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Well, it’s the end of April and the guy atop the HR list for the league is a name you’d probably expect: Aaron Judge. Please enjoy this majestic dinger from yesterday:
426-ft No-Doubter. #AllRise 🫡 pic.twitter.com/YfSv71SRDJ
— New York Yankees (@Yankees) April 30, 2025
The Yankees did lose the game 5-4, which means they also lost the series, but Judge also leads the league in batting average with a .427 mark, so who’s to say who really came out on top. Well, the O’s still. But man, that’s a majestic dinger, isn’t it?
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Today’s Headlines
Cameron On Down
Welcome to the Show, Noah! pic.twitter.com/us79NQ8A4w
— Kansas City Royals (@Royals) April 30, 2025
On Wednesday, Kansas City’s #5 prospect according to MLB Pipeline and #4 on The Stash List, Noah Cameron, got to make his debut down in Tampa Bay. In the aforementioned Stash List, John mentioned Cameron’s five-pitch mix which was fully on display against the Rays, as he threw a little of everything (although only five curveballs) en route to 6.1 no-hit innings.
His first MLB strikeout came in the third inning as the Royal’s broadcast was speaking to Noah’s father:
The Cameron fam is lovin’ Noah’s first MLB strikeout! pic.twitter.com/H4AA2KLKri
— Kansas City Royals (@Royals) April 30, 2025
A Curtis Mead single ended his night at 79 pitches, and while the Royals shut out the Rays and it was definitely a successful debut for Cameron, his final line is a weird one: 6.1 IP, 1 H, 0 R, 5 BB, and 3 K. Not an ideal K:BB but hey, you gotta start somewhere.
How about that for a first impression?
Noah Cameron took a no-hitter into the 7th inning of his Major League debut 👏 pic.twitter.com/MTgoKAA17i
— MLB (@MLB) May 1, 2025
Cameron got this call because Cole Ragans‘ start last night was skipped due to a groin injury, although he’s still not on the IL. Cameron’s spot in the rotation seems like it hinges on what happens next with Ragans and his injury at this point given the performance of the rest of KC’s arms.
As I said before, the Royals got a shutout victory, finishing the night with a 3-0 win. Those first two runs came off a towering two-run shot off the bat of Vinnie Pasquantino:
Vinnie pounces on the first pitch! pic.twitter.com/zOstDVmFLX
— Kansas City Royals (@Royals) April 30, 2025
…and the third came on a two-out RBI single from Bobby Witt Jr. in the fifth:
1,000 career total bases in 500 career MLB games! pic.twitter.com/DreXa2dUeR
— Kansas City Royals (@Royals) May 1, 2025
As you can hear, it’s Witt’s 1000th total base in his career, which is only three seasons old. Turns out being a .300 hitter will do that for you, huh? We’ll go over some more fun benchmarks for Bobby down below, too.
A 7-1 Pitcher’s Duel?
The A’s took down the Rangers by a score of 7-1 last night, but that score might obscure the fact that Luis Severino and Nathan Eovaldi went blow-for-blow over their starts. Sevy pitched five innings, and although he gave up eight hits, Texas could only scratch one run across on him, helped by only one walk and his four strikeouts. Eovaldi went a full six innings, giving up six hits and a run along with eight strikeouts. The A’s bullpen was able to keep Texas off the board for the next four innings. Texas wasn’t so lucky.
After Nasty Nate left the game, Chris Martin did pitch a clean inning and a third, and Robert Garcia got two outs before a single to open the ninth from Tyler Soderstrom made Bruce Bochy go to his closer, Luke Jackson. And then it all went wrong, thanks to Brent Rooker.
LET ROOK COOK 😤 pic.twitter.com/SDHD0wGxLq
— Athletics (@Athletics) May 1, 2025
Ok, well,l 3-1 isn’t an insurmountable lead, Texas has some big bats, they can handle th-
Oh no, while I was typing that, Jackson gave up a single and two walks to load the bases, although he did strike out Nick Kurtz! Bases loaded, one out, and 20 pitches were enough to get Bochy to make another move, going to Shawn Armstrong to try and keep the game close. He caught Gio Urshela looking for the second out, but then Lawrence Butler and the A’s put things out of reach one pitch later:
How about a first-career grand slam?? Law’s got it!! pic.twitter.com/X5UwudMNLR
— Athletics (@Athletics) May 1, 2025
Butler’s line for the season is up to .254/.328/.432 after a bit of a cold start, so that’s pretty cool. Furthermore, I feel like a game like this needs some kind of descriptor. It’s like an anti-walkoff, but that seems…not witty enough. I’ll have to workshop this some more.
