MLB umpire Hunter Wendelstedt was able to walk off the field after taking a line drive to his head while working first base during Monday’s game between the Minnesota Twins and New York Mets.

The incident took place in the seventh inning as Minnesota held a 3-0 lead. Mets outfielder Tyrone Taylor hit a line drive down the first-base line that hit Wendelstedt in the head and sent him falling to the ground.

Dodgers legend Manny Mota, who won a World Series with the organization as a player in 1981 and as a coach in ’88, suffered a stroke Monday night.

“He is in recovery, where he is responsive to commands and is resting comfortably,” the Dodgers wrote Tuesday on X.

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His son, Dodgers broadcaster José Mota, told ESPN Deportes on Tuesday that his “dad never lost consciousness during the incident and is currently doing well.”

On Tuesday morning, Mota told Grandes en los Deportes that his 87-year-old father was taken to the hospital after the stroke and that he “responded quickly to treatment.” He added that his dad “is responding to commands to move his body and try to speak.”

“He’s alert and responding,” José Mota said. “Today is crucial. We’ll see the results of removing the clot. At his age, it’s difficult to predict, but we hope he can recover all his functions.”

Read more: ‘Los Angeles … is our home.’ Manny Mota, Dodgers have been nearly inseparable for 75 years

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A pinch-hitting specialist, Manny Mota appeared in games over 20 MLB seasons, including the final 13 with the Dodgers. Mota, an outfielder from the Dominican Republic, was an All-Star in 1973 and retired in 1982 with a career batting average of .304 and a then-record 150 pinch-hits.

Mota remained with the team in various roles, including coaching from 1980 to 2013, the longest tenure in franchise history, and working with the Spanish-language TV broadcast team from 2013 to 2020.

In 2023, Mota was inducted into the team’s Legends of Dodger Baseball, a group that also includes Steve Garvey, Don Newcombe, Fernando Valenzuela, Orel Hershiser and Dusty Baker. Ron Cey is slated to be inducted this summer.

Dodgers minority owners Magic Johnson and Billie Jean King are among those who have taken to X to express their love and support for Mota.

Get the best, most interesting and strangest stories of the day from the L.A. sports scene and beyond from our newsletter The Sports Report.

This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.

As stolen bases continue to rise league wide, I will be here every Wednesday to help you track important stolen base trends so you can find more speed for your fantasy teams.

Stealing a base is as much about the opposing pitcher and catcher as it is the base runner themselves. So, being able to spot which teams and pitchers specifically are being run on most often will help you to figure out who can steal a heap of bases over the next week.

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Last week, we identified J.T. Realmuto and the Phillies as a team to avoid when streaming stolen bases. While Realmuto was behind the plate, opposing base-stealers were just 3-for-7 over the past week. In the one game Rafael Marchán caught, they stole three successfully.

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Why the Dodgers could shake up their roster.

Before we get to this week’s important trends, here is the stolen base leaderboard over the past seven days.

Story has found his groove both at the plate and on the base paths of late. Arozarena benefited from series against both the Astros and Rangers, which is great for base stealers. Also, it’s pretty to see Harper so high on this list without a teammate like Trea Turner, who’s much better known for stealing bases.

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Now, here is the overall stolen base leaderboard on the season.

Next, here are some players with no stolen bases that we’d hoped would be more aggressive.

Now, let’s go over the most important stolen base trends over the past week.

Fantasy Baseball Stolen Base Targets

Once again, the Astros and Rangers Remain teams to target if you’re seeking stolen bases. They are the only teams in baseball who are throwing out under 10% of base stealers and things don’t seem to be improving.

Somehow, both Jonah Heim and Kyle Higashioka have allowed the most and fourth-most stolen bases by any catcher in the league while splitting playing time fairly evenly. Of course, it’s not all their fault as Nathan Eovaldi and Jacob deGrom have been two of the worst pitchers in baseball at holding runners on.

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Kumar Rocker, Jack Leiter, and Chris Martin have also graded poorly here, as runners are taking large leads on them and getting massive jumps when they do decide to steal.

With the Astros, Yainer Diaz has continued to be exposed behind the plate. Yet, Victor Caratini, who was thought to give some defensive relief once or twice a week, has allowed eight stolen bases so far without catching a single runner.

Their pitchers have been a bit better at keeping runners close too, so this is a situation that leans a bit more towards the catchers.

They will have series against the Padres and Dodgers respectively this coming weekend and I expect those teams to run wild.

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Brewers Picking Up Pace

Second in the league with 217 stolen bases as a team last season, the Brewers didn’t run much over their first week or so of play. Mainly, because they had their doors blown off by the Yankees over opening weekend and started the season 0-4.

They are 9-5 since though and have gotten back to their base stealing roots. They swiped a league-high 11 bags over the past seven days including four on Tuesday night against the Tigers.

It’s been a team-wide approach too, without any one player shouldering that load. Frelick appeared on the leaderboard earlier as someone who’s been running. He was joined by Brice Turang and Joey Ortiz as Brewers that stole multiple bases over the last week.

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In all, seven different different players stole a base and only one was caught. They should continue to run this weekend against the Athletics, who have been one of the worst teams at stopping the running game this season.

Can’t Run on the Mets

No team has been better at throwing out would-be base stealers this season than the Mets.

Opponents have attempted just 12 and have been thrown out seven times. A 42% success rate is obscenely bad and that few attempts says that the league knows not to run on them.

