Last Night In Baseball: The Astros Might Be Good Again

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: When May kicked off, the Astros were just 12-20. Things didn’t immediately get better when the calendar flipped, either, as Houston went 5-8 in the first half of the month. The ‘Stros are 9-4 since, however, and have won six of their last seven: they now sit 2.5 games back in the AL West, behind the 28-29 first-place Mariners. That division is… well, it’s a mess. But it’s a mess the Astros are right in the middle of now, in the positive sense. Taking three of four from the Rangers helped matters, as it brought the two teams into a tie for third out west. Houston wasted no time going ahead in this one, with shortstop Jeremy Peña leading off the game with a homer off Nathan Eovaldi. Designated hitter Yordan Alvarez would walk, leading to a second dinger in the first, this one by first baseman Isaac Paredes — three batters, three runs. That would be all the Astros needed to down the Rangers, 5-1, in no small part thanks to right fielder Cam Smith, who on top of having a pair of hits and an RBI on Thursday also went up up up to rob fellow right fielder Brandon Nimmo of a homer in the bottom of the first. Smith is still struggling to find his bat in the majors, but the second-year player, acquired from the Cubs in 2024’s Kyle Tucker trade, has been an impact defender in right. It’s not just the flashy plays: Smith is making all of ‘em. Now, Houston still has problems to fix, but one of their most pressing ones was and is health. As the Astros still have eight players on the IL, including some key pieces like ace Hunter Brown and closer Josh Hader. If they can keep close to the top of the AL West despite all the injuries they have suffered, though, and no one else in the division turns things around, it’s not difficult to see this recent stretch as the one that kept the optimism alive. Paul Skenes wasn’t at his absolute best on Thursday, and the Pirates lost to the Cubs. Now, Skenes not being at “his absolute best” is still pretty great: he went 5 ⅓ innings with 10 strikeouts, but he also allowed three runs. The problem is that just one of those runs was earned; in the sixth inning, Cubs’ third baseman Alex Bregman reached on a throwing error from Pirates’ third baseman Tyler Callihan, and then the next play also involved a throwing error, this time by shortstop Jared Triolo. Skenes was lifted for reliever Mason Montgomery at this point, and was responsible for the remaining runners even if errors were involved; Montgomery allowed another to score, making it 3-0 Cubs. The Pirates would finally score a couple of runs post-Skenes, but just two, so not enough to get either the team or even just Skenes off the hook for the L. Chicago, meanwhile, poured it on further, scoring another four against the Bucs’ bullpen to win 7-2. This allowed for a series split — a pretty great result for the Cubs, considering they lost the first two games of the series to extend their losing streak to 10 — and a terrible one for the Pirates, who are still over .500 at 29-28, but are also in last place in the most competitive division in the league this season. Losing Skenes starts is not the way to change that. Now there’s a stat. Cubs’ left fielder Ian Happ has been a nuisance to the Pirates for some time, especially when he’s playing on the road. He got on base at least once in every game of this series, and it turns out that streak started a long time ago. Thursday marked the 41st-straight game in which Happ has gotten on base at PNC Park, which, as MLB pointed out, is the longest such active streak for a player at any stadium. Happ was born in and went to high school in Pittsburgh, and from these homecomings it seems as if this place gets him in the zone. In addition to the 41-game on-base streak at PNC, Happ is also a career .306/.387/.528 hitter there, with 26 doubles, a triple and nine homers in 67 games. Hey, Pittsburgh, he’s a free agent after this season, you might want to get in on that action. This was a battle of the basement dwellers, but the Angels came out on top by a mile. The Tiger struck first with a homer off the bat of right fielder Wenceel Pérez, but that would be the lone run they would score: Los Angeles answered back in the fifth with three runs, then two more a piece in the eighth and ninth just to pile on. Center fielder Mike Trout had a pair of hits, a run, two walks and two RBIs, bringing his line for the season up