5 things to know from the weekend in MLB: Dodgers-Yankees lives up to its billing, Phillies and Mets split in London

A lot of baseball happens in one weekend. The 11th weekend of the 2024 MLB regular season featured the Dodgers and Yankees delivering the hype, the Mets and Phillies having fun in London, the Baltimore Orioles looking dominant and the Atlanta Braves looking less so.

Here’s what you need to know from the weekend in MLB – and across the pond.

Dodgers-Yankees did not disappoint – even without Juan Soto

Despite all the excitement surrounding the first trip to Yankee Stadium for the Dodgers’ Big Three of Mookie Betts, Shohei Ohtani and Freddie Freeman, it was outfielder Teoscar Hernández who stole the show for L.A. during their stunning series win in New York. Hernández delivered an RBI double in the top of the 11th to help secure a 2-1 victory on Friday, and then launched two home runs, including a grand slam, in Saturday’s 11-3 rout. Although his home run in the sixth inning on Sunday was in vain, it brought Hernández’s season total to 16, passing Ohtani for the team lead.

In addition to Teo’s massive series, the story of the weekend for the Dodgers was Yoshinobu Yamamoto’s excellent start Friday, in which he pitched seven splendid, scoreless frames and displayed the most velocity we’ve seen from him all season. . Was it an accident that happened against the team that supposedly came closest to signing him, after the Dodgers? That’s up to you to decide.

For the Yankees, Juan Soto’s elbow injury cast an unusual shadow over this important matchup in the Bronx. Aaron Boone’s update on Friday was that scans revealed inflammation in Soto’s elbow, which Boone called “good news” and which suggests Soto could be back in the relatively short term. But while Soto did his usual pregame work before each game this weekend and even appeared to be holding a bat, ready to pinch hit, on Friday he didn’t appear in any of the three games.

That said, Soto’s absence indirectly inspired one of the best moments of the weekend for the Yankees. Trailing 3-2 in the sixth on Sunday, with runners on first and third and Dodgers starter Tyler Glasnow having already struck out 10 on the night, Trent Grisham – he with a .083 batting average entering the game – walked to the base. As Grisham settled into the box, chants of “WE ARE SOTO” rang out from a packed Yankee Stadium crowd eager to see a more dangerous hitter with a chance to tie the game or take the lead.

Instead, Grisham blasted a Glasnow heater well past the right field fence for his third home run — and just his fifth hit — of the season, giving New York a 5-3 lead. Aaron Judge added two innings later with a monster solo shot to left field (his 24th home run) to help salvage New York’s victory after tough losses on Friday and Saturday. Judge is now on pace for 58 home runs. (That is good?)

Despite the series loss and Soto’s still-threatening soreness, the Yankees saw some positive developments over the weekend. Gerrit Cole threw 4 2/3 innings in his second rehab start with Double-A Somerset, and 21-year-old outfielder Jasson Domínguez had four hits, including a home run, with Triple-A Scranton/Wilkes-Barre on Sunday on his road back from Tommy John surgery. Even for a team as good as New York, the returns of Domínguez and Cole can’t come soon enough, especially if the Yankees want to maintain their narrow lead in the AL East.

This week, the Yankees head to Kansas City for a surprisingly juicy four-game set with the Royals, who are coming off a series win over Seattle that included a dramatic comeback from an 8-0 loss on Friday. The Dodgers open a three-game series with the Rangers on Tuesday at Dodger Stadium.

The Baltimore Orioles are very good at baseball

There were no sweeps over the weekend, but Baltimore went undefeated, winning the first three games of a rare four-game Friday-Monday game against the Rays in Tampa Bay. Six different O’s hits scored the three wins, including two dingers from Anthony Santander, Gunnar Henderson’s 20th of the season and a grand slam from Adley Rutschman to punctuate Sunday’s win.

On the mound, Baltimore got another gem in Kyle Bradish, who pitched six near-perfect, scoreless innings Saturday in a comeback after struggling against the Rays in Baltimore a week earlier. With his spring elbow injury scare seemingly in the distant past, Bradish has been simply wonderful in his first seven starts of the season: a 2.62 ERA in 34 1/3 innings with 49 strikeouts and, perhaps most notably, zero home runs allowed.