This is even more impressive because through a month of play last season, the Mets were the easiest team to run on in the league. In fact, they were on pace to allow the most stolen bases in the history of the sport.

It’s Wednesday, which means it’s time for us to visit the bump on Hump Day and discuss starting pitcher news. Each week in this article, I’ll be taking a deeper look at a few trending/surging starting pitchers to see what, if anything, is changing and whether or not we should be investing in this hot stretch.

The article will be similar to the series I ran for a few years called Mixing It Up (previously Pitchers With New Pitches and Should We Care?), where I broke down new pitches to see if there were truly meaningful additions that changed a pitcher’s outlook. Only now, I won’t just look at new pitches, I can also cover velocity bumps, new usage patterns, or new roles. However, the premise will remain the same: trying to see if the recent results we’re seeing are connected to any meaningful changes that make them worth buying into or if they’re just mirages.

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Each week, I’ll try and cover at least four starters and give my clear take on whether I would add them, trade for them, or invest fully in their success. Hopefully you’ll find it useful, so let’s get started.

Most of the charts you see below are courtesy of Kyle Bland over at Pitcher List. He created a great spring training app (which he’s now carried over into the regular season) that tracks changes in velocity, usage, and pitch movement. It also has a great strike zone plot feature, which allows you to see how the whole arsenal plays together.

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Kyren Paris and Nick Kurtz make their rankings debuts.

Edward Cabrera – Miami Marlins (Four-Seam Fastball Usage, New Curve)

Am I really going to do this again? Every year, I talk myself into Edward Cabrera, repeating in my head, “If he can just throw strikes with the fastball, we’ll be OK.” It’s the same logic that led me to Jose Soriano in many drafts, and that’s worked swimmingly so far, so why not Cabrera? Maybe 2025 is the year?

Cabrera made his season debut last week after missing the beginning of the season with a blister that landed him on the IL. However, that blister may have been a blessing in disguise. Cabrera struggled during spring training, and the time on the injured list allowed him to take a break and continue to throw bullpens without the pressure of a game situation. That’s important because when we saw Cabrera pitch against the Nationals last week, we saw a different version of the 27-year-old. Perhaps he just needed more time to continue to implement the changes that the new coaching staff was working with him on. After all, this is a Marlins staff with a new manager, a new pitching coach, a new assistant pitching coach, and a new performance and data integration strategist, which means plenty of changes in the philosophy of the pitching staff.

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So, what did we see from Cabrera that was different?

For starters, Cabrera has shifted his attack plan pretty dramatically. It was only one start, but he cut his four-seam usage more than in half and led with his breaking balls, particularly leaning into his slider far more than he did in 2024. On the surface, I like those changes because the biggest issue we had with Cabrera was that his four-seam fastball command was poor. He had below-average zone rates on it, and when he did get it in the zone, it was mainly down the middle with almost a 10% mistake rate and nearly 50% Ideal Contact Rate (ICR), which is a Pitcher List stat that measures barrels and solid contact and hard groundballs allowed.

The four-seamer has consistently graded out as Cabrera’s worst pitch, so throwing it less is something we should be happy about. Provided he can get strikes with his other pitches.

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Interestingly, that early strike pitch, particularly for right-handed hitters, turned out to be his slider. Cabrera tightened up his slider this season, keeping the same velocity and vertical movement but dialing back the horizontal break. That could be a one-game small sample size, or it could be a concerted effort to make it a pitch he can command in the zone. In his season debut, Cabrera used the pitch early in the count 75% of the time to righties, and it had a 75% first-pitch strike rate. Overall, the pitch had an above-average 50% zone rate and 69% strike rate, so the one-game sample seems to suggest that it is a pitch he can command and is a pitch he feels confident in throwing for strikes.

He also has the sinker, which he can command in the zone better than his four-seamer, so he has two pitches now to righties that he can use to pound the zone early and get ahead in the count without relying on his four-seam fastball. That sinker is going to be less useful to lefties, and the new usage of the slider means it’s not missing many bats, but that’s where the other new wrinkle comes in.

Cabrera drastically changed his curveball in the offseason.

In his first start, his new curveball was one mph slower than the one he threw last year but featured nearly double the amount of vertical and horizontal break. He went from eight inches of horizontal break and just over seven inches of vertical break on an 85 mph curve to over 11″ of horizontal break and 14″ of vertical break. It’s a wild change. Yet, it was an incredibly impactful one in that first start, getting three whiffs and a 35.3% CSW.

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We can also see a usage plan shaping up here. Against lefties, he threw the curveball in the zone at almost double the rate he did against righties, and he kept it in the lower third of the strike zone 64% of the time to lefties while doing so 83% of the time to righties. To me, that suggests the curve could be his early-strike breaking ball to lefties and more of a swing-and-miss pitch to righties; yet, it missed bats to hitters of both handedness in the first start.

Using the curve and sporadic four-seam fastball to get ahead of lefties sets up his elite changeup, which he leaned into far more in his first start. The usage rate was 29.1% overall, but 42% against lefties after being 32% last year.

Cabrera has never thrown over 100 innings in an MLB season, and the Marlins are not a great team, which will hurt his potential win totals, but I’m loving these changes for him. Who knows if they’ll last into the next few starts, but if this is the version of Edward Cabrera that we get in 2025, I’ll have to do a lot fewer mental gymnastics to talk myself into rostering him.

