Last Night in Baseball: The Mets Metsed And There is Mets Everywhere

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 Mets blew it, again That’s 12 losses in a row for the Mets, who in their latest snatched defeat from the jaws of victory. The Twins had lost four games in a row themselves and were sitting at .500, and while things started out well enough for New York, they did not stay that way. As for that start, shortstop Francisco Lindor hit a three-run homer, just his second long ball of the year, following a single by first baseman Mark Vientos, a grounder and force out of the lead runner by left fielder Carlos Benge and a walk from second baseman Marcus Semien. Mets 3, Twins 0 — that’s where things stood for quite a bit. New York starter Nolan McLean was rolling through the first five innings, keeping Minnesota off the board with eight strikeouts, no walks and no hits allowed in that stretch — that was 15 outs into a perfect game. Things came undone in the sixth a bit, however, when right fielder Matt Wallner led off with a single, and center fielder Byron Buxton followed up later in the inning with a two-run homer. McLean would recover but give up another run in the seventh to tie things, on a single by second baseman Luke Keaschall that drove in first baseman Kody Clemens, who had hit a double in the at-bat before. McLean was lifted with the game 3-3, and reliever Huascar Brazabon managed to get out of the seventh and through the eighth without incident. The Mets put closer Devin Williams in to give themselves their best hypothetical chance at playing for one run and winning in the bottom of the ninth. It did not work out as intended. Instead, Williams walked the inning’s leadoff hitter, DH Josh Bell, then pinch-runner James Outman stole second. Catcher Ryan Jeffers would also walk, and then Clemens would lay down what was intended to be a sacrifice bunt to move both runners into scoring position but instead ended up loading the bases. Keaschall would then give the Twins their first lead of the game with a bouncing grounder just out of the reach of both third baseman Bo Bichette and Lindor. Williams would then walk Wallner with the bases still juiced, putting the Twins up 5-3. Austin Warren would come on in relief of Williams, and proceed to strike out all three batters he faced on just 12 pitches. The Mets went down in order in the bottom of the ninth, ending the Twins’ smaller losing streak while extending New York’s to a dozen defeats. Star outfielder Juan Soto is supposed to be activated on Wednesday, which should help with at least some of what ails the Mets, but this is also a team that has been outscored by 45 runs in its last 12 games — more needs to be different than just filling the hole Soto left behind. That’s 53 in a row for Ohtani The Dodgers lost to the Giants, 3-1, in that series opener, but fret not fans of Shohei Ohtani: his on-base streak persisted. The two-way star is now up to 53 games in a row, which puts him into the top-25 on-base streaks in MLB history, tied with the likes of Alex Rodriguez and former Dodgers’ standout Shawn Green. Ohtani got on base just the one time, as he didn’t draw any walks or get hit by a pitch. It wasn’t his greatest showing at the plate by any means, but then again, it wasn’t exactly the Dodgers’ night, either. Los Angeles recorded just three hits and the one run against San Francisco pitching, which included five innings of one-run ball out of Landen Roup and then the bullpen shutting the Dodgers down the rest of the way. A bit of a waste of seven strong innings from Yoshinobu Yamamoto, but hey, even Los Angeles can’t win ‘em all. Royals walk it off, wildly The Royals have had some bad luck in the ninth inning this season — including on Monday, when they let the Orioles tie the game while down to their final out — but last night was different. On Tuesday, it was the Royals benefitting from someone else forgetting themselves, instead. Time to set the scene: the Royals were up 4-3 after picking away at the Orioles’ early 3-0 lead, but in the top of the eighth, Baltimore backstop Adley Rutchsman, fresh off the IL, hit his first homer of the year to give the O’s back the lead. Kansas City would respond, immediately: second baseman Michael Massey got his own first dinger of the season in the bottom of the eighth to tie things back up at 5-5, and there the score stood until the bottom of the ninth. The Royals started the inning against new reliever Ryan Helsley with second baseman Maikel Garcia at the top of the order, and he drew a walk, his third time on base in the game. Shortstop Bobby Witt Jr. also walked, despite an ABS challenge from Rutschman, giving the Royals two on and no outs. While first baseman Vinnie Pasquantino would strike out, it ended up being on a wild pitch that Rutschman couldn’t corral, allowing Garcia and Witt to move to third and second, respectively. And then, Helsley threw another wild pitch, this time to catcher Salvador Perez, that Rutschman was able to block but not pull in. With no one covering the plate as Rutschman dashed off into the infield to retrieve the ball, Garcia bolted for home — neither Rutschman nor Helsley could beat him there, and the Royals would walk it off. The Orioles wouldn’t have even had a chance to win without Rutschman’s home run earlier, but it still stings to have the game decided on wild pitches to consecutive batters. Now, they aren’t entirely Rutschman’s doing — that’s why they were wild pitches instead of passed balls — but it’s still all a team effort in the end. Inside-the-park whoops It was not a great night for those expecting baseballs to do something different than they ended up doing. Helsley and Rutschman were just one example (well, two). There was also poor Lourdes Gurriel Jr. out in left or the Diamondbacks against the White Sox, on what should have been a fairly routine play. One that scored a run, maybe, but