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It was a delightful, yet absurd, start to a game that followed a similar theme.

Bryce Harper reached 1,000 RBIs and was part of a wild seventh-inning rally in which the Phillies scored four runs on just one hit in an 8-4 victory.

Harper, who had three hits and reached base four times, picked up his milestone RBI with a bloop single to left field off Pirates starter Andrew Heaney. Harper is one of eight active players with 1,000 RBIs.

The Phillies scored four runs in the seventh inning when six consecutive batters — including Harper — reached base against three relievers. Only one — Trea Turner — had a hit. The others all reached base via a walk or a hit by pitch, and three of the four runs scored without a ball being put in play.

Philadelphia tacked on three more runs in the eighth inning. Turner had an RBI triple, and Harper added No. 1,001 with a single.

Pirates interim manager Don Kelly was ejected from the game by third base umpire John Libka after arguing Libka’s call of no swing on Harper that resulted in a walk to load the bases. 

Presumably, Kelly thought the call was, well, let’s just say reminiscent of the Phillies’ old scorebug. 

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

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Brooks Lee, the regular second baseman, played shortstop against the Brewers. DaShawn Keirsey Jr. was in center field.

In other moves Friday, the Twins selected infielder Ryan Fitzgerald’s contract from Triple-A St. Paul and transferred right-handed pitcher Michael Tonkin to the 60-day injured list. The 30-year-old Fitzgerald was hitting .328 with a .426 on-base percentage, four homers and 21 RBS in 35 games with St. Paul.

The 30-year-old Correa had missed just three games this season — all scheduled rest days — after being limited to 86 games last season because of plantar fasciitis in his right foot. Buxton, whose career has been even more interrupted by injuries, also played in 41 of Minnesota’s first 44 games.

Correa, a three-time All-Star, is hitting .236 with a .274 on-base percentage, two homers and 13 RBIs this season.

Reporting by The Associated Press.

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Boston’s yellow, Boston Marathon-themed City Connect jerseys will remain in the team’s rotation. The “Fenway Greens” will be worn again on May 23, when Boston hosts the Baltimore Orioles, with a schedule thereafter yet to be determined.

As for the players depicted wearing the “Fenway Greens,” Bello has posted a 2.33 ERA, 1.41 WHIP and 17 strikeouts across five starts this season; Crochet, an offseason acquisition from the Chicago White Sox, has posted a 1.93 ERA, 1.07 WHIP and 65 strikeouts across nine starts; Duran has totaled two home runs and 23 RBIs, while boasting a .253/.298/.376 slash line. As part of its home run ritual, Boston players have thrown on a “Wally” head in the dugout this season.

Boston is 22-23, good for second place in the American League East.

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Yet again, those plans have gone awry. 

A year ago, the Dodgers were coming off a disappointing 2023 season in which their starters produced a 4.57 ERA, the worst mark in the team’s Los Angeles tenure, before a second straight first-round exit. They sought to change that by revamping the rotation, making Yoshinobu Yamamoto the highest-paid pitcher in MLB history, trading for Tyler Glasnow, adding veteran James Paxton, awaiting the anticipated early-season return of Walker Buehler from Tommy John surgery and expecting the further development of young standouts Bobby Miller, Emmet Sheehan and Gavin Stone. 

In theory, they should have had plenty of formidable options regardless of how Kershaw looked coming off the first surgery of his career, a shoulder procedure that would sideline him until summertime at the earliest. When he returned to the fold in late July, his presence was needed. 

Yamamoto had strained his rotator cuff. Paxton had already been designated for assignment. Buehler was on the injured list with hip inflammation after underperforming. Miller was back in Triple-A after failing to replicate a breakout rookie year the season prior. The Dodgers were using a bevy of rookies and openers to fill the voids. 

Kershaw entered the 2024 season just 56 strikeouts short of 3,000. He would not reach the mark, nor would he make it to September. He gritted through seven starts before the pain in his left big toe became too unbearable. He was dealing with a bone spur, arthritis and a ruptured plantar plate in his left foot and a torn meniscus in his left knee. Both injured body parts would eventually require surgery. 