Ben Brown – Chicago Cubs (No New Changes)

I wanted to talk about Ben Brown quickly because I know there is a lot of buzz around him after his start against the Dodgers, where he went six shutout innings and allowed five hits while walking five and striking out five. I hate to be here to pour cold water on that performance, but it’s what I have to do.

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First of all, on the season, Brown has a 5.09 ERA, with 22 hits and a 20:9 K:BB ratio in 17.2 innings, which gives him a 10.7% walk rate to go along with a 23.8% strikeout rate. His 12.9% swinging strike rate (SwStr%) is above average, but he’s also giving up a lot of hard contact, so the case for Brown is simply: he pitched well against the Dodgers, he has a good curveball, and he’s locked into a rotation spot.

After seeing how he did what he did against the Dodgers, that’s not just enough for me.

For starters, Brown ended the illusion that he throws three pitches by not throwing the changeup at all against the Dodgers. He’s only thrown eight changeups in three starts, and while it might be a pitch he feels confident in using down the stretch, it’s simply not there right now.

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The main driving factor behind his success against the Dodgers was his ability to fill up the zone for strikes. He had his highest zone rate and strike rate of the season, and while that’s generally a good thing, it’s not enough in and of itself. In that start against the Dodgers, Brown threw the four-seam fastball more often, but threw it in the middle of the zone more often. In fact, he threw 14.3% of his fastballs middle-middle. The MLB average for four-seam fastballs thrown middle-middle last year was 7.4%. So Brown essentially threw double the percentage of middle-middle fastballs that a starting pitcher typically did last year and did it against the best team in baseball. I know it worked, but that, uh, doesn’t seem like a great strategy long-term.

He also had just a 5.4% SwStr% on his four-seam fastball against the Dodgers. So he was throwing middle-middle fastballs, and they weren’t missing bats. The Dodgers had a 90% zone contact rate on his fastball with a .333 average and a 50% ICR. None of that is good. What is good is that he located his curveball well against them, with a much higher zone rate and strike rate than he’s had in any other start this season. It has just a 10.7% SwStr%, but it didn’t give up much hard contact and earned six called strikes.

So, to wrap that up, Brown succeeded by only throwing two pitches, throwing his fastball over the middle of the plate far more often, and missing fewer bats but getting more outs in play. All while featuring a below-average fastball and a good curveball. That’s just not enough for me. I know he’s likely going to be in the starting rotation for a while with Justin Steele out for the year, but I can’t trust a two-pitch pitcher with one good pitch. I know it might seem weird to say that after what he just did against the Dodgers, but I think that statline is entirely misleading. Also, Javier Assad is starting a rehab assignment, so don’t be surprised if Brown loses his rotation spot if he struggles in his next few starts.

Shane Smith – White Sox (New Sinker, Changeup success)

Another pitcher who may have “gotten away with it” in his last start was Shane Smith. However, Smith has also allowed just four earned runs on nine hits in 17.2 innings this season, so it’s probably time we look into how he’s doing what he’s doing.

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Smith leads off his arsenal with a four-seam fastball that averages 94.4 mph and is used to both righties and lefties. Through three starts, it’s far more effective to lefties, as righties post a 60% ICR against it and Smith does a far worse job getting it inside (more on that later). He also throws a lot of fastballs down the middle to both hitters, with a 12.5% middle-middle rate to righties and a nearly 19% mark to lefties. That supports what I saw about the Red Sox, with the Boston hitters simply getting under plenty of fastballs that were over the heart of the plate. Smith doesn’t have great shape or elite velocity on his fastball, so I don’t love his attack plan or reliance on that pitch so much.

However, he also leans heavily on a slider to righties and a change-up to lefties. On the season, he has only used the changeup 9.5% of the time to righties and only used the slider 10% of the time to lefties, so these are pretty much matchup pitches to hitters of a certain handedness. Not that that’s a bad thing. The slider is not giving up any hard contact to righties, and he throws it in the zone often, but it doesn’t miss many bats with just a 10.5% SwStr% to righties this season. Meanwhile, the changeup has been a strong pitch to lefties, but weirdly is giving up a lot of hard contact and doesn’t miss as many bats as I think it should with its movement profile.

Part of that could simply be that he uses it mainly early in the count to lefties, so he wants it in the zone for groundouts rather than out of the zone for swinging strikes, but I think that movement profile at 92 mph is a pitch that he can use more as a two-strike pitch and more often against righties as well. If he keeps it low in the zone, it could easily operate like a splitfinger and miss plenty of bats, which is kind of what he needs against righties because the slider isn’t that pitch and his curve is seldom used and also doesn’t miss bats.

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The last piece of the puzzle is a new pitch we saw against the Red Sox: the sinker. Smith threw four sinkers in that outing, which is intriguing because, as I said above, his four-seam fastball gets hit hard by righties. Yet, the four-seam does have a well-above-average swinging strike rate to righties, so if he can use another fastball for strikes to righties and then get chases up and out of the zone with the four-seamer, that could be the missing piece to right-handed hitters. Using the sinker inside to righties, which he doesn’t do enough with his four-seam fastball, could also set up the slider low and away, so I kind of dig this new addition if he can lean into it more.

