If It Ain't One Thing...

 

The Marlins are having a hell of a time right now getting everything straight. So many pieces have been moved around only for something else to completely nullify the thought behind the move. There's so much to explain that it's hard to do so without coming off deranged.

So here's what I can gather immediately. 

The Marlins began the season with an outfield consisting of Owen Caissie, Jakob Marsee and Heriberto Hernandez. None of them are hitting. Caissie had a great first week, not much since then. They had Griffin Conine, who was hitting, but as it tends to happen, Griffin Conine got injured immediately. Heriberto's been moved to DH, Stowers is back...he's only hitting .200. The depth OF, Esteury Ruiz, despite having 7 steals, isn't hitting. 

Christopher Morel, who was supposed to be the starting 1st baseman this year, isn't hitting. He got the job because the Marlins didn't keep Eric Wagaman, who sort of was hitting. He was gonna take the majority of the reps and be backed up by Connor Norby, who lost the 3rd base job to Graham Pauley. Pauley isn't hitting, got demoted, and Morel, as established, isn't hitting. So Norby got the 1st base spot. He's...hitting well enough I guess. .726 OPS, 13 RBIs, he's fine. Javier Sanoja was promoted from utility guy to semi-regular 3rd baseman, he's hitting .250 without much pop at all. If it weren't for Edwards and Lopez, both hitting .300, they'd really be screwed.

The biggest twist has been Liam Hicks behind the plate. Last year he was brought in to replace an injured Nick Fortes as catcher, then Hicks got the majority of the reps when Fortes stopped hitting. Fortes gets traded, Hicks and Agustin Ramirez hold the catcher position, great success. This year...Agustin Ramirez has stopped hitting. In 2025, this was the only thing Agustin Ramirez could do properly. Now he's a .230 hitter with barely any power. Back to the minors with him. I'd suggest keeping Deyvvison de los Santos up long-term but apparently nobody wants to actually keep him in the majors. Hicks this season, though, has been wonderful, hitting .287 with 9 homers and a league leading 38 RBIs. I did not think, this time last year, that Liam Hicks could be an RBI leader, or even a borderline All-Star pick. But here we are. Unfortunately, to remind you, Hicks, Edwards and Lopez are the only people on this team who are actually hitting. 

I also think it's very funny that the Marlins cut Chris Paddack to make room for Robby Snelling, only for Robby Snelling to immediately get hurt in his first start. But that's more tangential than anything here.

Today, somehow, the Marlins upset the Rays in extras by scoring EIGHT RUNS in the 10th. They couldn't do that in regulation but the Rays' bullpen is so bad that they can do it in extras. The run scoring was thanks to people like Hicks, Lopez, Norby, Sanoja and Esteury Ruiz. It's as close as we're gonna get to a full team effort without Stowers as a locked-in central force. This team can still win games, and in the NL East that's a relief, but compared to the competition there's just not a ton that's working right now. There's the occasional bolt of lighting but through regulation the offense was limited to a Sanoja RBI and a Heriberto Hernandez homer. 

There's gotta be more than this. Cause as it it's just a lot of frantic chaos. Typically that leads to something. 

Coming Tomorrow- He's shifted into ace mode, his team's upsetting giants, and the guy playing me in fantasy this week started him. God help us all. 

Japanese Corner Infielders Hitting Homers

 

I have no idea what data the Blue Jays' GM saw that drew him towards Kazuma Okamoto and away from Munetaka Murakami, but regardless they seem to have found a good piece. It's wild to me. What the hell sets one apart from the other. They both hit home runs, one's just a bit more forthcoming about it than the other. It's like picking the Japanese Matt Chapman over the Japanese Adam Dunn, like...either way you're getting runs scored. 

