Last Night in Baseball: Struggling Mookie Betts Slugged 2 Homers In Dodgers W

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: Mookie Betts had a strong finish for the Dodgers in 2025 after a terrible, months-long slump, and it’s looking like 2026 will have to be more of the same if he’s to salvage this season. Part of the issue is that Betts has played in just 21 games owing to an extended stint on the IL with an oblique strain, but he’s also played poorly when on the field: entering Tuesday’s game against the Rockies, the Los Angeles shortstop was hitting just .165/.230/.342. It will take more than one good night for Betts to fix that, but Tuesday night was a great start: the 33-year-old went 3-for-5 against the Rockies to bring his average up to .190, but the quality of those hits is what stands out. Like the first-inning homer against Colorado starter Kyle Freeland, which went 404 feet to center and drove in first baseman Freddie Freeman. Betts would come up again in the bottom of the third, and hit a liner to left — with an exit velocity of 100.8 mph — for a single. And then, with the game well out of hand at that point — the Dodgers would win, 15-6 — Betts launched his second dinger of the day, a three-run shot off a 95-mph fastball from right-handed reliever Zach Agnos. Yes, Betts started 2025 slowly, and took months to reverse that. Because of his injury in 2026, though, he’s still just a few weeks into this season — if he had a poor stretch like he’s had to this point somewhere in the middle of the season, it would barely register on his line. It’s too early to say he’s toast, even if it’s looking like he might never be an MVP-level player again. He doesn’t have to be to contribute, however: for all his struggles last season, they were still relative ones, as he produced close to a five-win season by wins above replacement, anyway. Mookie Betts might be back, but he also maybe never left at all — it’s post-Memorial Day for the Dodgers, but he’s just 21 games in, and more games like last night will make it easier to forget the ones he’s already played, too. This recreation of the American Revolution is taking some real creative liberties, but let’s see where it goes. The Yankees started hitting the Royals hard out of the gate, and did not stop until the game was over. New York scored four runs in the first inning, all with two outs, starting with left fielder Cody Bellinger’s eighth homer of the year. Third baseman Amed Rosario would end up hitting two homers and driving in four runs on a 4-for-6 night — New York would smash six homers total. Everyone had a good night, so long as they were in the Yankees’ lineup. Every starter had between two and four hits, with four of those players — center fielder Trent Grisham, designated hitter Ben Rice, shortstop Anthony Volpe and catcher Austin Wells — all logging at least three hits. The team had 24 hits as a whole in addition to the 15 runs, and it marked the first time in franchise history that every Yankees starter had at least two knocks. Just an incredible showing. [Yankees Log 24 Hits Against Royals: Historic Franchise Outing By The Numbers] And things were great on the other side of the ball, too, with starting pitcher Cam Schlittler giving up one run over six innings on four hits and no walks to keep his ERA at 1.50. And while New York was up by 14 runs by the end, reliever Ryan Yarbrough picked up the three-inning save. Every single Royals’ pitcher, conversely, allowed between one and seven runs, with starter Bailey Falter giving up the seven in just 2.1 innings of work. Paired with another Rays’ defeat, the Yankees picked up a game in the AL East, where they now sit 2.5 back and six up for the first of the American League’s wild-card spots. The Twins rebounded against the White Sox in the second game of their series, pulling off a 5-3 win in 11 innings. The game was, overall, a lot more of a low-scoring affair than that final implies, as much of the offense came close to the end. While Minnesota was up 2-0 after the top of the fourth, the score remained there until White Sox DH Munetaka Murakami got a hold of one and tied things up 2-2 in the eighth. This one “only” went 380 feet, but Murakami once again launched it high up at an impressive velocity — he sent a low-in-the-zone 82 mph sweeper back at over 108 mph — spoiling what had, to that point, been an impressive shutout from starter Joe Ryan. Neither team would score again until the 11th, when Minnesota’s bats suddenly did more damage than they had the entire game to that point. Second baseman Luke Keaschal singled, then center fielder Byron Buxton drew a walk after an ABS challenge to load the bases for third baseman Brooks Lee. He’d plate ‘em all with a double, and it was 5-2, Twins. Chicago would get a run back in the bottom of the 11th, but it wasn’t enough. Hey, at least Murakami went yard again — he’s on pace for 57, by the way. Lots of season left, but also hey, he has 19 already. White Sox fans also got this highlight to salivate over. On Monday, in his big-league debut, right fielder Rikuu Nishida made one hell of a throw to keep a run from scoring. And on Tuesday he