At the end of the day, I think Smith is an intriguing pitcher with one truly elite pitch and a collection of other offerings that could easily set him up for success. His overall location needs to improve, and the sinker needs to bring more swing-and-miss to righties, but this is a Rule 5 pick who the Brewers moved from the bullpen to the rotation just last year. There will be some growing pains, but it wouldn’t shock me if Smith became a far more dynamic pitcher in the second half of this season.

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60 undervalued players to help you win your fantasy league.

Yusei Kikuchi – Los Angeles Angels (New Arm Slot, Slider Shape)

Yusei Kikuchi seemed to unlock a new level in the second half of 2024, pitching to a 3.49 ERA, 1.05 WHIP, and 31% strikeout rate in 69.2 innings with the Astros. A huge component of that was him leaning into his slider more, throwing it 31% of the time in the second half after using it just 17% of the time in the first half. The slider posted a nearly 16% swinging strike rate in the second half of the season and allowed him to put his less reliable curveball on the back burner.

It seemed like an easy plan for him to replicate in 2025, but when he signed with the Angels, I worried that he was with an organization that couldn’t stay out of its own way with pitcher development and would either change him for the worse or not be able to identify why Kickuhi was going through a tough stretch, as he has been proned to do in his MLB career. Perhaps both of those are true so far.

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Through his first three appearances, Kikcuhi is off to a disappointing start, allowing 10 earned runs on 15 hits in 18 innings while striking out 16 and walking eight. The 5.00 ERA and 21.6% strikeout rate are far worse than anything we’ve seen from him in years, so I wanted to dig in to see if anything was different. And…it’s not good news.

This chart from Alex Chamberlain’s Pitch Leaderboard shows a few things that stand out to me.

For starters, Kikuchi has dropped his arm angle significantly. The lower the arm angle, the more sidearm the release, so Kikuchi has dropped his arm angle almost 10 degrees, which has led to an overall shift in the movement profile of his pitches, as you can see above. He has lost some of his vertical attack angles and movement in favor of horizontal movement, especially on both his four-seamer and slider. Now, much of that could simply be a result of releasing his pitches from a lower arm angle, but why he lowered his arm angle in the first place is the question. A 10-degree difference is not just a small sample size difference, so this has to be a conscious change, but was it his decision or the Angels?

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Overall, he’s not allowing as much hard contact, with a strong 32% Ideal Contact Rate, but his SwStr% is the lowest it’s been since 2019, and his strike rate is at a career low mark, which could also be why he has a nearly 11% walk rate. Additionally, he’s getting fewer chases out of the zone than he ever has since coming over from Japan. Maybe he’s struggling to adjust to the new arm angle or the new action on his pitches, but they’re not missing bats and not being commanded for strikes, which is a major problem.

However, my biggest concern is that the slider has a new movement profile and has also been performing poorly. This year, he is throwing his slider nearly two mph slower and has more than doubled the vertical break to 4.3 inches. The pitch is in the strike zone more often than last year and getting more called strikes, but it has just a 7.7% SwStr% and a well below-average PutAway Rate, which measures how often a pitch thrown in a two-strike count leads to a strikeout. He has also only thrown the slider in two-strike counts 19% of the time this year, after using it 39% of the time in two-strike counts last year.

So, in summary, Kikuchi has changed the shape of his slider, which was the pitch that drove his success last year. He has made it more hittable and started to use it more often early in the count for called strikes and stopped using it late in the count for swings and misses. He has also added a sweeper, which feels entirely unnecessary and may also be the reason why he wants more vertical movement on his slider.

At the end of the day, I’m not sure who suggested these changes, but I don’t like them, and they give me real pause about rostering Kikcuhi in most formats right now.

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WEDNESDAY MORNING ADDENDUM:

Oh, would you look at that. Yusei Kikuchi had a solid start on Tuesday night against the Rangers and did it by leading with his slider 47% of the time. He also didn’t have the same drop on his slider, posting a vertical movement profile much closer to what we saw last year. Perhaps those first three starts were just a “figuring it out” process for Kikuchi with this new arm angle. I still don’t love the change, and I remain a bit skeptical.

Now, it’s important to note that Kikychi threw 11 total pitches against lefties in this game because Texas stacked their lineup with righties. That could impact why his pitch mix looks different in this game. Also, four whiffs and a 21.6% CSW on the slider isn’t that good in the grand scheme of things, and his four-seam fastball still has less vertical movement and velocity from last year. This still feels like a pitcher I’d rather not have on my roster.

Luis L. Ortiz – Guardians (Changeup, Four-Seam Location, New Approach to Lefties)

Oh, Luis L. Ortiz. There is a lot to say here, so I’m going to do my best to be brief. I know Ortiz struggled in spring training and was terrible in his first start of the season, but I think it’s prudent to remember that Ortiz is in his first year with the Guardians, and I spoke to Guardians pitching coach Carl Willis this off-season about the changes they were making to Ortiz’s arsenal, attack plan, and grips. Changes like that don’t simply click overnight, so it’s entirely possible that Ortiz’s early struggles were connected to getting a feel for who Cleveland wants him to be, and his last strong start is an indication that he’s beginning to get more comfortable.

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Before we get into his last start specifically, we should talk about the changes Ortiz has made overall this year. The biggest change is in how he attacks lefties.

