There is always baseball happening — almost too much baseball for one person to handle themselves.
That’s why we’re here to help, though, by sifting through the previous days’ games, and figuring out what you missed, but shouldn’t have. Here are all the best moments from this weekend in Major League Baseball:
The brooms were out this weekend
MLB’s inaugural Rivalry Weekend ended up being a lopsided affair overall. Out of the 15 series, seven of them were sweeps. Some of those outcomes were not terribly surprising — the Phillies winning three games against the Pirates, and the Cubs doing the same to the White Sox, for example — but at least a couple were unexpected.
For one team, their sweep over a crosstown rival was a long time coming — 15 years to be exact.
The Los Angeles Angels came into the weekend with the worst record in the AL West and hadn’t even won a three-game series at Dodger Stadium since 2012. The Dodgers, the reigning World Series champs, hadn’t been swept since last season in Philadelphia.
But the Angels gave the Dodgers more trouble than they could handle. On Sunday, one day after spoiling Clayton Kershaw’s season debut, they took an early 4-0 lead and then rallied late.
After the Dodgers had tied the game at 4-4 in the bottom of the seventh inning, one of their former players delivered the fatal blow. Travis d’Arnaud briefly played for the Dodgers in 2019 —extremely briefly, as in one game — so this was his first Freeway Series. And the Long Beach native delivered with the go-ahead home run, his first with the Angels.
The Angels added an insurance run for the 6-4 win to complete the sweep. And although they’re still in last place in the AL West, and the Dodgers are still in first in the NL, for one weekend the City of Angels belonged to the Angels.
Rockies avoid sweep, however…
One team that somehow wasn’t swept over the weekend was the Rockies, who merely dropped two out of three to the Diamondbacks, courtesy of a 14-12 victory on Saturday. Why bother to single them out here, then, when it was a ho-hum series for them at this point? To catch you up on where they stand historically, of course.
The Rockies’ record now sits at 8-38 through 46 games, which is the worst record through that many games in history, just as 8-37 was the worst record for 45 games, and 7-37 was the worst through 44. The current holder of Worst through 47 belongs to the 1904 Washington Senators, who were 8-36-3, two losses behind the present-day Rockies. Which is to say that the Rockies will still have the most losses in history through 47 games even if they win on Monday against the Phillies, and also beyond that for a little bit, since it took the Senators 50 games to lose their 38th of the season.
The Rockies need to string together a few wins in a row, basically, before things get even worse from here.
Twins’ winning streak comes to an end in gut-wrenching fashion
For the past two weeks, no team had been hotter than the Twins this season. On Saturday, they extended their winning streak to 13 games and were two short of tying their franchise record of 15 straight wins set during the 1991 season.
(OK, technically, the franchise won 17 games in a row in 1912 as the Washington Nationals, but for simplicity’s sake, let’s only count the Minnesota Twins, as they’ve existed since 1961.)
The Twins fell behind the Milwaukee Brewers early on Sunday, their franchise-record scoreless streak ending at 34 innings. Their winning streak, however, still had a chance to reach 14 straight. Down 4-2 in the eighth inning, Royce Lewis launched a deep ball to center field that seemed destined to tie the game and give Minnesota its best opportunity to keep its run alive.
Jackson Chourio had other plans. The 21-year-old leaped near the wall, reached his glove up and snagged the ball at the exact perfect moment, robbing Lewis of the two-run home run.
Even Lewis had to tip his cap to Chourio for that play, despite it more or less snapping the Twins’ impressive streak.
Yankees get the last laugh
The Subway Series, as usual, garnered quite a bit of attention this season. Most of that was due to Juan Soto, who decided to sign with the Mets this past offseason after they gave him a better offer than the Yankees did.
Yankees fans welcomed Soto back to the Bronx with, naturally, a chorus of boos. Soto paid them back by going just 1-for-10 with four walks and three strikeouts across the three games.
Still, Soto and the Mets could have clinched the series with a win in Sunday night’s rubber match. Instead, it was one of Soto’s replacements who came through for the Yankees.
Cody Bellinger was acquired by the Yankees last December once Soto had agreed to his mega deal with the Mets. In his first Subway Series, he blasted a grand slam in the bottom of the eighth inning that broke open the game.
Yankees’ Cody Bellinger hits grand slam against Mets
With that one swing of the bat, Bellinger totaled four more RBIs than Soto had all weekend. He had two more earlier that night, matching a career high with six RBIs, on a perfect 3-for-3 night at the plate.
In all, Bellinger was 7-for-11 with two home runs, three walks, four runs and seven RBIs against the Mets. With a 13-game hitting streak, he’s kind of playing like he’s from another planet right now, which is fitting because he always looks like that’s where his mind is:
Cody Bellinger stares off in the distance at Yankee Stadium. (Photo by New York Yankees/Getty Images)
Phillies are able to get the sweep thanks to Abel
The Phillies and Pirates don’t have a ton in common, other than residing in the same state and laughing at, as we all do, the “POOP” scoreboard (RIP).
But perhaps nothing sums up their differences more than Sunday’s duel between two young pitchers. Paul Skenes, the reigning NL Rookie of the Year, threw his first complete game in the majors. He gave up one run on a fielder’s choice, lowering his ERA to 2.44 (fourth-best in the NL). He struck out nine batters. He surrendered just three hits.
And he lost.
In fact, Skenes has yet to win this month, falling to 0-3 in May with a 3-5 record overall.
Meanwhile, Phillies right-hander Mick Abel made his MLB debut and tossed six scoreless innings for the win. He fanned nine batters, tying a franchise record for the most strikeouts in a debut. Abel allowed five hits, but the Pirates did nothing the two times they had runners in scoring position while facing him.
Pirates vs. Phillies Highlights | MLB on FOX
Not to take anything away from Abel, who was terrific in his first outing. But he should probably feel fortunate that he was drafted by Philadelphia and not Pittsburgh.
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