Last Night in Baseball: A Terrible Night For the Phillies, But Great For the Cubs

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 Cubs wrecked the Phillies Things started out so well for the Phillies on Wednesday. Look, shortstop Trea Turner hit a leadoff home run and everything. The problem was that the game didn’t end right then and there. Good news for Cubs fans, not so much for Philadelphia, which didn’t score again until the ninth inning. In between, Chicago dropped 11 runs on them. Three in the third wasn’t insurmountable, but then the scoring just kept going: two more in the fifth, and then four in the sixth. Second baseman and leadoff hitter Nico Hoerner was responsible for quite a bit of the damage, as he drove in five runs and scored twice himself with his 3-for-5 performance. Phillies’ starting pitcher Jesus Luzardo bore the brunt of it, giving up nine runs — eight earned — in 5.1 innings of work. He struck out four batters and walked just one, but he was way too hittable throughout, allowing an even dozen knocks to Cubs’ hitters. And while there was an error that let a run score, Luzardo also didn’t help himself there: another run that same inning actually crossed the plate because he had a wild pitch to let it in. Things settled down a bit after Luzardo left, but not entirely, as the Cubs plated a couple more over the next few innings. Shortstop Dansby Swanson got them to double digits with a dinger off of lefty reliever Kyle Backhus. And Philly just stopped using actual relievers before the end, putting second baseman Dylan Moore in to pitch the ninth instead. Not the kind of game that feels great. The W moved the Cubs back to .500 for the season, at 9-9, while the Phillies continue to waste the Mets’ early season struggles — Philadelphia is just 8-10, leaving them all of 1.5 up on the Mets in the NL East despite New York having lost eight in a row. And while the Mets are being brought up here as they were (and are!) expected to contend, both are behind the Braves, which look nothing like last year’s disappointment and are second in run differential to the defending champion Dodgers, on top of being 12-7 and in first in the East. Philly isn’t building much of a lead on one competitor, but it’s also already 3.5 behind another. And there’s a whole lot of season left — we’re halfway through April and all — but this is the kind of stretch you look back on in September and curse. Padres come from behind, walk it off There was just a tad more drama in the second game of the now-annual Vedder Cup between the Padres and Mariners. It didn’t seem particularly dramatic at first, though. Instead, it looked like it might be going to similar places to Cubs-Phillies, since Seattle dropped six unanswered runs on San Diego in the first five innings. And nearly more than that, too, if not for some acrobatics out in center field by Jackson Merrill. Mariners’ center fielder Julio Rodriguez nearly went deep, but the ball hung up there long enough for Merrill to get under it and time a jump over the fence to bring it back in, keeping the score at 2-0. Temporarily, anyway. Third baseman Brendan Donovan would single in a pair the next inning, and then right fielder Luke Raley would hit a ball where Merrill couldn’t reach it — 434 away — to make it 6-0 Mariners in the fifth. The Padres would finally answer back in the sixth, when shortstop Xander Bogaerts picked up his third dinger of the year to make it 6-2. Then, in the bottom of the ninth against Seattle’s closer, Andres Munoz, San Diego’s bats finally got going for real. Third baseman Manny Machado opened things up with a walk, then designated hitter Gavin Sheets doubled him over to third. Right fielder Nick Castellanos struck out swinging, but first baseman Ty France would then hit a single to load the bases. Fernando Tatis Jr. would pinch-hit for Jake Cronenworth, and hit a sacrifice fly to bring the Padres to within three. Luis Campusano, who had come in to replace starting catcher Freddy Fermin after Fermin was struck in the mask by a foul ball and had to be tested for a concussion — he was negative for one, by the way — singled in Sheets and advanced France to third. Left fielder Ramon Laureano would then single in another run, putting Campusano at second. The Mariners would swap pitchers, bringing in Jose A. Ferrer with San Diego just one down and the tying run on second, but up came Jackson Merrill, whose catch earlier in the game was a big part of why the Padres were even within one at this moment. Merrill would double in both runners on a 97.8 mph sinker that stayed up and away, after fouling off two that fell lower in the zone. The Padres walked it off, thanks to Merrill’s huge moments on both sides of the ball. And thanks to the dub and the five-run rally that generated it, we get to see one heck of a win-probability chart. The Padres were down 6-0 after five, and 6-2 in the ninth. San Diego managed to rally long enough to get the Mariners’ closer out of the game, though, then pounced on his replacement for the W. They now lead the six-game Vedder Cup series 2-0 against the defending champs. More like Longesteliers A 467-foot homer is truly a long ball. And Athletics’ catcher Shea Langeliers launched one exactly that far on Wednesday against the Rangers. Texas’ right-handed reliever Cole Winn threw a 94-mph sinker that did not sink, and it came off of Langeliers’ bat going 112 mph. Sometimes you know a ball is gone the second you see it connect, and this was one of those — Winn knew without even turning around, given his body language, but he still eventually finished his spin to admire the shot. Well, not admire, but you get it. That’s the furthest anyone has hit a dinger in 2026, and it sure looked the part. The A’s would end up defeating the Rangers, 6-5, as a late homer from first baseman Jake Burger wasn’t enough to overcome the deficit Texas faced. Mike Trout homered again Mike Trout is on one right now. The Angels’ center fielder hit another dinger, his fourth in three games, all against the Yankees. This wasn’t as much