Last Night in Baseball: Yankees Finish Off Road Sweep of Struggling Red Sox

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: Yankees sweep spiraling Red Sox It just hasn’t been the Red Sox’ season so far. Boston has been outscored by 22 runs to this point, which, uncharitably, is the kind of thing you could link back to the one-two punch of trading slugging third baseman and DH Rafael Devers away after signing free agent Alex Bregman to a deal with an opt-out, and then, predictably, losing Bregman the next offseason, too. That’s a whole lot of offense to replace, and the Sox were relying on Caleb Durbin and Willson Contreras — both acquired this offseason — along with the influx of promising young players to manage it. Contreras has been great, but Durbin’s OPS+ is 26 — not a typo! — while returning young players like designated hitter Roman Anthony, right fielder Ceddanne Rafaela and second baseman Marcelo Mayer have been fairly mediocre; combined with terrible starts from left fielder Jarren Duran (.197/.265/.303) and shortstop Trevor Story (.186/.220/.294), well, it’s not hard to see where that -22 run differential came from. Boston’s pitching did the job on Thursday against the Yankees, in an attempt to not be swept by their greatest rivals. Payton Tolle, making his 2026 debut after being called up to start, threw six innings where he allowed just one run and struck out the first five Yankees that he faced. The 23-year-old Tolle would end up with 11 strikeouts for the night while allowing just four baserunners, one of those on a solo homer. And while catcher Carlos Narvaez broke the tie and gave the Red Sox a 2-1 lead with a dinger of his own… …the Yankees were able to feast once Tolle was out of the game. Reliever Danny Coloumbe came in for Tolle to start the seventh, and proceeded to give up three singles in a row, sandwiched between two outs: one to center fielder Trent Grisham, then to second baseman Jazz Chisholm Jr. and finally to shortstop Jose Caballero. The Yankees used Cody Bellinger as a pinch-hitter to get the platoon advantage with the bases loaded and two down, and Bellinger did what he was meant to do in that situation. Right fielder Aaron Judge would follow with the fifth paper cut — err, single — of the seventh, and the Yankees took a 4-2 lead. One they would not relinquish, thanks to the efforts of New York’s own young stud on the mound, Cam Schittler. The right-hander went eight innings striking out five against a walk and four hits, while allowing just a pair of runs. David Bednar came in for a save in the ninth, and threw a clean 1-2-3 inning against Boston’s two, three and four hitters — ballgame, Yankees. New York swept Boston here in their first meeting of the season, and the gap between the two feels massive right now. The Red Sox have managed to fall seven games behind the Yankees in the standings with a week of April still on the schedule. New York’s run differential is 59 runs better, through all of 25 games. Boston isn’t doomed yet — it’s too early for that sort of thing, and even in their current state the Sox are just four back of the last wild card spot — but all those names from the intro to this section? They are going to have to start hitting, soon, or this hole is going to keep getting deeper. Things only went up from here Just a leadoff home run, right? Not a great way to start a game, but these things happen. Don’t worry, here’s some context to make it all feel a little worse. 1.) JR Ritchie, the Braves’ starting pitcher, was making his MLB debut. 2.) The home run came on the very first pitch that Ritchie threw in the majors. And finally, 3.) his parents were in attendance, and the camera cut from them in the stands directly to the home run. Welcome to the majors, kid. James Wood recommends that you don’t throw a fastball down the pipe to a guy who can hit a ball nearly 400 feet. Which is most hitters in the bigs, by the way. There’s a happy ending to this sad tale, however. Ritchie gave up another solo dinger later on, but beyond that, he went seven frames with just five hits allowed, a pair of walks, just the two runs and struck out seven Nationals. That’s one hell of a debut, even if it started so inauspiciously. Atlanta’s hitters did their thing in the seventh, Ritchie’s final inning, which helped him pick up the W. Catcher Drake Baldwin scored on a wild pitch out of the hand of Gus Varland, then second baseman Ozzie Albies — who went 3-for-4 on the day with four RBIs and two runs — singled in two of those runs to make it 5-2. Center fielder Michael Harris II would add another run to make it 6-2, but Ritchie didn’t need anymore assistance than that initial wild pitch in the end. The Braves have now won 12 of 15 and, at 18-8, have the best record in MLB, as well as the best run differential (+62). The 2026 season feels a whole lot different than 2025 did at this point, that’s for sure, and Atlanta hadn’t even hit the worst stretches of their season yet in late-April. deGrom whiffs 10 You might need to sit down before hearing this, but, Jacob deGrom? He’s good at baseball. Through five starts, he now has a 2.13 ERA and has struck out 35 batters in 25.1 innings, with the last 10 of those punch outs all coming on Thursday against the Pirates. deGrom lasted for 5.2 innings, allowing five hits, a walk and one run, in what ended up being a 6-1 victory for both the right-hander and Texas. deGrom has been incredible with Texas — the only issue was that he wasn’t on the mound at first, as he managed just nine starts across those first two seasons. All told with the Rangers since 2023, though, deGrom has started 44 games and totaled 239 innings, producing a 2.79 ERA with 279 strikeouts against 49 walks. Did you know he’s the all-time leader in strikeout-to-walk ratio? He’s at 5.36 for his career, and