Kazuma Okamoto has given the Blue Jays a solid everyday third base option who's strong at the corner and can hit for power. He's already hit 10 homers and 27 RBIs, even if he's only hitting .239. Because this team is resuming their ragtag hitting mentality, someone like Okamoto can fit right in with this team, who also has room for defense-friendly contact guys like Jimenez and Straw, hitting machines like Vladdie and Ernie Clement, and powerful secret weapons like Daulton Varsho. I do like that the Blue Jays can still find ways to evolve, even after perfecting a working model last year. I honestly don't feel Bo Bichette's absence. Ernie Clement can play second, Gimenez can play short, it all works out. I think the lack of George Springer's better numbers is a bit more concerning, but he is, to be fair, 36. 

I think the lack of the full-team unity thing that was present last fall has made things a little tougher for the Jays so far, they're in fourth and under .500 at the moment. Guerrero, Clement and Varsho are having good-but-not-great seasons. Not having Kirk, Barger or Lukes pares back the depth a tad. Crucially, the rotation needed to prove it was more than just its postseason three, and that's...not been verified. Berrios is out, Scherzer's out, Bieber's out. That alone is pretty striking. Cease, Gausman and Yesavage do make up a pretty sturdy top of the rotation, and Cease in particular has been lights-out so far, but beyond that? Patrick Corbin has been picking up more slack than he honestly should be. He's been fine, a 3.93 ERA in 7 starts, but we really shouldn't be here. The Cody Ponce experiment didn't seem to work, nor did the Lauer experiment. I'm not even sure who their fifth option is right now. If I had half a mind I'd give Ricky Tiedemann a shot but I imagine they're making sure he won't burst into flames the second he throws a pitch [much like Cody Ponce did]. 

It's clearly not the ferocious, unstoppable force that the 2025 Jays were, but I still won't count them out. There's enough people on this team that can surprise you, Okamoto being chief among them, and despite a messier start there's always room for yet another big June where they can jump right ahead. We'll just have to see how this year's iteration compares to previous ones.

Coming Tonight: He's not a very good catcher, but he was so good at hitting that he got the primary catcher traded last year, and the other option demoted this year. So he's gotta be doing something right.

Driving on Fumes

 

There've been some teams that have gone on insane runs that make absolutely no sense to me in a way where I need them to stop at once. The Padres are not in that category. I honestly wanna see how far they can take this. Their core's been vivisected and they're still chasing down the Dodgers. Bravo I guess.

Like, this is where I remind myself that baseball doesn't always work logically, because the Padres have their most anonymous rotation in some time, their top two hitters are playing horribly, the young outfielder that was supposed to carry onto the next decade isn't doing great, and they're honestly closer to a rebuild than competition honestly. And yet...they're 7 games over .500, a half-game behind the Dodgers and playing...yes, GOOD baseball. I just don't understand it. On paper it's not a good team, especially without Machado and Tatis's better numbers. You look at Fernando Tatis now and something is just plain broken. He hasn't hit any home runs, or really anything at all, and he's trying to get by on speed and that's not enough right now. We all saw this guy hit all those home runs, even off the HGHs. And then he gets hurt and...that's really it? 

I dunno, the Seidlers selling this team to a modern ownership group makes me think all hope isn't lost after this year, but if Tatis is gonna be doing that, Machado's gonna be hitting .190 and Jackson Merrill's gonna be plainly mediocre, you can't expect to stuff this team with contracts and see it rise up. The Mets are proving why this doesn't work, and they're proving it for like the third time. Build a team, don't plant it in the ground and watch as it grows backwards. Yeesh.

I think the reason the Padres are still surging right now is the understated strength of the rotation. Yes, even without Joe Musgrove or Nick Pivetta. You have Michael King once again proving the Yankees did a disservice making him a swingman, with a 2.63 ERA and 50 Ks in 9 starts. Randy Vasquez once again has a terrific record simply because he stays in long enough to recoup the win, he's already 4-1 despite a 3.05 ERA and some messier starts. The bullpen is along the same lines as last year's, though noticeably thinner and without a truly healthy Adrian Morejon. Mason Miller's dominance more than makes up for it though. Nice to see he's muzzled Jason Adam, now caught in a thankless setup role, though extremely well at that. Jalen Beeks ain't closing either, so he can't exactly cry favoritism. I am worried about the viability of the carousel of fading starters they have behind the two that work. Griffin Canning's clearly still in disrepair from last year, Walker Buehler's lost his bounce, Marquez didn't work and Waldron's struggling again, then you remember that J.P. Sears and Lucas Giolito are also waiting for their shot. Hopefully they have a better go of things. 