of a moonshot as the others this series, but he still took a 95.3 mph fastball and launched it back 383 feet in the other direction at a higher speed. The homer is also a nifty one, statistically. Trout, per MLB’s Sarah Langs, is just the second visiting player to homer in three-straight games at this iteration of Yankee Stadium, joining Tigers’ legend Miguel Cabrera, who pulled it off in 2013. This is a four-game series, though, meaning that, per Langs again, Trout has a chance to become the first-ever visiting player to hit a homer in four consecutive games against New York, in any version of Yankee Stadium. If he goes yard once more, he would also join another small crew, as just the fourth-ever player with five homers in a series against the Yankees: most recently George Bell in 1990, Darrell Evans in 1985 and all the way back in 1933, Hall of Fame slugger Jimmie Foxx. The Yankees and Angels conclude the series on Thursday afternoon, so, we won’t have to wait long to find out if he pulls it off. But Romano blew it again The Angels will be attempting a series split, though, despite Trout’s performance, because closer Jordan Romano just can’t seem to get it together. Romano got DH Giancarlo Stanton to line out to start the ninth, but then second baseman Jazz Chisholm singled and stole second and catcher Austin Wells walked. Then, shortstop Jose Caballero would double in both Chisholm and Wells, giving the Yankees the walk-off, come-from-behind win. While there was a challenge on the play before anything was official, with the Angels thinking that backstop Logan O’Hoppe got Wells at the plate, the call was upheld and the game was over. Romano now has an 8.44 ERA, which seems like a small sample size thing until you remember it’s a continuation of last year’s 8.23 mark over 42.2 innings, itself the sequel to a disaster 13.2 innings the year before: he has a 7.88 ERA since 2023 over 61.2 innings, which, given the time involved, feels less and less like a blip every time he goes out there. Sal Stewart goes 2×3 Reds’ first baseman Sal Stewart is a rookie, but you wouldn’t know it from the way he’s been playing. He’s leading the National League in slugging percentage, at .726, thanks to hitting two homers in four trips to the plate on Wednesday against the Giants. Even better, they were both three-run shots, so he pulled in six RBIs, or three-quarters of the Reds’ total for the day. The first came against right-hander Tyler Mahle in the first inning, and saw him drive a 94.5-mph four-seamer on the outside of the zone to right-center field, 387 feet away. The second, his seventh dinger of the young season, came in the very next inning. With Mahle still on the mound, he hit another 95-mph four-seamer to right-center, this one 383 feet. Within four feet of each other, on the same kind of pitch at the same speed and both three-run shots? Now that’s consistency. Stewart is batting .323/.434/.726 with seven homers and 17 RBIs, and he has four doubles and three steals in three chances, to boot. Just a great run for the rookie to start the year, and if he keeps on slugging it will help solve a big problem with the lineup of the 2025 Reds. It certainly helped on Wednesday, when Cincinnati took down San Francisco, 8-3. Well that was fast Not every homer is a towering flyball that you can describe as majestic. Sometimes, they are lasers. Orioles’ second baseman Jeremiah Jackson had an excellent example of the form against the Diamondbacks. Look at this thing go. It had a launch angle of just 18 degrees, but an exit velocity of 110.4 mph. That thing got out of there in a hurry, in just under three seconds — a little under half the time it took for the camera to realize that Langeliers’ shot had landed… somewhere outside the stadium. Sadly for Baltimore, this laser was a highlight to remember, but the game as a whole was not: the Orioles lost to Arizona 8-5 in extra innings, as the Diamondbacks dropped three runs on Tyler Wells in the 10th. Parkour! It’s not just the leap and the bounce, but also the holding onto the ball afterward that ties it all together, you know? A great grab by left fielder Brandon Lockridge there. And hey, it helped: the Brewers would win against the Blue Jays, 2-1 — every out matters in a game with a margin that narrow. Javier Baez knew the score Come for the incredible slide into home, stay for the finger wag from Javier Baez. Ohtani finally allowed a run, but it didn’t matter Two-way superstar Shohei Ohtani didn’t play that way on Wednesday. Sorry, he still played like a star, but he wasn’t doing the two-way thing despite taking the mound: he got his first day off from hitting while pitching since 2021, thanks to a bruised right shoulder from a hit by pitch. That shoulder didn’t keep him from throwing a gem, however: Ohtani limited the Mets to one run over six innings while striking out 10 and giving up two walks and hits a piece. Alas, that run — scored in the fifth inning on a ground-rule double after Ohtani handed out both of his free passes for the day — meant the end of his scoreless inning streak, which dated back to 2025’s regular season. It ended at 32.2 innings, but it did go long enough that, per MLB, he was able to join Hall of Famer Babe Ruth as one of just two players to ever produce a 30-game on-base streak and a 30-inning scoreless streak over a career. Oh, and Ohtani’s 48-game on-base streak? That’s still active, too: only one other player ever managed 30 of each at any point in their career, and Ohtani was doing both simultaneously. While Ohtani exited with the game still close at 3-1, the Dodgers added all kinds of insurance in the eighth with a five-run inning powered by a Dalton Rushing grand slam. The Dodgers’ designated hitter — playing there instead of Ohtani — has appeared in just five games and logged 18 plate appearances for Los Angeles in 2026, but he has made the most of them: Rushing is batting .529/.556/1.353 with six of his nine hits of the extra-base variety. He’s got two doubles and four homers, which is a pretty good run for a backup catcher.