtani‘s career-best 53-game on-base streak ended on a night he pitched six scoreless innings.

It’s something only Ohtani could achieve, but the two-way superstar could be having games like that a little bit less often.

“I’m focused, as a leadoff hitter, to get on base. As long as I feel good overall, the result will follow,” Ohtani said through interpreter Will Ireton. “It hasn’t been the case [lately].”

Before Wednesday’s loss to San Francisco, Los Angeles Dodgers manager Dave Roberts made it clear he’s committed to Ohtani’s health and keeping him fresh to perform both on the mound and at the plate for the long haul.

And that may look different by the day or week, depending on how Ohtani is feeling.

“I’ll always let the manager make that final decision, and I’m always going to be prepared when I’m starting that I’m hitting,” Ohtani said. “But if it makes sense as a team to occasionally put a guy in as a DH or hit later, that’s fine as well. I wouldn’t want to do the same more aside from that.”

For some games, that could mean Ohtani pitches but doesn’t bat as the designated hitter — and Roberts plans to keep his options open.

Ohtani was solid on the mound again for the Dodgers in a 3-0 loss to the San Francisco Giants, allowing no earned runs for the third time in four starts this season. A week earlier, Ohtani was held out of the lineup while pitching for the first time since 2021 because he was still sore from getting hit by a pitch.

Ohtani batted in his customary leadoff spot and went 0 for 4 with a strikeout, hitting a fly ball to left in his last at-bat. That ended an on-base streak that matched Shawn Green for the second-longest in Dodgers history. Duke Snider owns the team record at 58 games from May 13-July 11, 1954. Ohtani’s streak was the longest in the majors since Orlando Cabrera reached base in 63 straight from April 25-July 6, 2006.

“The season’s not over, and I could start another streak and that would be great,” Ohtani said. “We’ll see how it goes.”

The 31-year-old Ohtani saw his batting average drop from .271 to .258. He has allowed one earned run over 24 innings for an ERA of 0.38 and a 2-0 record, surrendering 15 hits with 25 strikeouts and six walks.

“I think if you look at the overall numbers it’s certainly something. I still feel really good about putting his name in the lineup,” Roberts said. “I know the last start I chose not to have him hit and just pitch. I am open to it. We’ll see. It’s something that we’ve certainly flagged, and also you have to look at what’s the option. In years past or last year, you’ve got to kind of weigh, who’s a different option?”

Catcher Dalton Rushing has become a capable fill-in at DH. He’s hitting .414 with seven homers and 13 RBIs.

The two-time defending World Series champion Dodgers have dropped four of five. They lost 3-1 in Tuesday night’s series opener at rival San Francisco.

Roberts had yet to decide whether Ohtani would play the series finale Thursday. He said beforehand he had no qualms about giving Ohtani five at-bats on a day he’s pitching but would consider moving him down in the batting order if that makes sense.

“I think everything should be on the table,” Roberts said.

Reporting by The Associated Press.

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Mark Vientos blooped a tiebreaking single in the eighth inning and the New York Mets snapped their 12-game losing streak Wednesday night, beating the Minnesota Twins 3-2 after getting one superstar back only to see another exit with a similar injury.

Juan Soto went 1 for 3 with a single and a walk in his return from a strained right calf, but shortstop Francisco Lindor was removed with left calf tightness after laboring around the bases while scoring from first on Francisco Alvarez’s go-ahead double in the fourth.

Byron Buxton tied it 2-all with a leadoff homer in the sixth against Clay Holmes, his second longball in two nights.

Brett Baty, who came off the bench to replace Lindor in the lineup, drew his second walk of the game with two outs in the eighth against Taylor Rogers (0-1). Alvarez coaxed a nine-pitch walk from Justin Topa before Vientos dumped an RBI single into shallow right field. Vientos had blatantly ran through a stop sign rounding third and was easily thrown out at home plate for the final out of the sixth.

Luke Weaver (2-0) retired Luke Keaschall with the bases loaded to end the top of the eighth and struck out three batters in a one-hit ninth to secure New York’s first victory since April 7 at home against Arizona.

The 12-game skid was the team’s longest since August 2002.

