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Transactions: LHP Rob Zastryzny assigned to Nashville on Major League rehab INF/OF Eric Brown Jr. reinstated from AA Biloxi’s 7-day injured list C Edgardo Ordoñez placed on Development List from AA Biloxi Game Action: Nashville Pre-Game Media Notes Final: Nashville 6, Iowa (Cubs) 5 Box Score and Game Log Via MLB.com, details and video of the terrific game-ending defensive play by OF Jordyn Adams: Former 4-star wide receiver makes incredible game-ending HR robbery at Triple-A Also, via extracts from the Sounds’ postgame notes which we’re able to share: Adams Robs I-Cubs Chance at Late Game Rally – Williams Collects a Pair of Extra-Base Hits in Sounds Win Jordyn Adams sealed Nashville's Thursday night victory with a game-ending double play from right field and robbed the I-Cubs of any late-inning magic in the 6-5 win at First Horizon Park. The outfielder tipped what appeared to be a three-run home run off the bat of Justin Dean into his own glove on the way down before doubling off Christian Bethancourt trying to return to first base. The Sounds struck first with an RBI for Ethan Murray after Jeferson Quero (1-for-2, HR, 2 walks, RBI) and Greg Jones drew two of the 11 walks issued by Iowa to start the inning. Nashville played small ball to move the runners into scoring position for Murray to capitalize on the RBI chance with a productive groundout. The I-Cubs took their first lead in the next half inning with two runs on four hits of RHP Carlos Rodriguez (3 1/3 IP, 4 R, 8 H, 2 BB, 4 Ks; 75 pitches), who piggy-backed off a three-up, three-down one-inning start for rehabbing Major Leaguer Rob Zastryzny (3-up, 3-down first inning). Tyler Black (1-for-4, double, walk, RBI, SB) quickly evened the score at two a piece and extended his hitting streak to 11 games with an RBI double in the home half of the third. Following a quiet fourth inning, Iowa jumped back out to a 2-run lead with three more hits off Rodriguez. RHP Kaleb Bowman (2 2/3 IP, 0 R, 2 H, 1 BB, 5 Ks) inherited a bases-loaded situation and walked the first man he faced before striking out Dean and inducing a groundout to escape the inning without any further damage done. Quero started Nashville's comeback with a solo home run in the bottom of the fifth to cut the deficit to one run. Jett Williams (2-for-4, double, walk, SB) doubled in the sixth for his second extra-base hit of the night after hitting a triple in the fourth and came around to tie the game on an RBI single for Cooper Pratt (2-for-5, double, RBI) to tie the game at 4-4. Black worked his way around the bases in the home half of the seventh to put Nashville back in front. After drawing a walk, Black advanced to second on an errant throw trying to double him off first after a lineout and then stole third before a throw from Bethancourt ended up in left field and allowed Black to make his way home. In the eighth, Williams reached on a fielder's choice, and Pratt collected his second hit with a double before Iowa gave Luis Lara (0-for-1, 4 walks, SB) an intentional free pass to first base to load the bases. Brock Wilken recorded his 25th RBI of the season with a sac fly to give Nashville a run in four straight innings and build a 6-4 lead. RHPs Junior Fernandez and Reiss Knehr tag-teamed the final two innings on the mound for Nashville. Fernandez struck out one, walked one, and allowed a hit as he stranded two for his second hold of the season in the top of the eighth. Knehr allowed two straight singles to start the top of the ninth but got Scott Kingery to fly out to right field for the first out and advance one runner to third. That set the stage for Adams to rob Dean of a go-ahead three-run home run and end the game with his highlight-reel finish. Sounds’ Extras: Wilken extended his on-base streak to 30 consecutive games, drawing a one-out walk in the bottom of the third inning. He has the longest-active streak in the International League and is tied for fifth among full-season minor leaguers with Pablo Reyes and Derek Bernard. Black is currently hitting .310 (13-for-42, 4 XBH, 7 RBI, 8 BB, 8 R) during his hitting streak. After going 0-for-4 on opening night of the season in Norfolk on March 27, he is hitting .319 (22-for-69) with seven doubles, a home run, 14 RBI, eight walks, and 10 runs scored over his last 20 games between Nashville (11 G) and Milwaukee (9 G). Quero’s solo shot marked his fifth homer of the season, the fourth off right-handed batters and the second at home. In his three-year stint with the Sounds, Quero has posted a .253 career batting average (86-for-340), 21 doubles, one triple, 11 homers and 69 RBI. Pratt earned his eighth multi-hit of the 2026 campaign, extending his on-base streak to eight consecutive games. Friday’s outlook: LHP Tate Kuehner (5.50 ERA, 1.44 WHIP, 9.0 K/9 in 36 IP) is expected to start, with Nashville looking to clinch the series with a 4th straight win. RHP Coleman Crow (last pitched on May 7) is another starting option, though he may be called up to The Show or the MLB Taxi Squad instead. Biloxi Pre-Game Media Notes Final: Montgomery (Rays) 9, Biloxi 3 Box Score and Game Log Via the Shuckers’ website, game details and we encourage readers to review affiliate write-ups as part of their Link Report routine: Brown Jr. Returns from IL with Multi-Hit Performance in Shuckers Loss 25-year-old RHP Tanner Gillis’ first career AA start was an active one (4 IP, 3 R (2 ER), 5 H, 1 BB, 2 Ks), with 7 of the first 12 batters reaching base but only 3 making it home. He helped himself out with a 1st inning pick-off and benefitted from OF Eric Brown Jr.’s 3rd inning assist. Unfortunately, the Shuckers’ offense only sent 16 batters to the plate in the first 5 innings, finding themselves in a 5-0 hole by the end of that 5th inning. 1B Blake Burke (3-for-4, RBI; .900 OPS), C Darrien Miller (1-for-2, HR, HBP, sac fly, 2 RBIs; 1.082 OPS) and Brown (2-for-4, double, SB) collected 6 of the team’s 7 hits, as the squad got to within 5-2 by the 7th inning but could not close the gap further. Shuckers’ Extras: RHPs Edwin Jimenez and Ryan Birchard were effective in relief (combined 2 IP, 0 R, 0 H, 0 BB, 3 Ks), while RHP Sam Garcia and LHP Joe Corbett struggled (combined 2 IP, 6 R, 3 Ks). SS Eduardo Garcia exited for a pinch hitter in the 7th inning, shifting Brown to shortstop and 3B Mike Boeve to the outfield. Back from 2-week injury absence, former first round pick Brown is now in his 5th minor league season. If he can keep his OBP above .320 (presently .340 after 47 plate appearances), his strong defensive skills can see the 25-year-old progress further up the organizational chain. Friday’s outlook: RHP Brett Wichrowski (7.34 ERA, 1.60 WHIP, 9.7 K/9 in 30 2/3 IP) is set for his 5th start (8th appearance), with Biloxi shooting to grab a 3-1 series lead at Montgomery. Wisconsin Pre-Game Media Notes Final: South Bend 25 (Cubs), Wisconsin 6 Box Score and Game Log Via the Timber Rattlers’ website, game details: South Bend Pulls Away Late to Beat Wisconsin In addition to the embedded videos in the linked game report, the Wisconsin media team has compiled more highlights here: As you’ve read in the report and seen in the box score, this was a back-and-forth baseball game most of the way, tied 6-6 as they entered the 7th inning before things took a negative turn. Starting LHP JD Thompson (4 IP, 2 R, 2 H, 2 BB, 5 Ks) faced the minimum number of batters through 3 innings, inducing a ground ball double play to end the 2nd inning and picking off a runner in the 3rd frame, ultimately exiting at 56 pitches after a 4-pitch walk to start the 5th inning. Outfielders Braylon Payne (3-for-5, HR, RBI) and Josh Adamczewski (3-for-4, triple, walk, RBI, SB) had 6 of the team’s 8 hits and 3 of their 6 runs, including Payne’s solo homer to grab a 4-3 lead and Adamczewski’s infield RBI single to tie the game 6-6 in the 6th inning. Timber Rattlers’ Extras: Although it hurt to concede 4 runs in the 7th inning, RHP Jose Nova (1 IP, 4 ER) made steps in the right direction by not throwing any wild pitches (vs. 7 in his last outing) and only issuing one walk (vs. 3 last time out). By contrast, RHP Bryan Rivera (2 IP, 4 ER), RHP Quinton Low (1/3 IP, 4 ER) and LHP Bjorn Johnson (2/3 IP, 3 ER) were not able to follow up previous strong relief outings. INF/OF Luiyin Alastre’s 4th career minor league mop-up appearance saw his career ERA rise from 16.88 to 27.00. After a big game on Sunday, C Marco Dinges missed his 3rd consecutive game, though we’re encouraged by the fact that he’s not been placed on any injured list. Per a trusted source on SS Luis Pena: “Details of his visit to the neurologist will remain private. As for his status, it remains the same as my last update. I’ll reiterate that Peña is fine and could be playing right now, but the organization wants to know if there is a deeper issue that caused the incident or, equally possible, that resulted from the incident before a return to the field.” Friday’s outlook: 23-year-old RHP Travis Smith has had a great start to the season (3.14 ERA, 0.94 WHIP, 7.5 K/9 in 28 2/3 IP) and will get the chance to lead Wisconsin to a series-levelling victory. Wilson Pre-Game Media Notes Final: Wilson 7, Hill City (Guardians) 3 Box Score and Game Log Via the Warbirds’ website, game details: Funky Fourth Inning Gives Wilson First Win of Series On Military Appreciation Night in Wilson, a patient eye (8 walks) and wild-and-wacky defense by the Howlers (5 errors, 4 wild pitches, 1 passed ball) were an effective formula on Thursday, as Wilson built a 6-1 lead by the 4th inning. DH Jadyn Fielder (2-for-4, RBI) connected on 2 doubles and OF Handelfry Encarnacion (0-for-1, RBI) drew 4 walks were the offensive standouts, with the Warbirds scoring 7 runs despite going 1-for-13 with runners in scoring position and only tallying 3 RBIs. 2025 third round pick RHP Jacob Morrison (2 1/3 IP, 1 R, 1 H, 1 BB, 1 K) made his 3rd start, conceding a leadoff homer before buckling down to retire the next 6 batters in order. Morrison exited the game after a walk and caught stealing to commence the 3rd inning, with an “injury delay” listed in the game log. Hopefully he’s not had any setback. C Kevin Garcia snapped a 1-for-28 skid to start the year with a leadoff bloop single in the 2nd inning, scoring alongside 3B Filippo Di Turi on a bases loaded wild pitch and error to grab a 2-1 second inning lead. Fielder’s first double pushed the lead to 4-1 in the 4th inning, followed by a run-scoring interference error (and ejection for the Hill City manager) and a run-scoring walk. RHP Thomas Conrad (1 2/3 IP, 0 R, 1 H, 0 BB, 3 Ks) was terrific in relief of Morrison, while RHP Eric Prado (2 IP, 0 R, 1 H, 0 BB, 0 Ks) induced two ground ball double plays to earn his first career save. There was some interesting baserunning by the opposition here: Warbirds’ Extras: 6’6” LHP Andrew Healy’s first career win came in an up-and-down relief effort (3 IP, 2 R, 4 H, 2 BB, 4 Ks), ably covering the 5th through the 7th innings. Eight Wilson position players reached base via hit or walk, while 1B Frederi Montero contributed a sacrifice fly. Friday’s outlook: LHP Enderson Mercado (6.58 ERA, 2.15 WHIP, 11.1 K/9 in 26 IP) is scheduled to make his 5th start (8th appearance) of 2026, with Wilson aiming to even the series at two games apiece. Final: ACL Brewers 13, ACL Rangers 7 Box Score and Game Log Sparked by leadoff catalyst OF Brailyn Antunez (2-for-4, HR, walk, RBI, 2 SBs), the Zona Crew scored in each of the first 4 innings to build an 8-2 lead, then tacked on 4 more runs in the 6th inning to push their advantage to 12-5 and essentially put the game away. Antunez singled, stole a base and scored on an error in the first inning, then walked, stole again and came home on a DH Cristopher Acosta single for a 5-2 lead in the second frame. Eight Brewers collected at least one base knock, as they out-hit the Rangers 15-6, while also benefitting from 5 opposition errors. OF Kenny Fenelon (2-for-3, double, walk, HBP, RBI, 3 SBs) and 3B Moises Polanco (3-for-4, walk) reached base 4 times, while OF Alexander Frias (3-for-5, double, RBI), SS CJ Hughes (1-for-3, 2 walks, SB) came aboard 3 times. Rehabbing 2023 #33 overall draft pick RHP Josh Knoth got the start (2 1/3 IP, 2 R, 3 H, 1 BB, 3 Ks), while 19-year old RHP Chase Bentley did the heavy lifting out of the ‘pen (3 1/3 IP, 2 R, 2 H, 4 BB, 3 Ks). The mission was apparently to cause havoc on the basepaths, as the team registered 8 thefts, but was also caught stealing twice and were picked off 4 other times. Even with 15 hits, 8 walks and 1 HBP, the team only left 3 men on base over 9 innings, as they either scored or ran into outs (e.g. Polanco was caught on a double steal in the 2nd inning, picked off in the 5th frame and picked off again in the 9th inning). 1B Roderick Flores (2-for-4, 2 RBIs) saw his first action in one week, while C Freider Rojas (1-for-3, walk, SB) played for the first time in 6 days. RHP Bryan Regalado struggled in relief (1 1/3 IP, 3 R (2 ER), 2 Ks), while RHPs Josue Toledo, Argenis Aparicio and Ayendy Bravo combined on 2 hitless, scoreless innings with 2 Ks. We hope that you enjoy the Minor League Link Report. On Friday, Wilson kicks things off with a 6:05pm CST start time, while the ACL Brewers (4-5) host the ACL Guardians (4-5) at 8pm. The Milwaukee Brewers also commence their series in Minnesota at 6:10pm. Organizational Scoreboard including starting pitcher info, game times, MiLB TV links, and box scores Current Milwaukee Brewers Organization Batting Stats and Depth Current Milwaukee Brewers Organization Pitching Stats and Depth View the full article

Fish On First staffers react to the latest Miami Marlins series and prepare you for what lies ahead. Thursday's show was hosted by Ely Sussman and featured panelists Jeremiah Geiger and Sean Millerick. You can find Fish Unfiltered and Fish On First LIVE on the Fish On First YouTube channel, Apple Podcasts, Spotify or wherever else you get your pods. Our next FOF LIVE episode will be Sunday at approximately 6:30 p.m. ET the day after the Marlins-Rays series finale. View the full article

In theory, speed is a means to manufacture runs. Speed puts pressure on the opposing defense, stretches singles into doubles, and helps runners steal bases. The implication is that you have to get on base to take advantage of speed, which the 2026 Boston Red Sox haven’t been doing. Despite a paltry .313 OBP (23rd), they lead the American League in baserunning runs (5). Baseball is a unique sport for many reasons, one of them being that the defense controls the ball. Because of this, it’s harder to quantify speed’s offensive value. Baserunning outcomes depend on a myriad of context-based factors, like the runner’s sprint speed, their instincts, which base they’re on, their ability to make decisions under pressure, not to mention the opposing defense and where the ball was hit. You can see where things start to get messy. Hitting and pitching are easier to quantify because they can be isolated. A hitter's outcomes can be grouped into their contact quality and plate discipline. FIP isolates fielding from pitching by honing in on events pitchers directly control (strikeouts, walks, hit-by-pitches, and home runs). Sprint speed is a metric runners own, but by itself, it doesn’t tell you much (not unlike Craig Breslow’s press conferences). The Red Sox’s average sprint speed clocks at 27.6 feet per second, placing them at fifth overall, but they’ve posted a 71.43% stolen base percentage, ranked 19th. At some point, their steal attempts start costing more runs than they create. For a team that’s scored an eye-popping five runs in the past week, the Red Sox can’t afford to be careless on the basepaths. Overall, a stolen base’s value is marginal. They’re exciting to see, but I equate them to eating Taco Bell. It’s initially exciting and releases some endorphins, but doesn’t reap many benefits in the long run. Timing the pitcher’s release and getting a good jump are important factors that go into basestealing. Neither can be quantified. Slow-moving players like Josh Naylor rack up stolen bases because they have good baserunning instincts. On the other hand, you have speedier guys like Ceddanne Rafaela (28.7 ft/s, 90th percentile) posting a 40% stolen base rate. Marginal differences matter, especially in baseball, but a team shouldn’t be entirely dependent on speed and contact to manufacture runs. A roster built for October baseball needs to be well-rounded. Power produces runs. A home run guarantees at least one run is driven home. A stolen base might yield one. The Yankees are a lethargic team (I’d bet my cat is faster than most of the guys in their lineup), but they lead the American League with 223 runs and boast the highest ISO in the sport (.199). The Red Sox are often compared to the Brewers for their contact-and-baserunning approach. I’d say they’re the Brewers’ Waluigi. They want to emulate the Brewers, but they don’t have the plate discipline to work counts or the ability to hit the ball in the gaps. Instead, the team leans hard into bat speed and exit velocity. As such, speed alone won’t save the Red Sox. They’re stuck with who they have (unless Breslow miraculously pulls off a godfather trade for one or two sluggers). Despite their 18-24 record, the team still has a shot of reaching the playoffs, but they face an identity crisis. They’re built as a contact-first squad, but constantly swing for the fences. If the Red Sox want to succeed, they need to play to their strengths. Contact first, then wreak havoc on the basepaths. View the full article

