Last Night In Baseball: The Rays And Yankees Are Heading In Opposite Directions

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: The Tampa Bay Rays have won seven games in a row. The New York Yankees have lost seven games in a row. That’s some pretty simple math there, even if you aren’t into analytics: the Rays now find themselves 3.5 games up in the AL East, ahead of the Yankees. New York isn’t in any danger of dropping a postseason spot — it’s 4.5 up in the wild-card race in a league that isn’t loaded with competition for competence — but the fear that an extended Aaron Judge IL stint would damage the Yankees’ season feels extremely justified as July gets underway. The Rays faced the Royals on Wednesday in Kansas City, and wasted no time in scoring what would prove to be the game-winning runs: in the top of the first, third baseman Junior Caminero went yard for the sixth-straight game, tying the franchise record. That was his 24th dinger of the year — the 22-year-old Caminero is now up to .293/.383/.561 on the season. This was his ninth homer in his last eight games, and per MLB’s Sarah Langs, it’s the most home runs by a player 22 years old or younger since at least 1900 — i.e., as far back as the available data can tell us. Considering home runs used to be much more of a rarity before the live-ball era of the 1920s, well, Caminero might very well be the only 22-year-old to ever pull this kind of stretch off. The Rays ended up winning, 4-0, and reached the 50-win mark because of it: Tampa Bay is the first American League team to manage that feat, whereas three NL squads already have, and two others are a single W away. As you already know from the preceding section, the Yankees did not win. New York nearly avoided a sweep in what was a closely fought game, but almost doesn’t count. It was all a lot closer than the 6-2 final against the Tigers suggests, though, so the “almost” is still notable. Detroit was up 2-0 through the top of the ninth, but then the Tigers’ bullpen blew that lead in the bottom of the frame. Reliever Drew Anderson, in his second inning of work, gave up a solo homer to DH Amed Rosario, and then later threw a wild pitch that allowed second baseman Jazz Chisholm Jr. to score the tying run. This forced extra innings, but it was not to be. Both teams played a scoreless 10th, but in the top of the 11th, the Tigers unloaded. Camilo Duval entered the game in relief for New York, and retired the first two batters that he faced. Then, he unraveled: left fielder Riley Greene was intentionally walked, which was understandable and normal, but then second baseman Hao-Yu Lee, who entered as a pinch-hitter earlier, also walked to load the bases. Duval then also issued a free pass to first baseman Spencer Torkelson, and the bases were still loaded while Detroit had a 3-2 lead. The very next batter, infielder Zach McKinstry, made it a four-run lead with a bases-clearing single. The Yankees failed to respond in the bottom of the 11th, and ended up losing 6-2 instead of 2-0 or 2-1. New York has not only been swept in consecutive series, but with two runs has scored just 37 times in its last 14 games, or 2.6 runs per game. The Marlins were an MLB-best 20-9 in June, but July opened with a loss to the Rockies — it’s still a series W for Miami, though, and in addition this lovely highlight came out of defeat. In the top of the seventh, Joe Mack entered the game as a pinch-hitter, and he smacked an inside-the-park homer to cut Colorado’s lead to 5-3. What’s incredible is that Mack hit the ball all the way to the wall in right-center — well over 400 feet away! — and it still didn’t leave the park. He put a serious charge into this thing, but ended up where he should have in the first place thanks to the bounce it took off of the tall fence that kept it from going out in the first place. The Pirates’ bullpen hasn’t helped matters, but reigning NL Cy Young winner Paul Skenes also hasn’t looked right this season. He’s working harder to get through innings, and the defense behind him is only part of the problem: he’s averaging 5 ⅓ innings per start and allowing more homers and hits than usual, resulting in an adjusted ERA of 3.03 that’s better than his actual ERA, sure, but is also considerably worse than what he’s produced in his previous two seasons. The spin and velocity on his fastball are both down compared to what it usually looks like — as said, something isn’t quite right! And it could be temporary — he labored to start his 2025, too, before turning things around and then some — but it was certainly an issue on Wednesday against the Phillies. Skenes allowed eight runs, seven earned, against Philadelphia. Six hits, two homers, two walks and five strikeouts in just four innings, which took 81 pitches to get through. The first homer was a three-run shot by Trea Turner in the second to put the Phillies up 5-0… …and the second came courtesy of left fielder Brandon Marsh in the third. Turner got his dinger off an 85-mph sweeper inside that moved across the zone horizontally, but floated into danger instead of away from it. Marsh went yard on an 85-mph slider that caught far too much of the middle of the strike zone — that, too, just kind of slowly looped and hung up there instead of having any kind of sharper movement to miss a bat or fool the batter. The