Connor Prielipp, the Twins’ top pitching prospect, needed 82 pitches to get through four innings in his major league debut. But the 25-year-old left-hander showcased a good slider and limited a slumping New York lineup to two runs and four hits with six strikeouts and no walks.

Holmes allowed two runs and five hits in seven innings.

Batting cleanup, Lindor drove in a run by legging out an infield single with two outs in the first and Victor Caratini’s sacrifice fly tied the score in the fourth.

Reporting by the Associated Press.

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No sooner did the struggling New York Mets get a star player back than another one went down with a similar injury.

Francisco Lindor was removed Wednesday night against the Minnesota Twins with left calf tightness, just hours after teammate Juan Soto came off the injured list.

Lindor labored around the bases while scoring from first on Francisco Alvarez’s one-out double up the right-center alley in the fourth inning. The switch-hitting shortstop grimaced as he rounded third and paused for a bit from the seat of his pants after beating the relay throw with a feetfirst slide.

Lindor headed down the dugout tunnel with an athletic trainer and was replaced in the lineup by Brett Baty, who entered at third base in the top of the fifth. Bo Bichette slid over from third base to shortstop.

Batting cleanup, Lindor knocked in a run when he legged out an infield single with two outs in the first. Moments earlier, he made an outstanding leaping grab at shortstop for the second out of the game.

With the Mets on a 12-game losing streak, Soto was reinstated from the 10-day IL earlier in the day. The slugging outfielder had been sidelined since straining his right calf while running from first to third on April 3 in San Francisco.

Reporting by the Associated Press.

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Juan Soto is back in the New York Mets‘ lineup — and boy do they need him.

The star slugger was reinstated from the 10-day injured list with the reeling Mets on a 12-game losing streak heading into Wednesday night’s game against the Minnesota Twins at Citi Field.

Soto, who missed 15 games with a right calf strain, was set to bat second as the designated hitter.

To open a roster spot, third-string catcher Hayden Senger was optioned to Triple-A Syracuse following Tuesday night’s 5-3 loss to Minnesota.

New York (7-16) had been outscored 67-22 during the skid while batting .194 with a .284 slugging percentage. The slide began with a 7-2 loss to Arizona on April 8.

Soto exited early from a 10-3 victory at San Francisco on April 3, and the Mets won their next three games without him before descending into a tailspin. It’s their longest slide since losing 12 straight games in August 2002.

New York had not dropped 13 in a row since a 15-game skid in August 1982. The club record is 17 consecutive defeats during the franchise’s inaugural season in 1962.

Reporting by the Associated Press.

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The Dodgers’ backup catcher moonlighted as their designated hitter for a game on Thursday, doing his best Shohei Ohtani impression by smashing a 412-foot grand slam to help sweep the Mets. 

Another time, he was their first baseman, filling in while Freddie Freeman was on the paternity list and launching two more home runs. 

Dalton Rushing has only played in nine of the Dodgers’ first 23 games this year, but he has turned those intermittent opportunities into a historic start to the season. Rushing went deep seven times through his first eight games of the year, a number that trailed only Hall of Famer Mike Schmidt (1976) for the most home runs through a player’s first eight games of a season. 

He’s one of many examples of the depth allowing the Dodgers to withstand the early-season obstacles that would otherwise overwhelm most clubs. 

Mookie Betts hasn’t played since April 4 due to an oblique injury. Blake Snell and Tommy Edman aren’t expected to make their 2026 debuts until next month. Edwin Diaz, seven appearances into a three-year, $69 million contract that gave him the largest annual salary ever for a reliever, has an ERA over 10.00 and is undergoing an elbow procedure that will keep him out until the second half. Kyle Tucker, fresh off signing the largest average annual deal in baseball history, has been a league-average hitter. Roki Sasaki’s command and control issues persist. 

And yet the Dodgers enter Wednesday with a 16-7 record, tied for the best in MLB.

Of course, Ohtani’s two-way skills tend to mask some of the team’s deficiencies. But the supporting cast is also playing a vital role in the club’s success. 

The Dodgers’ No. 7-9 hitters in the lineup have a combined .943 OPS this year, a total higher than Mike Trout (.939), Aaron Judge (.932) and Vladimir Guerrero Jr. (.927). 

