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 the weekend in Major League Baseball:
Skenes is unreal
Since the end of May, Paul Skenes’ ERA has been no higher than 2.15. He’s made 12 starts since then, and at the end of seven of them his ERA was actually under 2.00, and got as low as 1.78 in a month in which he allowed a total of two runs across five starts.
After a trip to Colorado to face the Rockies to open August it rose above 2.00 again— even Skenes isn’t immune to giving up some runs in that environment, as he allowed four in five innings — but he’s back leading the majors at 1.94 following a dominant performance against the Reds. Skenes threw six shutout innings where he scattered 7 hits, while striking out 8 batters against zero walks.Â
What’s been fascinating about his season is that he’s repeating the kinds of numbers he put up in 2024 as a rookie, ones that looked as if they might not hold in the long run. Just 6.4 hits per nine? Well he has to prove he can do that again — he’s at 6.3 this year. Allowing 0.7 homers per nine? Pretty great in this era, but let’s see him do it ag— oh he’s at a league-best 0.4 this season. All of 2.2 walks per nine? Try 2.1 this time around. And, of course, he’s followed up his 1.96 ERA as a rookie with a 1.94 showing to this point.
Just how good can Skenes be, if this is who he is fewer than 300 innings into his MLB career, barely more than two years since he was drafted? He’s still 23 years old! His ERA is the lowest ever through 47 starts, per MLB’s research! Just incredible stuff.
Dudes rock
Reds’ shortstop Elly De La Cruz is 6-foot-5. Pirates’ outfielder Oneil Cruz is 6-foot-7. Matt McClain is… not that tall. He’s average height, OK! But for a baseball player, maybe not so much, which De La Cruz and Cruz goofed on him for on Thursday.
Baldwin’s 2-HR night
The Braves trailed 6-2 through the first five innings of Thursday’s game against the Marlins, and then Drake Baldwin happened. He’d already gone deep earlier in the game, but here he hit his second home run of the night, a three-run shot that scored Matt Olson and Jurickson Profar and brought Atlanta within a run.
The Braves then scored three more runs over the next two frames — with Baldwin recording another RBI — and Marcell Ozuna plating Profar to give them the lead. Atlanta would win, 8-6, as their pitching held Miami scoreless after the fourth.Â
Baldwin’s two-homer game was the first in his career, but the rookie catcher has been a steady force in Atlanta’s lineup all season. He’s slashing .287/.356/.484 with 13 home runs and 46 RBIs through 83 games, and despite having to split time behind the plate with Sean Murphy and find other at-bats elsewhere, he’s second on the Braves in wins above replacement at 2.7.
Look what I found
Blink and you’ll miss it, but there was a great barehanded and backhanded grab in the stands at the Marlins-Braves game:Â
Jonathan Ornelas hit a ball into foul territory high up in the left field stands, and this fan just snags it out of the air without a glove. And then handed it off to another fan sitting in another row. All too casual, really, that’s someone who has caught a baseball or two in their day.
Mariners walk it off
The Mariners outlasted the White Sox 4-3 in 11 innings on Thursday. Outfielder Dominic Canzone was the hero, coming through with the first walk-off hit of his career. He slapped a bases-loaded single to score Eugenio Suárez, who just made it in before the tag.
The Mariners have won five of their last six games, and sit just 1.5 back of the Houston Astros for the AL West lead. They also hold the second wild card at the moment, 1.5 games up on the Yankees and just one behind the leading wild-card holder, the Red Sox. And this despite Suárez not hitting like he’s supposed to yet since he was acquired at the trade deadline. Hey, at least Josh Naylor has been an improvement, as the Mariners wanted: he’s hitting .261/.320/.478 with 3 homers in 13 games since his trade to Seattle.
A’s shutout Nationals
Athletics pitching has been terrible in 2025, so let’s shout out a start that was far from that. Jacob Lopez threw 7.2 shutout innings with 10 strikeouts and no walks against the Nationals on Thursday, helping the A’s to a 6-0 victory. The 6-foot-4 lefty has been a bright spot for the rotation in his 14 starts, limiting opponents to a .221/.309/.360 line with a 3.39 ERA in 69 innings.Â
Lopez, along with Jeffrey Springs, is the only starter with an above-average ERA+ at this point in the year on the A’s roster. A few more guys like that, and they’ll be able to regularly support a lineup that has been putting in the work all season.
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