He made his final start of the year on Aug. 30, then watched the rest of the championship season from the sideline. 

“I don’t take it for granted anymore to get to go out there and pitch at Dodger Stadium,” Kershaw said.

This year was supposed to be different for a Dodgers team that had learned from seasons past. 

They didn’t want to have to buy at the deadline to fill their needs, the way they did last year when they added Jack Flaherty for the stretch run in order to employ just three capable, healthy starting pitchers come October. A year after committing more than $1 billion in contracts, they splurged again this past offseason, adding two of the most prized arms on the market in Blake Snell and Roki Sasaki. 

Yet no matter the year, no matter the amount of money spent in the offseason or the talent assembled in Los Angeles, the importance of Kershaw persists.

Snell, Glasnow and Sasaki are all on the injured list. Despite all the moves they made, their starting pitchers have combined for a 4.14 ERA that ranks 20th in MLB. Navigating the season has once again required bullpen games and bulk innings from depth pieces. They’ve needed more innings from their relievers this year than any team in baseball. 

The Dodgers are in first place despite the litany of injuries — as of Friday morning, they have 14 pitchers on the IL not including Shohei Ohtani, who has yet to pitch for the club — though multiple division rivals are breathing down their neck. 

That’s the unexpected reality as Kershaw readies for his return. 

“Unfortunately, I think it comes at a time when we do need some starters,” Kershaw said. “Obviously, we’ve got some guys down right now. It seems like everybody’s on the mend and doing better — especially Snell and Glas, I feel like they’re trending up — so that’s good. But at the end of the day, you just want to be a contributing factor to the Dodgers. You don’t want to just be on the sidelines.” 

Kershaw was determined not to let last season’s foot injury end his career. As the years pass, his presence at Dodger Stadium remains a constant. The same can no longer be said for the longest-tenured Dodgers position player. 

For the first time since 2014, when Kershaw won his first MVP and third Cy Young Award, he will return to a team that no longer includes veteran Austin Barnes, one of his closest baseball friends. The Dodgers designated the 35-year-old veteran catcher — who has caught more Kershaw starts in his career than any catcher other than A.J. Ellis — for assignment to bring up top prospect Dalton Rushing this week in a move that surprised Kershaw and others. 

“I think a lot of people forget, he was starting a lot of playoff games and winning a lot of games for us, getting big knocks,” Kershaw said. “So, it’s sad to see someone like that go who’s been here that long. I think we all kind of feel it. It’s no disrespect to Dalton. I know he deserves it, and he’s going to be a great player. But for me personally, I think for a lot of guys on the team, it was disappointing to see him go.” 

Three days after the Dodgers let their longest-tenured position player go, the most-tenured player on their roster will take the mound. Injuries throughout the years have sapped Kershaw’s velocity, but they have not prevented him from producing. Over the last three years, with a fastball that averaged a tick over 90 mph, Kershaw tallied a 2.59 ERA. And while last season was more of a slog as he amassed a 4.50 ERA, neither the pain nor the struggles eroded his desire to keep pitching. 

In five rehab starts this year, Kershaw compiled a 2.57 ERA despite a fastball that averaged 87.5 mph. He knew he turned a corner over his last few rehab starts when he became more concerned about throwing well than how his surgically-repaired foot felt. 

“Now, it’s just a process of figuring out how to get guys out consistently again and perform,” Kershaw said. “That’s a much better place to be.” 

Kershaw can still outmaneuver opponents with a slider and curveball that will eventually land him in Cooperstown, even if he can’t overpower them the way he once did. He will enter the 2025 season just 32 strikeouts away from 3,000, a milestone only 19 pitchers before him have reached. 

“I haven’t really thought about that a whole lot,” Kershaw said. “For me, just getting back out on the mound is a big first step. Then it’s the rest of the season, obviously. Just making it through Saturday and getting back out there is what I’ve thought about so far.”

 Rowan Kavner is an MLB writer for FOX Sports. He previously covered the L.A. Dodgers, LA Clippers and Dallas Cowboys. An LSU grad, Rowan was born in California, grew up in Texas, then moved back to the West Coast in 2014. Follow him on X at @RowanKavner.

