When the baseball gods are present at Fenway Park, that’s usually good news for the home team, but a pregame visitor to the Giants’ clubhouse on Thursday morning handed the visiting club some much needed mojo as they pulled off a 3-1 victory and avoided a sweep.

Prior to the game, Mike Yastrzemski was visited by his Hall of Fame grandfather Carl, one of the greatest Red Sox players of all time. The Giants’ right fielder was able to spend about 10 minutes with the man he calls “Papa Yaz” and though they didn’t talk baseball, some magic rubbed off somewhere in the mix.

“I think he left the car running when he came in here,” joked Mike of his grandfather’s brief visit to the ballpark. “That’s normal. He’s quick to the point. We didn’t even really talk about hitting. He just asked how I was feeling physically. Good to see him and it was fun to have him around for a minute.”

One year after the Braves’ Ronald Acuña Jr. became the first player in MLB history to produce 40-plus homers and 70-plus steals in a season, the Reds’ Elly De La Cruz is threatening to form a club of his own: the 40-90 Club.

Cincinnati’s budding superstar is off to a historic start -- he finished April with eight homers and 18 steals, becoming the first player on record to hit both of those marks in any calendar month.

De La Cruz is currently on pace to end 2024 with an almost unfathomable 42 homers and 94 stolen bases. He’s slashing .280/.389/.579 (171 OPS+) to boot.

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/14897119

How the night unfolded: https://www.mlb.com/news/abner-uribe-jose-siri-brewers-rays-benches-clear

Trout, a three-time AL MVP and 11-time All-Star, suffered a torn meniscus in his left knee in Monday’s 6-5 win over the Phillies and will undergo surgery in the coming days, general manager Perry Minasian announced. It’s not expected to be a season-ending operation, but no immediate timetable was provided from the Angels or Trout.

“It’s tough,” said an emotional Trout prior to the Angels' 7-5 loss to the Phillies on Tuesday night at Angel Stadium. “It’s just frustrating. But we’ll get through it.”

Trout, 32, said the hardest part is he’s not even sure when he sustained the injury. He had no knee issues leading up to Monday’s series opener, but felt something while jogging off the field in the third inning. Trout continued to play through the injury, including stealing second base in the seventh inning and scoring the eventual winning run from second base on a wild pitch. But his knee continued to worsen and he underwent an MRI exam on Tuesday that revealed the damage.

“It’s crazy because when I look back, I don’t even know when I did it,” Trout said. “In the third inning when I was going back to the dugout, I felt an ache, but just like a little ache where it was more like, ‘This is weird.’ Didn’t think anything of it and was hitting and running and didn’t feel anything. Stole second, felt nothing. It was just after I did activity and sat back down and got back up, that’s when I felt it.”

Trout was off to a strong start to his season with a .220/.325/.541 line and 10 home runs, which were tied with Gunnar Henderson for the most in the Majors. Trout has also been more active on the bases this year, with as many steals (six) as he had in the last four years combined.

Trout called it another freak injury that was out of his control and was clearly frustrated by the prospect of missing time yet again.

“It’s all guesses, trying to pinpoint where this came from,” Trout said. “You play the game hard and [stuff] happens.”

Unfortunately for Trout and the Angels, injuries have become a recurring theme in recent years. Trout played in just 82 games last year due to a fractured wrist and 36 games in 2021 due to a right calf strain. He cleared 100 games played in 2022 but has not played in 130 or more games since 2019.

“We’re going to miss Mike,” manager Ron Washington said. “I think we know what he means to this organization. But the thing about baseball is, when there's a game on the schedule, you have to play. Some guys are going to get the opportunity that they've been craving. Now, we're going to see what they’re going to do.”

The start of Tuesday night's game between the Diamondbacks and Los Angeles Dodgers was delayed nearly two hours after a bee colony swarmed the top of the protective netting behind home plate.

Matt Hilton turned into the star of the night for removing the bees, earning a brief slice of stardom and the nod to throw out the ceremonial first pitch.

"Minor leagues to the big leagues now," said Hilton, branch manager for Blue Sky Pest Control's Phoenix office. "It's pretty cool."

The buzz started about five minutes before first pitch.

Mike Rock, the Diamondbacks' vice president of baseball operations, got a call from the senior manager of events telling him a growing colony of bees was collecting atop the netting.

"She doesn't usually call me about that time. I knew something was odd," Rock said. "She said we have bees landing on the net right behind home plate. I said, 'How many?' And she said, 'Hundreds -- no way, thousands.' And I knew we had a problem."

The prominent modifications include a return to larger lettering on the back of jerseys, remedying mismatched gray tops and bottoms and addressing the new Nike jerseys' propensity to collect sweat, according to the memo distributed to players by the MLB Players Association on Sunday.

Kirby carved his way through the D-backs for a career-high 12 strikeouts over seven scoreless innings on Saturday night at T-Mobile Park, lifting the Mariners to a 3-1 victory to clinch their fourth straight winning series.

Six days after Kirby felt minor arm soreness and departed after five scoreless innings and 88 pitches at Coors Field, he was in peak form -- and not just in the box score. Kirby came out firing his four-seam fastball harder than he has all season, generating seven whiffs among the eight total swings in the first inning, when he struck out the side exclusively on heaters.

From there, he was off and running. Kirby topped out at 99.3 mph, his fastest pitch of the year and strike three to Lourdes Gurriel Jr., and sat at 96.4 mph on the four-seamer, a healthy 1.2 mph uptick from his season average.

Velocity and whiffs have always been part of Kirby’s game, but never like this. And though the game plan with catcher Cal Raleigh called for a heavy dose of heaters, they doubled down once they realized what they were working with.