Outfielder Andy Pages leads the majors with a .366 batting average and the Dodgers with a 1.009 OPS. Hyeseong Kim and Miguel Rojas, the shortstops with Betts out, are both hitting over .300. Justin Wrobleski, the Dodgers’ sixth starter, is 3-0 with a 0.90 ERA in three starts this month. 

In the bullpen, Tanner Scott is bouncing back from an abysmal first season in Los Angeles. He has allowed one run through his first 11 appearances in 2026, while Alex Vesia still hasn’t allowed a run through his first 10 appearances. Those two will be crucial now in high leverage with Díaz down. 

And then there’s Rushing, who has the same number of extra-base hits in 31 plate appearances this year (nine) that he had in 155 plate appearances last year. His seven home runs are tied for the 12th-most in MLB. Every other player with at least that many homers this year has at least 69 at-bats; Rushing has 29. 

“I think he’s kind of in a better spot mentally — actually, I know he’s in a better spot mentally —  to kind of handle this role,” Dodgers manager Dave Roberts told me. 

After struggling in his first season to adjust to the sporadic playing time that exists as the backup catcher behind fellow University of Louisville product Will Smith, who’s under contract through the 2033 season, Rushing entered his follow-up campaign this year with a new perspective: Less is more. 

“Go back and look at last year.” Rushing told me last week, six days after a 4-for-4, two-homer performance in Toronto and three days before launching the first grand slam of his career. “I was over-swinging from the day I showed up. I felt like I had to show them who I was.” 

The result was suboptimal. 

Rushing, who excelled as a hitter at every level of the minors with a preternatural and atypical ability to both control the zone and slug, had a .582 OPS and just nine extra-base hits in 142 at-bats for the Dodgers last season.

“I would say he didn’t get used to it last year,” Roberts said. “He’s getting used to it now. I think there’s a little bit of trying to mentally adjust to playing two times a week. There’s a physical, mechanical part to the swing, to make it more simple. Maybe even a little bit of expectation, to lower your expectations. And the player never wants to, which I respect, but it’s hard to play twice a week to get in any type of real rhythm.” 

Added Rushing: “When you’re a part-time player you try to get back in compete mode once every five days, it’s not easy to do.”

Admittedly, he’s still in the process of figuring out how to handle that, though he’s clearly doing a better job. With a new mindset, Rushing is displaying the version of the player he knew he could be — and the one the Dodgers envisioned when they took Rushing with their first pick of the 2022 MLB Draft, despite already employing another star catcher from the same alma mater. 

Rushing has learned to challenge himself to be ready to play, even on the days he’s not in the starting lineup, spending time hitting on either the Trajekt machine or the regular pitching machine to be ready when called upon. 

And he has learned from the player he’s backing up, despite possessing a much different demeanor from the fellow Louisville product. Smith is stoic and reserved; Rushing is not. 

“It’s hard for me to play this game low heartbeat,” Rushing said. “I’ve played like my head’s on fire since I was 8 or 10 years old. I don’t think I’m ever going to lose that. I don’t want to lose that. I think that’s what kind of gets me up to play this game.”

At the same time, while that feistiness can drive him while he’s riding hot streaks like the one he’s on right now, it can also be detrimental when the inevitable drop-off comes. He admires Smith’s levelheadedness and the belief that demeanor can foster in teammates. 

“I think the more you can play at a median, low heartbeat, the more it shows to the older guys, ‘This guy looks like he’s been doing it for seven to 10 years, and there’s never a doubt he’s going to get it done,’” Rushing said.

So, he’s still working on that. 

“That’s part of being an everyday guy,” Rushing explained. “You need the median heartbeat, man. Nothing brings you up, nothing brings you down. Throughout this year, that’s going to be my goal. I know if I keep that as my goal, then the hitting and everything else will take care of itself. It always has.”

There are nine players with more at-bats than Rushing on the Dodgers roster, yet he ranks second on the team in homers and fourth in RBI. 

With more success, the Dodgers are finding creative ways to get him opportunities, even beyond giving Smith a breather behind the plate. 

