Month: May 2026

Round 1 of the NBA playoffs will wrap up this weekend, as four teams have already advanced to Round 2. The Knicks embarrassed the Hawks in a Game 6 blowout to move on, while the short-handed Timberwolves pulled off a major upset to eliminate the Nuggets. In addition, the Thunder and Spurs made quick work of their respective opponents, as we got one step closer to them meeting in what would be a much anticipated Western Conference finals. With a handful of exciting games on deck this weekend, let’s take a look at a few bets I like. This page may contain affiliate links to legal sports betting partners. If you sign up or place a wager, FOX Sports may be compensated. Read more about Sports Betting on FOX Sports. No. 4 Los Angeles @ No. 5 HoustonGame 6 The Rockets are looking to make history, and the Lakers are looking to avoid it. No team in NBA history has ever come back from a 3-0 series deficit, with only four teams ever even forcing a Game 7. I believe the Rockets will become the fifth team, as their clear advantages in youth and athleticism have finally presented themselves over the last two games. Lakers guard Luke Kennard was a major factor early in the series, helping to lead the Lakers to a 3-0 lead. But since then, Kennard has been hunted defensively and quiet offensively, as the Rockets have fought back into this series. With home-court advantage in Game 6, I like the revitalized Rockets to give themselves a chance to make history and force Game 7. PICK: Rockets (-3.5) to win by more than 3.5 points No. 7 Philadelphia @ No. 2 BostonGame 7 The Celtics were -900 series favorites prior to Game 1. But after taking a commanding 3-1 series lead, the Celtics lost Game 5 as 11-point favorites, then lost Game 6 as 7-point favorites. The Celtics now return home and must win a Game 7 to avoid a stunning upset. While it’s hard to see Boston losing a third consecutive game as a big favorite, it’s equally hard to trust it right now, especially laying points. I like under 206.5 here, as Game 7 historically trends to being lower scoring. There are nerves on each side, and defensively, teams usually bring maximum intensity in a winner-take-all game. That’s a good recipe for a game that stays Under the total. PICK: Under 206.5 combined points scored

A month into the season, the Miami Marlins’ polarizing pitch-calling system has received both commendation and criticism. But it has gone mostly to plan. From the dugout, assistant pitching coach Rob Marcello uses his fingers to relay his desired pitch type and location to the catcher, who checks his wristband for the corresponding number before transmitting the selection to the pitcher via PitchCom. The premise is simple: Pitching coaches do most of the preparation leading into a series and have more information at their disposal than the players on the field — literally on a card in their hands in the dugout. So, why shouldn’t they be the ones suggesting the pitches, too? “I don’t think you’re ever going to solve pitch calling — that’s not what this is about,” Marlins pitching coach Daniel Moskos told me. “We just decided there was a way we felt like we could make it better.” It’s an innovative idea that bucks tradition, and one that most veteran catchers accustomed to calling games are sure to despise, but it’s hard to argue with the results so far. A year ago, the youthful Marlins ranked 25th in ERA and 20th in opponents’ batting average; they currently rank ninth and fourth, respectively, in those categories. Their pitchers have also gone from the seventh-lowest whiff rate in MLB last year to the eighth highest early in 2026. It’s hard to know with any certainty how much credit their new system deserves, but it’s not changing anytime soon. “I’m committed to us running this play out,” Marlins manager Clayton McCullough told me. “We’ll never know if we had … continued the other way how much different it would have been, but I do have a belief that doing this is going to yield the results that we want — giving up the fewest amount of runs that we can.” The Marlins tested their dugout pitch-calling apparatus in the minor leagues last year, when Marcello was calling pitches as the team’s Triple-A pitching coach, before bringing the trailblazing concept to the big leagues for the final nine games of the 2025 season. Alon Leichman, the Marlins’ assistant pitching coach last season, was calling the pitches over those nine games — during which Miami had a 3.11 ERA — and believed enough in the process that he took it to Colorado as the Rockies’ new pitching coach this year. Colorado’s unsightly 5.97 ERA last year, by far the worst mark in MLB, has dropped to 4.19 early this season. Other teams have experimented with the idea in spring training and in the minor leagues. Soon, many Marlins players and coaches believe, more clubs will start to adopt the practice. “It’s the future of baseball,” Moskos said, “until there’s a better way to do it. I envision a future where there’s someone in the dugout with a pitcher transmitter PitchCom relaying it that way, and you’ll see the numbers system go away.” For now, though, this is what the Marlins believe works best. Over the offseason, they