The Padres, even with everything that's misfired, are still a satisfying underdog coming right up against the Dodgers. If a Padres fan that WAS good enough couldn't unseat them last year, maybe a Padres team that isn't will get to do so in 2026. Don't ask me to make it make sense, though.

Coming Tomorrow- It only took a couple weeks for Jays fans to go from 'why did we sign this guy again?' to 'okay, never mind, that's friggin great'. 

Jung, Older

 

This is now the third season that's elapsed since the Texas Rangers won the World Series. Mind you, they won it with a young team of a ton of rookies and budding young stalemates. Josh Jung, Evan Carter, Jonah Heim, Wyatt Langford, Cody Bradford, Josh Smith to a degree, and eventually Kumar Rocker and Jack Leiter. This would be their core going forward.

It's been three years. They have been to the playoffs zero years since. They've lost multiple big pieces, and others have spent time on the IL. Jacob deGrom, Corey Seager, Nate Eovaldi, and ultimately Langford, Carter and Jung, have lost time to injuries. And so here we are, 2026, the Rangers attempting to resume progress and fight the fact that time has passed. With the exception of Carter and Langford, this isn't an especially young team anymore, and people can see this.

Josh Jung, thought of as one of the first big pieces of the next dynasty upon his call-up in late 2022, is now 28 years old. Since his all-star 2023, he's spent one season nursing an injury, and the next season playing very okay, fine-but-unspectacular baseball. And now here he is again, hitting .300 and excelling once again. He's got 5 homers and 20 RBIs already, and is tied with Evan Carter for WAR lead of the lineup. Especially in a year where Corey Seager's gone deathly cold, a healthy, powerful Josh Jung [and Evan Carter honestly] s a very good thing. Behind him follow another great power-friendly Jake Burger performance, Brandon Nimmo making the Mets regret another one of their choices, Ezequiel Duran hitting .300 as a fill-in for Josh Smith, and Alejandro Osuna quietly drawing eyes while filling in for Langford. 

It's not the ideal incarnation of this team, but it's getting the job done to a degree. They're in 2nd place, behind Sacramento, and are hoping to fend off the Mariners as they continue to ascend to their promised spot in the standings. The A's and Mariners have their strengths and their lifelines, but they're both without a key player right now. The Mariners just lost Cal Raleigh to an injury, and the A's are now without Jacob Wilson for a bit. The Rangers' biggest omission right now is Langford, and they have Eovaldi and deGrom healthy and working. deGrom's certainly looking like his old self, with a 2.62 ERA and 57 Ks. 

So honestly, even given the Rangers' faults, I can't exactly count them out of a year like this. They're good enough to not go quietly, and have a different kind of fuel behind them than the Bochy-tradition-backed 2020s teams. So we'll see how this goes. 

Coming Tonight: One of two ex-Yankee starters finding success in San Diego right now.

Sho Stopper

 

Bit of a topsy-turvy NL Central year so far. We had the Brewers on the bottom for a bit, the Pirates in last for a moment, and now the Reds are down there after a rough week. But leading ever since that fateful game in Philly I went to is the Chicago Cubs. I'm once again choosing to take credit for this.