Welcome to Shape of the Blue Jays, my column where I dig into Statcast numbers to analyze recent pitch shape and swing shape trends for Toronto Blue Jays players and discuss how they have impacted their performance. Click here to read the last edition. Quick Hits: Prospects When Eric Lauer was designated for assignment on Monday, Yariel Rodríguez was recalled to take his spot on the active roster. The immediate plan for that fifth spot in the rotation seems to be a piggyback situation with Spencer Miles and Rodríguez, but John Schneider also mentioned CJ Van Eyk and Chad Dallas, two starters with the Buffalo Bisons, as internal candidates to fill the role. Van Eyk, 27, is a former second-round pick from the 2020 draft. The righty has a 3.13 ERA through seven starts in Triple A so far. He has a 30° arm angle and sits 93 mph with his four-seamer. He makes use of seven different pitch types, with a low-80s two-plane curveball standing out from a results standpoint in 2026 (.163 xwOBA, 43.5% swing and miss). To lefties, he has been throwing his four-seam, curveball, cutter, and changeup each between 19% and 28% of the time. To righties, his approach centers around his cutter and curveball, with a sinker and sweeper as secondaries. He'll also mix in the odd gyro slider. Van Eyk is an arsenal-over-stuff guy who won't blow anyone away but thrives as a called-strike machine. Dallas, 25, was taken in the fourth round in 2021 and recently returned from an elbow injury that sidelined him for the entire 2025 season. This year, he has a 3.60 ERA in seven appearances (six starts) for Buffalo. He has a more over-the-top delivery and a very unique profile. Like Van Eyk, his fastball sits around 93 mph, but his calling card is a monstrous sweeper that generates around 17" of glove-side action, a rarity for someone with a higher-than-average arm angle. From a stuff perspective, his 12-6 curveball and low-90s cutter are also plus pitches that are instrumental to his strategy against lefties. In 2026, he's using the sweeper 44% of the time to righties. Dylan Cease Toronto's big signing from the offseason is on a heater, going seven innings in each of his past two starts after going that distance only twice last year. It appears the Blue Jays are making good on their vow to help Dylan Cease add to his repertoire, and it's paying off in a big way. Last Friday (7 IP, 0 ER, 5 H, 10 K, 0 BB), he put the Angels in a blender by coming out with distinct approaches each time through the order. In the early innings, he frequently called upon his changeup and sinker to supplement the primary fastball-slider combo. The second time through, his slider usage shot up to 45%, giving the Angels a healthy dose of spin before he hit the gas in the later innings. His four-seam usage was up to 43% his third time through, averaging 99 mph in the seventh inning as he moved back off his slider, using it and the knuckle curve on a near-interchangeable basis. On Wednesday against the Rays (7 IP, 1 ER, 3 H, 9 K, 3 BB), Cease used his four-seamer just 30% of the time against lefties, his lowest single-game mark of the season so far. Instead, he pushed his knuckle curve and sinker in those matchups more than he has all season. Overall, his walk rate is still hovering around 10%, but we're seeing in real time just how unhittable a starter becomes when he combines nasty stuff with a polished arsenal. Cease's 2.2 fWAR now ranks second among all qualified starting pitchers. This is a Cy Young frontrunner. Vladimir Guerrero Jr. Vladimir Guerrero Jr. hasn't recorded an extra-base hit since he doubled on April 28 against Boston, a career-long drought. His .381 OBP is now outpacing his .372 SLG, and he's slashing just .116/.235/.116 in the month of May. It's hard to feel optimistic about the offense when he's hitting like this. When he has struggled in the past, he has usually underperformed his expected numbers thanks to an inconsistent ability to lift the ball. Not only is he not lifting this year, but his 55th-percentile hard hit rate would be his lowest since his rookie year in 2019. Besides that, he has never finished a season with a hard-hit rate worse than the 89th percentile. Part of the reason this is happening is that he's chasing more. Last year, Guerrero showed the best plate discipline of his career, swinging at only 21.5% of pitches outside the zone. This year, that number is up to 30.3%, above league average and the highest we've seen from him since 2022. The last time I gave him a segment in this column, I noted that the league was pitching him differently in the wake of last postseason, which is still true. He hasn't seen such a lack of pitches in the zone since 2019, and the amount of hittable fastballs and changeups he's getting has dropped precipitously compared to 2024 and 2025. Last year was a perfect storm: He saw more in-zone fastballs and chased less than he ever had. We're still waiting to see how he'll counter. Kevin Gausman The Blue Jays' Opening Day starter became the sixth active pitcher to reach 2,000 career strikeouts on Monday against Tampa, a testament to how well his contract has worked out for both sides as we progress through its final year. Still, he got tagged for six earned runs on 10 hits across 4.2 innings. Kevin Gausman hasn't looked quite as sharp in recent outings as he did to start the year; part of the story on Monday was bad luck (the Rays hit .435 against him with an xBA of .290), but even by expected batting average, it was his second-worst outing of 2026. The Rays put six lefties in their lineup, which makes it fascinating that Gausman only threw his signature splitter 33% of the time in those matchups, a new season low...which surpassed the low he previously set last week, also against Tampa. He threw them a ton of four-seamers instead, which may seem counterintuitive given the Rays' lineup has the flattest average swing path in MLB. Flat swings are usually good for making contact and slugging against high fastballs, but they can be vulnerable against low secondaries. However, I think this was intentional. Eno Sarris of The Athletic noted on his podcast last week that at the time, the Rays were 30th in MLB in weighted value against four-seamers because most of their hitters don't catch them out in front, leading to a lack of power. Theoretically, locating four-seamers down in the zone against them as Gausman did on Monday would lead to a lot of swings over the top of the ball. Yet, he got burned on plays such as a pair of weakly hit singles by speedster Chandler Simpson and a well-placed groundball single by Richie Palacios. He only gave up two extra-base hits the entire outing. Both were barrels hit by lefties, and both came on fastballs that missed in - you guessed it - the upper part of the zone. That's baseball! Gausman's Four-Seam Location vs LHB - Catcher's View 5/11/2026 vs TB (left) and 2026 overall (right) All data from Baseball Savant and FanGraphs, as of May 14, 2026. View the full article

Amidst the New York Mets' scuffling to start the season, the bullpen has actually performed exceptionally well. They currently rank ninth in MLB in ERA (3.64) and third in strikeouts (177). The only problem is that the Mets' relievers have been overused. They’ve pitched 165.2 innings, which is the eighth-largest total in the majors. Some of that success is coming from a pitcher who has never seen a consistent role out of the bullpen since making his major-league debut in 2021 with the Los Angeles Angels. We’re talking about Austin Warren, who’s in the midst of his sixth big-league season, but hasn’t pitched more than 20.1 innings in a single campaign thus far. Warren pitched for the Angels from 2021 to 2023 before being designated for assignment in February of 2024. He underwent Tommy John surgery in May of 2023 after only pitching in two games. Warren survived the winter with the Angels, but was designated for assignment in February of 2024. The San Francisco Giants picked him up a couple days later but didn’t get activated until July as he continued to recover from UCL surgery. The Giants called him up in August where he’d log 10.2 innings pitching to a 1.69 ERA and 1.31 WHIP. Warren stayed in the Giants organization until January of 2025, when they designated him or assignment and he found his new home with the New York Mets. Austin Warren's Strong Results with Mets Warren has been with the Mets organization ever since they claimed him last spring. He saw a lot of brief stints last year in the majors only pitching 9.1 innings, but he threw 50.2 frames with the Syracuse Mets. Jumping ahead to this year, Warren has already pitched 11 innings which is his most in a season since his 2022 campaign. He has been effective in relief, owning a 0.82 ERA to go along with a 1.09 WHIP. He is striking out 29.5% of batters, equivalent to a 10.6 K/9 ratio. It’s still such a small sample to look at, but he’s performed well. His 0.82 ERA is amazing, but will be tough to sustain. His underlying peripherals suggest he could maintain solid production even if he regresses, hence his 3.30 FIP and 3.22 SIERA. His expected earned run average sits at 3.52 which is good, but again showing where his real results would likely be with a larger sample size. He could improve his walk rate that currently sits at 11.4%, a below-average mark that, if improved, could make Warren an even more reliable bullpen arm. Two Pitches That Look Good, but Will Regress Over Time While Warren has featured six differently tagged pitches this year, he relies mainly on his sweeper (51%) and sinker (21%). Both of these offerings are getting the job done right now, but the underlying numbers suggest that they might start to get hit harder as he logs more innings. Overall, batters are making contact with 93.2% of Warren’s strikes, putting him in the bottom second percentile. His sweeper is his best offering looking at the pitch traits and shape. It’s averaged 85.4 mph with -15.4 inches of horizontal break. Warren’s sweeper is getting an incredible 2776 RPM’s of spin. It’s his best pitch by Stuff+ (113), per TJStats. Opponents are hitting just .200 against the pitch, but it has a .290 expected batting average. On top of that, it’s only generating an 18.2% swing-and-miss rate, signaling Warren’s sweeper is not as effective as it could be. The pitch is also responsible for a below-average .347 xwOBA. When Warren isn’t throwing his sweeper, he goes to his sinker more often than not. It grades out a tick below average (99 Stuff+) but has done its job thus far -- batters have yet to record a hit against it. Still, keep in mind he’s only thrown it 36 times and has poor underlying numbers. Warren’s sinker is only generating 8.3% whiff and also has a poor .348 xwOBA on its ledger. Warren also throws a four-seam fastball and curveball, which have both been generating good expected numbers, but given their extremely limited usage, it's hard to draw any firm conclusions at the moment. This is a guy who lives and dies with his primary offerings, which might make him due for regression as opposing hitters see his best stuff more often. Nevertheless, he's been one of the most valuable relievers in the Mets' bullpen thus far, making him a much-needed win on David Stearns' track record. View the full article

Happy Birthday to Brian Dozier and Justin Morneau! May 15th! No, I'm not one that pays attention to birthdays of ballplayers, but The Young'n happened to be born on May 15th as well. On Thursday night, she graduated (with honors) from a Minnesota trade school. On Friday, she turns 20. Yup, proud dad who continues to realize that he is getting old. So, I apologize for posting this a little late tonight and maybe not being as detailed as I try to be. I definitely welcome questions and comments about Thursday's games and encourage anyone who was at the games to give us reports too. TRANSACTIONS Early on Thursday morning, the Twins optioned OF Matt Wallner and RHP Travis Adams and recalled UT Ryan Kreidler and RHP Zebby Matthews. Zebby pitched really well. OF Kala’i Rosario was placed on the 7-Day Injured List. Fort Myers C Enrique Jimenez began his rehab in the FCL on Thursday. SAINTS SENTINEL St. Paul, Columbus Box Score The rains came down in St. Paul and Mother Nature won on this night. The two teams will attempt to play a doubleheader on Friday at CHS Field. WIND SURGE WISDOM Wichita 7, San Antonio 0 Box Score Shutouts are always good. They’re rare, especially in the minor leagues. Let’s start there. Sam Armstrong started and tossed four scoreless innings. He gave up one hit, walked one, and had four strikeouts. Ricky Castro came on and threw three scoreless innings. He gave up two hits, walked two, and had four strikeouts. Jaylen Nowlin and William Fleming each threw a scoreless innings. The Wind Surge bats scored their seven runs in the middle inning. They put a “2” on the scoreboard three times. In the third inning, Kyle DeBarge came to the plate with the bases loaded. He drove in two runs with his fourth double of the season. Caleb Roberts led off with his first home run since joining the Surge over the weekend. It was DeBarge again in the fifth inning. He hit another double which drove in Ricardo Olivar with the fourth run. DeBarge later scored on an Andrew Cossetti sacrifice fly to make it 5-0. Finally, in the top of the sixth, Garrett Spain walked with two outs and scored when Billy Amick launched his 11th home run of the year. DeBarge went 3-for-5 with two doubles and three RBI. Amick was 2-for-5 with his fifth double, 11th homer, and two RBI. He was also hit by a pitch early in the game. Olivar went 2-for-3 with a walk. Check out the Top 20 Padres Prospects according to our sister site, Padres Mission. KERNELS CHRONICLE Cedar Rapids 3, Fort Wayne 11 Box Score Ivran Romero made the start for the Kernels and took one for the team. He gave up 10 runs (9 earned) on nine hits and two walks in 3 1/3 innings. Nolan Santos came in and gave up one run on two hits and three walks over 3 2/3 innings. He struck out three batters. Adam Falinski struck out four batters and had one walk over two scoreless, hitless innings. Miguel Briceno had two of the Kernels’ five hits, his second and third doubles. Jay Thomason went 1-for-2 with two walks, a triple, and two RBI. Check out the Top 20 Padres Prospect according to our sister site, Padres Mission. MIGHTY MATTERS Ft. Myers 0, Bradenton 6 Box Score The Mussels lineup was quiet on Thursday night in Bradenton. They managed just five hits in the game, but they also had five walks. The batters combined for 15 strikeouts. Henry Kusiak had two walks. Harry Genth and Byron Chourio each went 1-for -3 with a walk. Genth stole his 11th base. Ramon Villanueva made the start. The 19-year-old gave up two runs on five hits and a walk in three innings. He had two strikeouts. Jonathan Stevens gave up four runs on four hits and recorded four outs. Kolten Smith worked the final 3 2/3 innings and He gave up just one hit, walked none and struck out four batters. COMPLEX CHRONICLE FCL Twins 5, FCL Rays 2 Box Score Yordi Jose started and gave up two runs (1 earned) on two hits. In 3 2/3 innings, he walked four and had two strikeouts. Rainer Marin kept an inherited runner from scoring. He recorded four outs and gave up no runs, two hits and no walks. Geremy Villoria came on and the youngster gave up three hits and a walk, but no runs, over 1 2/3 innings. Hendry Chivilli recorded the final out of the seventh inning. He tossed two more scoreless innings to record his second save of the year. He walked two and had three strikeouts. The best news of the day is probably that catcher Enrique JImenez made his first appearance of the year, a rehab appearance. He has missed most of spring training and the first six weeks of the season with a fractured finger. You recall he came to the Twins last summer from the Tigers organization in exchange for RHPs Chris Paddack and Randy Dobnak. In this game, he went 0-for-3 with a strikeout. The results obviously don’t matter, but it’s great to see him starting to get games. He caught the first five innings before being replaced by Miguel Caraballo. Down 2-0 going to the bottom of the fourth, the Twins cut their deficit in half. Jhomnardo Reyes walked, and Luis Fragoza singled. Teilon Serrano drove in Reyes with the run. The Twins took the lead in the bottom of the fifth inning. Jose Barrios and Yovanny Duran singled. With two outs, Jhomnardo Reyes reached on a two-base error that drove in both runners. The bottom of the sixth inning began with back-to-back doubles by Fragoza and Serrano. The latter scored on a Ricardo Pena single to make it 5-2. Serrano led the offense with a 4-for-4 day with his first double and first stolen base. Coming into the game, he was just 1-for-23 with a triple and 14 strikeouts this season. Fragoza went 2-for-4 with his third double. PLAYERS OF THE DAY Hitter of the Day Teilon Serrano (FCL Twins): 4-for-4, 2B(1), R, 2 RBI, SB(1) Pitcher of the Day Sam Armstrong (Wichita): 4 IP, H, 0 R, 1 BB, 4 K, 51 pitches, 31 strikes (60.8%) PROSPECT SUMMARY Check out the Prospect Tracker for much more on our Twins Top 20 prospects after seeing how they did today. #1 - OF Walker Jenkins (St. Paul) - 7 Day Injured List (left shoulder) #2 - IF Kaelen Culpepper (St. Paul) - Rained out #3 - OF Emmanuel Rodriguez (St. Paul) - 7 Day Injured List (thumb) #4 - LHP Connor Prielipp (Minnesota) - Did Not Pitch #5 - C Eduardo Tait (Cedar Rapids) - 0-for-4 (batted second, played catcher). #6 - LHP Dasan Hill (Cedar Rapids) - Did Not Pitch #7 - SS Marek Houston (Cedar Rapids) - 1-for-4 (batted first, played SS) #8 - RHP Riley Quick (Cedar Rapids) - Did Not Pitch #9 - LHP Kendry Rojas (Minnesota) - 2 IP, 1 H, 1 ER, 2 BB, 3 K, 43 pitches, 23 strikes (53.5%) #10 - OF Gabriel Gonzalez (St. Paul) - No Game Scheduled. #11 - RHP Charlee Soto (Cedar Rapids) - Injured List #12 - RHP Andrew Morris (Minnesota) - Did Not Pitch #13 - OF Hendry Mendez (St. Paul) - Rained Out. #14 - 3B/SS Quentin Young (Ft. Myers) - 0-for-4, 3K (batted sixth, played SS). #15 - 3B/CF Brandon Winokur (Cedar Rapids) - Did Not Play. #16 - RHP Ryan Gallagher (St. Paul) - No Game #17 - RHP C.J. Culpepper (St. Paul) - No Game. #18 - RHP James Ellwanger (Ft. Myers) - 60 Day Injured List (right elbow sprain) #19 - C/OF Khadim Diaw (Cedar Rapids) - 0-for-4 (batted third, played CF) #20 - 2B/SS/CF Kyle DeBarge (Wichita) - 3-for-5, 2-2B(5), R, 3 RBI, K (batted fourth, played SS) UPCOMING PROBABLES Friday, May 15: Columbus @ St. Paul (4:37 pm CT) - LHP Aaron Rozek (0-0, 0.00 ERA, RHP Mike Paredes (2-1, 4.58 ERA) Wichita @ San Antonio (7:05 pm CT) - RHP Ty Langenberg (0-3, 4.28 ERA) Fort Wayne @ Cedar Rapids (6:35 pm CT) - RHP Michael Ross (0-3, 4.29 ERA) Ft. Myers @ Bradenton (5:30 pm CT) - TBD FCL Twins @ FCL Red Sox (11:00 am CT) - TBD CURRENT W-L Records Minnesota Twins: 20-24 St. Paul Saints: 21-19 Wichita Wind Surge: 17-18 Cedar Rapids Kernels: 20-16 Fort Myers Mighty Mussels: 20-16 FCL Twins: 5-4 DSL Twins: 0-0 (season begins Monday, June 1) Please feel free to ask questions about the teams, the rosters, and discuss today’s games, or anything else Twins minor-league related! View the full article