Phillies would end up winning, 10-6, as once again a Pirates’ team with an improved offense was failed by its pitching. Pittsburgh is back under .500, at 43-44, while the Phillies are 2.5 back of the Braves in the NL East and three games up in the wild-card race. Wednesday marked Canada Day in — wait for it — Canada, and the Mets were there to help the Blue Jays and their fans celebrate. New York were even courteous guests, allowing the Jays to walk all over it on their special day. Starter Freddy Peralta lasted just four innings while allowing five runs on seven hits, three walks and a homer. That dinger came off the bat of rookie Sean Keys — the first of the DH’s big-league career. Reliever Cionel Pérez wouldn’t do much better in his 1 ⅓ innings, allowing five hits, a homer and four runs. That long ball was thanks to pinch-hitter Myles Straw, which the Blue Jays’ X account decided to use for Canada-related wordplay purposes. Listen, much like a hitter with a killer bat flip after a monster home run, they earned the right. Toronto has been scuffling lately — this win made it just 3-7 over the last 10 games — but at least the Jays are three back of a wild-card spot in the AL. The Mets are now 36-51, one of just six teams remaining in MLB with fewer than 40 victories, and 10 out of the closest postseason spot. Things will not get easier for New York with the NL East-leading Braves next up on the schedule, either. On Tuesday, Cubs’ shortstop Dansby Swanson swatted two homers against the Padres in what ended up being a 9-7 win over San Diego. On Wednesday, both Swanson and Chicago leveled up. The Cubs would win by the eye-popping score of 23-3, while Swanson did his part making that 20-run lead happen by going 4-for-5 with three dingers and eight RBIs. The first homer came in the bottom of the second off of starter Walker Buehler, a solo shot on a slider that caught too much of the middle of the zone. The second long ball was struck in the very next inning, when Swanson crushed an 89.4-mph slider on the inner third of the plate 434 feet to center — that was a three-run homer, his fourth in two games. He saved the biggest for last, however, at least in terms of damage. In the bottom of the eighth, facing catcher Rodolfo Durán, Swanson hit a grand slam to put the Cubs up 22-3. Swanson had a rough start to 2026 — his OPS was just .587 after a Cubs’ loss to the Rockies on June 17. In the 13 games since, Swanson has hit .365/.393/.981 with nine of his 16 homers. He’s now caught up to last year’s above-average OPS+ of 104 despite a batting average that’s still tanked due to how poorly the year began. He is on fire – seriously, five homers in 24 hours, thanks to the day game – and it’s helped the Cubs to 49 wins despite some cold stretches of their own in ‘26. The Dodgers took the first two games of their series against the Athletics, but the A’s managed to revive for the finale and avoid being swept. It also ended a four-game losing streak, which is important for two reasons: one, the AL West and wild-card races are close enough that any losing streak could be a real problem in the long run, and two, the A’s just lost Brent Rooker for the season. The slugging DH and outfielder had already missed time this year and struggled when he was on the field, but the hope was a return for a player who hit 99 home runs with a .853 OPS over the previous three seasons. Instead, knee surgery ended his 2026, and the A’s will have to continue to go at it without him. Luckily for the Athletics, they still have power to draw from. Like that of DH Shea Langeliers, who hit his 20th homer of the season to put the A’s up 4-1 in the fifth against Los Angeles. Still, things just got a bit more difficult for the Athletics in their quest to return to the postseason for the first time since the shortened 2020 season. One game a time, though, that’s how they have had to handle things in Rooker’s absence already. That this graphic even exists is incredible. Aaron Ashby is a reliever; being on pace for 23 wins as a reliever in early July is hilarious — that’s the kind of joke you make in April when stats are all small-sample-size wonky. That’s just how things have gone for Ashby, however: he’s pitched well enough in 40 appearances, and been on the mound at the time the Brewers come back from behind or break a tie, to now be leading the league in wins. A freak setup, sure, but an explainable one! It happened again on Wednesday, even. Ashby entered into the game in the sixth inning, when the score was tied, 2-2. He stuck around for the seventh, throwing 1 ⅓ scoreless with two strikeouts and one baserunner, and then the Brewers’ lineup struck again for the first time since, well, the first. That was center fielder Garrett Mitchell with an RBI triple to snap the tie; he would also be driven in afterward to make it 4-2, Brewers. Mitchell went 4-for-4 with two doubles in addition to that triple — it’s all a matter of timing. He hit doubles without driving anyone in before or being driven in, and managed to get the triple with a runner on — same as Ashby happening to come in and pitch well when given the opportunity, at the time a win was up for grabs and then his. Sometimes that’s just how it goes. The Brewers are now up to 53-31, and have a chance for a four-game sweep over Cincinnati on Thursday.