informed every free agent they spoke with about their intentions, laying out their reasoning for calling pitches from the dugout. They were willing to live with the result if a player decided it wasn’t for him. “We knew we were going to get a lot of questions about it, and there’s going to be a lot of noise surrounding it,” McCullough said. “And I felt that for us, to try to get a competitive advantage, if it helps us win two more games this year, then it’s worth it. You get two or three more wins over the course of a season by doing some different things, that might be the difference in us continuing to play beyond the regular season or going home.” Last year, an inexperienced Marlins group far outpaced projections by winning 79 games. Miami finished just four games out of a playoff spot. A better first half could have changed the outcome. The Marlins ended April 2025 on a five-game losing streak after getting swept at Dodger Stadium and surrendering 34 runs over their three games in Los Angeles. This season, the Marlins ended April with a series win at Dodger Stadium, during which they held the high-powered Dodgers lineup to eight runs over three games. Was their new pitch-calling system responsible? And how will they judge its success? Those are questions they’re still discussing. Once or twice a series, they’re holding pitch-usage feedback calls with front office staff and analysts to discuss trends and what others might be seeing from a distance that coaches on the field might be missing. “You want to track numbers, metrics, key performance indicators that we value internally as an organization,” Moskos said. “We’re using a usage model, we’re evaluating how much we’re adhering to that usage model, and then grading out how the games go and making adjustments and little tweaks along the way.” For the process to operate efficiently in the pitch-clock era, swiftness is essential. “You do it enough times, Rob knows how much time he has to give me a pitch, and I know how quick I need to be,” said catcher Liam Hicks. “Sometimes I get it with more time on the clock, and I’ll really take my time and check. But as I’ve gotten familiar with the card, it’s pretty easy.” As the pitching coaches discuss strategy and look over reports throughout the game, Moskos is careful not to distract Marcello when it’s time to relay pitch calls. “I know that I have a window after he puts up his fingers,” Moskos explained. “I know that I’ve got 10 seconds to be able to get a conversation in or ask a question. And then if there’s a new batter, I’ve got 30 seconds to potentially talk about what we feel like we want to deploy. But at the end of the day, he’s done a phenomenal job and cares deeply about this. I couldn’t be happier with how it’s gone so far.” On Tuesday night, Marlins starter Janson Junk held the Dodgers scoreless over six innings. Last September, he was on the mound when the Marlins first took the new pitch-calling operation into a big-league game. Miami won that game 6-4, and Junk threw seven innings of one-run ball. “I feel like people overanalyze it a little bit, just because it’s a very up-and-coming thing,” Junk told me. “I know personally a lot of teams either are starting to implement it or want to do it.” For Junk, it doesn’t matter to him whether the catcher or the pitching coach calls the pitch. “The only thing is in-game stuff,” Junk said. “A catcher might be able to see if you missed arm-side, and you can’t really see from the dugout where the miss is.” That’s where communication between innings becomes vital. “But you can see a decent amount of stuff from the sideline — if a guy’s late, if a guy’s early, if it looks like they’re diving out over breaking stuff or sitting on a certain pitch,” Junk said. “At the end of the day, it’s up to the pitcher to execute the game plan that we go in talking about. Overall, I think it’s been a pretty smooth process, and I think the catchers here don’t mind it, either.” Between innings, the pitching coaches often check in with the catcher to receive input and discuss strategy for the upcoming stretch of hitters. Hicks said the process has gotten easier and more efficient over time, and he still believes his opinion is valued, even though he’s no longer the one calling pitches. “I don’t feel like I’m someone sitting back there having no effect on the game,” Hicks told me. “I think there’s a lot that I have during the game to say about the pitcher that they take into account, so that’s really good.” Hicks no longer has to scout opposing hitters the way he did coming up through the minors. While some question whether that might hinder the development of the Marlins’ young catchers — Hicks, 26, and Agustín Ramírez, 24, are both in their second big-league seasons — the team views it as taking something off their plates. For what it’s worth, Hicks now sports a .941 OPS that ranks second among all qualified catchers. “Whether it’s receiving, throwing, blocking, hitting, it’s freed up some bandwidth for them to go use that in other areas to help them become a better player,” McCullough said. “They’re involved in every pregame meeting. They’re involved in the between-innings meetings. They’re very much