Carson Montgomery tossed five scoreless innings as Fort Wayne routed Cedar Rapids 11-3 behind Alex McCoy's three-run homer. El Paso rallied for a 3-2 road win on Pablo Reyes' go-ahead double, with Sean Boyle earning the victory on three scoreless innings. San Antonio was shut out 7-0. Bryan Balzer was tagged for seven runs in the Lake Elsinore's 7-4 loss to Rancho Cucamonga. Padres Minor-League Transactions No roster moves Strong Pitching, Pablo Reyes' Go-Ahead Double Lift Chihuahuas Pablo Reyes had an RBI double in the top of the seventh inning and four pitchers combined on a six-hitter as the Triple-A San Antonio Missions edged the host Salt Lake Bees 3-2, snapping a three-game losing streak. Left-handed starter Fernando Sanchez, just promoted from Double-A San Antonio, turned in four strong innings in his Triple-A debut. He gave up two runs (one earned) on two hits and three walks, striking out four. Sanchez had a 4.50 ERA in eight games, three starts, at Double-A. Right-hander Sean Boyle followed with three perfect innings, combining with Sanchez to retire 15 in a row. Right-handers David Morgan and Ethan Routzahn each had to escape two runners on base to pitch a scoreless eighth and ninth innings, with Routzahn earning his fourth career save. Salt Lake got to Sanchez for two runs in the first inning, but the Chihuahuas got one back in the top of the second on Jase Bowen's leadoff double and steal of third, a Nick Solak walk and steal and then a wild pitch that brought in Bowen. El Paso tied it in the fourth when Jose Miranda drew a one-out walk, went to second on a wild pitch and scored on Marcos Castanon's two-out single to center. It stayed 2-2 until the seventh. With one out, Castanon and Victor Duarte walked, with Reyes then doubled off the right-field wall to score Castanon with the decisive run. Reyes had singled in the top of the third to extend his on-base streak to 30 games, every game he has played this season, and has a hit in eight of his last 10 games. Reyes also stole a base, his 10th in as many tries. EP_0514.mp4 Player AB R H RBI BB K Pablo Reyes 5 0 2 1 0 0 Mason McCoy 3 0 0 0 1 3 Will Wagner 3 0 0 0 1 1 Samad Taylor 0 0 0 0 0 0 Jase Bowen 4 1 1 0 0 2 Nick Solak 3 0 0 0 1 0 Jose Miranda 3 1 0 0 1 1 Carlos Rodríguez 4 0 0 0 0 2 Marcos Castañon 3 1 1 1 1 0 Clay Dungan 0 0 0 0 0 0 Victor Duarte 3 0 1 0 1 1 Player IP H R ER BB K HR Fernando Sanchez 4 2 2 1 3 4 0 Sean Boyle 3 0 0 0 0 2 0 David Morgan 1 2 0 0 0 1 0 Ethan Routzahn 1 2 0 0 0 1 0 Pair Of Homers Sink Missions, Who Muster Just 4 Hits The host Double-A San Antonio Missions managed just four hits off four Wichita pitchers as the Wind Surge scored in four consecutive innings for a 7-0 victory. Romeo Sanabria doubled, while Tirso Ornelas, Ryan Jackson and Francisco Acuna each singled for the Missions' lone hits, with Ornelas and Acuna also adding walks. Ethan Salas drew the other Missions walk and stole a base. Missions right-handed starter Ian Koenig went 4⅔ innings, giving up five runs on eight hits with a pair of walks and three strikeouts. Left-hander Harry Gustin gave up two runs in 2⅓ innings on one hit, a two-run homer, and a walk with four strikeouts. Andrew Dalquist finished with two scoreless innings, yielding a hit and a walk, striking out four. Wichita scored two in the third, one in the fourth on a solo homer and two each in the fifth and sixth innings. Player AB R H RBI BB K Ethan Salas 3 0 0 0 1 1 Kai Roberts 4 0 0 0 0 3 Leandro Cedeño 4 0 0 0 0 1 Tirso Ornelas 3 0 1 0 1 1 Romeo Sanabria 4 0 1 0 0 0 Braedon Karpathios 4 0 0 0 0 3 Ryan Jackson 4 0 1 0 0 0 Francisco Acuna 2 0 1 0 1 1 Luis Verdugo 3 0 0 0 0 0 Player IP H R ER BB K HR Ian Koenig 4 2/3 8 5 5 2 3 1 Harry Gustin 2 1/3 1 2 2 1 4 1 Andrew Dalquist 2 1 0 0 1 4 0 Carson Montgomery Goes Another 5 Scoreless As TinCaps Roll Right-handed starter Carson Montgomery extended his scoreless streak to 16 innings, while Alex McCoy hit a three-run homer and the Fort Wayne TinCaps scored five runs in the second inning en route to an 11-3 triumph over the host Cedar Rapids Kernels. Montgomery, a 13th-round draft choice in 2023, has gone five scoreless innings in three straight starts, plus his final inning of his previous outing to lower his ERA to 1.33. He gave up two hits and three walks with four strikeouts. He opened the game by retiring the first eight hitters. The TinCaps gave Montgomery and the bullpen all the runs they would need in the second inning. Jack Costello had a one-out single and Kavares Tears walked before Rosman Verdugo grounded a run-scoring single to center, Oswaldo Linares followed with an RBI single to right to make it 2-0 and Kasen Wells made it three straight run-scoring hits to drive in a third run. Recently promoted Justin DeCriscio drove in a run with a groundout and Zach Evans made it 5-0 with an RBI double to right. McCoy, Padres Mission's No. 12 prospect, scored in the third after drawing a leadoff walk and coming around on three straight groundballs, the last of which featured a Kernels throwing error. In the fourth, the TinCaps tacked on as Wells had a leadoff double and Evans a one-out RBI single. Lamar King Jr. singled to center ahead of McCoy lining a three-run homer to left, his seventh of the season and second in as many games for a 10-0 advantage. It is the first time McCoy has gone back-to-back as a pro. King added an RBI single in the fifth for an 11-0 cushion. Thanks in large part to Montgomery, Cedar Rapids didn't score until plating a pair in the seventh and one in the ninth. Evans entered May with one RBI and has driven in eight in the last eight games and has a six-game hitting streak. He is hitting .302 in 11 games this month, increasing his batting average to .232. King, Padres Mission's No. 10 prospect, singled twice and has reached base in 25 consecutive games. FW_0514.mp4 Player AB R H RBI BB K Justin DeCriscio 3 1 0 1 1 1 Zach Evans 5 1 2 2 0 0 Lamar King Jr. 5 1 2 1 0 1 Alex McCoy 4 2 1 3 1 1 Jack Costello 5 1 1 0 0 1 Kavares Tears 2 1 0 0 3 1 Rosman Verdugo 5 1 1 1 0 2 Oswaldo Linares 5 1 2 1 0 2 Kasen Wells 4 2 2 1 1 1 Player IP H R ER BB K HR Carson Montgomery 5 2 0 0 3 4 0 Isaiah Lowe 2 2 2 2 1 2 0 Kleiber Olmedo 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 Igor Gil 1 1 1 1 1 0 0 Qrey Lott Has 3 Hits, But Storm Can't Quell The Quakes Qrey Lott went 3-for-4, but a rough start by right-hander Bryan Balzer spelled defeat for the Low-A Lake Elsinore Storm, who dropped a 7-4 decision to the Rancho Cucamonga Quakes. The Storm had seven hits and drew five walks, but couldn't capitalize on four Quakes errors. Balzer was roughed up for seven runs on nine hits and four strikeouts in 4⅔ innings. His highlight was not issuing a walk. Right-handers Brian Langley (2⅓ innings), Daichi Moriki and Sean Barnett allowed just one hit the rest of the way. The Storm took a quick 2-0 lead in the bottom of the first. Luke Cantwell drew a one-out walk and an errant pickoff attempt and Ty Harvey's fielder's choice put runners on the corners. Harvey was thrown out stealing second, but Truitt Madonna brought in Cantwell with a single to left and Kerrington Cross doubled home Madonna. Rancho Cucamonga scored once in the second, three times in the third and two more in the fourth for a 6-2 lead before the Storm got two back in the bottom of the fourth. That came when Lott had an infield single and went to second on another errant pickoff attempt. Ryan Wideman singled and Lott scored ahead of the throw in a massive collision at the plate, with Wideman taking second. After a passed ball, Cantwell reached on an error by the second baseman, allowing Wideman to score, pulling the Storm within 6-4. But the Quakes got one back in the top of the fifth, the final run of the game. LE_0514.mp4 Player AB R H RBI BB K Ryan Wideman 5 1 1 1 0 1 Luke Cantwell 4 1 0 0 1 1 Ty Harvey 4 0 1 0 1 1 Truitt Madonna 2 1 1 1 2 0 Kerrington Cross 3 0 1 1 1 2 Jose Verdugo 4 0 0 0 0 0 George Bilecki 3 0 0 0 0 2 Bradley Frye 1 0 0 0 0 0 Qrey Lott 4 1 3 0 0 0 Dylan Grego 3 0 0 0 0 3 Conner Westenburg 1 0 0 0 0 0 Player IP H R ER BB K HR Bryan Balzer 4 2/3 9 7 7 0 4 2 Brandon Langley 2 1/3 0 0 0 3 3 0 Daichi Moriki 1 1 0 0 1 0 0 Sean Barnett 1 0 0 0 0 1 0 Top 20 Prospect Performance Ethan Salas: 0-for-3, BB, K, SB Kash Mayfield: DNP Miguel Mendez: DNP Kruz Schoolcraft: DNP Ryan Wideman: 1-for-5, R, RBI, K Jorge Quintana: DNP Ty Harvey: 1-for-4, 2B, BB, K Kale Fountain: DNP Braedon Karpathios: 0-for-4, 3 K Lamar King Jr.: 2-for-5, R, RBI, K Jagger Haynes: DNP Alex McCoy: 1-for-4, HR, BB, 2 R, 3 RBI, K Truitt Madonna: 1-for-2, 2 BB, R, RBI Tucker Musgrove: DNP Garrett Hawkins: DNP Michael Salina: DNP Eric Yost: DNP Rosman Verdugo: 1-for-5, R, RBI, 2 K Bryan Balzer: 4⅔ IP, 9 H, 7 R, 7 ER, 4 K, 2 HR (L) Deivid Coronil: DNP View the full article

Once again in 2026, I will be monitoring Miami Marlins predictions from our valued SuperSubs, Fish On First staffers and livestream guests. Individual article pages like this one will be created prior to every Marlins series and featured prominently on the FOF site. Consistent participation is key if you want to win this annual contest. Submissions only take a few seconds. Scoring system A "perfect" series is worth three points: Earn one point for predicting which team will win the upcoming series Earn one point for predicting the precise number of victories for each team Earn one point for predicting the “Series MVP” who accumulated the highest win probability added (WPA) during the series as calculated by FanGraphs (could pick a player from either team) FOF SuperSub Nicolas Milton currently sits atop the 2026 season leaderboard, which will be updated between every Marlins series. If you are a SuperSub, leave a comment with your Prediction Time picks on this page, or join the Marlins Discord Server and submit there. We'll feature them on the upcoming Fish On First LIVE episode and track your points throughout the season! Any picks submitted prior to the first pitch of the series opener will be counted. If you are not a SuperSub, please consider signing up here to support the FOF staff. Series preview notes Probable starting pitchers: RHP Janson Junk (MIA) vs. RHP Bailey Ober (MIN) on Friday RHP Sandy Alcantara (MIA) vs. RHP Simeon Woods Richardson (MIN) on Saturday RHP Eury Pérez (MIA) vs. TBD (MIN) on Sunday The Marlins rank 17th in MLB with a 98 wRC+ and 11th in MLB with a 3.87 FIP. They are 4-6 in their last 10 games and have a 6-12 record on the road this season. The following Marlins players are on the injured list: Griffin Conine (10-day IL), Pete Fairbanks (15-day IL), Ronny Henriquez (60-day IL) and Adam Mazur (60-day IL). Fairbanks is expected to be reinstated during this series. The Rays rank 14th in MLB with a 99 wRC+ and 15th in MLB with a 4.02 FIP. They are 8-2 in their last 10 games and have a 14-4 record at home this season. The following Rays players are on the injured list: Joe Boyle (15-day IL), Michael Grove (60-day IL), Gavin Lux (10-day IL), Steven Matz (15-day IL), Ryan Pepiot (60-day IL), Manuel Rodriguez (60-day IL), Edwin Uceta (60-day IL) and Steven Wilson (60-day IL). View the full article