Could the Cubs simply have the most effective lineup in baseball? With the exception of Dansby Swanson, who's a .194 hitter with 25 RBIs, everybody's hitting. Moises Ballesteros is an everyday DH at the MLB level now, that's pretty damn cool. Dude's built like a lunchroom trashcan and he makes contact like crazy. Alex Bregman's having a slower start to the season than usual but he's still a good option at third. Happ, Hoerner, PCA, Suzuki and Kelly are all off to fantastic starts. PCA in particular is doing his usual multifaceted thing, with 10 steals and a ton of robberies to distract from his fairly pedestrian hitting. 

I think the biggest sign of this team's success has been the eventual blossoming of those Japanese contracts. Seiya Suzuki took a few years to really adjust to a 162 game season, and he's looking very confident now, hitting .274 with 7 homers and 16 RBIs. Dude's just a ferocious hitter and it doesn't surprise me that Chicago's taken to him. Same with Shota Imanaga, who's just a reliable, consistent hurler who doesn't need to be too flashy, a lot like a Masahiro Tanaka type. Imanaga's 4-3 with a 2.32 ERA and 59 Ks, the best line in the rotation thanks to some mixed bag starts from Edward Cabrera and Jameson Taillon and injuries to Matt Boyd and Cade Horton. Already this team has needed to resort to Colin Rea and Javier Assad for rotation spots, and aside from Imanaga it's honestly not pretty. But again, having Imanaga there gives them a leg up.

And also, just to be clear...the Cubs are still a winning team even with this rough rotation. Cabrera and Taillon still have ERAs under 4. They can still get you through a game without too much bleeding. Compared to 2025, Taillon looks way more trustworthy, despite those 11 home runs thus far. I don't know who the 'break in case of emergency' starter is from here on out, or if there's a rookie on the horizon, but I think they're closer to a decent rotation as they are than if they try an overhaul. Fundamentally, Cabrera, Taillon and Rea are good pitchers, they've just had some rough patches. 

The Cubs have lost 4 straight, need to upset the Braves tonight and then look to recoup momentum with a hometown brawl at Comiskey. There's a reason they're still in first, and there's a reason barring those weak patches this team hasn't been knocked off for long.

Coming Tomorrow- He won a World Series in his first full year in the bigs. Been a rough go of things since then though.

High on Enthusiasm, Low on Ideas

 

So here's something fun. When the Tigers signed Justin Verlander, bringing him home after 8 years, there was a staged photo opportunity of the rotation. JV, Tarik Skubal, Casey Mize, Framber Valdez and Jack Flaherty. Basically saying 'this is our pitching, get ready', etc. 

Last week, the Tigers only had Flaherty on their active roster. Just one guy of that immortal five. Hooboy.

To get here, a lot of shit had to go wrong. First JV got injured in his very first start, after giving up 5 runs. If he ever pitches again, hopefully it'll be halfway decent, but the man is 43 years old. Then Mize, after starting the season with a 2.90 ERA, got hurt. Then SKUBAL, with a 2.70 ERA in 7 starts, got hurt. Then Framber Valdez, shaky but still reliable, gets suspended for plunking Trevor Story after Story started a sign-stealing train on second base. And the Tigers were left with Flaherty, and his 5.73 ERA, plus Keider Montero who wasn't supposed to be needed for a bit but still has a 3.18 ERA in 7 starts and has done just fine. 

So in that interim period in between Valdez's suspension, the Tigers had...two active starters. And so they had to get creative. A lot of bullpen games, a couple openers, lots of long appearances from Enmanuel de Jesus and Drew Anderson. And then last night, they get Valdez back, he has a fairly decent start. But...now they're down to 3 valid starters and some bullpen games. They could, like, go and get Sawyer Gipson-Long from Toledo, but that seems to apparently be the coward's way out for this team. Why go and get the guy who's never had room to pitch in the majors the second a spot opens up? Why do that? I bet they're gonna trade him like they did with Matt Manning. 