involved in this.” The Marlins’ coaches have also tried to make the new concept as palatable as possible for Miami pitchers by explaining the benefits. “We can’t read their minds,” Moskos said. “That’s the one layer of complexity that we didn’t really have a solve for when rolling this out. We can’t tap into the pitcher’s mind and what he’s feeling out there. We can’t see through the catcher’s eyes what’s happening as the ball’s coming to home plate or maybe what the hitter’s doing. “We’ll get that in-between innings, but we might not get it in the middle of an at-bat. So we’re trying to figure out a way to glean as much of that as possible, ultimately knowing there’s going to be some things that slip through the cracks.” Junk said the pitching coaches don’t mind if he shakes off a selection, and he feels like he has enough time to do that if he wants, though he rarely does. Other pitchers are more wary. “It’s been done another way for a very long time, so we knew there were still going to be challenges even with the members of our group who were here last year and knew we were going to be rolling this out,” McCullough said. “I think that’s OK. We continue to take those on, and in a lot of ways it’s forced us to communicate more.” So far, the Marlins have three pitch-clock violations, which puts them in the top half of MLB teams. The Angels have the most at six, followed by the Astros and Orioles with five apiece. The only Miami starter who has been penalized is Eury Perez. In early April, Perez hit Yankees star Aaron Judge with a pitch to bring in a run and then immediately got called for a pitch-clock violation as a frustrating inning began to unravel. Perez told me he has since stopped shaking off pitches out of concern for time. “Sometimes, I think you have to obey the signals and whatever they’re giving you,” Perez said through an interpreter. “But sometimes you get upset because they give you a pitch that you might not want to pitch. It’s hard because they’re not in your mind, so it’s difficult sometimes to be on the same page.” The Marlins’ coaches, however, are steadfast about sticking with the concept. They know it’s on them to create the buy-in, and they know it’s not perfect. But the operation has gotten cleaner with time, and they believe it’s the best way to win games. “We’re still working through the kinks,” Moskos said. “We’re a month into the season. No one’s got anything solved, but I do like the trend that we’re on.”

Heading into the 2026 NFL Draft, linebacker Dee Winters was a crucial member of the San Francisco 49ers’ defense. He left the draft as one of the new faces of a new-look Dallas Cowboys defense. “Honestly, I wasn’t expecting it at all. I was surprised quite a bit. … I definitely didn’t have any plans on being traded,” Winters said about being dealt to Dallas during the draft, according to the Cowboys’ team website. “But everything happens for a reason. I’m excited that I’m back home and I get to play for the Dallas Cowboys.” Dallas traded the No. 152 pick in this year’s draft to San Francisco to acquire Winters, a Texas native and TCU alum who’s entering the final season of his rookie contract. Winters is coming off arguably the best season of his three-year NFL career. In 2025, he set career highs with one interception — which he returned for a touchdown — five passes defended, eight tackles for loss and 101 combined tackles. What was the key to his success? “I think just the attention to detail last year, and just kind of understanding what offenses like to do,” Winters said about his 2025 campaign. “I feel like I started to pick up on it more as I got reps. Just that experience, each and every game getting better and trying to use that motto. I think that really helped me have a decent year.” Meanwhile, in Dallas, the Cowboys surrendered the most points in the NFL (30.1 per game), finished 30th in opponent total yards (377.0 per game) and logged just 35.0 sacks (five-way tie for 22nd). After the season, Dallas fired defensive coordinator Matt Eberflus after one year in favor of former Philadelphia Eagles passing game coordinator and defensive backs coach Christian Parker, who has a vivid plan for Winters. “He wants to get me in space,” Winters said. “He feels like one of my assets is me being in space and being able to make tackles in space. Just run and hit with my physicality and speed that I bring to the game. Him and I are both excited to see what that looks like and go from there.” Winters was selected by San Francisco in the sixth round of the 2023 NFL Draft. He played four seasons at TCU (2019-22), which is roughly 20 minutes west of AT&T Stadium, home of the Cowboys. He grew up in Burton, Texas, roughly three-and-a-half hours south of Dallas. The Cowboys have revamped their defense this offseason. In addition to acquiring Winters, Dallas traded for Green Bay Packers linebacker Rashan Gary and signed defensive backs Jalen Thompson (three-year, $33 million deal) and Cobie Durant (one-year, $4 million deal). Then in the draft, Dallas selected Ohio State Buckeyes safety and two-time All-American Caleb Downs with the No. 11 pick and UCF Knights defensive end Malachi Lawrence with the No. 23 pick.