There's nothing wrong with second thoughts. Just because you let a guy walk doesn't mean you can't reassess him. Maybe your needs change, maybe your assessment of the guy changes, maybe the guy just has gotten better. You don't want to dig in on your old evaluations. Anyhow, this is what Mets Roster Central told their wife. Transactions, 5/14/2026 COMING Signed away from CHC to Minor-League Contract, Assigned to Binghamton Outfielders Jaylen Palmer R/R DoB: 2000-07-31 High Level: AAA (2025) After re-signing infielder Nick Roselli, previously of Levittown, SUNY Binghamton, and the Mets organization right up until they released him on April 1 of this year, the Mets Office of Second Thoughts wasn't done. Outfielder Jaylen Palmer had an even greater claim to a Mets territorial claim, having sprung from the streets of Flushing and the halls of Holy Cross High School. Jaylen played in the system from 2018 to 2024 before achieving minor-league free agency and jumping to the Cubs. But a Flushing guy is a guy you keep tabs on, and when Jaylen and his solid on-base/speed combo (and low average and power) became available again at a time of Mets need, well, a reunion was inevitable. The Palmer family — based in Canarsie — were regular supporters of Jaylen when he played for the Mets in Coney Island, so hopefully a few summer trips to Binghamton will be coming up. Your 2026 New York Mets Starting Pitchers Clay Holmes Nolan McLean Freddy Peralta David Peterson Christian Scott R/R DoB: 1993-03-27 R/R DoB: 2001-07-24 R/R DoB: 2996-06-04 L/L DoB: 1995-09-03 R/R DoB: 1999-06-15 Relief Pitchers Huascar Brazobán Craig Kimbrel Sean Manaea Tobias Myers Brooks Raley Austin Warren Luke Weaver R/R DoB: 1989-10-15 R/R DoB: 32291 R/L DoB: 1992-02-01 R/R DoB: 1998-08-05 L/L DoB: 1988-06-29 R/R DoB: 1996-02-05 R/R DoB: 1993-08-21 Relief Pitchers Catchers Infielders Devin Williams Hayden Senger Luís Torrens Bo Bichette Brett Baty Vidal Brujan MJ Melendez R/R DoB: 1994-09-21 R/R DoB: 1997-04-03 R/R DoB: 1996-05-02 R/R DoB: 1998-03-05 L/R DoB: 1999-11-13 S/R DoB: 1998-02-09 L/R DoB: 1993-11-29 Infielders Outfielders Marcus Semien Mark Vientos Carson Benge A.J. Ewing Austin Slater Juan Soto Tyrone Taylor R/R DoB: 1990-09-17 R/R DoB: 1993-12-11 L/R DoB: 2003-01-20 L/R DoB: 38209 R/R DoB: 33951 L/L DoB: 1998-10-25 R/R DoB: 34356 Also on 40-Player Roster Starting Pitchers Relief Pitchers Tylor Megill Kodai Senga Jonah Tong Alex Carrillo Reed Garrett Joey Gerber Justin Hagenman R/R DoB: 1995-07-28 L/R DoB: 1993-01-30 R/R DoB: 2003-06-19 R/R DoB: 1997-06-06 R/R DoB: 1993-01-02 R/R DoB: 1997-05-03 R/R DoB: 1996-10-07 On 60-Day Injured List with torn right UCL. On 15-Day Injured List with Lumbar Spine Inflammation With Syracuse With Syracuse On 60-Day Injured List — right UCL surgery and nerve relocation surgery. With Syracuse On 60 Day Injured List with fractured rib. Relief Pitchers Catchers Infielders A.J. Minter Dedniel Núñez Jonathan Pintaro Dylan Ross Francisco Alvarez Francisco Lindor Ronny Mauricio L/L DoB: 1993-09-02 R/R DoB: 1996-06-05 R/R DoB: 1997-11-07 R/R DoB: 2000-09-01 R/R DoB: 2001-11-01 S/R DoB: 1993-11-14 S/R DoB: 2001-04-04 With Syracuse on Rehab Assignment On 60-Day Injured List — right UCL surgery. With Syracuse With Syracuse On 10-Dayl IL with Torn Right Meniscus On 10-Day Injured List with Strained Left Calf On 10-Day Injured List with fractured right thumb. Infielders Outfielders Jorge Polanco Nick Morabito Luis Robert, Jr. Jared Young S/R DoB: 1999-11-13 R/R DoB: 2003-05-07 R/R DoB: 1997-08-03 L/R DoB: 1995-07-09 On 10-Day Injured List with right wrist contusion. With Syracuse On 10-Day Injured List with Lumbar Spine Disc Hernitaion On 10-Day Injured List with torn left meniscus. Designagted for Assignment Infielders Andy Ibáñez R/R DoB: 1993-04-03 DFA'd, 2026-05-12. Your Mets Coaching Staff Manager Bench Coach Pitching Coach Hitting Coordinator Third Base Coach First Base Coach Bullpen Coach Ass't Pitching Coach Carlos Mendoza Kai Correa Justin Willard Jeff Albert Tim Leiper Gilbert Gomez José Rosado Dan McKinney DoB: 1979-11-27 DoB: 1989-07-14 DoB: 1990-09-09 DoB: 1992-08-16 DoB: 1996-07-19 DoB: 1992-03-08 DoB: 1974-11-09 DoB: 1989-06-06 Hitting Coach Strategy Coach Catching Coach Coaching Assistant Bat'g Practice Pitcher Equipment Manager Bullpen Catchers Bullpen Catchers Troy Snitker Danny Barnes J.P. Arencibia Rafael Fernandez Kevin Mahoney Kevin Kierst Eric Langill Dave Racaniello DoB: 1988-12-05 DoB: 1989-10021 DoB: 1986-01-05 DoB: 1988-08-03 DoB: 1987-05-11 DoB: 1964-07-09 DoB: 1979-04-09 DoB: 1978-06-03 Your Mets Training Staff Director of Player Health Head Athletic Trainer Assistant Athletic Trainer Reconditioning Coordinator Reconditioning Therapist Head Performance Coach Assistant Performance Coach Performance Coordinator Soft Tissue Specialist Brian Chicklo Joseph Golia Bryan Baca Sean Bardanett Josh Bickel Dustin Clarke Tanner Miracle Jeremy Chiang Hiroto Kawamura DoB: 1972-07-17 DoB: 1978-??-?? DoB: Circa 1980 DoB: 1988-06-23 DoB: 1996-??-?? DoB: 1987-??-?? DoB: 1991-??-?? DoB: ????-??-?? DoB: 22846 View the full article

Forty-four games into the 2026 MLB regular season, multiple Minnesota Twins position players are overperforming preseason expectations. Byron Buxton is tied for the third-most home runs in baseball with 15, alongside Chicago White Sox rookie Munetaka Murakami. Ryan Jeffers is on track to earn his first All-Star nod. Austin Martin is reaching base in roughly 45% of his plate appearances, and Brooks Lee appears to have finally developed into an average regular. There have been numerous success stories on the mound, too. Mick Abel and Taj Bradley look like stalwarts atop future Twins rotations. Connor Prielipp has impressed in his first cup of coffee in the majors, and Joe Ryan continues to pitch like a top-20 starting pitcher in the sport. Despite the aforementioned positive early-season surprises, though, Minnesota has a 20-24 record, leaving the club with an uninspiring 21.8% chance of making the playoffs, according to FanGraphs. A significant portion of the club’s early-season struggles can be attributed to them fielding the fifth-worst bullpen in baseball, according to Wins Above Replacement at FanGraphs (fWAR). Despite the Twins having one of the worst bullpen collectives in the sport, specific position players and starting pitchers have also played key roles in dragging the club down over the first two months of the season. No two players have made a greater negative impact than outfielder Matt Wallner and starting pitcher Simeon Woods Richardson. Wallner, 28, entered the 2026 regular season expected to be the club’s full-time right fielder, netting most starts against right- and left-handed starters. Through 135 plate appearances, however, the left-handed hitting corner outfielder hit .167/.259/.292 with a 58 wRC+. Wallner also struck out 39.3% of the time while producing minimal damage upon contact, evidenced by the should-be slugger netting only four home runs and a below-average .125 Isolated Power (ISO). As a result, Wallner possesses the 10th-lowest wRC+ of all qualified hitters. At the same time, he generated the second-lowest fWAR (-0.8) among qualified position players in the sport, with only Tampa Bay Rays centerfielder Cedric Mullins residing below him. The Southern Miss product was also one of the worst fielders in baseball, netting -8 Defensive Runs Saved (DRS) over 284 innings played in right field. According to FanGraphs, only Junior Caminero, Jake Bauers, and Bryce Harper have delivered more negative value based on their fielding and positional assignments. He’s tied for the lowest DRS in the sport, alongside Oneil Cruz. Given that Wallner is inarguably a bottom-ten hitter and bottom-five fielder in the sport, it is not hyperbolic to opine that he regressed into the worst position player in baseball. In response, the Twins optioned him to Triple-A St. Paul early Thursday morning. As mentioned earlier, Woods Richardson hasn’t been much better on the mound. Among starting pitchers with at least 40 innings pitched, Woods Richardson has the highest ERA in the sport, coming in at 7.71. He also sports the fourth-highest FIP (6.51) and second-lowest Skill Interactive ERA (SIERA), coming in at 5.91. The 25-year-old is tied with Washington Nationals starting pitcher Zack Littell for the lowest strikeout rate (10.1%) among starting pitchers with at least 40 innings pitched and the 10th-worst hard-hit rate (40.4%). Woods Richardson has served the ball on a silver platter to hitters, and they are unsurprisingly excelling. Unsurprisingly, Woods Richardson’s arsenal grades out very, very poorly. According to Run Value at Baseball Savant, Woods Richardson has the worst splitter in baseball, with the pitch netting a -13 run value over 206 pitches thrown. He also possesses the worst slider among starting pitchers, with the pitch netting a -6 run value over 178 pitches thrown. On a positive note, his fastball has been serviceable, generating 0 run value over 323 pitches. Still, the former top prospect’s pitches have been abysmal this season, making his poor start to the season unsurprising. (Author’s note: I’m not having fun writing this article. I’ve been frowning like Florence Pugh in Midsommar for 20 minutes now.) Given his inability to suppress runs and poor pitch grade, it would not be hyperbolic to opine that Woods Richardson is the worst starting pitcher in baseball. Again, many factors have played into Minnesota’s slow start to the season. Still, no two players have been more consequential than Wallner and Woods Richardson. With Martin and Trevor Larnach performing well as the new primary corner outfielders and Walker Jenkins, Emmanuel Rodriguez, Gabriel Gonzalez, Hendry Mendez, and Alan Roden waiting in the wings at Triple-A St. Paul, Wallner may never play for the Twins again. Woods Richardson’s days in the rotation are numbered if he is unable to quickly change course, given Bradley, Abel, Ryan, and Prielipp’s aforementioned early-season success and Kendry Rojas, Zebby Matthews, Ryan Gallagher, and others awaiting extended opportunities in the rotation. Minnesota is transitioning to a new era. Unfortunately, it appears as though Wallner and Woods Richardson won’t be part of it. View the full article

Let's start here: Bat speed is good. All else equal, you'd rather swing faster, rather than slower. All else is often not equal, of course, but bat speed gives you a greater margin for error, just as foot speed or arm strength do. The faster you can move the barrel through the zone, the later you can make swing decisions, and the harder you can hit the ball even if you don't quite catch it flush. It is, on balance, a good thing—or, to draw a tricky but important distinction, an encouraging thing—that Pete Crow-Armstrong has more bat speed this season than he had in 2025. There's no mistaking that fact, at least. According to Statcast, Crow-Armstrong's average swing speed is 74.3 miles per hour this year, up from 72.7 MPH in 2025 and up nearly 4.0 MPH since 2024, when he first got a meaningful run in the majors. He swings as fast as some of the top sluggers in the game, which was certainly not true even as he enjoyed a breakout, 30-homer season last year. The first thing you should look for, to assess the efficacy of a bat-speed bump, is increased exit velocity. With Crow-Armstrong, we have it. Crow-Armstrong's average exit velocity is up by 1.5 MPH this season, and his hard-hit rate has gone from average to plus, in lockstep with the bat speed itself. The second thing you should check is whether a hitter has sacrificed contact by swinging harder, and have thus set themselves up to strike out a ton. That's not happening here, though. Crow-Armstrong has gotten slightly more selective this year, especially early in counts, and his contact rate on swings is actually up slightly. All the news, to this point, is good. Here's the bad: Last season, a solid 33.9% of Crow-Armstrong's batted balls clustered in the Statcast-denoted sweet spot for launch angle, between 8° and 32°. Those are line drives and fly balls with the best chance to carry through or over the infield, and to land before an outfielder can run underneath them—while still having a chance to clear the fence, if hit hard enough. That 33.9% number was unbremarkable, but it was good enough to make Crow-Armstrong a star slugger. This season, that figure is down to 23.0%, one of the worst in the league. Crow-Armstrong is just not hitting the ball flush often enough. At first blush, you might struggle to explain this. Statcast has a metric to estimate the solidity of a player's contact, by using physics to estimate the maximum possible exit velocity given the player's swing speed and the speed of the incoming pitch and then calling a ball Squared Up if it exceeds 80% of that possible maximum. Crow-Armstrong's Squared Up rate is flat (or even up, albeit very slightly) in 2026, so he hasn't lost the ability to catch a fair piece of the ball. If he had, we would also have seen that in his exit velocity distributions, despite the boosted bat speed. It's easier to see it this way. Here's a plot of all Crow-Armstrong's batted balls from 2025, by launch angle and exit velocity. He found all that offensive value last year because he got quite good at hitting the ball hard in that launch-angle sweet spot—but also because, when you find that sweet spot, you don't have to hit it hard to get some value out of it. Soft line-drive singles live there, too. Crow-Armstrong hit a good number of those last season. Here's the same chart for 2026. I've highlighted two areas to which we should pay special attention. He's hitting more balls hard, although very weakly hit balls are also slightly more frequent. What's missing? A bunch of medium-speed liners that should be inside that blue square. Many of those would be hits, but they're simply not there. Meanwhile, look up at the top of the chart. Crow-Armstrong isn't hitting more lazy, routine flies this year. In fact, he's hitting fewer. But he's hit a bunch of unusually hard-hit balls straight up, which tells us something. Those are the balls that are still counting as Squared Up, and that are propping up his hard-hit rate—but they're still easy outs. They look like this. NXk5bktfWGw0TUFRPT1fVWdBRUIxSURWVkFBWGdSUlVBQUhBd0JWQUZnQ1dsY0FVMWRRQkFWUUJnUmRVMVpX.mp4 That left Crow-Armstrong's bat at exactly 100.0 MPH, but you don't care, because he hit it way up in the air and it never had a chance to be anything but a flyout. This is a frequent problem for him this year, and it stems from the increase in his bat speed—but not necessarily in the way you might think. Crow-Armstrong isn't out of control and unable to deliver his barrel to the right part of the hitting zone. He's just habitually, almost unavoidably early, and the nature of his swing yields lots of these kinds of batted balls. Crow-Armstrong has a steeper than average swing, and he catches the ball well out in front of him. That much, we already knew. It's why the Cubs were willing to invest in him for the long term, with a nine-figure payout that will look wise only if he at least sometimes flashes what he did for the first two-thirds of 2025. That type of swing gets the barrel working uphill toward the ball, and when it's on time, it generates a lethal combination of loft and ball speed. It looks like this: eHk5VmtfWGw0TUFRPT1fVXdsVFZRWlhBMU1BQzFGUlZ3QUhCQUZUQUZnTlZGZ0FDZ1lDVWxCUVVsZFFBRkFG (1).mp4 Or this: N3lSR3JfWGw0TUFRPT1fVndGWFZBVUZVZ1VBWGxJRlVRQUhBZ2NDQUFOWFVGRUFCbFlCVkZBTUF3WUhBUVlI.mp4 However, it's possible for hitters who work this far in front of their bodies to get too far out there, for long stretches. Crow-Armstrong reinvented himself offensively in 2024 and had a different contact point in 2025 than before. It also came with a different attack direction, which is the orientation of the barrel relative to the front edge of home plate at contact. Season Contact Point (in. in front of center of mass) Attack Direction 2024 32.8 0° 2025 36.2 4° Pull 2026 37.3 6° Pull It's possible to consistently barrel the ball at 36 inches in front of your body, but that's about the maximum. Beyond that, you're basically too early. Meanwhile, Crow-Armstrong's barrel is still moving. Once it passes that 33-36 inch zone in front of him, it's turning enough that (despite that loft that keeps him capable of getting good wood on the ball and slicing one the other way) a mishit is likely. It'll be a specific mishit, too, most of the time. It'll look like this. M3k2WnlfWGw0TUFRPT1fQmdaWFZGSU5VZ0FBQVFBRFZRQUhDRk5XQUFCUkFGa0FDZ1JRQUFSV0FGZFVBQUFB.mp4 The point of that tilt and that pull orientation in Crow-Armstrong's swing is to get behind the ball and send it screaming toward or over the right-field fence. Obviously, that won't always happen, but the swing is geared to maximize the chances of it on any given cut. When he misses, though—when he's not rolling over on the ball, but has just swept past the optimal zone in that arc before he meets the ball—it hits the upper, outer side of the bat and goes way up. The bat speed was still delivered to the ball, but the angle is all wrong. Flatter swings usually do better farther out in front; most hitters with tilt similar to Crow-Armstrong do better with deeper contact points. Right now, he's not missing because he's moving the bat too fast to maintain control. Rather, the ball is where he means for the barrel to go, but by the time it gets there, the barrel has already come and gone from that optimal zone. A flatter swing on which a hitter was similarly early would produce rollover grounders and whiffs. Crow-Amrstrong's swing creates, technically, better contact even when he's early. He's getting a lot of the bat on the ball, for a hitter who's early. In practice, though, it's a glancing blow, steered forward by the angle of the bat but much like a foul ball. It comes to the same thing as if he were hitting the ball much less well (or not at all), because those are virtually guaranteed outs. This isn't bad news, really. There are worse ways Crow-Armstrong could be getting to his underwhelming .675 OPS, in general. There are even worse ways he could specifically be suffering from his own increase in bat speed. Instead, he's still in control of his swing, and if anything, his swing decisions have improved. Swinging faster still should be good for him, in time. For now, though, he's yet to figure out how to alter his timing in a small enough way to compensate for being early, without falling into the trap of being late, as he was for some stretches last season. It's not easy to make that adjustment, small though it might sound. There are no guarantees that Crow-Armstrong will lock in and start producing a .900 OPS again any time soon. There is, however, a real chance of that—because his bat speed is up, and bat speed is good. It's just a matter of paying the cost of it. View the full article