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The Tigers and Blue Jays were both real good for most of the 80s when they shared a division. Detroit finished in second in the East in 1983, with a 92-70 record, and Toronto came in fourth, at 89-73. The Tigers went 104-58 in 1984 en route to defeating the Padres in the World Series, with the Jays coming in second at 89-73. In ‘85, it was Toronto finishing in first with a 99-win campaign, while the Tigers fell back to third place. The two finished alongside each other in 1986 with seasons that would have been wild card-worthy today, but there was no such thing back then, and then in 1988, it was the Tigers finishing just two games ahead of the Jays for the AL East crown, 98 wins to 96, despite Detroit going just 5-8 against Toronto in head-to-head matchups that year.

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In ‘89, the Tigers had 88 wins in second, the Jays 87 in a tie for third. Then Toronto won the East in 1990, with the Tigers dropping all the way to last place and 103 losses, before rebounding in 1990 for a third-place finish behind the Jays. Toronto would then rattle off three consecutive first-place finishes and win two World Series’ titles in the process, while the Tigers sat on the outside.

The two went from constantly competing for the same singular playoff spot — a division win was the only way into the playoffs at that point, which was just a singular round before the World Series — and facing each other 13 times per year to something closer to the present model. The Tigers moved to the AL Central, the Jays remained behind in the East, and the two started to face each other about half as often, and with much less on the line in those matchups. The current designated rivalry is a vestige of a different time that might look like it’s nonsense or just some regional justification to someone who doesn’t know the history, but it’s there.

Red Sox vs. Braves

You have to go much further back to understand why the Red Sox and the Braves are considered rivals for the purposes of this weekend. Why isn’t it Red Sox vs. Yankees, and Mets vs. Braves? The root of many of these rivalry matchups is in interleague play, for one, and the Sox-Yankees and Mets-Braves are both in the same league, so that doesn’t quite fit. The other thing, though, is what brought about the Boston/Atlanta showdown in the first place back when interleague rivalries were being sorted out. Go back far enough in history, and you remember that this is Boston vs. Atlanta, yes, but it’s Boston vs. Boston.

Before they were the Boston Red Sox, they were the Boston Americans. The franchise began in 1901, and would win its first World Series — the first World Series — in 1903, when the upstart American League and its regular season champion took down the more established National League and its representative, the Pittsburgh Pirates, in an eight-game series. They’d become the Red Sox in 1908, and for a time, were the most successful franchise in MLB with five championships in 16 seasons, until that whole Babe Ruth-to-the-Yankees thing changed the course of history. 

The Braves’ origins go back much further than those of the Red Sox. The Boston Reds had their inaugural season in 1876, in the NL, and would change their name in 1901 to the Boston Nationals. Then in 1907, the Boston Doves, and in 1912, the Boston Braves. You would think, given their present-day name, that this moniker stuck, but no. They were briefly the Boston Bees from 1936 through 1940, then the Braves once more. From that point on, instead of changing their team name, they instead changed locations. The Boston Braves became the Milwaukee Braves from 1953 through 1965, then they were the Atlanta Braves.

For all the success that the Red Sox had in Boston while they shared the space with the Braves, the NL club had comparatively less. They won the World Series in 1914, then lost it in 1948. That is the extent of their postseason experience as the NL’s representative against the AL in the Fall Classic. In the 52 seasons that the two were in Boston together, from 1901 through 1952, the Braves finished, in a league with eight teams in it, in sixth place or worse on 32 occasions. They lost at least 100 games 11 times, including a stretch of four years in a row and a separate back-to-back-to-back run. Most of their success came before the AL/NL working relationship and merger — before the Red Sox. Even with the Sox being a joke for some time post-Ruth, it was a one-sided rivalry.  When the Braves struggled to draw enough fans — the Red Sox drew an average of 1.47 million fans per year from 1946 through 1950, whereas the Braves averaged 1.15 million over the same stretch before seeing that number dwindle to under half-a-million and just 281,278 in their final two years in town — they picked up and moved, making Boston a one-team town. 