did it again, with a very similar throw to keep Kody Clemens from scoring. Even better, it kept the game tied 2-2 in the 10th, as it ended the inning. Seriously, maybe stop running on this guy if he can hit the catcher with throws like that whenever he has to. Former Marlin and current Blue Jays right fielder Jesús Sánchez has hit a few homers in his career — 79, if you’re counting — but none of those was a grand slam. Well, not until the 79th, anyway, as Sánchez finally unclogged all the bases with one swing on Tuesday against his former club. Toronto was already up 4-1 at that point and had scored two runs in the sixth before the blast, but Sánchez made sure the game at least felt out of reach for Miami. It ended up being unnecessary outside of creating a daunting wall to scale, since the Blue Jays would end up winning 8-1 by holding the Marlins scoreless every inning after the fifth, and did so in a start with an opener and five different pitchers appearing. The Blue Jays haven’t fully turned their season around yet, but a win like this does help the cause. The Rangers succumbed to a combined no-hitter on Monday against the Astros, but Tuesday’s game was basically the opposite. A… many-hitter? Listen this is a work in progress, the point is that Texas clubbed the heck out of Houston’s pitching this time around. And they wasted no time doing it: the Rangers scored eight first-inning runs after not being able to manage a single hit the night before. First baseman Jake Burger had just one hit, but it drove in the first two runs of the day. Center fielder Evan Carter then tripled in two more. Shortstop Ezequiel Duran doubled in Carter, and then DH Joc Pederson, up for the second time in the inning, took a four-seamer at the very top of the zone 399 feet over the wall for a three-run homer and 8-0 lead. That was enough on its own to defeat Houston, but only barely: the Astros rallied back to score seven runs over the course of the game, but for those keeping score at home, eight is more than seven; Texas did add a couple more runs besides as the game went on, too, to finish things up 10-7. Who knows what the finale will look like when the first two games were a no-no and slugfest? The Cubs had lost well before this error, but it also does a great job of explaining how things feel for Chicago right now. The Pirates were feasting on this misery throughout, with five different players picking up at least two hits, while a pair of rookies — shortstop Konnor Griffin and right fielder Esmerlyn Valdez — getting on base twice with a hit and walk each. Griffin, by the way, is batting .298/.357/.447 over his last 30 games following an initial tough start following a promotion to the bigs: the 20-year-old has been basically league-average offensively despite those early struggles, and his glove has been stellar from the start. Pittsburgh ended up taking down the Cubs, 12-1, extending Chicago’s losing streak to 10 games. The two are now tied for fourth in the NL Central at 29-26, which is not where most people thought things would stand as May approached its end. Or even like, two weeks ago. A lengthy losing streak can change a whole lot of context, though. The Braves lost a series at home to the Nationals over the weekend, thanks to failing to score even a second run over the final two games against Washington, but Atlanta found a cure for what ailed them in Boston. The Red Sox struck first with back-to-back dingers from outfielders Jarren Duran and Ceddanne Rafaeala… …but Braves’ first baseman Matt Olson tied things up with a blast of his own in the fifth, his 15th homer of the year. Center fielder Michael Harris Jr. would break the tie with a ground-rule double, one of four hits and three RBIs in the game for him, and the Braves would never look back. While the Sox got things to within one run courtesy a dinger from Isaiah Kiner-Falefa — the first of the season for the infielder — one of those other hits Harris managed was a two-run homer in the eighth to give the Braves a 7-5 lead. Kiner-Falefa would drive in another run later on a single, but it was too little, too late for Boston, and Atlanta picked up the W. Despite the little interruption against the Nationals, Atlanta still leads the majors with 37 wins, and is one of just two teams to have avoided 20 losses on the season to this point, along with the 34-18 Rays. And hey, the Nationals might be, too. First there was that series win against the Braves, but now Washington has taken the first two against another first-place team in the Guardians, giving the Nats four wins in a row and a 29-27 record that has them in second in the NL East. At the least, they are ahead of schedule; left fielder James Wood has had a little something to do with that. Following this dinger — Wood’s 15th of the season — he’s batting .276/.413/.551, with that on-base percentage leading the NL. He’s tops in plate appearances, runs, walks, OPS+ and intentional walks, too, and while he’s still striking out quite a bit, it’s back down toward his rookie-level numbers from 2024 instead of last year’s 32.1% rate which resulted in a league-leading 221 strikeouts. James Wood? He’s good.