"Walks will kill you." There's a reason that baseballism has become so infamous: because it is true. Even when Braxton Garrett has struggled in the past, walks have rarely been to blame. Thursday afternoon, starting his first MLB game in nearly 700 days, Garrett and Miami succumbed to a quick death in what was ultimately a 9-1 waxing at the hands of the Twins. In his first major league appearance since recovering from his second Tommy John surgery, Garrett was visibly off from the jump. A tightrope act got through a bases-loaded, nobody-out jam in the bottom of the first inning. He found himself in the exact same situation in the second, though. A total of five free passes and four hits were enough to chase the southpaw after just an inning and a third. By the time Garrett walked off the mound with his glove over his mouth, he had allowed four runs to cross and walked more Twins than he retired. Although Garrett's calling card is his command and ability to spot pitches, walks were an issue in the veteran's six starts in Triple-A Jacksonville, with all but one outing being a multi-walk effort. Positively, all of Garrett's five offerings featured an uptick in velocity. The sinker, most notably, rose from an average of 90 to 91.3 mph. Following Garrett's departure, the burden fell on Miami's bullpen to get outs and get the team out of Target Field as they continue their brutal 16-game, no off-day stretch through May 28. Low-leverage but nonetheless scoreless multi-inning efforts from Calvin Faucher, Anthony Bender and Lake Bachar did what they could before Miami enters a brutal stretch going opposite the two best teams in the league. In uncharacteristic fashion, the usually steady John King forfeited three runs in the eighth, easily his most in any outing as a Marlin. If these Fish want any chance against said the increased competition ahead of them, the offense-specifically the middle and bottom of the order-must perform better. Outside of the consistent top three of Xavier Edwards, Liam Hicks and Otto Lopez, Miami's bats collected two hits whilst striking out eight times on Thursday. It was Lopez that ensured Miami wasn't shut out for the second time this set with a run-scoring single in the top of the eighth. On Deck Miami heads to the west coast of Florida, returning to Tropicana Field for a date with the AL-best Tampa Bay Rays and the first edition of the 2026 Citrus Series. Friday's opener featuring Janson Junk and Jesse Scholtens is set for 7:10. View the full article

Box Score SP: Zebby Matthews - 7 IP, 4 H, 0 R, 1 BB, 5 K (83 pitches, 56 strikes (67% strikes)) Home Runs: None Top 3 WPA: Zebby Matthews (0.18), Austin Martin (0.18), James Outman (0.09) The Twins entered Thursday’s rubber match against Miami looking to secure the series after splitting the first two games. Behind a brilliant season debut from Zebby Matthews and a much more opportunistic offensive performance, they did exactly that. Minnesota jumped on the Marlins early, backed Matthews with plenty of run support, and cruised to a comfortable 9-1 victory at Target Field. The win secured the series for the Twins and improved them to 20-24 on the season. ZEBBY MATTHEWS SHINES IN SEASON DEBUT Making his first major league start of the season after being called up earlier in the day to replace Travis Adams, Zebby Matthews looked completely in control for most of the afternoon. Miami put a pair of runners on base in the opening inning after singles from Liam Hicks and Otto Lopez, but Matthews stayed composed and escaped the frame without damage. He needed just 12 pitches to get through the inning, throwing nine strikes and immediately showing an aggressive approach in the zone. From there, he only got sharper. Matthews struck out Jakob Marsee and Owen Caissie in a dominant second inning, and through two frames had thrown only 25 pitches, 19 of them for strikes. He continued to pound the zone throughout the afternoon, mixing his fastball and changeup effectively while consistently getting ahead in counts. By the middle innings, Miami had no answers. Matthews retired the side in order in the third, worked around a two-out double from Christopher Morel in the fourth, and erased a fifth-inning single with an inning-ending double play. Through six innings, the Marlins still hadn’t had a leadoff hitter reach base. The only bit of trouble came in the seventh, when Kyle Stowers drew a leadoff walk, but Matthews calmly worked around it to finish off seven scoreless innings. In total, Matthews allowed just three hits across seven shutout innings while striking out five. He threw 83 pitches in the outing and looked every bit like a pitcher capable of giving the Twins rotation a significant boost moving forward. THE TWINS CAPITALIZE AFTER EARLY FRUSTRATION Minnesota threatened immediately against Miami left-hander Braxton Garrett, but nearly let a golden opportunity slip away. Austin Martin opened the bottom of the first with a four-pitch walk and quickly stole second base. Brooks Lee followed with a double off the wall in left field, and Ryan Jeffers worked a walk to load the bases with nobody out. What followed felt painfully familiar. Josh Bell, Victor Caratini, and Luke Keaschall all struck out swinging, allowing Garrett to escape the inning completely unscathed despite needing 34 pitches to get through it. This time, though, the Twins responded instead of spiraling. Royce Lewis opened the second inning with a walk, Ryan Kreidler singled in his first start since being called up earlier in the day, and James Outman drew another walk to once again load the bases with nobody out. Martin made sure this opportunity didn’t go to waste. The Twins outfielder ripped a two-run double down the left field line to give Minnesota a 2-0 lead, and after Brooks Lee grounded out, Bell delivered a huge bounce-back moment. The veteran first baseman chopped a ball off third base that brought home two more runs and gave the Twins a 4-0 advantage, while also recording the 700th RBI of his career. Caratini later added an RBI groundout, and just like that, the Twins had turned an inning of frustration into a five-run outburst. THE OFFENSE KEEPS ADDING ON The Twins didn’t stop there. In the third inning, Kreidler reached again on a sharply hit ball that deflected off Otto Lopez’s glove, then advanced to second after a throwing error from reliever Calvin Faucher on a pickoff attempt. Moments later, Outman lined a two-strike single into right field to score Kreidler and extend the lead to 6-0. Outman wasn’t done contributing. After Miami finally broke through for its first run against Kendry Rojas in the eighth inning, the Twins immediately answered in the bottom half. Keaschall singled through the right side and later stole second base, his tenth stolen base of the season, before Kreidler worked a walk. Outman then ripped a double into the left-center field gap, scoring both runners and pushing the lead to 8-1. Martin followed with another RBI single to cap off the scoring and finish off a huge afternoon offensively for the Twins lineup. After entering the game without an RBI on the season, Outman finished with three RBIs, while Martin reached base three times and drove in three runs of his own. A MUCH-NEEDED COMPLETE PERFORMANCE For a team that’s struggled to put together complete games this season consistently, Thursday looked much closer to the formula the Twins envisioned coming into the year. The offense capitalized with runners on base after an ugly first inning, the defense played clean baseball throughout most of the afternoon, and Matthews gave Minnesota exactly the efficient, stabilizing start the rotation desperately needed. Even with another shaky inning from Kendry Rojas in relief, the outcome never truly felt in doubt. The Twins controlled the game from the second inning on and closed out an emphatic 9-1 win to take the series from Miami. What’s Next? The Twins will kick off a three-game weekend series at Target Field against the Brewers, starting tomorrow. Neither pitcher for the series opener has been announced. First pitch is scheduled for 6:10 PM. Postgame Interviews Coming Soon! Bullpen Availability Chart View the full article

The Twins made multiple roster moves on Thursday, but one came much later than expected. Just a couple of hours before first pitch against the Marlins, Minnesota scratched center fielder Byron Buxton from the lineup because of soreness in his right hip flexor. Buxton had originally been scheduled to serve as the designated hitter and hit leadoff before the club made the late change. With Buxton unavailable, Austin Martin moved into the leadoff spot while Josh Bell stepped in as the designated hitter. Given how important Buxton has become to Minnesota’s offense over the last month, any injury concern immediately grabs attention. The timing is especially unfortunate because Buxton is in the middle of arguably the best power stretch of his career. After launching another leadoff home run on Wednesday night, he now has 15 home runs in his last 26 games dating back to April 13. No player in baseball has hit more homers during that stretch, with Buxton sitting two ahead of Kyle Schwarber. Even with a relatively quiet opening couple of weeks to the season, Buxton’s 15 home runs still rank tied for second in the American League and tied for third in all of baseball entering Thursday’s games. What has made the run even more impressive is the consistency. Since April 21, Buxton has not gone more than three games without leaving the yard. Wednesday’s blast was the 23rd leadoff homer of his career and his third already this season. The Twins have leaned heavily on his ability to create instant offense at the top of the lineup, especially with injuries and inconsistency affecting other parts of the roster. Over a larger sample, the production becomes even more eye-opening. Since May 14, 2025, Buxton has hit 41 home runs in just 128 games. Expanding the sample to his last 162 games dating back to April 1, 2025, he has clubbed 50 home runs. He is also currently on pace for 56 home runs this season, which would easily surpass his previous single-season career high of 35 set in 2025. That is superstar-level production from a player who has often battled injuries throughout his career. That is why Thursday’s scratch immediately raises concern, even if the Twins are initially calling it soreness. Minnesota has already dealt with a wave of pitching injuries this season, and the lineup looks entirely different when Buxton is unavailable. The Twins are already adjusting to life without Matt Wallner after his surprising option to Triple-A St. Paul earlier in the day. That move opened the door for Martin to take over as the club’s primary right fielder, making Buxton’s absence even more noticeable in an already reshuffled lineup. For now, the Twins will hope the move was simply precautionary and not something that lingers. Because over the last month, few players in baseball have been more dangerous than Byron Buxton. View the full article

It's always jarring to realize, after all the money spent finding elite athletes and turning them into optimized baseball machines, that their excellence remains so fragile. Tiny grains of sand can interfere with the vast, otherwise beautiful construction. There is no such thing as a small mistake. That's the takeaway from the Brewers' loss Wednesday night against the Padres. An offense still trying to find its groove scored just one run, but Jacob Misiorowski and Aaron Ashby made that tally stand tall through eight frames. Abner Uribe came on to close out the win, but he simply didn't have it—and the problem all came down to a patch of dirt a few inches wide, at the front of the mound. Here's what it looks like when Uribe executes his slider exactly as he intends to. QndSNnJfWGw0TUFRPT1fVUFSVVZ3ZFNWMUFBQ2x0VVZRQUhVbE1EQUFNSEJsTUFBd0FBVVFFQVV3VldCbEJT.mp4 There's a ton of violence in Uribe's delivery, from the ground up. His arm works exceptionally quickly—he's what pitching coaches call "whippy". He gets much of the energy for that whiplike action from his long legs, though. He flies down the mound and spins off to the first-base side of it after he releases the ball; that's just how his body operates. The intensity and immensity of his limbs in motion create deception for the batter, and are part of both why his stuff is so good and why hitters struggle against it so badly. Nothing comes without costs, though. Sometimes, moving that fast means a loss of stability or consistency. In Uribe's case, that chaos can be both productive and dangerous. Here's a slight variation on the pitch above, from his appearance last night against the Padres. QndSNmRfWGw0TUFRPT1fQndSWlUxTUNWUW9BVzFjRkJBQUhVbFJlQUZsUUFsVUFDMWNEQ1FOVEExSlVCbE5m.mp4 Everything is almost the same, but Uribe lands slightly more closed with his left foot. He has to get around his front side a bit more, which flattens out the break on the pitch. He's also a hair early with his arm, which (in combination with the alteration in the landing spot) makes it easier for Xander Bogaerts to see that the ball will break out of the zone. This kind of variation from pitch to pitch is very much the norm, but its effects are no less real because everyone experiences them. Here's another pitch from last night, with a better result for Uribe. QndSNmRfWGw0TUFRPT1fVWxSWVVWSUVVZ1VBWFFOWEJ3QUhWRlFFQUFBSEJRVUFBbE1DVlZJREFRRUdDQXBW.mp4 This one is a lot like the ball thrown to Bogaerts later in the inning, in that Uribe lands almost undetectably farther toward third base than when he snaps off his very best, two-plane sliders. This time, he's on time with the arm, which creates a pitch with lots of sweep and power—but it stays up. That works in Uribe's favor, rather than against him, because he locates well and the horizontal movement takes the pitch away from Fernando Tatis Jr.'s barrel. Now, here's what trouble looks like. QndSNmRfWGw0TUFRPT1fVXdBRUFWTUFWMUVBRGxZRUJRQUhCd1pTQUFBQVYxVUFWQUFHQ0FZREFnWmNWRkZR.mp4 I bet you thought that would be Gavin Sheets's home run. We'll get there. No, this pitch worked, in that it stole a strike for Uribe to start the at-bat. But he missed his landing spot by a bit more this time, and it carried his release point rightward. He couldn't get depth on the pitch, and this time, he couldn't steer it across the plate, either. Sheets was frozen, but not for long. QndSNmRfWGw0TUFRPT1fVWdOVVZBVUFBd1FBRGdjSFZBQUhBRkpVQUZnR0JsSUFDMU5RQVZBRkFRc0dVbGND.mp4 Same mechanical mistake—a small but noticeable change in stride direction that leads to a pitch with more carry. This one turns the corner just a little, horizontally, but it runs right into Sheets's bat. He had just seen the exact same pitch. He was ready for it. Not all mistakes get punished. Not all of them even should be punished, by a smart and talented hitter. Some backup sliders are good pitches. They fool the hitter, because all that happens is that the pitcher slightly errs in the spin direction by releasing the pitch a tiny bit wrong. It's impossible to read that kind of mistake, and often, it's maddeningly hard to hit it. WU81ZzlfWGw0TUFRPT1fQmxCUlhRRUZCQW9BREZ0V0J3QUhCRmRWQUZrTkJWVUFVd0FOQWxjRkJsQlFCd05X.mp4 However, when a pitcher puts a foot wrong—when the stride is a bit off, forcing a different arm path and/or throwing off the hurler's timing—it gets easier to spot and to attack the resulting meatball. Here's where Uribe was at foot strike (the moment when the front foot first engages with the ground) on four of the pitches above. On the left, we have the best version of a Uribe slider. His stride is direct, or slightly open. His hip-shoulder separation is huge, which gives the resulting pitch speed and snap and makes the hitter instinctively gear up for a fastball. The arm is on time; that's the position you want it in. Next, we have the Bogaerts pitch, on which you can just see the front foot having landed farther to the right and the arm being slightly early in coming around. Second from right, we see the pitch with which he beat Tatis: stride a little closed, but the arm on time, creating more of a sweeper and less of a depth-oriented slider than his usual but still making it hard for the same-handed batter. Finally, at right, you see the pitch on which Sheets homered. The stride is slightly closed, but this time, the arm is also late. That results in a miss both high and arm-side, but because of the stride direction and its effects on his mechanics, it's more the former than the latter. If he'd been on time, he would have thrown a vicious pitch, perhaps down on the lower third of the outer edge for another called strike. If he'd been similarly late with the arm but strode more directly, he'd have produced a pitch that looked more like a mistake than the actual one did—but it would have been more deceptive to Sheets, who might well have whiffed on it like Jose Tena did in the final video above. Pitches spun the way Uribe's was spinning are also more prone to backspin off the bat than better-executed ones. That's why mistake breaking balls often carry so well, and why Sheets's liner managed to stay up long enough to clear the wall in right-center field. It was a confluence of things that, had any of them not been true, would have resulted in a more manageable result for the Brewers. Unfortunately, success in this game is fragile, and Uribe's almost imperceptible mistakes turned into game-altering damage on Wednesday night. View the full article

Ready or not, Zebby Matthews is set for his next opportunity at the MLB level. The right-handed starter was promoted from Triple-A St. Paul on Thursday to start the series finale against the Miami Marlins. Outfielder-infielder Ryan Kreidler was also called up from the Saints, with outfielder Matt Wallner and right-hander Travis Adams sent to Triple-A. The 25-year-old Matthews has made 25 starts over the last two years, including 16 in 2025. But Matthews has posted a 4.41 FIP, which is a stark contrast to his 5.56 ERA, during his time in the majors. His walk (6.6%) and strikeout rates (24.7%) are both a couple points above the MLB average. In seven starts at Triple-A this year, Matthews has a 4.72 ERA with 11 walks and 33 strikeouts in 34⅓ innings. But he has given up nine homers. Wallner was coming off a breakthrough 22-homer season in 2025, but was scuffling to begin 2026 with a slash line of .167/.259/.292 with two homers and 10 RBIs in 34 games. Kreidler is up for the second time this season. He went 3-for-14 in five games with two homers and four RBIs. At St. Paul, Kreidler had a .266/.389/.500 slash line with five homers, 15 RBIs and three steals. Adams made two relief appearances, giving up three runs in 3⅔ innings with two walks and five strikeouts. View the full article