Anyway, despite all that, the Tigers are trending upwards but still in 3rd place, underneath the White Sox who are on a better pace than they've been since the rebuild started. Not helping the Tigers is the fact that the lineup depth is diluted this year. Torres, Carpenter and Baez are all hurt. Torkelson, Vierling, McKinstry and Wenceel Perez are all slumping. Dillo Dingler leads the team in homers with 7. Hao-Yu Lee was brought up as a new infield depth option but he's not hitting either. Thankfully there's 3 guys hitting .300, but one of them is Cole Keith, with 6 RBIs to his name. Having McGonigle and Greene performing well is a very good thing, but it feels like much less of a team effort than usual for these teams. Greene's hitting .315 with 4 homers and 20 RBIs, building on his 2025 ASG season despite the usual defensive quibbles.

If the team isn't gonna hit as a unit, having a fractured pitching staff's gonna hold them back even further. Hopefully they can build on this and reestablish leverage in this division, but at the present moment it looks tougher than usual.

Coming Tonight: The latest Japanese pitcher to settle into comfortable success in the States. 

Everyday People

 

I remember back when it was news that Freddy Galvis hadn't missed a game from 2016 to mid-2019, and that was the extent of the streak. Remember Freddy Galvis? Good couple years back there, decent Phils infielder. Seems kinda silly now that we've got Matt Olson, who hasn't missed a game since 2021. Since Olson got to Atlanta he's not missed a game. Meaning after losing their 1st baseman since 2011, the Braves then got a first baseman...who literally plays everyday. And does so while hitting 40 or so homers.

This is the beauty of these Braves teams. It's the right kind of layering of talent, in that it's not egregious, it's not overspending the rest of the league. It's calling up great players and extending them, then signing great free agents in their prime, and picking the right guys to perpetuate the cycle. People have gotten mad about this team letting some key pieces go [Freeman, Fried, Swanson, William Contreras], but considering all the great players they've retained it's hard to be completely mad. They signed Olson early and since then he's been absolutely wonderful. Right now he's got a 1.019 OPS, a league leading 37 RBIs, 14 homers and a .294 average. He's on track for another terrific season, and could notch yet another 25+ homer year [he's already accumulated seven of those]. Recently Olson hit his 300th career homer, and at only 32 he's put together some underrated numbers, much like his former Oakland battery mate Matt Chapman. The Braves have some truly excellent players, and Olson, out of all of them, might be the one they're luckiest to have.

Especially considering that Ronald Acuna Jr. is once again injured. The good news is that Ronnie is not the 'magic hat' guy he seemed to be last year, as there's enough roster depth to stay ahead of every else. Drake Baldwin, Ozzie Albies, Michael Harris and Matt Olson still make this an elite lineup, and getting Ha-Seong Kim back certainly helps, despite how well Mauricio Dubon has done in his stead. Baldwin continues to be one of the best pure power hitters in the game, already at 10 homers and 37 RBIs. Dom Smith has been a surprisingly powerful DH bat, hitting .363 with 18 RBIs and 4 homers. I did not expect this guy to positively replace Ozuna but I guess being low-budget occasionally pays off. 

Also paying off is the stagnated, unconventional rotation tactic. People like Martin Perez, Reynaldo Lopez and J.R. Ritchie have swung in and out as needed, and activating key pieces has not obstructed the rhythm of the unit. Spencer Strider's looking decent 2 starts later, he's only allowed 3 runs and struck out 14. Perez has been the surprise, still in excellent condition at 34 and so capable in middle relief that he's back to starting. Meanwhile, Elder, Sale and Holmes have been strong at the top but you knew that. Sale's got 56 Ks by throwing smoke, Elder's got 53 Ks from pitch selection. Both tactics are working.

A lot's going right for the Braves right now. The other 4 NL East teams all struggling has helped as well, but so much has clicked, and though there's still time for things to falter, I've got a really good vibe about how this team's flowing. And having [to date] FOUR everyday guys certainly helps.

Coming Tomorrow- The future of his team has shifted, and he's got to do what he can to keep things on track. Unfortunately, all he can do right now is power hit adequately.