Think of this rivalry as the annoying younger sibling who got a lot more attention and noted success, facing off against their older sibling, who would very much like to put the other in their place, especially now that they’ve had plenty of their own wins since moving out, with three championships of their own, a whole bunch of Hall of Famers, and long stretches of repeat playoff appearances. Though, it’s not going so great for Atlanta on the head-to-head front, as they’re 44-50 against the Red Sox all-time, per StatMuse. At least Chris Sale won the NL Cy Young last summer after the Sox jettisoned him to Atlanta, that should count for a couple of dubs in the head-to-head standings.

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Giants vs. Athletics 

The San Francisco Giants and Athletics are facing off against each other in a battle of the bay teams, except, only one of them is located near the San Francisco Bay now. The Athletics are temporarily playing home games in Sacramento as they await the construction of their brand new ballpark in Las Vegas, where they’ll be officially christened the Las Vegas Athletics. All of this means that, eventually, Giants/A’s will go the way of Red Sox/Braves, in that we’ll reach a point where new fans get into MLB and have to go, “wait, why?” about this rivalry designation. For now, though, we’re still aware of the source of it, as the Athletics just moved to Sacramento from Oakland in 2025.

Maybe the Athletics moving to Las Vegas for 2028 will change the shape of these rivalries, and free MLB to go old school and give the world Dodgers vs. Giants once more, with all of the history and present-day bad blood between the two on display in this spotlight weekend. The Los Angeles Dodgers used to be the Brooklyn Dodgers, and the San Francisco Giants the New York Giants, with the two teams constantly at odds for National League supremacy before both picked up and moved west to continue their rivalry. And it’s still very much alive, when you consider that a full one-third of the last 15 World Series have been won by either the Giants or the Dodgers, and seven of those Fall Classics have featured one of the two. 

At the least, that would let Angels fans have to stop thinking so much about how successful Shohei Ohtani’s other Los Angeles team has been since getting him. As for what to do with the Angels and the Athletics in this new setup… that’s for MLB to figure out, we’re just here to explain the present-day oddities. Hey, another excuse to hope for MLB expansion to 32 teams at some point in the neat future: specifically to create exciting new rivalries for teams that could use them.

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Padres vs. Mariners

The Padres and Mariners don’t actually have a great reason to be paired up, so it’s understandable if you felt some Indifference here. Or at least, they didn’t, back when the idea of “designated rivals” became a thing for interleague purposes. The two shared a spring training complex, sure, and it was funny how the two had a Habit of trading players back-and-forth to each other, but that’s fine if that’s not enough for a true rivalry to emerge. Because eventually, something happened to pit these two teams against each other, to make their series lose their previous Insignificance. And that something? Pearl Jam’s lead singer and sometimes third guitarist, Eddie Vedder.

This used to just be a gag. A play on the fact that Eddie Vedder, who lived in San Diego in California after moving there from Illinois in the 1970s, relocated to Seattle when he joined Pearl Jam in the early 90s. Vedder was something fans could joke about the two sides feuding over, a way to give meaning to their interleague matchups and the times when they clashed in preseason games. The winner of these series was the recipient of the Vedder Cup, a not-at-all physical thing, a more metaphorical badge of honor. 

But now, starting in 2025, the Vedder Cup is real. So real, in fact, that MLB.com has a page on it and the two series between the Padres and Mariners up at their website… and Eddie Vedder designed the now-physical cup that will be awarded to the winning team himself. Now, with MLB approval, we’ll all get to see who is the Better Man. Wait, no, the song title pluralization is all wrong there. Man of the Hour? No, that’s wrong, too. This whole bit has come Undone.

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But Soto isn’t looking back on his decision to switch teams.

“I made a decision, and I’m happy that I made it,” Soto said about signing with the Mets. “You look around. We have an unbelievable team. And it’s going to be a good team for a long time.”

Thus far, Soto is off to an underwhelming start by the five-time Silver Slugger’s standards, as he has totaled eight home runs and 20 RBIs, while boasting a .255/.380/.465 slash line. Both New York teams are atop their respective divisions, with the Mets 28-16 and the Yankees 25-18.

