Last Night in Baseball: The 2026 Rockies Want You to Forget the 2025 Rockies

There is always baseball happening — almost too much baseball for one person to follow themselves. Don’t worry, we’re here to help you by figuring out what you missed but shouldn’t have. Here are all the best moments from last night in Major League Baseball: Rockies win third in a row The Colorado Rockies have won three games in a row, and are 5-6 for the season. Without context, that is mildly impressive and not-at-all impressive, but let’s consider the 2025 Rockies for a moment. That team didn’t win its fifth game of the season until the final day of April, and it took until June 4 to rattle off three consecutive dubs. Hell, Colorado had a three-game winning streak and a four-game winning streak in June last year, and still went just 10-16 for the month, which helps explain quite a bit of how the Rockies ended up avoiding the modern loss record but still finished as one of the worst teams to ever do it. So yeah, 5-6 on the morning of April 8 the following season? Colorado will take that. Rockies’ starter Kyle Freeland threw 6.1 innings of one-run ball, striking out five Astros against one walk allowed. While the lefty allowed a homer to first baseman Christian Walker, he was otherwise tough on Houston’s hitters, and then reliever Antonio Senzatela finished out the game with 2.2 scoreless frames. Willi Castro did most of the damage for Colorado, as the second baseman drove in the tying run in the second with a single, then in the fourth hit a two-run home run to drive in first baseman TJ Rumfield, giving the Rockies a 3-1 lead. Outfielder Mickey Moniak would add on to that lead later with a dinger of his own, but it was unnecessary given the work the pitchers were doing. A good, dominant win from Colorado — that’s not something you get to say very often these days. They are off to a better start than usual, however, after losing over 100 games in three-straight seasons, so that kind of W — and the current win streak — are the kinds of signs fans will hope are good ones for digging out of a years-deep hole. Braves, Angels brawl Well this got out of hand in a hurry. Angels’ designated hitter Jorge Soler hit a home run off of Reynaldo Lopez in the first inning… …and then was hit by a pitch by Lopez the next time up. The next time Soler came to the plate, Lopez threw a pitch to the backstop that was up-and-in, and the Angels’ DH did not appreciate it. A staredown and words were exchanged, and Soler charged the mound and Lopez. While the same kind of slapping that happens in seemingly every bench-clearing incident in MLB happened here, Soler and Lopez also threw some actual punches with weight behind them here — luckily, those seemed to miss their mark, and teammates focused on separating the two rather than continuing the fighting. Both Soler and Lopez were ejected for their actions. The two had been teammates on the Braves before, but when Soler isn’t with Atlanta, he has Lopez’s number: Soler is 14-for-23 in his career against Lopez, which helps explain why he might have thought Lopez’s frustration with facing Soler and failing once more was bubbling over into an HBP and pitch up near his head. Per Lopez’s own comments, he denies that’s the case, but MLB is sure to hand out punishment of some kind against the two for this disruption regardless of intent or it being a misunderstanding. The Braves would end up winning, 7-2, despite making a couple of errors and having Lopez pulled early. Rosario goes deep twice, Yankees win It was a big day for Yankees’ third baseman Amed Rosario against the Athletics. In the bottom of the second, Rosario hit a solo shot 399 feet to left field off of starter Aaron Civale, who otherwise didn’t give up any runs despite four walks. Civale ended up going five innings without any further damage, and even left with the lead thanks to a three-run Athletics’ third. Mark Leiter Jr. came on to pitch the bottom of the eighth for the A’s, though, and Rosario was ready for him, too. So was seemingly the rest of the Yankees’ lineup: three consecutive singles opened the inning, from left fielder Cody Bellinger, first baseman Ben Rice and DH Giancarlo Stanton, then Rosario hit a three-run homer to complete a four-run inning for the Yankees. New York would not score again, but didn’t need to: they were up 5-3 at this point, and righty David Bednar closed things out in the ninth with a 1-2-3 inning to give the Yankees the W. Ump jump This one does what it says on the box. Hup! Too late at the plate The outcome of Royals-Guardians came right down to the end. The two entered the bottom of the ninth tied at 1-1, Kansas City having scored its lone run in the second and Cleveland in the fifth. Four Guardians’ relievers — Tim Herrin, Erik Sabrowski, Shawn Armstrong and Cade Smith — had combined for 3.1 scoreless innings of relief to follow starter Gavin Williams’ spotless last few frames. This gave Cleveland the chance to walk it off in the bottom of the ninth, and they did. Right-hander John Schreiber came in from the bullpen for the Royals with the game on the line, and got the leadoff batter, second baseman Juan Brito, to ground out. Right fielder CJ Kayfus followed with a single, though, putting the winning run on base, and then Bo Naylor came in to pinch-hit and walked to bring up number-nine hitter and shortstop Brayan Rocchio. That’s not bad as far as strategies go: Rocchio is a career .221/.295/.327 hitter whose best-ever season featured an OPS+ of 76 — he’s there for his glove, folks. But here, Rocchio’s bat showed up. He hit a hard grounder through the hole on the right side of the infield, and while right fielder Lane Thomas scooped it up and made a strong throw home, it wasn’t strong enough and Kayfus just beat the tag at the plate. The Guardians won, pushing them to 7-5 early and keeping Kansas City at arm’s length early on in the AL Central. There’s a whole lot of season left, but every one of these head-to-head wins is going to matter in