Last Night In Baseball: The Dodgers Came Back And Then Some

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:

Hey, it all started out well enough. Third baseman Manny Machado put the Padres ahead 2-0 when he got a hold of a 97.2-mph four-seam fastball on the inner-third of the zone. Over his last 19 games, by the way, Machado once again looks like he was expected to at the plate, as he’s hit .257/.361/.629 with 14 extra-base hits — six of them homers — following a horrific start to the year that’ll mar his line through the end of the season.

That, and San Diego piling on to build a 6-0 lead, were bits of good news from Thursday. The problem is that the game kept going after that all happened.

The Dodgers scored two runs in the bottom of the second to cut the lead to four, then another two in the third. Los Angeles then scored four in the fourth, and suddenly the Padres were down two.

Plenty of game left, right? Yes, but not in a good way for San Diego. The Dodgers scored three runs over the next two innings, as well, and another in the eighth to make it 12 unanswered runs. The Padres finally scored again in the ninth, but also had center fielder Andy Pages do this to them, so it wasn’t exactly an inspiring inning.

Right fielder Kyle Tucker went 4-for-4 with three runs, an RBI and a walk. Catcher Dalton Rushing also went 4-for-4, except with four RBIs — he hit both a double and a homer, and finished with eight total bases. San Diego actually hit pretty well, scoring seven while every starter had a hit and a few picked up at least one walk, but the pitching was once again not up to the task. The Dodgers were able to rebound from another poor Roki Sasaki start, thanks to the bullpen and lineup, but every San Diego pitcher allowed, at minimum, two runs.

Sure, Junior Caminero’s home run streak ended without the third baseman making it seven-straight games with a dinger, but that didn’t stop the Rays from picking up another W. With a 5-2 win over the Royals, Tampa Bay has now won eight in a row.

This matchup kicked off with Royals’ catcher Carter Jensen going yard on the fourth pitch of the game…

…but the Rays evened things up in the second on an RBI double from shortstop Taylor Walls, and then went up 3-1 when backstop Hunter Feduccia tripled in another. No Caminero homer? No problem: center fielder Cedric Mullins had one ready to go — his third game in a row with a long ball.

And Walls not only had that double, but he also made one heck of an over-the-shoulder grab when Tampa Bay hadn’t built up its biggest lead yet.

With the Rays winning and the Yankees not in action, Tampa Bay is now four games up in the AL East — that’s not its biggest lead of the season, but it’s close to the 5.5 the Rays were up back on May 22.

Yes, the Rays won and the Royals lost, that’s how these things work, but: check out this little bit of weirdo baseball physics from Kansas City’s infield.

There are lots of things you can do with a baseball. Some of them might even be on purpose!

The White Sox and Guardians are facing off in a huge four-game series this weekend — huge not just because of the number of games, but because of their importance. On Thursday morning, Chicago was just one game up on Cleveland in the AL Central standings, in no small part thanks to winning the previous series against the Guardians mere weeks ago, with the first game ending with a walk-off W for the White Sox.

This time, with the series in Cleveland, things started off similarly: the home team picked up the first dub with a walk-off. In this case, a blast from shortstop Brayan Rocchio that erased Chicago’s 5-4 lead with one swing of the bat.

Was it the furthest homer you have ever seen? Pretty average, really! Counts the same in the boxscore, though, and now the White Sox and Guardians are tied atop the Central, and Cleveland has a chance to retake the lead even at a time when star slugger José Ramírez is on the IL.

The 2026 FIFA World Cup is ongoing, which means international soccer fans are still looking for things to do on the nights that their teams aren’t playing. Australia’s supporters found themselves at Thursday’s Rangers-Tigers game in Texas, and were ready for showtime.

They didn’t just have the camera pointed at them for existing, though. One lucky fan managed to catch a foul ball, to the delight of everyone around them.

Australia has its own professional baseball league, so this isn’t a case of an international fan coming in just to see what’s up with something that has roots in America. The Socceroos know ball already.

Hopefully they were rooting for the Rangers and not the Tigers last night, though, because Texas won this one in a walk. DH Elias Díaz got the scoring going in the bottom of the second with a dinger, his fourth of the year, to put the Rangers up 1-0. 

Texas would then add two more runs before the inning ended, on a bases-loaded walk from third baseman Josh Jung and a sacrifice fly by right fielder Ezequiel Duran right after. Jung would add an RBI double in the fourth, with Duran knocking him in next, and it was 5-0 Rangers before the Tigers could answer at all.