The Yankees acquired Soto from the San Diego Padres in December 2023 in a trade package that included now-Padres ace Michael King. Soto is on his fourth MLB team: Washington Nationals (2018-22), Padres (2022-23), Yankees (2024) and Mets (present). The Mets won all four of their games against the Yankees last season.

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Willie Randolph: Yankees from 1976-88, Mets in 1992

After spending his 1975 rookie campaign with the Pittsburgh Pirates, Randolph was traded to the Yankees and became an integral part of their operation. Playing the bulk of his big-league career in the Bronx, Randolph earned five of his six All-Star honors in pinstripes, was part of the Yankees’ 1977 World Series championship team and amassed 1,731 hits across 13 seasons with the franchise. He ended his playing career with the Mets in 1992, posting a .252 batting average in 90 games.

Randolph was later a bench coach and third base coach for the Yankees from 1994-2004. He later managed the Mets from 2005-08, highlighted by a 97-win 2006 season that saw them reach the National League Championship Series.

Darryl Strawberry: Mets from 1983-90, Yankees from 1995-99

Strawberry is arguably the most famous case of a player who suited up for both New York teams. An All-Star in seven of his eight seasons with the Mets, Strawberry was part of the 1986 World Series championship team and stands first in franchise history with 252 career home runs and ninth with 1,025 career hits. The star outfielder blasted 37-plus home runs and logged 100-plus RBIs in three of his last four seasons with the Mets, leading the National League with 39 long balls and a .545 slugging percentage in 1988.

Following three seasons with the Los Angeles Dodgers and one with the San Francisco Giants (so, technically, Strawberry has played for all four New York baseball teams given the Dodgers’ and the Giants’ previous New York City stomping grounds), Strawberry joined the Yankees midway through the 1995 season. While he only appeared in 100 regular-season games for the Yankees in one of his five seasons (1998), Strawberry was part of three Yankees championship teams (1996, 1998 and 1999). In his best season with the Bronx Bombers (1998), Strawberry hit 24 home runs and posted a .542 slugging percentage across 101 regular-season games.

Dwight Gooden: Mets from 1984-94, Yankees from 1996-97 and 2000

Gooden was the cream of the crop with the Mets. Leading the league in strikeouts in both of his first two seasons and leading the way with 24 wins and a 1.53 ERA in 1985, the right-hander won the NL Cy Young Award and was part of the Mets’ 1986 championship team. Across Gooden’s 11 seasons with the Mets, he posted a combined 3.10 ERA and is second in franchise history with both 157 wins and 1,875 strikeouts.

After not playing in 1995, Gooden signed with the Yankees in 1996, reuniting with Strawberry for two seasons and helping the Yankees win the 1996 World Series. In just his seventh start with the Yankees, Gooden threw a no-hitter at Yankee Stadium. After bouncing around from 1998-2000, the Yankees brought back Gooden during the 2000 season, with him primarily pitching out of the bullpen for their eventual World Series unit that beat the Mets in the “Subway Series.”

Rickey Henderson: Yankees from 1985-89, Mets from 1999-2000

Henderson will always be the face of Athletics baseball, but the baserunning demon also played for both New York teams during his Hall of Fame career. Acquired by the Yankees for the 1985 season, Henderson came to New York in the prime of his career and continued to swipe bags like nobody’s business, leading the American League in stolen bases in three of his four complete seasons (1985, 1986 and 1988) with the Yankees and batting a combined .288 over his four-plus seasons before being traded back to Oakland during the 1989 season.

Henderson later played one-plus seasons with the Mets, batting .315 and stealing 37 bases in 1999 and starting for a team that reached the NL Championship Series. He was released by the Mets during the 2000 season.

David Cone: Mets from 1987-92 and 2003, Yankees from 1995-2000

Cone made 11 appearances out of the Kansas City Royals‘ bullpen in 1986 and was then traded to the Mets, with whom he thrived in a much different role. Becoming a primary starting pitcher, Cone was an essential part of New York’s rotation, averaging a 3.13 ERA per season across his first six seasons with the Mets. Cone’s career ended with the Mets in 2003, as he made four starts and five appearances total. Cone is sixth in Mets history with 1,172 career strikeouts and ninth with 81 wins.