to .239/.405/.487; the batting average is once again low, but he’s drawing loads of walks and still hitting for power, as he has 23 extra-base hits on the season, two of which were doubles on Thursday. In 56 games, Trout has already produced more wins above replacement (2.1) than he managed during the entire 2025 season (1.7 in 130 games). The other notable hitting performance of the game came from third baseman and No. 9 hitter Donovan Walton. He was 3-for-4 for the day and scored a pair of runs, the last of which was thanks to one of those Trout doubles. Walton hasn’t played much this season — or in any season in his big-league career that began back in 2019 — but he made life difficult for the Tigers, at least. This was also an encouraging performance from starting pitcher Grayson Rodriguez, whom the Angels acquired from the Orioles this offseason in exchange for outfielder Taylor Ward. Rodriguez missed all of 2025 recovering from surgery to remove bone spurs from his elbow, and was on the IL for the first 56 days of the 2026 season thanks to inflammation in his shoulder. Rodriguez debuted on May 17, and it went poorly with seven runs allowed in 3 ⅔ innings, but he’s been better in each of the last two starts: four runs in 5 ⅔ innings while striking out five and walking two, and on Thursday against Detroit, he went five innings allowing two hits and one run while whiffing five against two walks once again. The announced attendance at Thursday’s Blue Jays-Orioles game was 13,778. And yet, the same fan ended up catching two balls: the first on third baseman Coby Mayo’s home run in the fourth, and then a ground-rule double off the bat of left fielder Blaze Alexander one inning later. Don’t worry, he shared the second one with another fan, who was thrilled to get it — you have to pay forward that kind of luck. The Orioles didn’t have the same kind of luck as that fan on Thursday. Mayo’s homer ended up being their only run of the game, and all it did was tie things up. That’s because Andrés Giménez had hit a solo shot in the third for the Blue Jays… …and then in the bottom half of the inning made an excellent play at shortstop to keep Taylor Ward from what very well could have been a double through the infield. The Blue Jays would get another in the eighth following an ABS challenge that resulted in a bases-loaded walk, and Toronto would take the game, 2-1. The Braves trounced the Red Sox 10-2 to close out and win that series, and while there was plenty of action — another Michael Harris II home run! — the big bop came from right fielder Ronald Acuña Jr., who used his time in Fenway well. With not just a home run over the 37-foot Green Monster in left, but a grand slam. Acuña nearly hit it completely over the Monster and out of Fenway, but the back fence kept it in. In a world with laxer safety regulations, that ball hits Lansdowne. The Braves are 38-19, both the most wins and fewest losses of any team, and one of just two to not yet lose 20 games. The Red Sox are… worse. They are 23-32, in last place in the AL East, 12 games back of the Rays, or, the other team with just 19 defeats. They are also running out of days in which you can say “well it’s just May” about their performance so far. Did you know the White Sox are in second place in the American League Central? And that this isn’t an AL West situation, and that Chicago is even over .500? That’s right, the team that set the modern loss record and then lost “just” 102 games in an improved follow-up campaign is 29-27 after taking three of four from the Twins. Minnesota isn’t over .500, but that’s thanks to losing three of four to the White Sox. Chicago never trailed. An RBI single from shortstop Colson Montgomery gave them a 1-0 lead in the first, and then center fielder Tristan Peters added another in the second. Designated hitter Randal Grichuk would put an exclamation point on the inning with a three-run double. The White Sox would score just one more from that point forward, but righty starter Davis Martin continued his hot pitching and limited the Twins to a run over six innings, bringing his ERA to 2.00 for the season. The Chicago bullpen allowed just one more, so the White Sox would win, 6-2. The 29-27 2026 Chicago White Sox. They were 18-40 at the end of May last season, and 15-43 at the same point in ‘24. They have three games left before June hits, all against the Tigers: just one more W means they put a bow on the month while over .500 for the season so far. Wild.