In Driver’s Eye with James Hinchcliffe, the six-time INDYCAR winner will bring you inside the mind of a racer while breaking down the nuts and bolts of the sport for fans. Spring time in Indianapolis is a beautiful thing. The snow melts, the weather warms, flowers start to bloom. But that has nothing to do with it. What makes spring in Indianapolis so beautiful is the fact we are in the “Month of May” — as we in the sport like to call it. When the calendar flips over to May 1, something in the air changes in Indy. It’s tough to explain but undeniably felt by everyone who resides there. Smells are stronger, colors are brighter and there is an energy in the air that is palpable. For INDYCAR teams and drivers, it’s the most important month of the year. The Indianapolis 500 is the biggest motorsports event on the calendar. In fact, it’s the largest single-day sporting event in the world. There is no non-religious gathering of human beings on Earth bigger than the Indy 500. To be fair, some would argue that the Indy 500 is their religion. So, how do drivers and their teams excel at Indianapolis Motor Speedway throughout the month and the biggest race of the year? 2 KEYS TO SUCCESS FOR THE INDY 500 To be successful in the Month of May and at the Indy 500, there are two things that every team has to focus on more than anything. The first is the three P’s: preparation, preparation and preparation. So much of your fate at the Indy 500 — and the crucial qualifying events leading up to it — is decided before the cars ever come off the trailer. The offseason work back at the shop on engineering and pit stop practice, the hours dedicated to building the cars, the countless runs in the simulator — all these things add up and set the tone for how your Month of May could go. It’s the difference between confidence and speed versus being miserable and frustrated for a whole month. The second thing is, quite simply, execution. There are so many things you have to do absolutely perfectly as a team over the month, and slip-ups can be costly. Throughout 500 miles on the iconic 2.5-mile track, uncontrollables are abundant and can negatively affect your race, so nailing each element you can control is vital to success. Especially when you need a little luck, too. Let’s break down how INDYCAR drivers and teams attack the month leading up to the Indy 500, set this year for Sunday, May 24 (12:30 p.m. ET on FOX). WEEK 1: INDY 500 TESTING The first week of the month is all about what we call the Indy 500 Open Test. The Month of May kicked off with the two-day test, which, ironically, was in the last week of April this year. Teams hit the speedway for the first time this season and dusted the cobwebs off before they come back in anger later this month for opening day of official Indy 500 activities. It’s usually to confirm and ensure all the systems on the car are working correctly, so time isn’t wasted when official practice begins. This is also a great opportunity for the one-off entries — cars that aren’t full-time INDYCAR competitors — to get the team all together at a race track for the first time in a year, if not ever. There are only so many meetings and practice pit stops you can do at the shop before you need to go do it for real. [INDY TESTING: Mick Schumacher’s First Time Driving Indy Oval] WEEK 2: INDY ROAD COURSE RACE After the Indy 500 Open Test, the second week shifts to the Sonsio Grand Prix on the Indianapolis Motor Speedway road course, which lives inside the famed 2.5-mile oval. This year, it’s on Saturday, May 9. Racing on any configuration at IMS is a rush, but when the biggest race in the world is just around the corner, sometimes the grand prix can feel like the annoying little brother to the 500. But it’s not something you can overlook, as it pays just as many points as any other race. It can also give your team momentum heading into the rest of the month. Just ask Will Power, Simon Pagenaud or Alex Palou — all of whom took the confidence from winning the Indy Grand Prix into a 500 victory a few weeks later. But more on that next week… WEEK 3: QUALIFYING AND A LOT OF LAPS Once the Indy road course race is done and dusted, the series makes the teams take a mandatory day off. The garages are closed and all the engineers, mechanics, officials, volunteers and drivers get one last day to rest and recharge before the marathon run-up to Memorial Day Weekend and the Indy 500. Then, the teams get a day with no on-track action to switch the cars over from road course configuration to oval configuration. This