Last year, Ortiz used his four-seamer 31.5% of the time to lefties, his slider 24%, his cutter 22%, and his sinker 21%. That led to a pretty pedestrian 9.5% K-BB% and 9.1% SwStr%, even though he didn’t give up a lot of hard contact. He responded to that this season by adding back his changeup at 17.5% usage to lefties, dialing back his sinker to just 6% usage, and slider to 13% while throwing the four-seam fastball almost 42% of the time. So far, that has led to a 14.7% SwStr% to lefties and a 19.3% K-BB%. Yeah, that’s nice.

The changeup itself is a fine pitch, thrown at 89 mph with little vertical break and 16.5” arm-side run. PLV grades it out as a slightly above-average offering because he commands it in the zone well and does a good job of keeping it low, with an 81% low location. However, I think the bigger driver of his success against lefties has been the decision to mix up the locations of his cutter and slider.

Last year, he threw the cutter inside to lefties 54% of the time, but threw it in the upper third of the strike zone 39% of the time. This season, he’s throwing the cutter inside just 27% of the time (literally cut in half) while using it up in the zone 65% of the time. Same with the slider, which he threw inside to lefties 49% of the time last year and is throwing inside 19% of the time this year.

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That jives with exactly what Carl Willis said to me this spring about Ortiz: “What we’re trying to work towards is more consistency with [the cutter], particularly more consistency with the location of that pitch. It is a newer pitch for him. That’s part of the reason it played last year because the guys hadn’t seen it. Now we’re just trying to refine it a little bit to show him what zones it’s actually successful in, and where he should hone in on commanding that particular pitch, and now that it’s not a surprise, not making mistakes with it in other areas of the strike zone.”

In 2025, Ortiz’s cutter has a 38.5% called strike rate to lefties, up from 21% last year, as he works it more on the outside part of the plate as a backdoor pitch. The slider has also seen a jump in swinging strike rate and doubled its called strike rate. Being able to locate those pitches over the plate for strikes and not only pound them inside for weak contact has set up the other big change for Ortiz: four-seam fastball location.

As Nick Pollack pointed out on our last episode of “On the Corner,” Ortiz used the four-seamer up in the zone 60% of the time against the Royals, up from a combined 29% of the time in his first two starts.

The four-seam fastball had a 24% SwStr% for Ortiz overall in that start and has an 18% mark against lefties so far in 2025 after posting an 8.3% mark in 2024. So Ortiz is locking his cutter and slider in the strike zone more and then getting the four-seamer up in the zone over it. That’s not only allowing him to get ahead but also shifting the batter’s eye level down in the zone or down and away in the zone and then coming upstairs with a 96 mph four-seamer with solid extension. That’s a recipe for success and one I think will make Ortiz far more likely to finish as the pitcher we saw in his last start than the one we saw in his first start.

Two sloppy tendencies — one involving gloves, the other bats — repeatedly cost the Dodgers during a slipshod 10-game stretch that followed their 8-0 start to the season: Uncharacteristic defensive miscues and an inability to lay off pitches out of the strike zone.

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Both were solved early and emphatically in a 6-2 victory over the Colorado Rockies on Tuesday night at Dodger Stadium. The Dodgers improved to 17-4 on Jackie Robinson Day, the April 15 tradition since 2004 that celebrates and honors the anniversary of the Dodgers’ Black Hall of Fame infielder breaking the color barrier in 1947.

“This is an emotional day for me,” said the Dodgers’ Dave Roberts, who along with the Angels’ Ron Washington are the only Black managers in major league baseball.

“People that have certainly never seen Jackie Robinson, just hear some stories, are trying to live in a way that he lived. And that’s something that is so powerful for me.”

Because the Dodgers didn’t chase errant pitches, they chased Rockies starter Ryan Feltner in only 2 2/3 innings after he walked six and threw 81 pitches, leading to one run in the second inning and four in the third.

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Read more: Kareem Abdul-Jabbar has strong words for Dodgers on importance of Jackie Robinson Day

Shohei Ohtani and Freddie Freeman walked, then jogged home when Will Smith crushed a first-pitch sinker over the left-field wall in the third. Smith continued his hot start — his .482 on-base percentage entering the game was the best in baseball — with his second homer of the season.

Tommy Edman doubled with two out in the third — one of his four hits — and scored after Max Muncy walked on Chris Taylor’s single to extend the lead to 5-0. One more walk, this one to Andy Pages, and Rockies manager Bud Black had seen enough, lifting Feltner, who in September had pitched six scoreless innings against the Dodgers.

Meanwhile, the Dodgers made outstanding defensive plays that helped strand runners in each of the first four innings and enabled spot starter Landon Knack to navigate 4 1/3 innings in 65 pitches, including 41 strikes.

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With a runner on second and none out in the second inning, second baseman Edman knocked down a hot smash from Mickey Moniak, scooped up the ball and threw him out by a whisker. Then with two out, shortstop Mookie Betts made a slick backhand play deep in the hole and retired Jacob Stallings on a one-hop throw to first.

Read more: Hernández: Dodgers’ celebration of Jackie Robinson Day rings hollow in wake of White House visit

With a runner on second and none out in the third inning, center fielder Taylor made a diving catch on a line drive directly in front of him, and Knack again stranded the runner. The Rockies scored two runs in the fourth on a two-out double by Jacob Stallings and Knack exited after retiring the first batter in the fifth, having reached a predetermined pitch count.

The win was the Dodgers’ second in a row over the Rockies, which could be expected. Colorado is 3-14, including 1-10 on the road. The Dodgers, meanwhile, are 13-6, including 9-2 at home, and have won 32 of their last 42 games against the Rockies.