Meanwhile, the Yankees acquired Cone in the middle of the 1995 season, and he would go on to be part of four World Series teams (1996, 1998, 1999 and 2000). Cone threw a perfect game for the Yankees in 1999. Across six seasons with the Yankees, Cone made a combined 144 starts and 145 appearances total, posting a combined 3.91 ERA.

Al Leiter: Yankees from 1987-89 and 2005, Mets from 1998-2004

Leiter began his career as a promising left-hander with the Yankees, but they traded him to the Toronto Blue Jays in 1989 to acquire outfielder and two-time Gold Glover Jesse Barfield. After being sidetracked by injuries, Leiter came into his own in the mid-1990s and found his way to the Mets in 1998, when he was arguably at his best.

Across his seven seasons in Queens, Leiter posted a combined 3.42 ERA over 213 regular-season starts and stands sixth in Mets history with 95 wins and eighth with 1,106 strikeouts. Ironically, Leiter made two starts for the Mets against the Yankees in the 2000 World Series, pitching through seven innings in both outings. The southpaw was acquired by the Yankees during the 2005 season, which was his last.

Carlos Beltran: Mets from 2005-11, Yankees from 2014-16

The Mets brought in Beltran to be an impact bat, and he played up to that billing. After an underwhelming 2005 season by his standards, Beltran drove in 110-plus runs in three consecutive seasons while hitting a career-high 41 home runs in 2006. Beltran made the NL All-Star Game roster in five of his seven seasons with the Mets and is seventh in franchise history with 149 home runs.

Following a brief stint with the Giants in 2011 and two seasons with the St. Louis Cardinals, the Yankees signed Beltran to add a proven bat to the equation. While they never made the playoffs with Beltran present, the nine-time All-Star outfielder posted a combined .270/.327/.470 slash line across his two-plus seasons with the Yankees, blasting 22 home runs in 2016 before being traded to the Texas Rangers.

Robinson Cano: Yankees from 2005-13, Mets from 2019-22

Cano was arguably the best second baseman of his generation and the best in Yankees history. Both a Silver Slugger and All-Star in five of his nine seasons with the Yankees and a two-time Gold Glover, the Yankees got the best version of Cano, who was part of their 2009 World Series team and boasted a career .309/.355/.504 slash line for the franchise.

Five seasons after leaving the Yankees for the Seattle Mariners, the Mets traded for Cano; he served a second suspension for performance-enhancing drugs (PEDs) in 2021, causing Cano to miss the entire season. In the shortened, 60-game 2020 season, Cano had 10 home runs, 30 RBIs and a .316 batting average. 

Curtis Granderson: Yankees from 2010-13, Mets from 2014-17

The Yankees acquired Granderson after their 2009 World Series triumph, and he became one of the most intimidating left-handed hitters in the sport upon arrival. After a respectable 2010 season, Granderson totaled 40-plus home runs and 100-plus RBIs in both 2011 and 2012, with him finishing fourth in AL MVP voting in the former year. Granderson was limited to 61 games in 2013 due to forearm and hand injuries, with the outfielder leaving the Yankees for the Mets in the ensuing offseason.

In four seasons with the Mets, Granderson posted an OPS+ north of 100 and averaged 23.8 home runs per season. “The Grandyman” started for the Mets’ 2015 NL pennant team; he was traded to the Dodgers during the 2017 season.

Luis Severino: Yankees from 2015-23, Mets in 2024

Severino was a highly touted prospect for the Yankees, and he pitched up to those expectations. After flashing promise in 22 starts from 2015-16, Severino established himself as New York’s ace in 2017, with the right-hander averaging a 3.18 ERA, 1.09 WHIP and 225 strikeouts per season from 2017-18; he was an All-Star in both seasons. Unfortunately for Severino, shoulder and elbow issues, among other injuries, substantially limited him in the years that followed, making just 40 starts from 2019-23.

The Mets took a flier on Severino for the 2024 season, and he got his career back on track. Arguably the team’s ace, Severino posted a 3.91 ERA across 31 regular-season starts and helped the Mets go on a surprise run to the NLCS. Severino’s resurgent 2024 campaign helped him get a three-year, $67 million deal with the Athletics.