is when Week 3 really begins, and it’s all about laps. Practice week has four days with six total hours of practice. That is a ton of track time, but it’s because there’s a ton of work to get done. Teams will prioritize evaluating any updates or changes they developed over the offseason and then start heading down a path on setup. The early days of the week are focused on the setup for the Indy 500 specifically. Drivers will spend a lot of time running in traffic and getting the car comfortable in race trim. Logging as many miles as you can is crucial. On Friday, the horsepower gets turned up to qualifying levels — it’s all speed, speed, speed — and focus shifts to the four-lap qualifying runs that will determine the starting grid and the coveted pole position. Saturday and Sunday are all about going fast and finding out where you will start in The Greatest Spectacle In Racing. The last six Indy 500 pole winners’ qualifying speeds were at least 231 miles an hour. There is no greater thrill — and no more nerve-wracking challenge — for an INDYCAR driver than a flat-out qualifying run at IMS. WEEK 4: THE GREATEST SPECTACLE IN RACING Once you’ve survived qualifying weekend and your heart rate comes down, Week 4 is all about strategizing your 500 miles. How you approach this final week and the two last practice sessions — one on Monday and one on Friday, which is affectionately known as Carb Day — totally depends on how the previous weekend went. If you qualify well, you work on dialing in the car to run up front and contend for the win on pure pace. Starting near the back? Well, then you’ve got to throw as much at the car as you can to make sure that you can weave through traffic. Because if you have to pass 30-plus cars, that means you will spend a lot of your day in traffic! After that, all that remains are 800 left turns between you and becoming racing royalty! Easy, right?! [INDY 500: Everything To Know For Busy Month of May in Indianapolis] SOUND LIKE AN INDYCAR EXPERT Having just watched the Open Test, I am so excited about this year’s Indy 500. And I’ve already got my eye on one team in particular: Arrow McLaren. Zak Brown’s team is running four cars — three full-season drivers in Pato O’Ward, Christian Lundgaard and Nolan Siegel, plus a one-off entry for 2014 Indy 500 winner Ryan Hunter-Reay — and each has a very different story heading in. Starting with Lundgaard, you’ve got a driver in his second year with the team, and he’s coming off a seventh-place finish in 2025 — his best in four Indy 500s. He’s got two podiums on the season but has never finished an oval race in the top three. With a year of experience with this squad, he should be brimming with confidence. Plus, he has the benefit of learning off of an Indy expert in… Ryan Hunter-Reay. RHR joining this team is, by far, the most exciting combo of the one-off entries. A previous race winner for Andretti, he nearly took the W last year in a back-up car for a team that only competes in one race — the 500 — each year. Put him in a program with the resources of McLaren, and watch out. Nolan Siegel, who is the focus of the most recent episode of FOX Sports’ docuseries “All In,” has a lot to prove to team boss Tony Kanaan this season, and the year hasn’t started out great. But a strong Indy 500 performance can save a driver’s season. And career. Finally, you’ve got the series’ most popular driver in Pato O’Ward. Pato’s track record at Indy is exemplary: four top-5 finishes in his last five starts. The outlier was a crash with a handful of laps to go while, you guessed it, running in the top 5. Only Alexander Rossi, another one to watch, has been as consistently competitive over the last decade as Pato, who is fueled by the recent memories of bitter defeat. Indy owes nothing to any of the 33 drivers lucky enough to take part in the 500. But if there is one driver you feel is deserving of a career- and life-changing checkered flag, it’s Pato. But deserving doesn’t make you one to watch. The way he was driving and the way his car was handling at the Open Test, however, is more than enough to put him right at the top of the list of favorites heading into the 110th running of this amazing race. MORE DRIVER’S EYE:

