Last Night in Baseball: The Braves Are Rolling (Over the Phillies)

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: The Braves swept the Phillies In 2025, it was the Braves that were a mess. It’s a new season, though, and Atlanta is thriving early while the other two favorites of the NL East falter. The Mets have now lost 11 in a row, while the Phillies were just swept by the Braves to drop to 8-13. Atlanta, meanwhile, is 15-7, four games up in the East over the Marlins: the Braves are the only team in the division with a winning record. The series opened with a statement from Atlanta, as they shutout Philadelphia, 9-0, after scoring seven runs across the first three innings. Saturday’s contest was much different in some ways — the Braves were held to just three runs — but the Phillies’ bats were once again silenced by Atlanta’s pitching. This time, it was ace lefty Chris Sale doing the heavy lifting: he allowed a solo homer in the bottom of the second to Phillies’ rookie Felix Reyes in his big-league debut, but that was it. Sale went seven innings allowing just the one run and five hits total, striking out seven against a single walk. The 37-year-old starter has a 2.79 ERA to open the season, which is only high in the sense that his career mark with Atlanta is 2.49 over 55 games and 332.1 innings. In Sunday’s series finale, the Phillies scored two in the first and were still ahead entering the fifth, but that was as far as that hope would last. The Braves had a three-run fifth to go up 4-2, and that was the final score, as well. Center fielder Michael Harris II led off with a single, then right fielder Ronald Acuna Jr. followed with his own knock. Reliever Tim Mayza would replace starting pitcher and rookie Andrew Painter at this point, and he would fail to keep those inherited runners from scoring. Catcher Drake Baldwin walked to load the bases, bringing up first baseman Matt Olson with no outs. He would ground out, but push a run across to tie things 2-2, then third baseman Austin Riley (single) and second baseman Ozzie Albies (double) got Atlanta the rest of the way there. The Phillies would threaten in the ninth, when Raisel Iglesias came on in relief of Robert Suarez. Second baseman Bryson Stott led off for Philly with a double, and then Justin Crawford walked after a pop out got Atlanta the first out it needed. Iglesias settled down with two on, and struck out shortstop Trea Turner before getting DH Kyle Schwarber to line out to Acuna in right, ending the game. The Braves have been great to this point — their +57 run differential is the best in the majors, nine ahead of the Dodgers. The Phillies… have not. They are 8-13, so in one way, duh, but also this isn’t a case of poor luck. Philadelphia has been outscored by 38 runs, even more than the Mets — even more than everyone, actually, as the Phillies have the worst run differential in the league now, a fact not helped by the Braves limiting them to three runs over four games. Cubs walk off Mets in extras Speaking of the Mets: New York nearly ended its double-digit losing streak on Sunday, as the Mets were up 1-0 on the Cubs entering the ninth inning. That’s when Devin Williams came on in relief of Luke Weaver to close things out, though, and it’s when Chicago struck. Left fielder Ian Happ led off the inning with a single to left, and while Williams got right fielder Seiya Suzuki to strike out swinging on three pitches (with help on the second strike from an ABS challenge), pinch-hitter Michael Conforto then hit a double to push pinch-runner Scott Kingery across the plate. The best the Mets could muster even with MJ Melendez starting the 10th on second was to move him to third base before making their third out of the frame, but the Cubs didn’t waste the freebie. Craig Kimbrel, in for Williams, got shortstop Dansby Swanson to pop out, but Pete Crow-Armstrong was the runner on second to start the inning, and he made it to third on a wild pitch when given the opportunity and then scored on a sac fly by second baseman Nico Hoerner. That secured the sweep for the Cubs, who entered the weekend at .500 and are now three games over and 1.5 back in the NL Central. The Mets, meanwhile, have been outscored by 25 runs on the season, which is not great in a vacuum — it’s the fifth-worst run differential in MLB this year — but is even worse when you realize that New York was +18 when they last won on Apr. 7. New York has been outscored by 43 runs in just 11 games since. That is a much bigger problem than the absence of Juan Soto can explain. [New York Mess: Mets’ 11-Game Losing Streak By The Numbers] The Mets are back at it on Tuesday, with a series against the Twins. Minnesota has lost four in a row, so either way, a losing streak is going to end. Twins falter in ninth against Reds Speaking of Minnesota. The Twins were up 3-1 on the Reds entering the ninth inning at home on Sunday, which apparently was right where Cincinnati wanted to be. First baseman Spencer Steer led off the inning with a single against Andrew Morris, in his second inning of work, then catcher Tyler Stephenson followed with a single. Center fielder Dane Meyers, who entered earlier as a pinch-runner, walked to load the bases with one out for left fielder TJ Friedl. He made the Twins pay for the opportunity. Friedl cleared the bases, putting Cincinnati up 4-3. Morris was replaced by Garrett Acton, who got the last two batters out to stand Friedl in scoring position, and then Minnesota managed to score a run in their half of the ninth off of Emilio Pagan, courtesy doubles by right fielder James Outman and left fielder Austin Martin (who had also entered as a pinch-runner earlier). The game was tied once more, but the Reds weren’t done scoring in bunches. In the top of the 10th, Eugenio Suarez reached on an error by third baseman Tristan Gray, allowing Elly De La Cruz — who had started the inning on second — to score the go-ahead run. After an intentional walk to Will Benson, who had pinch-run for Stephenson in the prior inning, right fielder Rece Hinds doubled to send both Suarez and Benson home; 7-4, Reds. The Twins were a walk away from being set down 1-2-3 in