Owen Hill and Jesse Burrill are back to break down another series loss against the Tampa Bay Rays, but are encouraged by their series-salvaging win powered by Daulton Varsho's walk-off grand slam. They compare the Rays to the Jays as a team and talk about Vladimir Guerrero Jr.'s career-worst slump before getting into the rest of the offense, including Yohendrick Pinango's continued hot start to his big league career. The guys touch on Kevin Gausman's lack of strikeouts and Dylan Cease's gem in the finale before previewing the upcoming series in Detroit against the Tigers. Listen on Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-jays-centre-podcast/id1846108462 Listen on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/3Bi7SzfpcqMo5xYWnbCeoL Listen on iHeartRadio: https://www.iheart.com/podcast/263-the-jays-centre-podcast-300304824/ Listen on Pocket Casts: https://pca.st/2qk9wqxd Watch on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@jayscentre View the full article

Blue Jays Affiliate Overview (May 12-May 13) Triple-A Buffalo Bisons Series vs Worcester Red Sox (Boston Red Sox): 1-1: Season Record: 20-21 Double-A New Hampshire Fisher Cats Series vs Reading Fighting Phils (Philadelphia Phillies): 2-0 Season Record: 21-11 High-A Vancouver Canadians Series vs Everett AquaSox (Seattle Mariners): 1-1 Season Record: 14-21 Single-A Dunedin Blue Jays Series vs Tampa Tarpons (New York Yankees): 0-2 Season Record: 13-22 FCL Blue Jays Week Record: 1-0 Season Record: 8-0 Triple-A Buffalo Bisons Season Record: 20-21 Series vs Worcester Red Sox May 12: It was the start of a new series for Buffalo on Tuesday, but the hot bats stayed sizzling, as they jumped on the Worcester Red Sox early in the game. Ismael Munguia has been a giant bright spot for the Bisons and he kept it going on Tuesday, leading off with a single and then, a couple of batters later, he came around to score on Josh Kasevich's groundout. In the bottom of the second, two more runs would score after Worcester catcher Jason Delay had a passed ball and a throwing error on the same play. After the Red Sox cut the lead to one, Carlos Mendoza extended the lead by two with a 104.3 mph two-run home run in the bottom of the sixth. Buffalo would get some insurance runs in the seventh and eighth from RBI singles by Kasevich and Rafael Lantigua. The bullpen pitched well after relieving Austin Voth, once he completed five innings, giving up only two runs. Adam Macko had his best game, going 2.1 innings and surrendering just one walk and one hit, no runs. It would be Tanner Andrews for the ninth inning, and he was perfect, having a 1-2-3 inning and lowering his ERA to 1.65. Buffalo rolled in this one to a 7-2 win and finally reached the elusive .500 mark on the season. May 13: Well, it was a short-lived stay at the .500 mark for the Bisons, as the bats went with the weather in Buffalo. Much like the big league club, it was a singles factory on Wednesday, and Buffalo couldn't really get any runs across home plate. In the fifth inning, Jonatan Clase laced a single to right field, which would score the only runs of the game for Buffalo. The pitching wasn't great for Buffalo, but Worcester did a great job of manufacturing runs and scoring opportunities. In the first inning, Grant Rogers surrendered a run on a sacrifice fly, and then two innings later, another run on a single following a stolen base. Later in the inning, a Josh Kasevich error would allow a third run to cross home plate. In the eighth, Hayden Juenger gave up back-to-back singles before Michael Plassmeyer came into the game and hit the first batter to load the bases. From there, a passed ball by catcher Willie MacIver and another sacrifice fly would add two insurance runs for Worcester. Buffalo fell 6-2 in a lackluster game and fell back below the .500 mark. Double-A New Hampshire Season Record: 19-11 Series vs Reading Fighting Phils (Philadelphia Phillies) May 12: New Hampshire kicked off their week series with Reading on Tuesday. The Fightin Phils struck first with a home run by Bryan Rincon. In the bottom of the first, Jay Harry pinch-hit for Jace Bohrofen and crushed a two-run home run to right field. In the top of the second inning, Raylin Heredia launched a home run of his own for Reading. Patrick Winkel would have the answer for the Fisher Cats, a three-run homer to put them up two in the fourth inning of this back-and-forth contest. Kehden Hettiger homered in the sixth to bring Reading within one, but Adrian Pinto continued being an RBI machine with a bases-clearing double that brought in three runs for New Hampshire. Harry would add another RBI late for the Fisher Cats, who went on to win this one 9-5. May 13, Game 1: In the first game of the doubleheader, Richard Gallardo was on the mound for New Hampshire and continued his hot stretch. This time, he went six innings and only allowed two runs on five hits, while striking out four batters. He gave up two runs in the fourth inning on an RBI double and an RBI single. The Fisher Cats quickly answered, though, when Victor Arias crushed his second home run at Double A this season. In the sixth, Jay Harry tripled in a run, and Jackson Hornung had an RBI single for New Hampshire to take the lead. Yondrei Rojas came on for the seventh and got the last three outs for the save and the Fisher Cats victory, 3-2. Game 2: Postponed High-A Vancouver Season Record: 14-21 Series vs Everett AquaSox (Seattle Mariners) May 12: Danny Thompson Jr. has started to be figured out by Northwest League hitters, as this was his third start giving up two or more runs, and he lost his control, giving up four walks in 3.1 innings. This gave the AquaSox an early four-run lead as they were able to take advantage of the baserunners with extra-base hits. The Canadians clawed their way back, as Jacob Sharp got them on the board with his second homer of the season, and Kendry Chirinos brought the lead within two on an RBI double that same inning. The score didn’t change until the bottom of the seventh inning, when Dub Gleed and Maddox Latta both got on base, and Peyton Williams drove them both in on a two-RBI double to even it up. A throwing error from Luis Suisbel allowed Williams to score, and Vancouver finally had the lead. The Canadians kept the lead with good innings from Kelena Sauer and Jay Schueler, but in the bottom of the ninth, Schueler allowed a game-tying homer, which sent the game to extras. Trace Baker struck out two batters without allowing a baserunner in the 10th, and Jacob Sharp walked it off with a single for Vancouver. May 13: The second game of the series was a little anticlimactic, as the Canadians could not string together any hits, with only two on the night. It spoiled Johnny King’s best start as a professional, where he went five shutout innings, allowing only one walk and three hits while striking out eight batters, lowering his season ERA to just 0.81. Holden Wilkerson didn’t have his best appearance, going four innings and allowing three runs, but even if he was near perfect, it wouldn’t have mattered as there were only three baserunners all game for the Canadians in a quick 3-0 loss. Single-A Dunedin Season Record: 13-22 Series vs Tampa Tarpons (New York Yankees) May 12: The Dunedin Blue Jays fought the Yankees' affiliate for the first time this season, and despite a run scoring in the first inning on a groundout, the score remained close thanks to strong pitching from Brayden Heidel and new signee Jack Nedrow, who pitched four scoreless innings with six Ks in his professional debut. JoJo Parker was also able to even it up in the fourth with an absolutely crushed homer to centerfield at 109 mph that went 406 feet. The game remained tied heading into the ninth inning, but Lluveres Severino faced trouble and loaded the bases with two outs. He gave up a single to Jackson Lovich that Juan Sanchez wasn’t able to get a glove on, leading to a walkoff win for the Tarpons. May 13: Jake Cook was called up from the FCL and led off, playing center field. Brandon Barriera took the mound and was effective, allowing only one unearned run, but he had to be removed due to what looked like an oblique injury in the third inning. Diego Dominguez was sent in to replace him and immediately gave up a homer to put the Jays down two. The Jays had a big fourth inning, as after a Blaine Bullard double and a JoJo Parker walk, Juan Sanchez took the lead with his second homer of the season, an oppo shot 96.6 mph off the bat. Edward Duran started his rehab assignment and hit a single, then David Beckles hit a single, before Cook had his first hit as a D-Jay for a 2-RBI double to make it 5-2. Dominguez allowed another run, so he was replaced by Franly Urena, who didn’t allow a run despite four walks in 1.2 innings. Ramon Suarez blew the save after a fielding error from Sanchez, as Suarez couldn’t recover, giving up two home runs and a triple to put the Jays behind by two. The offense couldn't get a run in even after loading the bases in the seventh inning, leading to the second loss of the series. https://x.com/DunedinBlueJays/status/2054687327176298963?s=20 FCL Blue Jays Season Record: 8-0 May 12: The FCL Blue Jays took on the FCL Phillies on Tuesday, and Jake Bloss was on the mound for a rehab start. Bloss looked pretty good for his first rehab start, going 2.1 innings and striking out four, while giving up two hits and no runs. He mixed his pitches well and had his fastball working north of 95 mph most of the time. Carson Messina came on after him and was looking equally good. He sat mostly 93-95 mph on the fastball but frequently ran it up to 97 and 98 mph. He had a big curveball that was really good, which he dropped in there for two of his three strikeouts. He lost his command in his third inning and left the bases loaded. Those three runs would come in to score after he was pulled. On the offensive side, the FCL Blue Jays were hitting everything or getting on base via walk. They punched 15 hits and took 10 walks on their way to a 12-5 victory. Tim Piasentin had two hits and three walks, while Franklin Rojas went 5-for-6 with five RBIs. Transactions 05/13/26 Vancouver Canadians sent C Edward Duran on a rehab assignment to Dunedin Blue Jays. 05/13/26 OF Jake Cook assigned to Dunedin Blue Jays from FCL Blue Jays. 05/12/26 Buffalo Bisons sent RHP Jake Bloss on a rehab assignment to FCL Blue Jays. 05/12/26 Buffalo Bisons activated RF Je'Von Ward from the Development List. 05/12/26 C Adam Hackenberg assigned to Dunedin Blue Jays from Buffalo Bisons. 05/12/26 RHP Josbel Garcia assigned to Dunedin Blue Jays from FCL Blue Jays. View the full article

Boston Red Sox Affiliate Recap (May 13) Triple-A Worcester Red Sox The WooSox jumped on top early and never let the lead go, defeating the Buffalo Bisons (Toronto Blue Jays) 6-2. In the first inning, Nick Sogard led the game off with a single and came around to score on a Nate Eaton sacrifice fly, giving the WooSox a 1–0 lead. The third inning blew the game open for Worcester. Braiden Ward worked a walk, then immediately stole his 20th bag of the season and scored on a Vinny Capra line-drive single to left. Eaton ripped a ground ball to Buffalo’s shortstop, drawing a fielding error that let Capra score. Jason Delay capped the rally with an RBI single to center, hitting in Mikey Romero and making it 4–0. Worcester tacked on two insurance runs in the eighth on a passed ball by the Bisons catcher to make it 5-2, then a Ward sacrifice fly made it 6–2 and put the game well out of reach. Worcester's pitching staff was dominant. Six pitchers combined to hold Buffalo to just two runs while racking up 12 strikeouts. Devin Sweet started on the mound and threw two perfect innings. Eduardo Rivera picked up the win, tossing two scoreless innings with three strikeouts. The middle relief was outstanding as well. Tommy Kahnle, Wyatt Olds, and Angel Bastardo combined for four innings of shutout ball, surrendering just one hit total. Bastardo was particularly sharp with three strikeouts and no hits allowed in two spotless innings. The standout hitters for the WooSox were Sogard and Delay, who each racked up two-hit games, while Capra, Romero, and Eaton all reached base multiple times as well. Double-A Portland Sea Dogs Finding themselves down three runs in the seventh, the Sea Dogs rallied and came back to win it 9-6 against the Hartford Yard Goats (Colorado Rockies). Portland came out aggressively in the first inning, Franklin Arias and Nate Baez both drew walks, and Marvin Alcantara singled to load the bases. Miguel Bleis poked a grounder into left to score Arias, but Baez was gunned down at home. It still gave the Sea Dogs an early 1-0 lead. In the second, Tyler McDonough roped a leadoff double, and Max Ferguson laid down a bunt single; the Hartford pitchers' throw went wide, allowing McDonough to race home and put Portland back on top 2-1. The Yard Goats crushed a two-run homer in the bottom half, flipping the lead to 3-2 Hartford. Baez led off with a double in the third, Bleis followed up and continued his hot hitting streak with a line-drive single to center, driving in Baez to knot the score at 3-3. The fifth inning got out of hand for Gage Ziehl, who got roughed up in his five innings of work. Ziehl gave up two singles right away and gave up another single with one out; this time, it scored a run. With two outs, two runners on, and hopes of getting out of the inning with a one-run deficit, the Yard Goats cleared the bases with a two-run triple that gave them a comfortable 6-3 lead over Portland. Brooks Brannon, who is coming off the Eastern League Player of the Week, continues to hammer the ball, launching a solo homer to left-center in the seventh inning, his sixth of the season and fourth in his last four games. It cut the deficit to 6-4 and shifted the energy. The eighth inning is where the Portland bats exploded. Bleis drew a lead-off walk, and McDonough instantly crushed a two-run homer to left-center, tying it 6-6. Nelly Taylor kept the line moving with a double, Ferguson came up to the plate and belted a two-run homer, the second two-run homer in the inning, without recording an out as Portland leads 8-6. Arias walks, and Hartford changes pitchers. Arias stole second base right away and reached third due to a throwing error. Baez blooped a double to shallow right, scoring Arias. That would be the end of Portland's five-run eighth inning, making the score 9-6 and putting the game out of reach for the Yard Goats. Cade Feeney, who entered in the eighth and retired the side in order, came back out and did it again in the ninth: Six up and six down across two innings, earning his first save of the season. Although Ziehl had a rough outing, the bullpen behind him stepped up and kept Portland in the game until the end. Patrick Halligan was first out of the bullpen, throwing two hitless innings in the sixth and seventh. Feeney came in for the last two innings and shut the door. Key Performances: Tyler McDonough: 2-for-5, HR, 2 R, 2 RBI Miguel Bleis: 2-for-4, R, 2 RBI, BB Brooks Brannon: HR, R, RBI Nate Baez: 2-for-4, 2 2B, R, RBI, BB High-A Greenville Drive It was a rough night for Greenville, finding trouble hitting in runs with runners on base in their 10-4 loss to the Bowling Green Hot Rods (Tampa Bay Rays). Bowling Green scratched across a run in the second with an RBI single, then launched a solo homer in the third to make it 2-0. The Drive went quietly through the first three innings. The Drive’s bullpen struggled all game, especially in the fourth inning. The Hot Rods roped an RBI single then blasted a three-run homer, putting Greenville in a hole 6-0. Greenville showed signs of life. Freili Encarnacion drove in the first run with an RBI double in the fourth. In the 6th, Jack Winnay blasted a solo homer to left-center. A few batters later, Natanael Yuten brought in another run with an RBI single to pull it to 7-3. There were some bright spots for Greenville. Justin Gonzales, Henry Godbout, and Mason White all had multi-hit games. Key Performances: Justin Gonzales: 2-for-5 Henry Godbout: 2-for-5, SB Mason White: 2-for-4, 3B, R Jack Winnay: HR, 2 R, RBI, BB Single-A Salem RidgeYaks The RidgeYaks defeat the Fredericksburg Nationals (Washington Nationals) 3-1 in a very uneventful game for Salem up until the eighth inning. 19-year-old Red Sox top prospect Enddy Azocar could be seeing a promotion to Double-A soon, collecting another multi-hit game while slashing .273/.322/.485 with five homers in the season. Salem trailed 1-0 for most of the game, but the eighth inning changed everything. Andruw Musett got hit by a pitch to lead off the inning, and suddenly the floodgates opened. Starlyn Nunez singled, Azocar ripped an RBI single to tie it at 1-1, he ended up getting picked off, but Andrews Opata drew a walk then got to second base on a wild pitch to put runners on second and third. Luke Heyman followed and delivered the dagger, a two-run double to center that scored Nunez and Opata, putting Salem up 3-1. Nicolas De La Cruz shut it down, striking out four over 2 ⅔ innings of relief, closing it out in the ninth to earn the win. The RidgeYaks’ pitching staff was outstanding. Christian Foutch gutted through a tough 2 ⅔ inning start; he walked five batters and gave up the lone run in the third, but he limited the damage and kept it at 1-0. Ethan Walker came in after and delivered 1 ⅔ scoreless innings to stabilize the game. Harry Blum was dominant with four strikeouts over two clean innings. Key Performances: Enddy Azocar: 2-for-4, RBI Luke Heyman: 2B, 2 RBI View the full article

