Last Night In Baseball: Dodgers Catch Up To MLB-Best Braves

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 Braves still have a better record than the Dodgers, thanks to having two fewer losses, but Los Angeles has still made significant strides of late. Not only are the Dodgers now eight games up on the second-place Padres in the NL West, but a win against the Rays on Monday has them in a tie with Atlanta for the most wins in MLB, with 46. Now, June hasn’t gone as well for Los Angeles as May did, but that’s true for Atlanta, as well — the point is that the Dodgers have caught up. And while they did drop a weekend series to the White Sox — also in first place in their division — a dub against the Rays helps with forgetting that. Tampa Bay scored three quick runs in the first and second innings, but Los Angeles evened the score with one swing of the bat in the bottom of the second. With shortstop Mookie Betts and third baseman Max Muncy already on, outfielder Kyle Tucker hit his sixth home run of the season to make it a 3-3 ballgame. Tucker also performed on the other side of the ball, and good thing for the Dodgers, too. Neither team would score again until the seventh, as both starters — Nick Martinez for the Rays and Eric Lauer for the Dodgers — settled down in a hurry after those early frames, so this out at the plate in the bottom of the third, courtesy a strong throw from right, became that much more important with each passing inning. It took a pinch-hitter to finally get another run across in this one. Miguel Rojas came off the bench to face reliever Steven Matz, and he saw exactly one pitch: a 93.8 mph sinker that did not sink so much as stay up in the zone and in — Rojas launched it 380 feet over the wall in left-center, and it proved to be the game-winner. The Rays fall to 1.5 behind the inactive Yankees in the AL East, while the Dodgers get to celebrate not just matching the Braves’ win total, but also that Tucker seems to finally be waking up at the plate. He’s certainly not where he’s supposed to be just yet, but he’s finally over a league-average OPS+ after going 2-for-4 with a homer on Monday, and is batting .269/.375/.423 over his last seven games. It’s a start for a guy who signed a four-year, $240 million contract and hasn’t looked much like that kind of player to this point. The Rockies made a real effort to make the Cubs’ lives worse. Down 2-1 in the top of the eighth, rookie shortstop Cole Carrigg blasted his third homer of the year — and in just seven games — to make it 4-2, Rockies. Chicago would get one back when center fielder Pete Crow-Armstrong knocked in a run with a sac fly in the bottom of the eighth, making it 4-3, but it was in the ninth when the game was won. Designated hitter Seiya Suzuki led off the ninth with a walk, then advanced to third on a combo fielder’s choice and throwing error by pitcher Juan Mejia that also resulted in left fielder Ian Happ on first base. Then, shortstop Nico Hoerner walked to load the bases, bringing up second baseman Pedro Ramírez to face new pitcher Seth Halvorsen. A new arm did not help. Ramírez would shoot a single into left, scoring Suzuki and tying the game — the Cubs could afford to be patient and send just one runner, as the bases were still loaded and there were no outs. And that patience was further exhibited and rewarded, as right fielder Matt Shaw drew a five-pitch walk to give the Cubs the W. While the game was officially won with a walk, there was a whole lot more going on in there than that. Especially for Pete Crow-Armstrong, who not only hit a cycle, but pulled off a reverse cycle. It started with a leadoff dinger in the first… …and ended with a single in the bottom of the seventh. In between, PCA hit a triple in the bottom of the fourth — his fourth of the year — and doubled in the fifth. A cycle is rare enough, but a reverse cycle is something else: per MLB Stats, this is just the fifth reverse cycle recorded since 1961, which is as far back as accurate data for this goes. It’s also the 13th cycle of any kind in Cubs’ history — which began way back in 1876 — so Crow-Armstrong made his way onto two real short lists with this one. If you want to see all four hits in order, then we’ve got you covered. That early season slump, as terrible as it was — and lengthy, too, since it began back at the All-Star break last year — seems to be over. PCA has hit .333/.407/.658 with nine of his 13 homers in his last 30 games, and seven of those long balls in his last 15. The Cubs are still under .500 in June despite his efforts, but hey, he’s one guy. It’s not that Tigers’ third baseman Colt Keith is some massive power hitter, but he still had, until recently, been suffering a complete power outage in 2026. In both 2024 and 2025, he hit 13 homers each, but it took until June 11 for his first long ball of the current season. Thanks to the Astros’ pitching, Keith has caught up to his usual pace, and all at once. On Monday, he was hit by a pitch in the first inning, resulting in a 1-0 Tigers’ lead. And from the look of what followed, he took that personally. Keith came up again in the top of the third, and hit an 84 mph Kai-Wei Teng sweeper left middle-middle 411 feet for a homer to right-center; 4-0, Tigers. He would come up against reliever Jayden Murray in the seventh, and the result was the same: a changeup left middle-middle, this time hit just 344 feet, but over the wall in right all the same to make it 8-3, Tigers. Keith then came to the plate in the ninth against Bryan Abreu, and you’re never going to