After Ohtani was hit by a pitch in the back of the right shoulder in the first game of the Dodgers’ series against the Mets last week, the Dodgers elected to keep their two-way superstar out of the DH spot two days later. It was the first time since 2021 that Ohtani pitched but did not hit in a game. 

The DH role went to Rushing, who doubled and broke the game open with a grand slam. 

“There’s no more trying to show them,” Rushing said. “Just let your game play for itself.”

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The Kansas City Royals are moving from their longtime home at Kauffman Stadium to the downtown Crown Center area, partnering with Hallmark Cards on a $3 billion project that includes a mixed-used development with a new ballpark as its centerpiece.

Royals owner John Sherman was joined by Hallmark chairman Don Hall Jr., Missouri Gov. Mike Kehoe and Kansas City Mayor Quinton Lucas, along with other local and state dignitaries, in making the announcement Wednesday near Hallmark headquarters.

While the finalized master plan has yet to be complete, Sherman said the $1.9 billion stadium would break ground next year in the middle of Crown Center as part of the first phase of an 85-acre project. Two-thirds of the funding will come from private sources and the remaining one-third from public partners, including money earmarked by the state for stadium projects.

“This is a partnership between two treasured Kansas City institutions,” Sherman said. “We are committed to creating a vision which honors our history, the rich past of both organizations, while reinvigorating and reimagining what our future can be together.”

The announcement came about a week after Kansas City officials passed an ordinance authorizing City Manager Mario Vasquez to negotiate a $600 million deal to help the Royals move downtown. Most believed the stadium would sit on Washington Square Park, which is next to Union Station, but it will instead be located just south of it, with the park featured in the development.

Hallmark intends to build a new headquarters in the area, which is connected by a streetcar to the Power & Light District, where the T-Mobile Center serves as its anchor. That part of downtown Kansas City will provide the backdrop beyond the outfield fence.

Officials touted the availability of public parking already in the area and convenient traffic flow from nearby highways.

Missouri’s contribution comes from a law enacted last year that authorized bonds covering up to 50% of the cost of new or renovated stadiums in the state, plus up to $50 million of tax credits for each stadium and unspecified aid from local governments.

“We think it’s a great investment for our Missouri taxpayers, because this does not affect existing programs,” Kehoe said. “The ripple effect from this facility will truly be far-reaching into rural Missouri and other parts of the state.”

The Royals have insisted they would leave Kauffman Stadium when their lease expires at the Truman Sports Complex in 2031, and the intention of Sherman ever since purchasing the club in 2019 was to build a downtown ballpark as its replacement.

Yet reaching Wednesday’s announcement did not come without plenty of pitfalls.

The biggest stumbling block came in April 2024, when the Kansas City Chiefs joined the Royals in a plan to renovate Arrowhead Stadium and replace Kauffman Stadium. The plan hinged on the extension of a sales tax that had been paying for stadium upkeep, and voters in Jackson County, Missouri, overwhelmingly rejected the proposal, forcing the franchises to go their own way.

The legislature in neighboring Kansas aggressively pursued the Chiefs, committing last December to issuing $2.4 billion in bonds to cover 60% of the cost of a new $3 billion domed stadium in Kansas City, Kansas. The NFL franchise ultimately decided to move across the state line, where it also will build a new training facility in the nearby suburb of Olathe, Kansas.

Officials in Kansas briefly pursued the Royals, too, but their interest in the MLB franchise had always been lukewarm.

The Royals had been weighing several options in recent months. But they ultimately rejected an option in the suburb of Overland Park, Kansas, and allowed a deadline to pass for a site north of downtown and across the Missouri River in Clay County, Missouri.

Economists have long concluded that subsidizing stadiums isn’t worth the cost for communities because the venues pull economic activity away from other parts of the area, rather than expanding the overall economy. Yet states and cities continually provide money to renovate stadiums or build new ones — 49 of the 60 used by MLB or NFL teams are publicly owned or sit on public land.

One of the stadiums that Sherman has cited as an example of what’s possible in Kansas City is Truist Park in Atlanta.