With the O’s now 2.5 games behind New York, Corbin Burnes will take over on Monday with a chance to complete Baltimore’s second game mop (four-set sweep) of the season.

On the other hand, this brutal showing, combined with Toronto’s series win in Oakland, put the Rays in last place in the AL East. Worse still, Sunday’s 9-2 loss dropped Tampa Bay’s run differential to a pitiful -62, fifth-worst in MLB and a sobering reminder that this 31-34 record could be very, very worse. Elite City Connect uniforms aside, nothing has gone right for the Rays this season.

The Atlanta Braves are not…at least not now

The Braves have dominated the Nationals in recent years, going 36-15 against the rebuilding Washington club the previous three seasons. But that trend hasn’t extended into 2024, as the Braves are 2-6 against the Nats after losing three of four this weekend in D.C. — and looking pretty bad doing it.

While Washington’s much-improved pitching deserves credit for its newfound success against Atlanta, we’re also working with a pretty substantial sample size that suggests the Braves’ offense, at least in its current state, might not be very good. Namely: go back to a month before Ronald Acuña Jr.’s season-ending knee injury, and you’ll find out the Braves had one of the worst offenses in baseball during that period, with only Marcell Ozuna performing at close to an All-Star level. Matt Olson has started to swing a little better lately, but until Austin Riley, Michael Harris and Sean Murphy start looking like themselves in 2023, this offense won’t scare anyone.

Losing one of the best pitchers It is one of the best hitters on the planet to season-ending injuries is no small obstacle no matter how talented his roster is. But suddenly, the Braves find themselves in the situation their biggest rivals in Philadelphia have become familiar with in recent seasons: staring at an insurmountable margin in the division and instead hoping to secure the NL’s top wild card.

It’s early enough in the season that the best version of this Braves team can still bounce back from nine games behind and make things interesting late, but we haven’t seen that version of Atlanta in a while.

The Mets and Phillies split in the London Series

While the rival Braves continued to struggle, the first-place Phillies studied abroad, participating in the third edition of the MLB London Series alongside fellow division foe the Mets. Philadelphia won Game 1 of the two games behind a home run from Bryce Harper (followed by a Premier League-worthy celebration) and another excellent start from left-hander Ranger Suarez, who picked up his MLB-leading 10th win of the season.

The Mets finally got some luck late in Sunday’s matchup, with a scattered appearance by Phillies lefty Jose Alvarado allowing a ninth-inning comeback to take the lead before New York turned in an ultra-rare 2-2 double play. 3 on Nick Castellanos will end the game – a double play you absolutely should hear called by British broadcaster Darren Fletcher, if you haven’t already.

Considering these two teams’ respective positions in the standings, these games meant a lot more to the Mets. New York craves any semblance of momentum to get back into the NL’s wild-card picture. Catcher Francisco Alvarez’s return from thumb surgery, expected next week, should help immensely.

The NL Central is a delicious mess

After being defeated last week in Philadelphia, the Brewers bounced back this weekend with a series win in Detroit to maintain a comfortable lead in the division. Meanwhile, the mess beneath them in the NL Central just got messier. The Pirates got a gem from Mitch Keller and shockingly effective bullpen play on Saturday to sweep a series from the Twins before a 10th-inning meltdown on Sunday squandered their chance at the sweep. The Cardinals missed a golden chance to climb the standings by splitting a four-game set against the lowly Rockies. In Cincinnati, the Reds won the first three games against the Cubs before another strong performance from Shota Imanaga helped Chicago score one on Sunday, snapping Cincinnati’s winning streak at seven.

The result? Cincinnati (32-34), Chicago (32-34) and St. Louis (31-33) are all 6.5 games behind the Brewers (38-27), with the Pirates (31-34) just a half game behind that trio. While the entire NL wild card race is a confusing jamboree, watching these four teams jockey for position over the next few months will be especially fascinating. Keep an eye on Pittsburgh in particular – interestingly, the Pirates have yet to play the Cardinals or Reds this season, leaving plenty of games scheduled for them to make up serious ground. And indeed, that begins on Tuesday, with Paul Skenes taking over in the first of three games in St. Louis before Cincinnati visits PNC Park next week.