There is always baseball happening — almost too much baseball for one person to handle themselves.
That’s why we’re here to help, though, by sifting through the previous days’ games, and figuring out what you missed, but shouldn’t have. Here are all the best moments from the weekend in Major League Baseball:
Skubal knows how to throw that ball
Sunday was a big game for the Detroit Tigers and Cleveland Guardians in more ways than one.
In the present, the Guardians were trying to complete a four-game sweep and put more pressure on the first-place Tigers. Looking back to 1901, the winner would also break a 1,161-all tie between the two franchises.
With those kinds of stakes, it only seems fitting that Tigers ace Tarik Skubal decided to have a historic outing of his own. The 28-year-old Cy Young winner threw the first complete game of his career in a 5-0 win for Detroit.
Not only that, but Skubal accomplished a “Maddux,” which means he recorded a complete-game shutout and needed fewer than 100 pitches to do it. (The stat was named for, as you have probably deduced, Hall of Fame pitcher Greg Maddux.)
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Guardians vs. Tigers Highlights | MLB on FOX
But that’s not all! Skubal’s final pitch, his 94th, was his fastest of the afternoon, and as such, he became one of three pitchers to ever hit 102 mph 75+ pitches into a start, taking the lead there by 0.2 mph. He also struck out 13 batters, the most ever in a Maddux game.
So maybe we should start calling it a “Skubal” now?
Enright makes a heartwarming debut
Opposing Skubal in Sunday’s game was Nic Enright, who was making his pro debut. He entered into the game for the Guardians in relief in the seventh, and threw two scoreless innings while racking up three strikeouts of his own in the process. That’s not why the debut was notable and heartwarming, however, though it certainly doesn’t hurt. No, Enright was diagnosed with cancer – Stage 2 nodular lymphocyte predominant Hodgkin’s Lymphoma, per MLB.com – in December of 2022, but continued to pitch in the minors even as he received treatment.
Enright is actually still receiving treatment, as well – he has one more scheduled for November – and was even going to debut in the majors last season, if not for a shoulder injury that cost him time at Triple-A. His family happened to be planning to see him pitch at Triple-A Columbus, per MLB, but his call-up made it so that they could watch him make his debut in the majors, instead.
Oneil Cruz just made history
On social media, the Pirates described this home run by Oneil Cruz as being “the hardest hit ball in the Statcast era,” but they could have just stopped at “hardest hit ball.” You haven’t seen a ball hit harder than this one, and neither did your parents, or their parents. It’s a good thing that thing landed outside the stadium and in the river, too, just to ensure no one ended up struck by a ball going nearly 123 mph.
That thing was moving fast even in slow motion.
Cruz was actually already the existing record-holder for hardest-hit batted ball, at 122.4 mph, as Sarah Langs noted, and now has three of the top six, with the others belonging to Yankees‘ slugger Giancarlo Stanton. Stanton is built like a superhero and Cruz stands 6-foot-7 and 240 lbs., so combine that with their wrist speed and you get bombs like that one, that no one else has been capable of.
It was a huge weekend for Cruz in general, as he went yard three times – the other two dingers came on Friday – and hit a triple on Saturday in between blasts. He jumped his slugging percentage for the season from .426 to .491 in one weekend – he had been in a bit of homer drought before this series against the Brewers.
Speaking of home run droughts
Pete Alonso ended his own little power outage on Sunday. After hitting 10 roundtrippers in his first 36 games, he’d gone his last 16 games without the long ball. That changed against the Dodgers, however, in a game the Mets would win 3-1: Alonso’s two-run blast in the bottom of the first proved to be the gamewinner for New York.
Mayer gets the first of maybe many hits
No, no, the Red Sox didn’t ask Rafael Devers to move back to third base after Alex Bregman landed on the injured list. Listen, they might have approached every conversation about switching positions the wrong way and repeatedly angered their star on their largest contract, but this time, they avoided the subject entirely, and instead just called up top prospect Marcelo Mayer to fill in.
Mayer would debut on Saturday against the Orioles, but go 0-for-4 with three strikeouts on the day in a Red Sox loss. On Sunday, though, Mayer went 2-for-4, with one of the two hits even being a double. Despite getting over the understandable nerves for that second game, it wasn’t enough for the Sox, who lost again to Baltimore.
Mayer is one of Boston’s “Big Three” rookies, along with Roman Anthony and Kristian Campbell. Anthony was named the No. 2 prospect in the minors by MLB before the season, behind Dodgers’ rookie Roki Sasaki, while Kristian Campbell sat No. 8 on the same list. The updated in-season list has Mayer as No. 7 now, and Anthony at the top. Campbell started hot but has struggled of late as the majors adjust back to him, but it’s pretty clear that the potential for the Red Sox to have fewer frustrating weekends like the one they just had hosting the Orioles is right on the cusp – Anthony is still 21, and hitting the ball well at Triple-A once more, so the time for all three to join the Sox is drawing closer, even if it’s not quite here yet.
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