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As OptaStats notes, it’s not just that this is Ohtani’s first 42 games besting the first 42 games of everyone else in terms of homers, runs, steals, and walks. It’s any 42-game stretch, from anyone. The fact that baseball is as old of a sport as it is, with MLB itself nearly as old, and that there are somehow still brand new occurrences happening statistically, is wild. That’s Ohtani, though. A player capable of so many seemingly unthinkable feats that society had to invent the idea of Tungsten Arm O’Doyle to better understand just how special he was.

Despite how it might feel, though, it’s not actually impossible to get Ohtani out. Not even on his bobblehead night. Just ask… wait, what? The catcher struck him out? The backup catcher?

Backup catcher Jhonny Pereda struck out Shohei

Well how about that. Subheadings don’t lie. On a night as big as the one Ohtani had, he somehow was taken down a peg by a position player on the mound. Baseball!

Pereda, per MLB.com, wanted to face Ohtani on a night when an Athletics player could request that kind of thing, given they ended up losing 19-2 to the Dodgers. The A’s backup backstop threw four pitches, none of them faster than 70 mph, and then cranked it all the way to a devastating 89 mph to try to catch one of MLB’s preeminent sluggers off-balance. Ohtani fouled the pitch off right into the catcher’s mitt, and that was that. 

You’d keep the ball that struck Ohtani out, too, even if your team lost by a couple of touchdowns and a field goal in the process.

Vintage deGrom

Gather round, children, your elders have a story to tell you about baseball back in their day. Of pitchers who pitched deep into games, of duels that didn’t involve the bullpen until it was time to close things out, if even then. This isn’t a debate about what’s better or what’s worse, but on Thursday night, we were given a glimpse of what things used to be like. For MLB as a whole, and for one pitcher specifically: Rangers’ hurler Jacob deGrom.

deGrom threw eight innings on just 96 pitches for the Rangers, scattering five hits while striking out seven in what became a shutout of the Astros once Shawn Armstrong closed things out with a scoreless ninth. That’s noteworthy on its own, yes, but dueling deGrom from Houston was their own ace, Hunter Brown. Brown also threw eight innings, striking out nine while allowing just four baserunners, but as he gave up a single run and deGrom did not, he took the L. 

As deGrom has been hurt so often in his career, and he’ll be turning 37 years old in just a few days, we should take the time to appreciate when he’s on the mound. There were few who could be argued to be his equal when he was in his prime, and starts like last night’s effort are a reminder of why that was.

Twins do their namesake proud

Back-to-back jacks from the Twins? Anyone can do this, but only the Twins can do it with this level of inherent wordplay. Here’s Dashawn Keirsey Jr. and Byron Buxton with the Twins’ first back-to-back homers of the season:

The Twins rendered the Orioles’ flightless not just on Thursday, but in the four-game series as a whole. Minnesota has now won 11 in a row, the longest streak in MLB this year, which has brought their record to 24-20 and put them in possession of the third of three wild card slots. The Orioles… well, their ‘25 isn’t going quite like that. And looks about as bad as the Twins’ season did before winning 11 in a row. Don’t worry, Baltimore, all you have to do is rip off nearly a dozen wins in a row and you’re right back in this thing, too. 

He threw how hard? 

This isn’t the majors, no, but with the way Jacob Misiorowski is pitching in Triple-A, he’ll be there before long. Here’s the 6-foot-7 right-hander dialing it up all the way to 103 mph for a strikeout during Thursday’s MiLB action:

The 2022 second-round pick is, as noted, the top pitching prospect in Milwaukee’s system, and has racked up 59 strikeouts in 49.1 innings of work at Triple-A this spring. MLB ranked him as the No. 72 prospect in the minors coming into the year, so there might not be an ace-in-waiting here, but then again, he was a second-round pick who is thriving at Triple-A and made it into a top-100 list even before then. Whether he’s a starter or a reliever in the long run is the question — given his length and that he pitches exclusively from the stretch, his delivery is sometimes difficult to repeat. But there’s no denying that 80-grade heater. 

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