White Sox fans got a rare kind of power surge over the weekend, one that put Miguel Vargas, Colson Montgomery and Munetaka Murakami in the same breath. Vargas and Montgomery had already cleared the 30-homer barrier in Friday’s 4-1 win over the Twins, and Murakami joined the club Saturday with a two-run blast off Twins right-hander Taj Bradley in the first inning.
It snapped a 16-game homer drought for Murakami and made him the fourth Japanese-born player to reach 30 homers in a season, alongside Shohei Ohtani, Seiya Suzuki and Hideki Matsui. The White Sox still ended up losing 6-4, but they now have three 30-homer hitters for the first time since Jim Thome, Jermaine Dye and Carlos Quentin did it in 2008.
Rafael Devers kept rolling for the Giants, and he did it with authority. In Saturday’s 9-5 win in New York, Devers went deep twice, giving him five home runs in his last five games this month.
That production also put him in a very select class: he became just the third Giant since at least 1900 to post at least six homers and seven walks over a six-game stretch in a season, according to Sarah Langs of MLB.com. The only others are Willie Mays in 1958 and Barry Bonds in 2004.
Devers’ turnaround has been dramatic. When May arrived, he was sitting on the majors’ ninth-lowest wRC+ at 48.
Since then, he’s put up a 157 wRC+, trailing only Cubs NL MVP front-runner Pete Crow-Armstrong at 174 and Astros Triple Crown contender Yordan Alvarez at 166.
Toronto’s season has been messy, with injuries piling up and Vladimir Guerrero Jr. and others not living up to expectations. Even so, the Blue Jays have kept themselves in the mix, and Saturday’s 4-3 win over the Royals pushed them into a better place than they’ve been in months.
Toronto won for the fourth straight time, improved to 72-71 and will enter Sunday holding the third Wild Card spot in the AL. The Jays and Guardians have the same record, but Toronto owns the tiebreaker.
It’s also the first time the Blue Jays have been above .500 since April 3, when they were 4-3, according to Keegan Matheson of MLB.com.
Meanwhile, the Red Sox will try to finish off a four-game road sweep and a third straight shutout when they send southpaw Payton Tolle against Orioles right-hander Kyle Bradish on Sunday. Boston has already handled Baltimore with run prevention on both ends of the rotation.
Ranger Suarez threw seven strong innings in Friday’s 1-0 win, and Sonny Gray followed by blanking the Orioles in Saturday’s 5-0 victory. Gray worked seven innings of three-hit ball, struck out seven and walked three while picking up his major league-leading 17th win.
Baltimore has now dropped five straight and sits at 69-74, three games behind AL East rival Toronto in the Wild Card race. The Orioles and Blue Jays will meet six times later this month, but Baltimore has to steady itself first.
In Other News...
Orioles Late-Season Injury Picture Just Got More Complicated
The Orioles spent part of their series against the Guardians sorting through a late-season injury picture that keeps shifting around the edges. Keegan Akin and Ryan Mountcastle are both with the club, giving Baltimore at least a couple of familiar faces back in the mix, while the team also laid out where several others stand in their recoveries as the calendar keeps moving toward the finish.
Mountcastle will not play again this season because of an oblique injury, a reminder of how much attrition has worn on the roster, and the rehab updates do not bring a simple wave of reinforcements just yet. Luis Robert Jr. and Christian Franklin are working in Sarasota, Flix Bautista is at Triple-A Norfolk on assignment, and Kyle Bradish is being handled carefully after Tommy John surgery, with his workload watched closely as the Orioles keep managing one of the more complicated health charts on the board. [Read more 🡒]
Orioles Face Two Big Questions As Wild Card Push Gets Tighter
The Wild Card race has tightened enough that every little update matters, and Craig Albernaz had a familiar opponent in mind when he talked about the Orioles place in it. The Baltimore manager, who spent time on the Guardians coaching staff, knows how closely these two clubs are watching each other as the standings compress and the margin for error shrinks. For the Orioles, the late-season picture is being shaped not just by the schedule, but by the health of a roster that has had to juggle a few key moving parts.
Ryan Helsley, Tyler ONeill, Flix Bautista, Ryan Mountcastle, Keegan Akin, Luis Robert Jr. and Christian Franklin all figure into that evolving injury picture, and Baltimores recent stretch has made each of those updates feel more important. The club has been trying to keep pace while sorting through those absences and tracking its recent results, but with the Guardians right there in the mix, the bigger questions are starting to come into focus. How quickly those players can return, and how much they can help once they do, may decide just how long the Orioles stay in the hunt. [Read more 🡒]
Orioles Fans Just Got Another Brutal Reminder About This Rebuild
A rough week for the Orioles in Boston did not end with much comfort for anyone still tracking where this rebuild stands. The Red Sox completed a four-game sweep, and in the same stretch of bad news for Baltimore, former Orioles catcher Adley Rutschman was already making noise in his new home with Boston by leaving the yard against Angels pitcher Grayson Rodriguez, another familiar name to Baltimore fans.
Rodriguez, once a first-round pick the Orioles hoped would help anchor the next wave, is now with the Angels after being dealt last winter for outfielder Taylor Ward. His Baltimore exit followed a frustrating run of injuries and uneven performance, which only adds to the sting when ex-Orioles keep popping up in meaningful moments elsewhere. Baltimore did at least stop the bleeding with a win the same day, ending a six-game skid, but the bigger picture for fans remains hard to ignore. [Read more 🡒]