The stadium was a public-private partnership in which the Cobb-Marietta Coliseum & Exhibit Hall Authority issued up to $397 million in bonds, the county raised millions more from transportation taxes and businesses added millions in cash. The Atlanta Braves contributed the remaining money for the park and The Battery, a mixed-use development, with a total cost of more than $1.1 billion.

“There are many great ballpark neighborhoods in Major League Baseball,” Sherman said, “but this is a bigger project with more land in downtown and in the heart of the city. We are bringing a modern, state-of-the-art ballpark experience to our fans, closer to our public transportation and where more people work and live.”

Reporting by The Associated Press.

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There is always baseball happening — almost too much baseball for one person to follow themselves.

Don’t worry, we’re here to help you by figuring out what you missed but shouldn’t have. Here are all the best moments from last night in Major League Baseball:

The Mets blew it, again

That’s 12 losses in a row for the Mets, who in their latest snatched defeat from the jaws of victory. The Twins had lost four games in a row themselves and were sitting at .500, and while things started out well enough for New York, they did not stay that way.

As for that start, shortstop Francisco Lindor hit a three-run homer, just his second long ball of the year, following a single by first baseman Mark Vientos, a grounder and force out of the lead runner by left fielder Carlos Benge and a walk from second baseman Marcus Semien. 

Mets 3, Twins 0 — that’s where things stood for quite a bit. New York starter Nolan McLean was rolling through the first five innings, keeping Minnesota off the board with eight strikeouts, no walks and no hits allowed in that stretch — that was 15 outs into a perfect game. Things came undone in the sixth a bit, however, when right fielder Matt Wallner led off with a single, and center fielder Byron Buxton followed up later in the inning with a two-run homer.

McLean would recover but give up another run in the seventh to tie things, on a single by second baseman Luke Keaschall that drove in first baseman Kody Clemens, who had hit a double in the at-bat before.

McLean was lifted with the game 3-3, and reliever Huascar Brazabon managed to get out of the seventh and through the eighth without incident. The Mets put closer Devin Williams in to give themselves their best hypothetical chance at playing for one run and winning in the bottom of the ninth. It did not work out as intended.

Instead, Williams walked the inning’s leadoff hitter, DH Josh Bell, then pinch-runner James Outman stole second. Catcher Ryan Jeffers would also walk, and then Clemens would lay down what was intended to be a sacrifice bunt to move both runners into scoring position but instead ended up loading the bases. Keaschall would then give the Twins their first lead of the game with a bouncing grounder just out of the reach of both third baseman Bo Bichette and Lindor.

Williams would then walk Wallner with the bases still juiced, putting the Twins up 5-3. Austin Warren would come on in relief of Williams, and proceed to strike out all three batters he faced on just 12 pitches.

The Mets went down in order in the bottom of the ninth, ending the Twins’ smaller losing streak while extending New York’s to a dozen defeats. Star outfielder Juan Soto is supposed to be activated on Wednesday, which should help with at least some of what ails the Mets, but this is also a team that has been outscored by 45 runs in its last 12 games — more needs to be different than just filling the hole Soto left behind.

That’s 53 in a row for Ohtani

The Dodgers lost to the Giants, 3-1, in that series opener, but fret not fans of Shohei Ohtani: his on-base streak persisted. The two-way star is now up to 53 games in a row, which puts him into the top-25 on-base streaks in MLB history, tied with the likes of Alex Rodriguez and former Dodgers’ standout Shawn Green.

Ohtani got on base just the one time, as he didn’t draw any walks or get hit by a pitch. It wasn’t his greatest showing at the plate by any means, but then again, it wasn’t exactly the Dodgers’ night, either. Los Angeles recorded just three hits and the one run against San Francisco pitching, which included five innings of one-run ball out of Landen Roup and then the bullpen shutting the Dodgers down the rest of the way. A bit of a waste of seven strong innings from Yoshinobu Yamamoto, but hey, even Los Angeles can’t win ‘em all.

Royals walk it off, wildly

The Royals have had some bad luck in the ninth inning this season — including on Monday, when they let the Orioles tie the game while down to their final out — but last night was different. On Tuesday, it was the Royals benefitting from someone else forgetting themselves, instead.