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Teoscar Hernández sat out a second game in a row because of illness, but Roberts said the slugging outfielder would return to the lineup Wednesday.

Miller time to arrive early

Bobby Miller will start for the Dodgers on Wednesday, his first big league appearance since September, when he was so ineffective he was deemed unusable during the postseason.

Miller gave up 17 earned runs in 11.1 innings over three September starts, capping a perplexing and injury-riddled sophomore season. In 56 innings he posted an 8.52 ERA, the worst in baseball among pitchers who logged more than 50 innings.

Read more: Man used Jackie Robinson contracts to steal millions from investors. Then he fled to Russia seeking asylum

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It was a precipitous fall from the lofty expectations the Dodgers developed after Miller’s rookie season in 2023 when he went 11-4 in 124.1 innings, posting a perfectly acceptable ERA of 3.76 in 22 starts and looking every bit a mainstay of the rotation for years to come.

The former first-round draft pick out of Louisville appears to have returned to form at triple-A Oklahoma City this season, posting a 2.25 ERA while giving up only six hits in 12 innings over three appearances.

When he was demoted in September, Miller vowed to return to the Dodgers with a vengeance.

“There is no doubt in my mind, whenever that may be, I’m going to be back better than I ever have,” he said.

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He’ll get his first chance at fulfilling that promise against the Rockies.

Sign up for more Dodgers news with Dodgers Dugout. Delivered at the start of each series.

This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.

On Jackie Robinson Day in 2022, Los Angeles Dodgers manager Dave Roberts said, “What he did was incredible, but we’ve got to do him right by keep going.”

On Jackie Robinson Day in 2023, Roberts said, “Jackie was chosen … to fight the fight for all of us.”

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On Jackie Robinson Day in 2024, Roberts said, “He had a big burden in his life to be a professional baseball player but to take on all this negativity, this hate towards him, his wife, his kids and still persevere.”

On Jackie Robinson Day in 2025, Roberts said, “Jackie knew that things were bigger than him. He had to stay the course, remain steadfast, to give people an opportunity.” That one rang a little different.

MLB once again celebrated Jackie Robinson Day on Tuesday, commemorating the 78th anniversary of the day the Dodgers legend made his big-league debut and broke the decades-old color barrier, a landmark moment at the beginning of the civil rights era.

The league has celebrated Jackie Robinson Day every year since 2004, with all players donning Robinson’s retired No. 42 in a tribute to the courage it took for him to join an all-white MLB knowing the scrutiny he would invite and the obstacles he would face. The holiday has never been a controversial one because Robinson hasn’t been a controversial topic in decades.

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It was a surprise, then, when the Trump administration took two actions last month that treated one of sports’ greatest heroes as a divisive figure. There was the time it erased an article about Robinson and his military history from the Department of Defense’s website and the time it flagged a Robinson biography for removal from the U.S. Naval Academy library.

In both cases, the administration cited its opposition to diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) policies, releasing two statements blasting them after removing the article, then backtracked. The article was restored a day later, and no book about Robinson was in the list of books actually removed from the library.

What’s confusing in all of this is that the Trump administration never explained how Robinson was related to DEI, unless DEI is taken to mean the very idea that a Black man could be worth remembering. Robinson never benefited from diversity policies — if anything, he was the exact opposite of what detractors would define as “a DEI hire.” He was a massively overqualified, Hall of Fame talent who had to fight to get a job he deserved years earlier. He reached MLB not because of his race but in spite of it.

In response to all of that — a presidential administration lambasting baseball’s greatest hero as a DEI story — MLB and the Dodgers have said very little.

What have the Dodgers said about Jackie Robinson?

Before Tuesday, the only known comment that any member of the Dodgers had made on the recent Robinson stories had come from Roberts, who only alluded to having “strong opinions on DEI” when asked about the removed article. Beyond that, there had been no statements or comments from the Dodgers or their leaders. A request for comment by Yahoo Sports last week did not receive a response.

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What the Dodgers have done is visit President Trump at the White House last week without pushing back on the Robinson-DEI premise. Roberts and Mookie Betts, who produced a Robinson documentary in 2022, shook Trump’s hand. Clayton Kershaw presented him with a “Trump 47” Dodgers jersey. No players on the active roster declined to attend.

That was despite Roberts saying in 2019 that he wouldn’t go to the White House to see Trump if the Dodgers hypothetically won the World Series and Betts declining to go when he won the World Series with the Boston Red Sox in 2018. Betts said before this year’s visit that he regretted not going with Boston, saying that he “made it about me.”

This time around, the team presented a united front built on the idea that they were all eager to visit the White House, with Dodgers president Stan Kasten saying all the players wanted to go. When asked about fans who were upset with the team’s decision, fan favorite utility man Kiké Hernández, who was highly critical of Trump’s response to Hurricane Maria in 2019, said, “they have the right to have an opinion.”

However, Hernández also described the White House visit as “kind of a lose-lose situation for me” in comments to radio reporter Dave Vassegh. It’s unclear how enthusiastic other Dodgers players were about visiting the White House, despite what Kasten said.