the Central this year. Susac keeps swinging Last week, Giants’ catcher Daniel Susac made his first-ever start, and went 3-for-3. The rookie was behind the plate once more on Tuesday, and he once again starred for San Francisco. While he did make an out for the first time all year, he still went 3-for-4, and this time managed to drive in a couple of runs, too, thanks to his first big-league triple. Now, this was in the bottom of the eighth, and the Giants were already up 4-0, but it’s still pretty incredible that Susac has had seven trips to the plate in two games and managed to go 6-for-7 with a triple and a walk. Obviously he’s not going to be like this for his entire rookie season, but Susac was a quality bat in the minors, and the threshold for productive offense from catchers is pretty low in the majors these days — he can be a helpful piece on the Giants even in a backup role. Bradley whiffs 10 The Twins’ bullpen helped, too, limiting the Tigers to a run over their 2.2 innings of work, but starting pitcher Taj Bradley did most of the heavy lifting here. In his 6.1 innings, the righty struck out 10 batters against a single walk allowed, and mostly scattered six hits to give up just one run to Detroit. Bradley never quite took off for Tampa Bay before a midseason trade brought him to Minnesota in 2025, and trouble with home runs kept him from succeeding much in the half-dozen starts he made in a Twins’ uniform. To begin 2026, though, Bradley has allowed just two runs over three starts and 16.2 innings, striking out 22 batters while walking four, and without giving up a long ball. Whether that sticks remains to be seen, but if Bradley can figure out how to keep the ball in the yard with more regularity, it’s not difficult to see someone with his stuff take it to the next level like he has so far. Skenes, Griffin lead Pirates to W It’s April 8, so don’t get too excited, but the Pirates feel a little different this year. It’s not the record as much as the vibes: ace pitcher and reigning NL Cy Young Paul Skenes doesn’t feel so lonely on the roster, since Pittsburgh actually added some intriguing pieces like outfielder Ryan O’Hearn in free agency, and have already called up MLB’s top prospect, Konnor Griffin, in the early going. Griffin responded by hitting an RBI double in his first at-bat in the bigs, and he’s already shown off his glove, too. On Tuesday, Skenes looked a lot more like he’s supposed to after a rough start to 2026, going 6.1 innings against the Padres while allowing just one run on two hits and two walks each — Skenes also struck out six. While he held San Diego down, Pittsburgh’s offense was humming: they were up 2-1 entering the bottom of the eighth, but then dropped another five runs on the Padres to put the game out of reach. Griffin delivered in that inning, too, hitting a two-run single — a hard-hit one with an exit velocity of 113.4 mph — to plate Pittsburgh’s last two of the night. The Pirates won, and fans woke up to both that box score and the news that Griffin agreed to a nine-year deal worth at least $140 million — the largest contract in Pirates’ history. Pittsburgh hasn’t won anything yet, no, but that it feels like the team might actually want to at some point is already quite the shift. Marlins waste Alcantara gem Marlins’ starter Sandy Alcantara has been looking great to start 2026 after a rough summer last year: he threw seven innings without allowing a run in his opening start, threw a complete-game shutout in his second and went the first eight innings without allowing a run on Tuesday against the Reds. The bad news is that the Marlins pulled Alcantara at the first sign of trouble in the ninth, when he was at 95 pitches after allowing a double to second baseman Matt McLain and a walk to shortstop Elly De La Cruz. Miami put righty reliever Anthony Bender in for Alcantara just needing two outs to secure a 2-0 win, and Bender couldn’t deliver to the point that one wonders why Alcantara wasn’t given the chance to get out of trouble himself. The one doing the wondering, by the way, was Alcantara himself, who did not appreciate not having input when he was only at 95 pitches and a righty was coming to the plate. Bender would allow both baserunners to steal before he even recorded an out, and then the righty Alcantara mentioned, catcher Sal Stewart, hit a sacrifice fly to drive in McLain. DH Eugenio Suarez would then draw a walk to put runners at the corners, and Bender would then throw a wild pitch to the next batter, left fielder Spencer Steer, allowing De La Cruz to score the tying run. The 10th inning didn’t go any better for Miami. Calvin Fauchner replaced Bender, with Steer starting the inning on second, and promptly threw his own wild pitch to move Steer to third. Backstop Tyler Stephenson would walk, and Nathaniel Lowe, who came in as a pinch-hitter earlier and had taken over at first, singled in the go-ahead run. The Reds weren’t finished. Friedl would walk to load the bases, then McLain hit a two-run double. De La Cruz would ground out, but not without pushing another run across, making it 6-2 Reds. Remember, an inning before, Alcantara had a shutout going. Miami would get a run in the bottom of the frame, but it wasn’t enough: you can see why Alcantara was annoyed enough postgame to bring it up with the media. What a start for Mauricio The bad news for the Mets is that star left fielder Juan Soto had to go on the IL for at least two weeks with a strained calf. The good news is that they called up utility infielder Ronny Mauricio to take Soto’s spot on the roster, and he delivered with a game-winning hit in his first plate appearance of the season. Mauricio came up with shortstop Francisco Lindor already on third and just one out, and he crushed a middle-middle, 90.3 mph Paul Sewald fastball over the head of Diamondbacks’ right fielder Corbin Carroll. The Mets win, and while they still have to make it at least a couple of weeks without Soto, at least the bad luck didn’t immediately compound on itself.