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 Phillies and Giants were rained out on Wednesday, forcing a doubleheader into existence on Thursday. One can’t say that San Francisco would have won either of these contests had they happened at their regularly scheduled time, but, we can at least believe that they couldn’t have gone much worse. The Giants lost both games, and both in the bottom of the ninth via walk-off. To kick things off in game one, designated hitter Kyle Schwarber hit career home run number 350 to cut the Giants’ early lead in half to 2-1. There would be no more scoring in the game until the ninth inning, from either team. And the Phillies finally scored there in an at-bat that should be studied in a lab. Righty reliever Ryan Walker threw nine sinkers in a row to second baseman Bryson Stott, all either completely outside the strike zone or at least on the far side of it, away from Stott. He managed to foul off the two of those pitches that entered the zone ever-so-slightly while he had two strikes, creating an opportunity for Walker to just miss completely with the ninth and final sinker, which catcher Patrick Bailey setup inside for in order to cross up Stott after all those pitches away, but it instead caught the exact middle of the plate and didn’t do much sinking, either. The result? An RBI triple and a tie game. With Stott on third and two outs, it came down to center fielder Justin Crawford to keep this game from going to extras. Whereas Stott fought and fought until he got a pitch he could drive, Crawford jumped all over the first pitch he saw: a 95.7 mph sinker in the strike zone that he was able to poke toward shortstop, slow enough that Stott could score and he made it to first to beat the throw. The Phillies struck much more aggressively and convincingly in the second game. Shortstop Trea Turner led off with a home run, then Schwarber, playing in left, notched dinger 351 with a back-to-back shot. This was no joke of a homer, either: Schwarber hit this one 446 feet to right-center, obliterating a slider that did not slide nearly enough, and the Phillies were up 2-0. The Giants would continually answer, however, getting a run in the fourth and fifth and then two in the sixth, plus their fifth and final run was pushed across in the ninth to go ahead, 5-4. There, down to their final strike, Schwarber delivered once more. This one stayed in the park, but the result was the same: the Phillies scored a game-tying run thanks to Schwarber golfing a splitter beneath the strike zone into the corner in right, scoring DH Brandon Marsh. The Giants failed to score in the 10th, but Philadelphia did not. Stott bunted free baserunner Adolis Garcia over to third, then third baseman Alec Bohm hit a sacrifice fly to center to send the runner home. Ballgame Phillies, again. That’s the first time since 2004, per MLB, that a team has won both games of a doubleheader via walk-off. It’s been a tough season for the Phillies so far, which got their previous manager, Rob Thomson, fired. But they’re 3-0 since, and coming off an exhilarating double-dose of walk-off wins. They still have quite a ways to climb, but with this roster, there’s at least reason to hope that the rest of April can be put behind them, and that their season truly began this week. Well, okay, both grand slams happened in one game, but still. The Orioles played a makeup doubleheader against the Astros, just like the Phillies and Giants had their own, and Baltimore got its own little twist out of it. In this case, a pair of base-clearing dongs. The first featured Astros’ center fielder Brice Matthews thinking that he actually robbed catcher Adley Rutschman of a dinger, but then realizing that no, that ball went over the fence. Rutschman, by the way, is hitting .356/406/.661 on the season, and has a 1.360 OPS in the six games since he returned from the IL. After a disappointing 2025, this is the kind of start the Orioles needed to see out of their now-veteran backstop. The second grand slam came by way of Jeremiah Jackson in the bottom of the seventh. The O’s second baseman just got this one over the wall, too, but at least it wasn’t in any danger of being pulled back in. Baltimore would end up downing Houston, 10-3, but don’t fret, Astros’ fans. Houston won the other game, 11-5, and part of the reason for that… …was Yordan Alvarez’s continued resurgence from an injury-filled 2025. The Astros’ DH went yard for the 12th time in 2026 to put Houston up 6-0 in the second, following a strong first inning in which right fielder Cam Smith had hit a three-run homer to cap a five-run frame. Alvarez is now tied with Yankees’ star Aaron Judge and White Sox’ rookie Munetaka Murakami for the league lead in homers. Judge, you expect to see there, but Alvarez coming back with a vengeance like this and Murakami making his presence felt is something to behold. This