Chicago Cubs Transactions No Roster Moves Alcántara's Solo Shot The Lone Run In Iowa's Loss At Nashville The Iowa Cubs fell 4-1 at Nashville. The Cubs' only run came on a solo home run from cleanup hitter Kevin Alcántara in the top of the second inning, his 14th of the season. The lead lasted until the bottom of the third, when the Sounds answered with a solo home run to tie the game. Connor Noland (L, 2-3) started and allowed three runs on six hits over five innings, walking two and striking out two. The fifth inning broke the tie. After a leadoff lineout to Alcántara in left, Noland gave up a single to center, a walk, and a hit by pitch to load the bases. A force out scored the go-ahead run, and a single to center brought home another to make it 3-1. Tyler Ferguson and Gavin Hollowell each threw a scoreless inning out of the bullpen. Collin Snider gave up a single and a triple in the eighth, allowing one run. Jonathon Long led the offense by going 2-for-3 with a double and a walk. Christian Bethancourt, Scott Kingery, and Brett Bateman each added a single. Iowa stranded eight. Player AB R H RBI BB K James Triantos 3 0 0 0 1 2 Pedro Ramírez 3 0 0 0 0 1 BJ Murray 4 0 0 0 0 2 Kevin Alcántara 4 1 1 1 0 0 Jonathon Long 3 0 2 0 1 0 Chas McCormick 4 0 0 0 0 2 Christian Bethancourt 4 0 1 0 0 0 Ben Cowles 2 0 0 0 0 1 Scott Kingery 2 0 1 0 0 0 Brett Bateman 4 0 1 0 0 2 Player IP H R ER BB K HR Connor Noland (L, 2-3) 5 6 3 3 2 2 1 Tyler Ferguson 1 0 0 0 1 0 0 Gavin Hollowell 1 1 0 0 0 1 0 Collin Snider 1 2 1 1 0 2 0 Smokies Drop High-Scoring Affair To Columbus The Knoxville Smokies dropped a 9-5 decision at Columbus. Karson Simas opened the game with a leadoff double, advanced on a fly out, and scored on an RBI double from Alex Ramírez to give the Smokies a 1-0 lead. Columbus answered with three runs in the home half against Grant Kipp on a triple, a fielder's choice, and a double. Knoxville tied the score in the third. Simas doubled again to lead off, and after a fly out and a strikeout, Andy Garriola lined a double to right that scored Simas. Ramírez followed with an RBI single to make it 3-3. Columbus pulled ahead 6-3 with a sacrifice fly in the fourth and a two-run home run in the fifth. The Smokies got two back in the sixth. Carter Trice led off with his fourth home run, and Simas later added an RBI double that scored Ariel Armas. Columbus put the game away with three runs in the eighth. Grant Kipp (L, 2-3) took the loss after allowing six runs on seven hits over 4 2/3 innings, walking two and striking out five. Tyler Santana followed with 2 2/3 innings, allowing one run on four hits with one walk and six strikeouts. Jackson Kirkpatrick walked two and gave up the decisive hit in the eighth. Simas finished 2-for-4 with two doubles, a walk, two runs scored, and an RBI. Ramírez added two hits and two RBI. Garriola reached three times on a double and two walks. The Smokies stranded eight. Player AB R H RBI BB K Karson Simas 4 2 2 1 1 0 Jefferson Rojas 5 0 0 0 0 0 Owen Ayers 4 0 1 0 1 3 Andy Garriola 2 1 1 1 2 0 Hayden Cantrelle 1 0 0 0 0 1 Alex Ramírez 4 0 2 2 0 0 Jordan Nwogu 4 0 1 0 0 2 Carter Trice 4 1 1 1 0 0 Edgar Alvarez 3 0 0 0 0 2 Ariel Armas 4 1 1 0 0 2 Player IP H R ER BB K HR Grant Kipp (L, 2-3) 4 2/3 7 6 6 2 5 1 Tyler Santana 2 2/3 4 1 1 1 6 0 Jackson Kirkpatrick 2/3 1 2 2 2 1 0 Cubs Plate Three Early But Wisconsin Roars Back Past South Bend The South Bend Cubs jumped out to a 3-0 lead in the top of the first inning, but the Wisconsin Timber Rattlers answered with five runs in the bottom of the second to take control of an eventual 11-6 win. The Cubs' opening rally produced RBIs from Ty Southisene on a double and Drew Bowser on a single, with another run scoring on a Leonel Espinoza double play. Eli Jerzembeck (L, 0-1) lasted only 1 2/3 innings, allowing six earned runs on seven hits while walking two and striking out two. Jackson Brockett relieved with 3 1/3 innings, giving up one run on four hits and one walk. Alfredo Romero followed with three innings, surrendering four runs on three hits and five walks, including a three-run home run in the bottom of the eighth that pushed Wisconsin's lead to five. South Bend kept chipping. Southisene added an RBI single in the second and another in the fifth to finish 3-for-5 with three RBI, two stolen bases, and a double. Leadoff hitter Kane Kepley reached four times, drawing three walks, scoring twice, and stealing three bases. Christian Olivo grounded out for an RBI in the third. Drew Bowser and Leonel Espinoza each added a hit. The Cubs stranded 12 runners and committed two errors. Player AB R H RBI BB K Kane Kepley 2 2 1 0 3 0 Ty Southisene 5 1 3 3 0 0 Cameron Sisneros 4 1 0 0 1 3 Kade Snell 4 0 1 0 1 2 Leonel Espinoza 4 1 1 0 0 0 Drew Bowser 5 0 1 1 0 3 Alex Madera 3 0 1 0 2 0 Miguel Useche 3 0 0 0 1 0 Christian Olivo 4 1 0 1 1 2 Player IP H R ER BB K HR Eli Jerzembeck (L, 0-1) 1 2/3 7 6 6 2 2 0 Jackson Brockett 3 1/3 4 1 1 1 1 0 Alfredo Romero 3 3 4 4 5 2 1 Pelicans Pitching Strikes Out 15 In Loss To Augusta The Myrtle Beach Pelicans collected only two hits in a 3-1 home loss to the Augusta GreenJackets. Augusta took a 2-0 lead in the top of the second inning on an RBI single and a bases-loaded walk against starter Pierce Coppola, and a solo home run in the seventh provided the eventual winning margin against Mason McGwire. Coppola (L, 0-1) was charged with the loss after allowing two runs on four hits over 3 2/3 innings, walking two and striking out six on 72 pitches. McGwire followed with 4 1/3 innings, striking out eight without issuing a walk while allowing just the solo home run. Edwardo Melendez closed out the game with a scoreless ninth. The Pelicans' lone run came in the bottom of the sixth. Leadoff hitter Alexis Hernandez reached on an error, stole second base, and came home on an RBI single by Michael Carico. Carico finished 1-for-4 with the team's lone RBI, and Jose Escobar accounted for the only other hit. Josiah Hartshorn drew two walks, while Eli Lovich, Logan Poteet, and Hartshorn collectively reached five times on free passes. Myrtle Beach stranded six. Player AB R H RBI BB K Alexis Hernandez 4 1 0 0 0 1 Josiah Hartshorn 2 0 0 0 2 1 Michael Carico 4 0 1 1 0 3 Logan Poteet 3 0 0 0 1 3 Jose Escobar 4 0 1 0 0 0 Eli Lovich 3 0 0 0 1 2 Derniche Valdez 4 0 0 0 0 0 Geuri Lubo 3 0 0 0 0 1 Darlyn De Leon 3 0 0 0 0 2 Player IP H R ER BB K HR Pierce Coppola (L, 0-1) 3 2/3 4 2 2 2 6 0 Mason McGwire 4 1/3 3 1 1 0 8 1 Edwardo Melendez 1 2 0 0 0 1 0 Top-20 Prospect Performance Moises Ballesteros: DNP Jaxon Wiggins: DNP Jefferson Rojas: 0-for-5 Kevin Alcántara: 1-for-4, HR, RBI, R Jonathon Long: 2-for-3, 2B, BB Ethan Conrad: DNP Pedro Ramírez: 0-for-3, K Kane Kepley: 1-for-2, 2 R, 3 BB, 3 SB Josiah Hartshorn: 0-for-2, 2 BB, K James Triantos: 0-for-3, BB, 2 K Brandon Birdsell: DNP Cole Mathis: DNP Angel Cepeda: DNP Kaleb Wing: DNP Will Sanders: DNP Juan Cabada: DNP Jostin Florentino: DNP Dominick Reid: DNP Ty Southisene: 3-for-5, 2B, 3 RBI, 2 SB Erian Rodriguez: DNP View the full article

Ryan Jeffers has been phenomenal to start the season, emerging as one of the best all-around catchers in baseball. Right now, he looks every bit like a truly elite backstop. View the full article

Earlier this week, Jays Centre's Owen Hill wrote about the Blue Jays' defense. He pointed out that the Jays are one of the best teams in the league according to Baseball Savant's Fielding Run Value (FRV), despite ranking as one of the worst in errors and fielding percentage. After reading Owen's article, I went down a bit of a rabbit hole. I was watching clips of all the errors the Blue Jays have made this season when it occurred to me how many of them were on the pitchers. Toronto has made 27 errors in 2026, the fifth-most in MLB. Of those 27 errors, nine belong to the arms. My gut reaction? That's a lot of pitcher errors. My gut was right. Pitchers aren't usually the best fielders. That's not a dig. They just have other priorities. What's more, by nature of where they stand on the field, the batted balls they have to work with are often moving very slowly or very fast. In either case, those can be tough to deal with. However, pitchers are limited in the number of errors they can make because they don't handle the ball all that much. They make errors at a higher rate than players at any other position, but even so, they're typically only responsible for 12-13% of errors league-wide. That's why I was surprised that pitchers have made one-third of the Blue Jays' errors in 2026. This year's pitching staff has already compiled more errors than the team's pitchers have in 13 separate seasons of Blue Jays history. Three of those were shortened seasons (1981, 1994, and 2020), but the other 10 were full 162-game (or even 163-game) campaigns. In 1988 and again in '92, Toronto's pitchers made a full-season franchise-record-low five errors; this year, they passed that total 11 games into the schedule. As a more recent comparison, the 2022 and '23 staffs only made six errors each year. That's an average of one per month. This year's pitchers already had eight errors by the end of April. Looking around the league, there are almost always a handful of pitching staffs that don't top nine errors all year. The last time that every single team's pitchers made more than nine errors was in 1974, before the Blue Jays even existed. Let that sink in. It's not unusual for a team's pitchers to make nine or fewer errors all season. The Jays' arms have already hit that mark by mid-May. For more historical context, the Blue Jays' pitchers are on pace for 34 errors this season. That would surpass the franchise record, held by the inaugural 1977 team; their pitchers made 30 errors. In fact, it would be the highest number of errors by any pitching staff in the live ball era; the record (33) currently belongs to the pitchers of the 1976 San Francisco Giants. So, at the rate they're mishandling the ball, Toronto's pitchers have a chance to break records that have stood for 50 years. But that might be underselling it. You see, errors are less frequent than they used to be. As Owen mentioned in his piece, MLB's official scorers have been getting more lenient in recent years, classifying fewer and fewer plays as errors. The league's .986 fielding percentage in 2026 is the highest it's been at any point in major league history. We're on pace to see 2,370 errors by the end of this season. In contrast, MLB fielders made 3,458 errors in 1976 – when there were only 24 teams. Fifty years ago, teams averaged almost an error per game. In 2026, it's more like one every other game. The rate has nearly been cut in half. Here's another way to think about it. The Blue Jays' pitchers are on pace to make 34 errors this year, and their nine errors account for just under 1.5% of all errors in MLB. However, if they were making errors at the same rate compared to league average in 1976, they would be on pace for 50. Fifty! If their current pace holds – which, to be clear, is unlikely, but we're having fun here – the Blue Jays would also set a record for the highest "pitcher error-to-position player error ratio" in major league history. One in three of Toronto's errors this year was committed by a pitcher. Right now, the full-season record belongs to the 2024 New York Mets, whose pitchers were responsible for about one in four of the team's errors (23 out of 94). And in case you're interested, the record in the opposite direction belongs to the 2021 Washington Nationals. The team made 96 errors that year (third-most in the NL), but only one of those errors was by a pitcher. It bears repeating that I don't actually expect the Blue Jays' pitchers – or the rest of their fielders – to maintain their current error pace. Errors are always unpredictable, and a quarter of a season is a tiny sample. I'm only bringing up full-season paces and historical records to contextualize how unusual it is that we've already seen so many pitcher errors at this early point in the year. Indeed, the real story here is the high number of errors the Blue Jays' pitchers have made to this point in the year. So, please check back tomorrow morning, because I'm putting together a piece where you can watch all of those misplays in all of their glory. View the full article