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Roberts defended the White House visit when asked Tuesday about criticism of it, saying that making the trip was about team unity:

“I don’t personally view at as talking out of both sides of our mouth. I understand how people feel that way, but I do think that supporting our country, staying unified, aligned, is what I believe in personally. I just believe in doing things the right way, and I think people are going to have their opinions on what we did last week, but I do know that we all stand unified, and we all have different stories and backgrounds and economic, political beliefs, but I was proud that we all stood together.”

However, the Dodgers did not present a united front in 2021, when they visited Joe Biden after the 2020 World Series, as reliever Blake Treinen declined to make that trip to the White House.

For the record, the Dodgers are 3-4 since visiting Trump after a 9-2 start.

And what has MLB done?

It should be noted that we don’t know what conversations were had among the Dodgers, MLB and the White House, which has made headline after headline with its willingness to illegally threaten businesses, schools and organizations if they don’t abide by the administration’s wishes. It’s conceivable that the team and/or the league were warned about consequences if they created negative headlines for the White House. The league has faced similar ramifications before, such as when GOP Senators introduced a bill to strip MLB of its antitrust exemption after the league moved the 2021 All-Star Game out of Atlanta over a bill that restricted voting rights.

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On the league office’s side, Trump’s influence in relation to Robinson was again felt when observers noticed that MLB had removed some language from its annual Jackie Robinson Day press release. Here’s what it said in 2024 (and 2023), with added emphasis:

“Robinson played his first Major League game at Ebbets Field on April 15, 1947 as a first baseman for the Brooklyn Dodgers. Major League Baseball has celebrated Jackie Robinson’s legacy in an extensive and unified League-wide show of support over the years, including retiring his number throughout the Majors in 1997, dedicating April 15th as Jackie Robinson Day each year since 2004, and requesting that every player and all on-field personnel wear his Number 42 during games scheduled on Jackie Robinson Day since 2009. Major League Baseball aims to educate all fans about Jackie Robinson, his life’s accomplishments and legacy, while spearheading initiatives that support communities and meaningfully address diversity and inclusion at all levels of our sport. For more information, please visit MLBTogether.com.”

Here’s what it said this year:

“Robinson played his first Major League game at Ebbets Field on April 15, 1947 as a first baseman for the Brooklyn Dodgers. Major League Baseball has celebrated Jackie Robinson’s legacy in an extensive and unified League-wide show of support over the years, including retiring his number throughout the Majors in 1997, dedicating April 15th as Jackie Robinson Day each year since 2004, and requesting that every player and all on-field personnel wear his Number 42 during games scheduled on Jackie Robinson Day since 2009. Major League Baseball aims to educate all fans about Jackie Robinson, his life’s accomplishments and legacy, while communicating his message at all levels of the sport. For more information, please visit MLBTogether.com.”

In short, the league removed mention of how it is fighting racism — from a press release dedicated to a man who spent his life courageously fighting racism. That was after it removed the word “diversity” from its careers page in response to an executive order against DEI programs, then said its “values on diversity remain unchanged.”

MLB teams were similarly hesitant to share the specifics of their diversity programs when asked by Bradford William Davis of the Fort-Worth Star-Telegram, with 29 of 30 teams, including the Dodgers, declining to make a public comment.

What does Jackie Robinson mean to the Dodgers?

In all this, you see a team and a league dancing for approval where Robinson once stood firm, both when he broke the color barrier and when he received a court martial for defying an illegal order to move to the back of a military bus.

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MLB and the Dodgers will still say Robinson is important, yet they seem increasingly wary of explaining why that is. And from that, it’s visible what influence the Trump administration is exerting, as well as the fact that it’s working, because the Dodgers and MLB would evidently rather stay quiet than risk political repercussions.

Roberts was asked Tuesday about the removal of the Robinson article, and he said, “I’d like to think it’s a continued wake-up call for everyone and to take a step back and appreciate the people who shaped our country. This country needs a wake-up call.”

When asked what kind of wake-up call, he could only allude to Robinson facing something far more difficult in a bygone era:

“I think a wake-up call to the sacrifice — we’re talking about Jackie Robinson today, right? What he had to endure, what he had to go through, the hate, to continue to persevere for the greater good. And now, context on what’s hard in life, individually, is not even close to what’s happening in the ’60s and the ’70s and beyond.”

Conversely, NBA Hall of Famer Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, a civil rights hero in his own right, suggested in a speech Tuesday to the Dodgers and Colorado Rockies that the fight against segregation goes on, via the Dodgers’ site:

“Jackie had an idea of what we had to confront,” he said. “We had to confront segregation. In many ways, we’re still confronting it. But it’s worth it. It certainly makes people respect us as a country when they see there is some tension there, and good people are trying to do the right thing.”

As the early season dust has settled and more of the obvious breakout players and impact rookies are unavailable, we need to look a bit deeper to find gems on the waiver wire.

Fear not, because there are still a handful of gems that are widely available and have the chance to be difference-makers in both the short and long term.

A healthy David Peterson looks to cement himself in the Mets rotation

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Eric Samulski talks to David Peterson about his healthy offseason and the changes he made for 2025

Here are three players that are under 40% rostered on Yahoo leagues that you should strongly consider adding.

If you want a larger list, Eric Samulski wrote his extended waiver wire piece on Sunday.

Jonathan Aranda, 1B Rays

(19% Rostered on Yahoo)

The Rays’ offense erupted for a whopping 16 runs on Tuesday and Aranda was directly in the middle of that onslaught. He went 2-for-5 with a double, two runs scored, two RBI, and three batted balls hit harder than 104 mph.