Time to set the scene: the Royals were up 4-3 after picking away at the Orioles’ early 3-0 lead, but in the top of the eighth, Baltimore backstop Adley Rutchsman, fresh off the IL, hit his first homer of the year to give the O’s back the lead.

Kansas City would respond, immediately: second baseman Michael Massey got his own first dinger of the season in the bottom of the eighth to tie things back up at 5-5, and there the score stood until the bottom of the ninth.

The Royals started the inning against new reliever Ryan Helsley with second baseman Maikel Garcia at the top of the order, and he drew a walk, his third time on base in the game. Shortstop Bobby Witt Jr. also walked, despite an ABS challenge from Rutschman, giving the Royals two on and no outs. While first baseman Vinnie Pasquantino would strike out, it ended up being on a wild pitch that Rutschman couldn’t corral, allowing Garcia and Witt to move to third and second, respectively.

And then, Helsley threw another wild pitch, this time to catcher Salvador Perez, that Rutschman was able to block but not pull in. With no one covering the plate as Rutschman dashed off into the infield to retrieve the ball, Garcia bolted for home — neither Rutschman nor Helsley could beat him there, and the Royals would walk it off.

The Orioles wouldn’t have even had a chance to win without Rutschman’s home run earlier, but it still stings to have the game decided on wild pitches to consecutive batters. Now, they aren’t entirely Rutschman’s doing — that’s why they were wild pitches instead of passed balls — but it’s still all a team effort in the end.

Inside-the-park whoops

It was not a great night for those expecting baseballs to do something different than they ended up doing. Helsley and Rutschman were just one example (well, two). There was also poor Lourdes Gurriel Jr. out in left or the Diamondbacks against the White Sox, on what should have been a fairly routine play. One that scored a run, maybe, but not an inside-the-park homer, that’s for sure. Observe:

Gurriel is clearly expecting the umpire to call the ball dead after it went down the left field line and rattled around near the ball boy and ball boy stool. It bounces right back into the field, though, and just… sits. Waiting for someone to pick it up. Roughly seven seconds passes in between Gurriel noticing the ball ricocheted back into the field and his actually picking it up — he is casually walking toward it while baserunner Everson Pereira (on first at the start of the play) and left fielder Sam Antonacci slow up, hesitate, then realize they are being gifted the opportunity to just keep on running because no one is stopping it from happening.

The play was challenged, but upheld: a reminder that you just have to play to the proverbial whistle. It could always be challenged after the fact, but not until the play is over; a fielder doesn’t get to decide the ball is dead on their own, and the White Sox ended up scoring two runs because Gurriel forgot as much.

Amazingly enough, Antonacci hit a triple earlier on, so that ended up being some night for him.

Murakami keeps on homering

Not just Antonacci, though. The White Sox would win 11-5, and a key part of that was in the second inning, when first baseman Munetaka Murakami hit a home run for the fourth-straight game.

It was his ninth dinger of the year, and also made him just the third-ever Japanese player to go yard four games in a row in MLB.

It was also the start of a back-to-back-to-back homer run for the White Sox, their first in six years: the other two came courtesy third baseman Miguel Vargas and shortstop Colson Montgomery.

Now that’s a dive

But wait, there’s more White Sox, somehow! Check this catch that Pereira made out in right.

That is some serious extension — not a little fall right near the end, but full-out going as long as he can and holding onto the ball despite his body crashing into the ground because of that stretch.

De La Cruz passes Rose

Reds’ shortstop Elly De La Cruz had himself a day against the Rays, powering Cincinnati to a 12-6 win. Literally powering, since De La Cruz went deep not once…

…but twice. 

As the tweet from the Reds says, this was the sixth multi-homer game of De La Cruz’s career — he’s only been in the league since 2023 and isn’t that close to 500 career games yet, yet already passed Pete Rose for the most multi-homer games by a Reds’ switch-hitter. Pretty good! De La Cruz is just 24 — he’ll have time to make that figure a bit more impressive before he wraps.

As is, he’s leading the National League in homers with eight, and looking a lot more like the player from 2025’s first half who slugged .495 and had 18 home runs, before a partially torn quad severely limited his offense, as he hit just four long balls and posted a .666 OPS in his last 65 games. That’s great news for the Reds, who needed that kind of pop in their lineup, and still do now.

