There is always baseball happening — almost too much baseball for one person to follow themselves.
Don’t worry, we’re here to help you by figuring out what you missed but shouldn’t have. Here are all the best moments from the weekend in Major League Baseball:
Rangers walk-off Yankees
The Yankees just can’t seem to get it together. After being swept by the Marlins over the weekend — all of their new trade deadline acquisitions imploded on Friday and things only got worse from there — they opened a series with the Rangers on Monday. In a related story, New York has now lost four games in a row.
The Yankees came out swinging, literally, with Paul Goldschmidt hitting a leadoff homer, and then New York added another two runs in the second to go up 3-0. As New York scored a combined three runs on Saturday and Sunday, this was a promising start. The Rangers wrecked that promise by plating four in the bottom of the second to take the lead: Josh Smith drove in Wyatt Langford with a single, Equezial Duran then drove in two with his own single, and then Max Fried had a throwing error on a pickoff attempt that allowed Jonah Heim to score and for Texas to go up 4-3.
Later, Giancarlo Stanton hit his 10th homer of the year, putting the Yankees’ back on top, 5-4 — he’s now batting .270/.343/.532 on the season, a rare bright spot in their Aaron Judge-less lineup. The Yankees would actually hold that lead for most of the rest of the game… until they did not.
In the bottom of the ninth, Yankees’ closer Devin Williams came in for the save. Instead, he allowed a home run to Joc Pederson that sent things to extras. There, Jazz Chisholm grounded out and Anthony Volpe walked, but Austin Wells grounded into an inning-ending double play.
The Rangers did not squander their opportunity. Newly acquired reliever Jake Bird came on in relief of Williams after the latter’s blown save — and Bird’s own disaster against the Marlins — and he got things started off well enough. Marcus Semien struck out, then Adolis Garcia grounded out, giving the Rangers one out with which to try to drive in Corey Seager from second.
Bird would intentionally walk Langford, which made sense on paper: Jung is much worse against right-handed pitchers like Bird than he is against lefties, while Langford is both a better hitter in general and possessing less severe splits. The thing to remember is that you’re just playing the odds in those situations, though. Here’s Jung reminding you of that.
Look at this bat flip! That’s an all-timer right there.
While the Yankees are in free fall — they’re now 18-28 since June 13, the morning of which they were a season-high 17 games over .500 — the Rangers are just 4.5 back in the AL West thanks to a strong July in which they were 16-9. They’re also just 1.5 games back of the third wild card spot, currently in the possession of the team they just defeated with a walk-off homer.
Schwarber’s grand night
The Phillies crushed the Orioles on Monday, winning 13-3 thanks to six (6!) home runs, and Kyle Schwarber was the star of that offensive show. He tied things up in the bottom of the third with Philadelphia down 3-1. Keep an eye out for the one fan who stands up late, mouth wide open, in awe of just how far Schwarber hit this thing.
That was Schwarber’s 39th homer of the year, giving him sole possession of the National League lead. He put a little more distance between himself and Shohei Ohtani just three innings later, with the bases loaded.
You can’t leave 96 over the plate to Kyle Schwarber. That’s an established fact, but Orioles’ reliever Yaramil Hiraldo did it anyway. He and the O’s both paid for it, as the grand slam put the Phillies up 11-3.
Schwarber is now batting .258/.382/.593 with an NL-leading 40 home runs and MLB-leading 94 RBIs. With about two months of season left, he’s already at the highest wins above replacement mark of his career, at an even 4.0. He’s also now on pace for 58 homers, which, if he gets there, would tie him with Ryan Howard for the most in a single season in Phillies’ history.
Just because: in between those Schwarber shots, trade deadline acquisition Harrison Bader went deep, too:
Bader isn’t lighting it up in Philly yet, sure, but to be fair, he hasn’t had a chance to face Jake Bird since the trade, either.
What a catch!
The Cardinals were up on the Dodgers, 3-2, in the ninth inning on Monday. With no outs and a runner on first, Mookie Betts popped a pitch from JoJo Romero up in what should have been no man’s land out in right field, right next to foul territory. Lars Nootbar made sure there was a man out there.
It wasn’t a diving catch or a sliding catch so much as Nootbar just throwing himself as far as he could to reach the ball, but he did, and he held on, to boot. Ohtani had to retreat to first, Romero would strike out Freddie Freeman and then get Muncy to line out to Nootbar, and the Cardinals would hold their slim lead.
Stop stop they’ve already lost
The Blue Jays faced the Rockies on Monday night, and it got real ugly. Not for Toronto, though. Toronto spent their night destroying baseballs. They racked up 25 hits and 15 runs, and just to make matters worse for Colorado, the Rockies scored just one run in the same nine innings Toronto had to work with.
Ernie Clement picked up five of the Jays’ 25 hits in his six at-bats, including a double and a triple. He fell a home run short of a cycle, sure, but eight total bases in one game without a homer is still the good stuff.
Bo Bichette did not struggle to hit a home run, however. In fact, he hit two of them. Rockies’ starter Tanner Gordon lasted just 2.2 innings and allowed seven runs, so Bichette’s damage came off of relievers. Sure, it was a bit of piling on, but it was piling on that traveled really far.
Lost in the offensive blowout was that Jays’ starter Eric Lauer went six innings, giving up seven hits but allowing just the one run while striking out four against one walk. As a starter in 2025, Lauer has a 3.08 ERA and has limited opponents to a line of .235/.271/.415 in 12 games; not quite as dominant as his relief performance, but no one was expecting that. He’s been far better as a starter than he was with the Brewers and Padres in their attempts to get him to stick in a rotation, and that’s huge for the Jays as they try to stick in first place in the AL East.
The Giants just can’t get right
On June 13, the Giants were 12 games over .500 and in first place in the NL West. With Monday’s loss to the Pirates — in which Pittsburgh came back and won by scoring two runs in the seventh and another two in the bottom of the ninth — San Francisco fell to 56-57. They’re six games back of a wild card spot, never mind the NL West lead, and with no real signs that things are going to get better.
The Pirates have been better, but in the sense that they’re now hovering around .500 over the past couple of months instead of on pace for 100 losses. Kind of funny how the Pirates can be 49-64 and feel like less of a disaster right now.
Sox win sixth straight
While we’re diving back into how teams were faring in early June compared to now, let’s look at the Red Sox. On June 6, they were five games under .500. After their sixth-straight win on Monday night, Boston is now 63-51, three games back in the AL East and 2.5 up in the wild card race.
They attacked the Royals out of the gate, putting up five runs in the first inning, with Jarren Duran’s three-run homer to dead center at Fenway accounting for most of that damage.
Boston’s bats would cool a bit, but they’d still plate three more. And while the Royals would score five of their own, they’d be kept from plating any more runs by Wilyer Abreu and his arm.
Garrett Whitlock left a slider in the zone, and Bobby Witt Jr. sent it flying out to right field, as you’d expect. Less expected was what came after: Abreu scooped it up and fired a one-hopper to catcher Connor Wong, who saw where the throw was going and headed up the third base line a bit to intercept it, which also let him cut off Nick Loftin as he was speeding home.
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