not an inside-the-park homer, that’s for sure. Observe: Gurriel is clearly expecting the umpire to call the ball dead after it went down the left field line and rattled around near the ball boy and ball boy stool. It bounces right back into the field, though, and just… sits. Waiting for someone to pick it up. Roughly seven seconds passes in between Gurriel noticing the ball ricocheted back into the field and his actually picking it up — he is casually walking toward it while baserunner Everson Pereira (on first at the start of the play) and left fielder Sam Antonacci slow up, hesitate, then realize they are being gifted the opportunity to just keep on running because no one is stopping it from happening. The play was challenged, but upheld: a reminder that you just have to play to the proverbial whistle. It could always be challenged after the fact, but not until the play is over; a fielder doesn’t get to decide the ball is dead on their own, and the White Sox ended up scoring two runs because Gurriel forgot as much. Amazingly enough, Antonacci hit a triple earlier on, so that ended up being some night for him. Murakami keeps on homering Not just Antonacci, though. The White Sox would win 11-5, and a key part of that was in the second inning, when first baseman Munetaka Murakami hit a home run for the fourth-straight game. It was his ninth dinger of the year, and also made him just the third-ever Japanese player to go yard four games in a row in MLB. It was also the start of a back-to-back-to-back homer run for the White Sox, their first in six years: the other two came courtesy third baseman Miguel Vargas and shortstop Colson Montgomery. Now that’s a dive But wait, there’s more White Sox, somehow! Check this catch that Pereira made out in right. That is some serious extension — not a little fall right near the end, but full-out going as long as he can and holding onto the ball despite his body crashing into the ground because of that stretch. De La Cruz passes Rose Reds’ shortstop Elly De La Cruz had himself a day against the Rays, powering Cincinnati to a 12-6 win. Literally powering, since De La Cruz went deep not once… …but twice. As the tweet from the Reds says, this was the sixth multi-homer game of De La Cruz’s career — he’s only been in the league since 2023 and isn’t that close to 500 career games yet, yet already passed Pete Rose for the most multi-homer games by a Reds’ switch-hitter. Pretty good! De La Cruz is just 24 — he’ll have time to make that figure a bit more impressive before he wraps. As is, he’s leading the National League in homers with eight, and looking a lot more like the player from 2025’s first half who slugged .495 and had 18 home runs, before a partially torn quad severely limited his offense, as he hit just four long balls and posted a .666 OPS in his last 65 games. That’s great news for the Reds, who needed that kind of pop in their lineup, and still do now. Chase this The Astros were up 4-2 on the Guardians through seven innings, but Cleveland finally put together some serious offense late in the eighth. Enyel De Los Santos came on in relief for Houston, and proceeded to walk second baseman Daniel Schneeman before giving up a single to left fielder Angel Martinez. Shortstop Brayan Rocchio would single in a run, forcing Houston to swap out De Los Santos for Bryan King, but King walked center fielder and leadoff hitter Steven Kwan to load the bases for rookie Chase DeLauter. The DH would triple in all three runners to put Cleveland up 6-4. He’s having a great season so far: sure, he’s batting just .221, but when paired with the patience to get a .322 on-base percentage and enough power to slug .506, anyway, what’s that matter? That triple wasn’t it for the Guardians, either. King would then intentionally walk third baseman Jose Ramirez to get to first baseman Kyle Manzardo, but Ramirez stole second and Manzardo then drove both runners home with a single to right. While DH Yordan Alvarez would get a run back for Houston in the ninth on an RBI double, it wasn’t enough to undo the damage of the eighth. Cleveland would take the W, and remains in first in the AL Central while the Astros are stuck in last in the West, already 4.5 back. Cruz gets 10th steal, ump goes down Two things to pay attention to here: one, Pirates’ center fielder Oneil Cruz picked up his 10th steal of the year, which leads the National League, and two, look at the umpire barely avoiding getting whacked by the throw from catcher Danny Jansen. The second base ump, Dan Merzel, might have avoided getting hit with the throw, but he paid for it with a tumble. He’s alright, folks, just a little embarrassed. Yankees topple Red Sox The Yankees and Red Sox met up for the first time this season on Tuesday, and things did not go so hot for Boston despite being the host. They can thank New York’s designated hitter Giancarlo Stanton for that, mostly. Stanton hit a dinger over the Green Monster in left in the top of the second, off of starter Connelly Early, to put the Yankees up 1-0. Stanton came to the plate in the sixth with the score holding, but it was 3-0 when he finished: he didn’t go yard this time, but actually hit the ball further on this two-run double against Early than on the homer, 378 feet to 369. Fenway’s dimensions are something. The win was “mostly” Stanton’s doing, in the sense he drove in three of New York’s four runs, but don’t let the job the pitching staff did go unnoticed. Starter Luis Gil went 6.1 innings giving up no runs and just two hits, and the bullpen combined to limit Boston to just two more hits the rest of the way. New York sits atop the AL East at 14-9, despite a problematic losing streak not all that long ago, while Boston is just one of four AL teams to fail to reach double-digit wins this late into the season: they’re in last place in the East despite the uninspiring pennant defense of the Blue Jays to this point.