The Tigers would finally respond, but Texas didn’t stop scoring: another in the sixth, three more in the seventh and then finally the capper in the eighth — a solo shot from Evan Carter, who had entered as a pinch-hitter and picked up a single earlier in the game before scoring the Rangers’ seventh run.

Nathan Eovaldi went five innings allowing three runs, with nine strikeouts and a walk helping him keep it to just three. The W helped keep the Rangers tied for first in the AL West, as the Mariners also won, 1-0, against the Angels.

As for the Tigers… Framber Valdez hasn’t quite worked out as hoped to this point. His strikeouts are down, his homers are up, his ERA and adjusted ERAs match up well — Valdez was signed to a short-term, high-average annual value deal to help ease the potential transition away from Tarik Skubal, but he’s looked more like a mid-rotation guy than someone who picks up Cy Young votes in 2026; five runs in five innings on Thursday was another such instance.

In the top of the first against the Braves, Cardinals’ right fielder Jordan Walker went deep to put St. Louis up, 3-0. He hit this one just shy of 400 feet, and even better, did it with family in attendance.

The answer to the question posed in the subhed, by the way? Rallying for seven runs in the seventh inning to beat the Braves. That’s pretty specific, yes, but it’s also what happened for the Cardinals on Thursday — Atlanta would score the next five runs to take the lead, but it was all Cardinals from there. Walker was involved in that inning, too, first driving in the eighth run for St. Louis on a single and then scoring the 10th on a slide you have to see.

One that has to be seen twice, really: it was challenged by the Braves, but review confirmed that Walker did, indeed, get around the tag of Atlanta’s catcher, Drake Baldwin. The Cardinals were done scoring in the seventh after Walker’s slick move, but not for the game, as first baseman Alec Burleson still had a 107.5 mph exclamation point to the right field stands to get to.

St. Louis would get the dub, 11-5, and bring its record to 45-39: the Cards are just one game up on the Marlins for the final wild-card spot, after Miami lost 14-4 to the Rockies to end up with a split in that series.

Jacob Misiorowski has been nigh untouchable in 2026, but even the greatest pitchers have their off nights. Miz allowed a solo homer to third baseman Sal Stewart in the first inning…

…and then gave up a three-run jack to catcher Jose Trevino — his fifth of the year — in the fourth.

There are some extenuating circumstances, however. First baseman Jake Bauers started the inning making an error on a catch, allowing left fielder JJ Bleday to reach first, and things spiraled from there, leading to four unearned runs scoring. Misiorowski still has to bear the burden of giving up the hits and homer that followed, but is ERA, at least, is untouched — things could have played out much differently if not for the leadoff runner making it instead of sitting down.

That the Reds took advantage is a compliment to them, too. Miz struck out 10 batters for the seventh time this season despite the fourth-inning setback, and didn’t walk anyone. Per MLB’s Sarah Langs, his 1.47 ERA ranks as the fifth-lowest through the first 17 starts of a season in the last 50 years.

This was about as necessary of a win as you can have in July, as the Reds even after the victory are six games back of the last wild-card spot in the NL. The talent on the roster is there, but Cincinnati needs to rack up some Ws before too much more season gets away from it.

The Phillies got to Paul Skenes earlier in the series, but on Thursday Pittsburgh was able to get some measure of revenge. 

The Pirates gave up an early RBI double to first baseman Bryce Harper in the third to break the scoreless tie, but that would be all Philadelphia would manage all game. It wasn’t just a matter of runs, either: Harper’s double was one of just four hits in the entire game for the Phillies.

Pirates’ starter Jared Jones struck out six batters with two walks, two hits and a run allowed, and was then lifted after four innings. Carmen Mlodzinski would pitch the next three frames, with two more relievers coming in after them, and the trio combined for four strikeouts, no walks and two hits.

Rookie Esmerlyn Valdez continues to tear things up. He went 2-for-4 with a run and three RBIs, and is now batting .316/.375/.737 with six homers and 11 extra-base hits in his first 19 MLB games. The 22-year-old has been huge for the Pirates’ offense, but the team needs more nights like this where the pitching staff does its job for that to matter.

The trade deadline is a month away, however: the Pirates should be able to shop to patch up some holes, and an improved pitching staff with this lineup is going to go places.