Games like this have become the norm for Aranda this season, who leads all qualified hitters with a .395 batting average and trails only Aaron Judge with a 1.158 OPS.

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It’s great to see him succeeding in what’s finally been his first real chance to play regularly. Still fresh off his ‘prospect’ status, Aranda is 26 years old and has taken over 1,000 plate appearances at Triple-A with a .959 OPS down there.

He was also a borderline league-average hitter through his first handful of times up with the Rays that came over the last three years.

The best of which was last season, when he cut down his strikeout rate, had one of the best barrel rates in the league over a nearly 100 batted ball sample, improved his max exit velocity from 108.0 mph to 110.4 mph, and began to pull the bulk of his fly balls.

Now, practically no one in the league is hitting the ball as hard and as consistently as Aranda. He’s in the 95th percentile or better in hard-hit rate, barrel rate, and average exit velocity. Again, he’s improved upon his max exit velocity, up to 111.4 mph, and pulling a greater share of his fly balls than last season in what’s still a small sample.

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A key reason for this additional step forward is improved pitch selection. Aranda has always been able to take his walks, but sometimes was caught in between which pitches he should be swinging at. That often made him too passive on pitches in the strike zone.

So far this season, he’s swinging more often at pitches in the zone overall and more at pitches in the heart of the zone while offering at fewer in the shadow of the zone or on the edges. It feels like something has clicked in a big way with his pitch selections.

The only thing holding Aranda’s fantasy value back is the Rays’ strict platoon plan for him. He is yet to play a game against a left-handed pitcher this season and likely won’t get many opportunities to do so.

That makes it a bit annoying to manage him in weekly leagues, knowing he will miss a game or two every week. Still, his breakout feels real and he’s quickly moving himself up the ranks of first basemen.

Shane Smith, SP White Sox

(15% Rostered on Yahoo)

An early-season surprise with a 2.04 ERA through three starts in his first taste of major league action, Smith has a few big things going for him right now.

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First off, his changeup may be one of the nastiest pitches in the league. It’s averaging a cool 90 mph with plus-plus drop. So much so that sometimes Statcast mismarks the pitch as a curveball.

And visually, it’s stunning.

When a team loses a starting pitcher for the season, it’s never easy to fill that gap, especially when that player is a mainstay in the rotation. The Chicago Cubs are dealing with that headache right now, as they figure out how to move forward without left-hander Justin Steele, who will miss the remainder of the 2025 season to undergo reconstructive elbow surgery.

Steele was one of the team’s frontline starters and has been one of the most consistent starters in baseball over the past several seasons. Since becoming a full-time starter in 2022, he has a 3.10 ERA, which ranks ninth in MLB in that span.

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How do you replace an All-Star starting pitcher this early in the MLB season?

Most would say you look to the trade market, but making a move for starter is easier said than done.

The biggest target for any team this season would be former NL Cy Young Award winner Sandy Alcantara, who is likely to be moved by this year’s trade deadline. But don’t expect the Miami Marlins to have a quick trigger finger this year like they did last season, when they dealt Luis Arraez in May.

Not only is Alcántara much more valuable than Arraez was, but also given the demand for starting pitching among teams looking to compete for the postseason — including the Cubs, New York Mets and Baltimore Orioles — there’s no reason for Miami to rush.

In the meantime, the Cubs’ rotation solutions will have to be found internally, at least until the trade market starts to take shape. So what options does Chicago have?

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The team’s healthy starters currently include ace Shota Imanaga, veteran right-handers Jameson Taillon and Matthew Boyd, and second-year right-hander Ben Brown. As a team, the Cubs could be in a much worse position than they currently are. They still have one of the best arms in baseball in Imanaga, and Taillon and Boyd are viable options in the middle of the rotation.

But for a team that has postseason aspirations, is that enough? Probably not.

Right-hander Javier Assad was a revelation in the Cubs, going 7-6 with a respectable 3.73 ERA in 29 starts last season. Assad, who started the season on the IL and hasn’t pitched since spring training with a moderate oblique strain, will be starting a rehab assignment this week. If things go well, he would be the obvious choice to slide back into the team’s rotation, filling the void for the time being.

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Left-hander Jordan Wicks will likely also get another shot for the Cubs this season. Wicks, the Cubs’ 2021 first-round draft pick, hasn’t been able to grab a foothold in Chicago’s rotation despite having a few opportunities, mostly due to injuries. But as one of the arms that has big-league experience, it wouldn’t be surprising to see him at Wrigley Field in the foreseeable future.

The dark horse option to find time in Chicago’s rotation this summer would be 2023 first-round pick Cade Horton. He is currently pitching at Triple-A Iowa with a 1.23 ERA and electric stuff. If the Cubs have another need outside of Steele’s void, he could be a viable option down the road, even if Assad returns to the rotation or the Cubs make another move via trade.

For a team that has its sights set on the postseason, having as many dynamic arms as possible is important. It could be a similar plan to what the Detroit Tigers did last season with their top pitching prospect Jackson Jobe en route to the playoffs.

Offensively, the Cubs are one of the best lineups in baseball and are giving their pitching plenty of run support. But the difference between getting to the postseason and being on the outside looking in will be making sure they can plug the leak following Steele’s injury. The benefit they have is that it’s early and there is time to evaluate all of their options both internally and on the trade market.