The Binghamton Rumble Ponies were the lone Mets affiliate to win, edging Somerset 5-4 behind home runs from Jose Ramos and Nick Lorusso, while Bryce Conley earned the win across five innings. Syracuse was shut out 7-0 by Scranton/Wilkes-Barre, with Dylan Ross and Ryan Lambert contributing scoreless relief. Brooklyn dropped a 4-3 decision at Rome despite Mitch Voit's solo homer and Jonathan Jimenez's five scoreless. St. Lucie was swept by Jupiter. Mets Transactions New York Mets placed C Francisco Alvarez on the 10-day injured list. Right meniscus tear. New York Mets recalled C Hayden Senger from Syracuse Mets. Mets Bats Held To Two Hits In Scranton Shutout The Syracuse Mets managed just two hits and struck out 15 times in a 7-0 loss to the Scranton/Wilkes-Barre RailRiders. Jihwan Bae singled and walked, and cleanup hitter Christian Arroyo added the team's other hit. Ryan Clifford and Cristian Pache each struck out three times. Starter Jack Weisenburger took the loss, going 3 2/3 innings while allowing eight hits and seven runs, six earned, with two strikeouts and no walks. He surrendered one home run. The damage came in the bottom of the fourth. The RailRiders opened the inning with three straight singles to load the bases. A two-run single to center pushed the score to 3-0, and after a fielder's choice that included a Weisenburger throwing error reloaded the bases, a grand slam to left center capped the six-run rally at 7-0. The RailRiders had opened the scoring in the first when a runner doubled, advanced no further on a flyout, and came home on an RBI single. The Syracuse bullpen kept the game from getting further out of hand. Jonathan Pintaro, Joey Gerber, Dylan Ross, and Ryan Lambert combined for 4 1/3 scoreless innings, allowing two hits and two walks while striking out three. Syracuse left three runners on base and committed two errors. Player AB R H RBI BB K Nick Morabito (CF) 4 0 0 0 0 2 Ji Hwan Bae (DH) 3 0 1 0 1 1 Ryan Clifford (LF) 4 0 0 0 0 3 Christian Arroyo (3B) 3 0 1 0 0 1 Eric Wagaman (1B) 3 0 0 0 0 2 Yonny Hernandez (2B) 3 0 0 0 0 0 Cristian Pache (RF) 3 0 0 0 0 3 Ben Rortvedt (C) 3 0 0 0 0 2 Jackson Cluff (SS) 3 0 0 0 0 1 Player IP H R ER BB K HR Jack Weisenburger 3 2/3 8 7 6 0 2 1 Jonathan Pintaro 1 1/3 1 0 0 0 1 0 Joey Gerber 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 Dylan Ross 1 0 0 0 1 1 0 Ryan Lambert 1 1 0 0 1 1 0 Ramos And Lorusso Power Binghamton Past Somerset The Binghamton Rumble Ponies edged the Somerset Patriots 5-4 on the strength of two long balls. Jose Ramos hit a three-run homer in the third, his fifth of the year, and Nick Lorusso added a go-ahead solo shot in the sixth, his third. Leadoff hitter Eli Serrano III went 2-for-4 with a walk and two stolen bases. Jacob Reimer added two hits, a walk, a stolen base, and two runs scored. Cleanup hitter Kevin Parada doubled in a first-inning run, and JT Schwartz added a double of his own. Starter Bryce Conley earned the win, going five innings while allowing five hits, four runs, four earned, with four strikeouts, two walks, and one home run allowed. Binghamton struck first in the top of the first. Reimer walked, stole second, and scored on Parada's double to right. The Rumble Ponies pulled away in the third when Serrano walked, Reimer singled, and Ramos followed with his three-run homer to center, pushing the lead to 4-1. After Somerset rallied for three runs in the fifth to tie it at 4-4, Lorusso led off the sixth with his solo homer to left center to take the lead back. From there, Ben Simon worked two scoreless frames, Matt Turner struck out the side in the eighth, and Brian Metoyer recorded the save with one inning of work in the ninth. Binghamton left six runners on base. Player AB R H RBI BB K Eli Serrano III (DH) 4 1 2 0 1 0 Jacob Reimer (3B) 4 2 2 0 1 1 Jose Ramos (CF) 4 1 1 3 0 2 Kevin Parada (C) 4 0 1 1 0 2 Nick Lorusso (1B) 4 1 1 1 0 1 TT Bowens (RF) 4 0 0 0 0 3 JT Schwartz (LF) 4 0 1 0 0 2 Wyatt Young (SS) 4 0 0 0 0 0 Diego Mosquera (2B) 4 0 1 0 0 2 Player IP H R ER BB K HR Bryce Conley 5 5 4 4 2 4 1 Ben Simon 2 1 0 0 1 1 0 Matt Turner 1 0 0 0 0 3 0 Brian Metoyer 1 1 0 0 1 0 0 Voit Homer Not Enough As Brooklyn Falls In Rome The Brooklyn Cyclones fell 4-3 to the Rome Emperors, dropping a game in which their starter could not escape the first inning. Leadoff hitter Mitch Voit went 1-for-3 with a solo home run, a sacrifice fly, and two runs batted in. Sam Biller had a run-scoring single, and Trace Willhoite singled and scored. Brooklyn struck out 16 times as a team, including four times by John Bay and three by Colin Houck. Starter Cristofer Gomez took the loss, lasting just two-thirds of an inning while allowing three hits, four runs, four earned, with one walk and no strikeouts. Jonathan Jimenez followed with five scoreless innings of relief, scattering five hits and four walks while striking out two. The bottom of the first ended the game before it really began. Rome strung together a leadoff single, a run-scoring double, a sacrifice fly, and another double for three runs against Gomez. Jimenez took over with two outs and a runner on, then issued a walk and surrendered a run-scoring single that pushed the score to 4-0. Brooklyn answered with two in the third on Biller's RBI single and Voit's sacrifice fly to left, then trimmed it to one in the fifth when Voit homered to left, but the Cyclones could get no closer. Dakota Hawkins, Parker Carlson, and Garrett Stratton each tossed scoreless relief innings to keep it within reach. Brooklyn left three runners on base. Player AB R H RBI BB K Mitch Voit (SS) 3 1 1 2 0 1 John Bay (CF) 4 0 0 0 0 4 Ronald Hernandez (C) 3 0 0 0 1 1 Corey Collins (LF) 3 0 0 0 1 2 Daiverson Gutierrez (DH) 4 0 0 0 0 1 Colin Houck (2B) 4 0 0 0 0 3 Trace Willhoite (1B) 3 1 1 0 0 2 Nick Roselli (3B) 2 1 0 0 1 1 Sam Biller (RF) 3 0 1 1 0 1 Player IP H R ER BB K HR Cristofer Gomez 2/3 3 4 4 1 0 0 Jonathan Jimenez 5 5 0 0 4 2 0 Dakota Hawkins 1/3 0 0 0 0 0 0 Parker Carlson 1 1 0 0 0 1 0 Garrett Stratton 1 0 0 0 1 2 0 Zayas Homer Cannot Lift St. Lucie In Game One Loss The St. Lucie Mets dropped the opener of a doubleheader to the Jupiter Hammerheads 5-2. Leadoff hitter Elian Pena went 1-for-3 with a walk, a run-scoring single, and two stolen bases. Julio Zayas tied the game with a solo home run in the fourth, his first of the year. Randy Guzman, AJ Salgado, Chase Meggers, and Sam Robertson each added one hit. JT Benson walked and stole a base. Starter Conner Ware lasted four innings, allowing five hits and two runs, both earned, with five strikeouts, two walks, and two home runs surrendered. Adbert Alzolay took the loss in one inning of work, giving up three hits and two runs, both earned, with a strikeout and a home run allowed. Christian Rodriguez followed with two innings, two hits, one earned run, and two strikeouts. The Mets tied the game at 2-2 across the third and fourth. Kevin Villavicencio reached on an error, advanced, and scored on Pena's single to right. An inning later, Zayas drove a ball to left center for his solo homer. The Hammerheads regained control in the fifth, when a two-run homer off Alzolay made it 4-2, and Jupiter tacked on a fifth run in the sixth on a bases-loaded walk off Rodriguez. Player AB R H RBI BB K Elian Pena (SS) 3 0 1 1 1 1 JT Benson (LF) 2 0 0 0 1 0 Randy Guzman (RF) 3 0 1 0 0 1 AJ Salgado (1B) 3 0 1 0 0 1 Julio Zayas (DH) 3 1 1 1 0 0 Chase Meggers (C) 3 0 1 0 0 0 Sam Robertson (2B) 3 0 1 0 0 1 Simon Juan (CF) 3 0 0 0 0 1 Kevin Villavicencio (3B) 3 1 0 0 0 0 Player IP H R ER BB K HR Conner Ware 4 5 2 2 2 5 2 Adbert Alzolay 1 3 2 2 0 1 1 Christian Rodriguez 2 2 1 1 1 2 0 St. Lucie Bullpen Falters In Late Game Two Loss The St. Lucie Mets fell 5-4 to the Jupiter Hammerheads in the second game of the doubleheader, surrendering three runs in the seventh after taking a one-run lead the inning before. Julio Zayas went 2-for-3 with his second home run of the day. Branny De Oleo added two hits, JT Benson tripled in a run, Sam Robertson doubled, walked, and scored, and Jamari Baylor had a hit and a walk. Leadoff hitter Elian Pena went 0-for-4 with two strikeouts but drove in a run on a groundout in the seventh. Starter Joel Lara went four innings, allowing three hits and one run, with four strikeouts and one walk. St. Lucie pulled ahead 3-2 in the bottom of the sixth. Robertson led off with a double, JT Benson followed with an RBI triple to right, and Guzman lifted a sacrifice fly to center to bring Benson home. The lead did not hold. In the top of the seventh, Ernesto Mercedes entered, hit a batter, walked another, and gave up a bunt single to load the bases. A run-scoring single tied it at 3-3. A wild pitch then scored a run during a strikeout to push the lead to 4-3, and after an intentional walk, Miguel Mejias relieved Mercedes and walked in another run to make it 5-3. St. Lucie answered with one in the bottom half. De Oleo and Baylor opened with consecutive singles, and Pena drove in De Oleo on a groundout, but Robertson flied out to end the game. St. Lucie left four runners on base. Player AB R H RBI BB K Elian Pena (DH) 4 0 0 1 0 2 Sam Robertson (CF) 3 1 1 0 1 1 JT Benson (RF) 3 1 1 1 0 2 Randy Guzman (1B) 2 0 0 1 0 1 Julio Zayas (1B) 3 1 2 1 0 0 Simon Juan (LF) 0 0 0 0 0 0 Kevin Villavicencio (3B) 3 0 0 0 0 1 Francisco Toledo (C) 3 0 0 0 0 2 Branny De Oleo (SS) 3 1 2 0 0 1 Jamari Baylor (2B) 2 0 1 0 1 0 Player IP H R ER BB K HR Joel Lara 4 3 1 1 1 4 0 Ryan Dollar 2 1 1 0 1 2 0 Ernesto Mercedes 1/3 2 3 3 2 1 0 Miguel Mejias 2/3 0 0 0 1 1 0 Top-20 Prospect Performance Nolan McLean: DNP Carson Benge: DNP A.J. Ewing: DNP Jonah Tong: DNP Ryan Clifford: 0-for-4, 3 K Jacob Reimer: 2-for-4, BB, K, SB, 2 R Jack Wenninger: DNP Elian Pena: Game 1: 1-for-3, BB, K, RBI, 2 SB; Game 2: 0-for-4, 2 K, RBI Mitch Voit: 1-for-3, HR, K, 2 RBI Nick Morabito: 0-for-4, 2 K Jonathan Santucci: DNP Chris Suero: DNP Zach Thornton: DNP Wandy Asigen: DNP Will Watson: DNP Eli Serrano III: 2-for-4, BB, 2 SB, R Ryan Lambert: 1 IP, 1 H, 0 R, BB, K Dylan Ross: 1 IP, 0 H, 0 R, BB, K Antonio Jimenez: DNP R.J. Gordon: DNP View the full article

The Twins will option struggling outfielder Matt Wallner to Triple-A St. Paul on Thursday, two sources with knowledge of the team's plans told Twins Daily, Taking Wallner's place on the roster will be utilityman Ryan Kreidler, who made his Twins debut during Royce Lewis's stint on the injured list earlier this season. Kreidler is expected to serve in the same roving backup role he filled in Lewis's absence, as the team gives Austin Martin a fuller opportunity as a regular corner outfielder. By now, there should be little suspense or surprise around that move. Wallner's demotion is overdue. The massive Forest Lake native is batting .167/.259/.292 on the year. His last two starts came Wednesday night against the Marlins and Saturday in Cleveland, and in each, he went 0-for-4 with four strikeouts. He's been slowly phased out of the team's plans over the last four weeks, with Martin gaining an ever greater share of the playing time in the outfield and Trevor Larnach becoming the left-handed batter manager Derek Shelton kept in the lineup even against left-handed opposing starters. Compounding the negative value of his bat, Wallner has been the worst defensive outfielder in baseball this season. He's lost speed; takes bad routes on fly balls; is too slow to field balls that fall in and to get off throws back to the infield; and doesn't communicate well with the infielders or with Byron Buxton on balls hit between defenders. He has no business playing in the major leagues right now; the team will hope that a hard reset in the minors can fix that. Right-hander Zebby Matthews is also coming over from St. Paul Thursday, and that promotion has portent, too. All the team is saying so far is that Matthews is making a spot start to facilitate the team bumping back Connor Prielipp's next one by a day, as they monitor and mete out the latter's workload for the year. However, Matthews looks likely to stick around and take over the starting rotation spot occupied (until now) by Simeon Woods Richardson, who was knocked out early again Wednesday and has an untenable 7.71 ERA for the year. Wednesday night's game was also the latest indication of a more gradual change. Tristan Gray made his fourth start at third base in the last 10 games. Two of those starts came one week ago, when Shelton gave Royce Lewis back-to-back days off as a reset. So far, however, Lewis has shown little to give the team renewed hope since then, and he's only batting .167/.269/.300 for the year. His two-day benching came one week after Wallner's, and now, Wallner is heading for the other end of the Green Line. The clock is ticking on Lewis, too, with Gray threatening to take his job even before the prospects about whom he's so worried are ready to come to the big leagues. The 2025 trade deadline amounted to a reckoning for the previous year's worth of failures—for the collapse that led the 2024 Twins to miss the playoffs and for an offseason in which they were hamstrung by the Pohlads' attempts to sell the team, preventing them from sufficiently addressing the causes of that collapse. As roster overhauls go, though, it was actually relatively small, and when a Derek Falvey-led front office once again plodded most of the way through the winter without proactively moving on from any of the players who'd dragged them down over the previous year-plus, they began this season in something eerily similar to the same place they were in before that so-called fire sale. Falvey's conservative approach and belief in the core he'd assembled led the team to hold onto Wallner, Lewis, Larnach and Woods Richardson over the winter, when there were strong arguments for moving on from any or all four of them. In fact, those arguments were also there last July, and even the previous offseason. The team went 1-for-4 in its long-running series of gambles on those young players. Larnach might not be a long-term piece for the club, but if nothing else, he's boosted his trade value substantially this spring. The other three are now being proactively replaced by a front office that still bears Falvey's fingerprints but has departed from his plans in some key aspects, and at the behest of a manager who isn't inclined to be especially patient with players at this phase of their careers. Shelton lost half a decade of his life in Pittsburgh, making no progress toward winning because he was handed a parade of players on whom the organization was placing doomed bets a year after they should have stopped. He's been quick to try new things and shake up the way he deploys his roster, and slow to trust anyone. He and Jeremy Zoll are reshaping the big-league roster relatively early in the season, both because the utter ineptitude of the AL Central has allowed them to hold onto a dream of competing this year and because they agree that it's no longer reasonable to keep expecting Lewis, Wallner and Woods Richardson to turn things around. Thursday marks the dawn of an interesting interstitial period. Martin, 27, will continue to get regular playing time, something he just achieved for the first time after last year's deadline. He's batting an extraordinary .327/.448/.416 in 125 plate appearances so far, though that's still distorted by platoon effects. Martin has faced left-handed pitchers in 49% of his plate appearances, almost twice as much as a full-time right-handed batter can expect to see them over a full season. As his role expands, he'll be tested, and could be exposed. Gray has been less impressive at the plate since his hot start, and looks like an inconsistent, Kody Clemens-style offensive contributor. However, he plays plus defense at third base, separating him from Lewis. Both players will get a real chance to earn an even longer look, but each is also holding down a spot that could soon pass into the hands of one of the team's top prospects. Kaelen Culpepper needs a bit more time at St. Paul, but were Emmanuel Rodríguez healthy, he would already be in the majors, according to one team source. Culpepper's arrival could move Brooks Lee off shortstop and over to the hot corner. This shakeup could also result in Lee moving to second, if Gray shows enough to merit sustained playing time, with Luke Keaschall sliding to the outfield to soak up some of the playing time vacated by Wallner's demotion. For now, Lewis remains on the big-league roster, so he'll play third base at least as often as Gray. The timeline of the Wallner phaseout is a reminder, though, that time is short. The Twins' new chairman, Tom Pohlad, expects the team to win and is evaluating the front office and manager on that criterion. Neither Zoll nor Shelton is as invested in Wallner, Lewis, Woods Richardson or several other players on this roster as Falvey was, even if Zoll has been around for several years and was part of bringing in and developing much of the team. Change is afoot, and while the only unequivocal handoff of playing time marked by Thursday's moves is from Wallner to Martin, the writing is on the wall for several pieces of a core that was once the team's future—but is now being tossed onto the junkheap of the past. View the full article

For much of the past four years, Yasser Mercedes has been one of those names that scouts and development staff could not quite let go of. The tools were always impressive. The results were not. Signed by the Minnesota Twins in January 2022 for $1.7 million, Mercedes arrived as a highly-regarded international outfielder with impact potential. He ranked among the top 20 international prospects in his class. The expectation was not immediate production, but rather gradual growth built on loud raw tools. However, that growth has taken longer than expected. In his pro debut in the Dominican Summer League, Mercedes showed flashes of offensive ability that validated the investment. But when he reached the Florida Complex League in 2023, the transition exposed the gaps in his game. Pitch recognition wavered, timing slipped, and the strikeout totals climbed. Even so, the organization stayed patient. A return to the Complex League in the following season brought improvement—enough to earn a brief look at full-season ball in Fort Myers. That stint, however, was too small to draw firm conclusions, and the results were uneven at best. The underlying traits have never been in question. When Mercedes is right at the plate, he looks like a completely different hitter. The bat speed is well above average, and the raw power shows up in every part of the strike zone. When his approach is disciplined, he is capable of controlling at-bats, working deep counts, and drawing walks at a strong clip. At his best in the Dominican Summer League and again in stretches in the Complex League, he showed an ability to shrink the zone and force pitchers into uncomfortable spots. The challenge has always been sustaining that version of himself. Injuries have played a major role in the stalled development. A hamstring issue, a quad strain, and a shoulder problem all interrupted his progression across 2023 and into 2024. Those setbacks did not just limit playing time. They also disrupted rhythm, which is critical for a hitter still learning to translate raw ability into consistent performance. Defensively, Mercedes has split time in center field while also profiling as a potential right fielder long term, thanks to a strong throwing arm. The defensive versatility has helped keep him on the field, but the organization’s priority has remained clear. He needs uninterrupted at-bats. That opportunity finally came in 2025 at Fort Myers, but the results were difficult. Across 94 games, Mercedes slashed .186/.296/.307 (.603) and produced 10 home runs and 13 doubles, but the strikeout rate climbed to 25.1% while the game power came in streaks rather than sustained stretches. Even a winter ball assignment in Puerto Rico did not provide a reset, as strikeouts again outweighed contact. That is what makes the start of 2026 so notable. Returning once more to the Florida State League, Mercedes has finally looked like a hitter who is putting the entire skill set together. Through 21 games, he has produced a .321/.439/.642. The power has been real with six home runs, two triples, and four doubles. He has also added value on the bases, converting 11 steals in 13 attempts. Perhaps most encouraging is not the stat line itself, but how it is being built. The strikeout rate has dropped by more than three percentage points, while the walk rate has climbed above 17%. That combination suggests a more controlled approach rather than a simple hot streak. The Twins have been searching for more impact talent developed through the international market in recent years. While Emmanuel Rodriguez remains one of the organization’s premier success stories from that pipeline, the overall list of high-end international contributors beyond him is thin. That reality has placed added importance on players like Mercedes finding their footing. In response, the Minnesota Twins have restructured parts of their international scouting and development operation over the past several seasons. Those changes are still too recent to evaluate in full, but players already in the system are often the first indicators of whether adjustments are working. Mercedes is one of those early test cases, even if his signing predates the overhaul. Now assigned to Cedar Rapids, where Mercedes is over a year younger than the average age of the Midwest League competition, he is stepping into a new challenge at an accelerated pace. The question is no longer whether the tools are real. That has never been in doubt. The question is whether the adjustments he is showing in Fort Myers can hold against better pitching and over a longer sample. For the first time in a while, the answer feels at least somewhat open. The development path has been uneven, interrupted, and at times discouraging. But players with this kind of bat speed and raw power do not disappear quietly from prospect lists. They either adjust or they stall. Early signs in 2026 suggest Mercedes may finally be moving toward the former. The next test is consistency over a full season against real competition. If that arrives, the Twins may finally be seeing the version of Yasser Mercedes they envisioned when they made the investment four years ago. What stands out about Mercedes in 2026? Leave a comment and start the discussion. View the full article