believe this, but hit another mid-80s pitch that caught too much of the middle of the zone for a dinger. This time, it went 347 feet and to left field — the slider was middle, yes, but middle outside, and Keith went with it the other way. He’s still not quite where he has been the past two years, but .267/.311/.390 looks a whole lot better than where he was before Thursday’s game, slugging just .322. The Tigers held on for a 9-3 win against the Astros, with Keith scoring three runs himself and driving in six on the day to get them there. The Mets won the weekend series from the first-place Braves, but immediately took any momentum and joy that could come from that shocker and buried it under a 12-0 loss to the Reds. It’s just been that kind of season for New York, which now sits at just 32-40 at the bottom of the NL East. Given the Mets never scored, the game was technically lost the moment that Cincinnati pushed a run across — which happened in the first, when first baseman Spencer Steer grounded out but drove in a run, and then third baseman Eugenio Suárez hit a two-run homer. The point where things truly felt lost, though, was when Suárez hit his second long ball of the day: a grand slam to make it 9-0 in the bottom of the second. There had already been a bases-loaded walk to left fielder JJ Bleday, and then a single from DH Sal Stewart, before Suárez strode to the plate. It was a complete disaster start for Tobias Myers, and then Jonathan Pintaro couldn’t fully stop the bleeding when he came on in relief. David Peterson didn’t do much better, either, going the last three innings and allowing another three runs. On the other side, Chase Burns pitched five shutout frames with seven strikeouts against three walks and four hits, then three Reds relievers kept putting zeroes on the board the rest of the way. Cincinnati is also in last place, but just three games out of a wild-card spot compared to the Mets’ 5.5. Speaking of shutouts, we had a rarity on Monday in the complete-game variety in St. Louis. Cardinals’ starting pitcher made short work of the Padres, going the distance on 101 pitches. He had some help, naturally. Maybe less of a “dive” than falling forward a little awkwardly, but it got the job done, just like May. He actually got into the seventh inning with a perfect game intact! While that did end, May didn’t lose the groove after allowing a baserunner. He gave up just the one hit and one walk, and struck out nine Padres. He dropped his ERA to 3.75 from 4.21 with this one performance, which is partially because it was his 14th start of the year and not his 34th, but also because it was just a killer. With the Brewers inactive, the Cardinals moved half-a-game closer in the NL Central with the W, and are now 4.5 back as well as 2.5 up for a wild-card spot. The Phillies would also win in a shutout on Monday, taking down the Marlins 7-0, but the big highlight came on the first MLB hit and homer for rookie right fielder Gabriel Rincones Jr. In the bottom of the second, he took Marlins’ starter Ryan Gusto yard with a dinger that came off the bat at 105.1 mph and gave the Phillies the only run they would need for the dub. Even better? Rincones’ family was in attendance to see it happen. He’s already 25 years old, which isn’t old by any means, but he’s not some top prospect, young hotshot rookie, either — MLB ranked him as the 10th prospect in Philadelphia’s system last season, and sixth this year. This is a guy who was drafted twice, in 2021 and 2022 in the third round, and didn’t even get started in the minors until he was already in his age-22 season in ‘23. He played solidly at Triple-A last year and struggled a bit this season, but got the call and answered it with a homer. Baseball rules. The Athletics finished their six-game “homestand” in their future home of Las Vegas, where baseballs flew out of the ballpark with enough regularity that the Rockies — the Rockies! — broke their franchise record for runs scored with 23 on Sunday. That’s not a knock on the quality of Colorado’s baseball team, but a reminder that they play in Colorado, famously, a mile high. Nick Kurtz, though, doesn’t need the hitter-friendly space of Las Vegas Ballpark in order to hit for power. The A’s first baseman hit home run No. 17 of the season in the bottom of the second to put the Athletics up 3-0, a 407-foot blast that launched off the bat at 112 mph… …and then delivered No. 18 in the bottom of the seventh, a 380-foot shot, when the game was already out of hand for the Pirates — Pittsburgh ended up losing 11-2. Kurtz has been great all season long, but the power was lacking for most of it, at least relative to what he has already shown himself capable of in his brief MLB career. The issue seemed to be less with Kurtz and more that opposing pitchers were terrified of giving last year’s AL Rookie of the Year something he could send into orbit, which has resulted in his already surpassing last season’s walk total, while leading the league in on-base percentage. Over his last 31 games, though, Kurtz has been an unstoppable terror. He hit homers in three consecutive games, from May 13 through 15 after having just five for the season to that point, and has since batted .336/.479/.745. The walks haven’t stopped during this stretch: Kurtz has just figured out when to go on the offensive, and is making sure that the pitches he does get to hit are punished. This has been especially true in June, as he has eight homers alone in those 13 games, and is slugging .833. Time for the pitchers to adjust again.