Chase this

The Astros were up 4-2 on the Guardians through seven innings, but Cleveland finally put together some serious offense late in the eighth. Enyel De Los Santos came on in relief for Houston, and proceeded to walk second baseman Daniel Schneeman before giving up a single to left fielder Angel Martinez. Shortstop Brayan Rocchio would single in a run, forcing Houston to swap out De Los Santos for Bryan King, but King walked center fielder and leadoff hitter Steven Kwan to load the bases for rookie Chase DeLauter. The DH would triple in all three runners to put Cleveland up 6-4. He’s having a great season so far: sure, he’s batting just .221, but when paired with the patience to get a .322 on-base percentage and enough power to slug .506, anyway, what’s that matter?

That triple wasn’t it for the Guardians, either. King would then intentionally walk third baseman Jose Ramirez to get to first baseman Kyle Manzardo, but Ramirez stole second and Manzardo then drove both runners home with a single to right.

While DH Yordan Alvarez would get a run back for Houston in the ninth on an RBI double, it wasn’t enough to undo the damage of the eighth. Cleveland would take the W, and remains in first in the AL Central while the Astros are stuck in last in the West, already 4.5 back.

Cruz gets 10th steal, ump goes down

Two things to pay attention to here: one, Pirates’ center fielder Oneil Cruz picked up his 10th steal of the year, which leads the National League, and two, look at the umpire barely avoiding getting whacked by the throw from catcher Danny Jansen. The second base ump, Dan Merzel, might have avoided getting hit with the throw, but he paid for it with a tumble.

He’s alright, folks, just a little embarrassed.

Yankees topple Red Sox

The Yankees and Red Sox met up for the first time this season on Tuesday, and things did not go so hot for Boston despite being the host. They can thank New York’s designated hitter Giancarlo Stanton for that, mostly. Stanton hit a dinger over the Green Monster in left in the top of the second, off of starter Connelly Early, to put the Yankees up 1-0.

Stanton came to the plate in the sixth with the score holding, but it was 3-0 when he finished: he didn’t go yard this time, but actually hit the ball further on this two-run double against Early than on the homer, 378 feet to 369. Fenway’s dimensions are something.

The win was “mostly” Stanton’s doing, in the sense he drove in three of New York’s four runs, but don’t let the job the pitching staff did go unnoticed. Starter Luis Gil went 6.1 innings giving up no runs and just two hits, and the bullpen combined to limit Boston to just two more hits the rest of the way.

New York sits atop the AL East at 14-9, despite a problematic losing streak not all that long ago, while Boston is just one of four AL teams to fail to reach double-digit wins this late into the season: they’re in last place in the East despite the uninspiring pennant defense of the Blue Jays to this point.

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Embattled Mets closer Devin Williams allowed a tiebreaking RBI single to Luke Keaschall in the ninth inning, and New York lost its 12th consecutive game, falling 5-3 to the Minnesota Twins on Tuesday night.

The Mets’ skid is their longest since they dropped 12 straight from Aug. 10-23, 2002. No team has made the playoffs after a season in which it lost 12 in a row.

Matt Wallner followed Keaschall by drawing a bases-loaded walk off Williams (0-1), who didn’t retire any of the five batters he faced before being booed off the mound. Williams has allowed seven runs while recording four outs in his last three appearances.

The Mets were in position to end their streak when Nolan McLean retired the first 15 Twins batters and Francisco Lindor hit a three-run homer in the third to give the Mets their biggest lead since April 5, when they beat the San Francisco Giants 5-2.

The homer was Lindor’s first with a man on base since last Aug. 15 — one day before McLean’s debut.

Wallner led off the sixth with a single off McLean and Byron Buxton homered with two outs. Keaschall tied the game with an RBI single in the seventh.

A quartet of Twins pitchers retired the final 14 Mets in order. Cole Sands (1-1) tossed the last two innings.

McLean allowed three runs and struck out 10 in 6 2/3 innings. Twins starter Simeon Woods Richardson gave up three runs and struck out two in five innings.

 Reporting by the Associated Press.

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