the ninth, so all that was needed was that first run on an error, but Cincinnati made its statement for the series sweep, anyway. Blue Jays blow it open immediately The Blue Jays haven’t had the best of starts defending their American League pennant in 2026, but on Sunday, at least, Toronto looked like the dominant team from last season. The Jays plated eight runs in the first against the Diamondbacks: first baseman Vladimir Guerrero Jr. singled in a pair to open the floodgates, then DH Eloy Jimenez drove in Guerrero with a single. Third baseman Kazuma Okamoto made it 5-0 with a double, then right fielder Nathan Lukes — the leadoff man, up for the second time in the inning — hit a bases-loaded two-bagger to make it 8-0 Toronto. Arizona would slow the Jays down from there, but the damage was done: the Diamondbacks scored four runs, but Toronto got another pair, leading to a 10-4 win for the Jays. While this was a serious showing by Toronto, it should be noted that this W helped them avoid being swept: Arizona won the first two games of the matchup, 6-3 and 6-2, and still took the series from the Jays despite Sunday’s beatdown. Rockies, Dodgers had the inverse weekend While Toronto won the finale on Sunday to avoid a sweep, things went different for their World Series opponents from last October. The Dodgers defeated the Rockies 7-1 on Friday to open up their four-game series, but then dropped the next two to Colorado. On Saturday, the Dodgers hit a pair of homers off starter Ryan Feltner, but just three runs, which was also all they would get for the day. A trio of relievers kept Los Angeles off the board after Feltner exited in the sixth, and Colorado would score a pair in the bottom of the inning to go up 4-3, which was the eventual final score. Sunday was more of the same, in the sense that the Dodgers were up early — Los Angeles was ahead 3-0 after their turn to bat in the fourth — but then the Rockies began to counter. A run on a single by first baseman TJ Rumfield in the fourth, then a homer by third baseman Kyle Karros in the fifth followed by a single from infielder Edouard Julien to tie things up 3-3. The Dodgers would answer in the top of the sixth with an RBI single off the bat of second baseman Alex Freeland, but Colorado went up for good in the seventh when left fielder Mickey Moniak hit his sixth homer of the year, off of reliever Blake Treinen. It was a shot, too, 428 feet to right-center. The Rockies would pile on, eventually going up 9-4 through eight. The Dodgers rallied in the ninth while down to their final three outs: catcher Will Smith singled in a run to score Shohei Ohtani, then pinch-hitter Daulton Rushing grounded out but pushed a run across in the process to make it 9-6. That would be where the rally ended, however, as the next batter — first baseman Ryan Ward — lined out with two runners in scoring position. Right fielder Troy Johnson made the diving catch here, but he was also responsible for what proved to be the game-winning hit on Saturday, a two-run double in the sixth. Pretty great weekend for him, given that. The Dodgers and Rockies will face off in the series finale on Monday — Colorado has a chance for an extremely rare achievement, a series victory against Los Angeles, while the Dodgers can minimize the damage with a dub. Ohtani has reached base in 51-straight games It should not be lost that, even as the Dodgers lost, two-way superstar Shohei Ohtani kept doing his thing. Back in the lineup after resting during his turn in the rotation, Ohtani kept on reaching base, extending the longest streak that the majors has seen since 2018 when Shin-Soo Choo made it on in 52-consecutive contests. Ohtani made it 51-straight games on Sunday, collecting a pair of hits, with the first of those coming early on in the game. He can match Choo on Monday against Colorado, who is tied with Kevin Millar, but it will take reaching 53 in a row for Ohtani’s streak to be top-25 all-time. That might not sound that impressive on the surface, but these numbers start to pile up with a ton of ties. Getting to 54 would tie him for 22nd, then another for 19th. Ohtani needs 63 to tie the modern high mark set by Orlando Cabrera in 2006, and after that it’s all Ted Williams and Joe DiMaggio instances. Ohtani has a ways to go for that yet, however. Ramirez goes yard twice Home run-related lightning round. Cleveland Guardians’ third baseman Jose Ramirez managed two homers on Sunday against the Orioles. Both against starter Trevor Rogers, too. While the Guardians got just 4.2 innings out of their own starter, Joey Cantillo, Ramirez’s two solo shots helped Cleveland end up winning, anyway, 8-4. Yes, the bullpen did a lot of heavy lifting there, too, shutting Baltimore down the rest of the way. But this isn’t a “great bullpen performances lightning round” is it? Murakami is on fire Munetaka Murakami has eight homers in 2026. Twice now he’s managed to homer in three-straight games for the White Sox. That’s a weird distribution, but hey, it’s working for the NPB import in his first year in MLB. Dillon Dingler’s big dinger Things did not go well for the Red Sox this weekend against the Tigers. This Dillon Dingler dong did not help matters. Dingler had already doubled in a run in the first inning, too — the Tigers ended up winning 6-2, and Dingler is now batting .302/.380/.603 on the season with five long balls. Alvarez the first to double-digit homers Yordan Alvarez has spent his 2026 season reminding everyone of what the Astros were missing last summer, when multiple injuries limited both his production and how often he played. Healthy again for this year, the designated hitter and left fielder has been mashing: here he is claiming MLB’s home run lead with his ninth of the year. Except, Alvarez went deep again over the weekend to push that to 10, making him the first to double-digits in the league. Alvarez is batting .333/.471/.790 with 10 dingers, leading the AL in RBIs with 21 and is first in wins above replacement in MLB, as well. Despite this, the Astros are in last, but this kind of performance from their star slugger has to give some hope for when Houston is healthier overall.