The Waiting Is The Hardest Part
It was a doubleheader day to forget for the Reds, as they also got semi-anti-walkoffed by the Cardinals 6-0 (five-run 9th inning for St. Louis but the Reds were already losing 1-0 that can’t count the same as if it was a tie game, right?) in the first game of the day. But it’s the second game of Wednesday I would like to draw your attention to, as we got to see the debut of Chase Petty, who was #8 on The Stash List and the Reds’ #6 prospect on MLB Pipeline.
Chasing the dream.@ChasePetty11 pic.twitter.com/QfCgzxevcm
— Cincinnati Reds (@Reds) April 30, 2025
John described Petty as “effectively wild,” although he only gave up a pair of walks on Wednesday. It was the everything else that went sideways on him, as he only lasted 2.1 innings while giving up seven hits and surrendering nine runs, all earned. Petty was called up as the 26th man just for the Wednesday twofer, and we shouldn’t plan for him to be making any more MLB starts in the immediate future. His numbers in AAA are pretty good so far this year, though, so hopefully he’ll be back for some better games in the future.
Best Moments From Yesterday
A Daikin Park Far, Far Away
It’s always a real treat to get to listen to Jason Benetti call a game, and he always also managed to coax the weirdest stuff out of whoever is in the booth with him. The latest example comes during a read for a bobblehead day Detroit will be holding in May:
That reminds me, I need to watch Andor…
A Case Of Case
And we’ll stick in Houston, and with the Detroit booth for another minute to highlight a jersey design you probably haven’t seen before:
There’s something very striking about a player’s name on the back in normal sentence case instead of all caps, maybe with the odd lower-case as part of a Mc or a De, etc. And here’s Jason Benetti again to explain why Logan VanWey is a one-of-one uniform:
I’m just glad VanWey wasn’t called up last year, as it would have been impossible to read the lower-case lettering in the terrible, tiny-sized letters they used on the uniforms back then.
We Are All Wittnesses
Ok, so now we come back to Bobby Witt Jr. like I promised! Wednesday was his 500th career MLB game and he’s already posting some pretty incredible franchise numbers:
Five hundred games in, and Bob’s just getting started. 👑
I might venture a guess that opposing pitchers are scared out of their Witts when they have to face him around now.
Injuries and Other Moves
⚾ Baltimore confirmed that they’ve moved Charlie Morton into the bullpen for the time being. The O’s rotation isn’t exactly deep at the moment, so we’ll see how long that lasts.
⚾ Rockies rookie Chase Dollander left his start on Wednesday in the sixth inning due to a blister. He was pretty brilliant overall, so hopefully this doesn’t keep him out too long.
⚾ Mike Trout was removed from Wednesday’s game due to “soreness” in his left knee. He’s said that the knee already feels better, and he’s going to try and play today.
⚾ Tyler Glasnow is going to be shut down from throwing for 10-14 days, and will be “reevaluated from there”.
⚾ The Phillies will be getting Ranger Suárez back this weekend; he’ll be starting Sunday.
⚾ It’s a weekend return for Lance McCullers Jr. as well, he’ll also be starting on Sunday.
⚾ Texas has DFA’d Dane Dunning in order to call up Tucker Barnhart, in order to get some cover for Kyle Higashioka, who is experiencing some “hamstring tightness”.
⚾ After a few bad outings, Arizona’s manager has stated that Justin Martinez is in line for an MRI and a potential IL stint. Not great.
⚾ In some non-player news, Nationals BP pitcher James Frisbie collapsed during batting practice Wednesday afternoon. He was brought to a hospital and is “feeling better”. In Pittsburgh, a fan fell from the right field stands onto the field and was rushed to a hospital, the Pirates didn’t have any details or updates as of Wednesday night, but some local news is reporting the fan was in critical condition upon being admitted.
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