was just a horrid start for Orioles’ right-hander Brandon Young, who lasted four innings while allowing 10 hits, two walks, two homers and 10 runs, seven of them earned. Again, though, two grand slams fixed/caused any potential issues in the other game, so, the day was a wash for both teams. The Mets. They have lost 17 of 20 games, despite being scheduled against the Twins, Rockies and Nationals to end April. As FOX Sports’ Deesha Thosar pointed out, that’s the fourth-worst April the Mets have had in their entire history. The problems are numerous — enough for Thosar to list out and break down — but let’s just focus on Thursday’s tilt against the Nats for a one-day look. Juan Soto is back, which is a boon for the Mets’ lacking lineup, except even the star outfielder can’t always escape the gravitational pull of this team. Right fielder James Wood brought him back down to Earth, robbing Soto of a solo homer in the first inning. The Nationals would then drop three runs on Mets’ starter Freddy Peralta across the second and third innings, but New York fought back almost immediately. Left fielder MJ Melendez hit a three-run home run off of Miles Mikolas in the bottom of the third, somehow taking this pitch way above the strike zone at his shoulders out of the park. Tie game. New York would push another run across in the sixth to go up 4-3, but that would be the end of their scoring. Peralta settled down, but he was lifted after six, and that’s where the problems began anew. Brooks Raley came on in relief and picked up a hold with a scoreless seventh, but Luke Weaver then came in for him, and did not perform nearly as well. Shortstop CJ Abrams, who had already driven in a run earlier, hit a Weaver changeup left over the middle of the zone 403 feet over the fence in right-center, putting Washington up 5-4. That would also be the final score. The Mets are 10-21, the worst record in MLB, and just got through what was supposed to be an easier part of the schedule. The calendar couldn’t flip over to May any faster for them, but it might not necessarily mean better things, considering. The Mets did, at least, give their fans quite the first pitch. Or a bunch of first pitches. Look, it’s the Team USA figure skaters throwing out the first pitch(es). Athletics’ first baseman won American League Rookie of the Year honors in 2025, and in 2026 he’s off to a slow start in some regards, but only some. That’s because, despite batting .231 to begin the year and facing a (relative) power outage, Kurtz has an OPS of .842 supported by a .417 on-base percentage. Kurtz went 1-for-3 with 2 RBIs, a run and a walk against the Royals on Thursday in a 6-3 A’s victory, and that walk added another game to a historic streak he has going on. The 23-year-old Kurtz has now walked in 19-straight games, tied with Hall of Famer and one of the all-time greats in Ted Williams. He’s behind only Barry Bonds’ 20-game streak across the 2002-2003 seasons and Roy Cullenbine’s 22-game streak from 1947 for the longest such run in MLB history. The hits and homers will come, especially if he has the eye to draw this many walks, and if they don’t come to the same degree as last year, it’s only because pitchers are terrified of his prodigious pop. But that careful pitching around him will just mean a whole lot more walks, and the A’s have plenty of other hitters to drive him in. Ronald Acuña Jr.’s defense is his one true weak spot, but that’s just in general. If you want to talk about the strength of his arm, that thing is a cannon. The Braves’ right fielder reminded everyone of that on Thursday with this deep throw to get second baseman Gleyber Torres as he attempted to stretch a single into a double. Not on Acuña’s watch. And hey, a bonus high-five for a fan after a catch in right. The Braves would end up losing to the Tigers, 5-2, as Detroit avoided the sweep, but these two plays can still be appreciated for what they are. Speaking of a defensive play, Reds’ shortstop Elly De La Cruz made the kind that you only used to see back before restrictions were put on how far fielders could change their positioning with shifting. Look at the range on display here on this grounder from Rockies’ first baseman TJ Rumfield, which was hit to second and made its way into the outfield grass. Then, De La Cruz happened. It would have been enough if De La Cruz had merely gotten to it and kept it from becoming an extra-base hit, but he stood up and fired the ball to first in time to get Rumfield for the out. What an impressive player he’s become over the years.