he’s only gotten better in this respect as he ages: deGrom’s K/BB with Texas is 5.69. As for Thursday, he had some assistance outside of his 10 strikeouts. Check out this play from third baseman Josh Jung. Sure, that’s after deGrom exited in favor of reliever Gavin Collyer, but those were his baserunners waiting to come around to score, too. deGrom also got plenty of run support, with center fielder Evan Carter hitting an inside-the-park home run to put the Rangers up 2-0 in the third… …and then shortstop Corey Seager hit a three-run shot to give deGrom and the Rangers more cushion than they would end up needing. A big W for the Rangers there, as the AL West is very much anybody’s game both now and, presumably, deep into the season given that the favorites have all started so slowly. And even Texas, in first, is just 13-12 as they head into a weekend series against the Athletics, who are tied with the Rangers atop the division. More games like this one from deGrom will certainly help matters. Padres rally in the ninth for W It was looking like the Rockies were going to take the series against the Padres, a bit of revenge after being swept by them in a four-game set less than two weeks ago. Left fielder Mickey Moniak started off the scoring for Colorado early, hitting a solo homer, his seventh dinger of the season, in the first inning. He would then bash a second one in the sixth to put the Rockies up 7-4 in the sixth. Right fielder Troy Johnson would add another run on a single to right, scoring second baseman Tyler Freeman, an inning later. The Padres were down four, but cut into that a little in the eighth inning against reliever Juan Mejia when leadoff hitter and left fielder Ramon Laureano hit a ground ball single to score catcher Freddy Fermin. San Diego still had work to do, however, but that was what the ninth inning was for. Victor Vodnik, who relieved Mejia at the end of the eighth, came back out for the ninth. Center fielder Jackson Merrill would start things off with a walk, then third baseman Manny Machado singled. Shortstop Xander Bogaerts would follow with a single of his own to make it 8-6 with two on and still no outs. DH Miguel Andujar added yet another single — 8-7 Rockies — and things only escalated from there. Gavin Sheets came in as a pinch-hitter for first baseman Ty France — the left-handed Sheets is significantly better against right-handed pitchers than lefties — and went boom on the first pitch of the at-bat, a cutter in name only in the middle of the zone. The Padres would make three outs in a row after this shot, but they were also up 10-8 at this point thanks to a five-run rally. That was more than enough for closer Mason Miller, who hasn’t given up a run since early August of 2025: after facing the minimum in the ninth, Miller has now tied Cla Meredith’s franchise record with 33.2 scoreless innings. With the Dodgers shutting out the Giants, 3-0 — eight shutout innings from Tyler Glasnow got that job done — this was a huge comeback for San Diego, which remains tied atop the NL West with Los Angeles (as well as now six games up on San Francisco). It’s too early to celebrate anything about the standings at the top, of course, but every day the Padres keep pace with the Dodgers — or anywhere near the back-to-back champions — is better than the alternative for them. Mets don’t blow it again Hey, the Mets tried to blow it. The 12-game losing streak might be over, but that doesn’t mean all of New York’s problems have vanished. This was evident on Thursday against the Twins, but there were some bright points to pick out, too. Such as when the Mets responded to a first-inning run by the Twins with a three-run homer from right fielder Brett Baty in the bottom of the frame. The Mets would push their lead to 7-2 by the fourth inning, when left fielder Carson Benge hit a solo shot off of starter Joe Ryan, who would somehow stay on the mound for another inning after this. The Twins would work their way back into things in short order, though. First, third baseman Tristan Gray homered to cut the lead to four in the sixth, and then in the eighth, it felt like New York was about to start a new losing streak. Catcher Ryan Jeffers, facing Huascar Brazoban with Craig Kimbrel’s bequeathed runners on base, hit a grand slam on a sinker down the middle to tie the game up. That sinker didn’t sink so much as gradually and calmly come right into contact with Jeffers’ bat; there was only one possible result on a pitch like that one. This was not the end for the Mets, though, even if it felt like, on a night when the bats actually did wake up, that the pitching would give the game away, instead. And that’s because the Mets, once again, responded immediately: third baseman Bo Bichette hit a bases-clearing double in the bottom of the eighth, putting New York up 10-7. While closer Devin Williams once again made things wildly uncomfortable to watch — three hits and a run in just 0.2 innings — this time he at least got the outs he needed to, and the Mets won. It wasn’t pretty, no, but New York ended up stopping their 12-game losing streak and winning a series, too: thanks to this, they swapped places in the NL East basement with the Phillies, who are nearing their own double-digit losing streak after nearly coming from behind against the Cubs only to lose in the end, anyway. Tigers walk off the Brewers The Brewers made it a game again, scoring three in the seventh inning against the defending AL Cy Young winner Tarik Skubal to chase him and go up 4-3. But the Tigers chipped away, scoring one in the eight to tie things back up, and then first baseman Spencer Torkelson delivered his one and only hit of the game at the perfect time: in the bottom of the ninth. Well, not perfect for Milwaukee. But Detroit should be pretty pleased about it, at least.