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MLB News & Moments You Should Know: 5/15/2025

LA isn't Rushing Dalton, while the Phillies and Cards go Hard.

Asher Dratel
MLB Morning News 5/15/2025

Stay updated on everything baseball with our morning MLB News & Moments articles. We’ve got you covered to keep you in the know.

In today’s “Hey, how good is that Aaron Judge guy?” news, he was the first player to 15 home runs this season thanks to a Stantonian shot in Seattle yesterday afternoon:

He was matched later in the day by Kyle Schwarber (more on that below) and he’s only one ahead of Corbin Carroll, which is not the person I expected to be nipping at their heels in second place. Carroll is actually hitting .284/.358/.612 with six stolen bases to go with his double-digit dingers, so that’s pretty cool. I would, however, be remiss if I didn’t note that Judge is hitting .412/.497/.782, which is a 252 wRC+ mark.

Don’t forget to watch every game with the Pitcher List community on Playback!

 

Today’s Headlines

 

Philly Slugfest

The Cardinals/Phillies game yesterday got rained out on Tuesday, so they made it up with a doubleheader on Wednesday. Game one was a tight affair, with Jesús Luzardo throwing seven strong innings of one-run ball with a half-dozen strikeouts to go along with it, and the Phillies won it 2-1. It was game two I want to talk about, though. Or as I would call it, The Battle Of The Nearly Identical Reds:

If game one was a pitcher’s duel, game two was a batter’s brawl. Both Aaron Nola and Sonny Gray only lasted 3.2 innings, giving up nine and seven runs, respectively, and all of them earned by each hurler. The scoring got started early, with the Cardinals’ first run coming in the top of the first on a Nolan Arenado groundout. The Phils answered right back with a two-run double from Nick Castellanos in the bottom half of the inning. Max Kepler brought Castellanos home a batter later, and then the real fireworks began:

That’s one dinger, off the bat of J.T. Realmuto. Now let’s go to the top of the third, shall we?

Dinger deux, from Lars Nootbaar. Let us venture further into the top of this inning, shall we?

Disc jockey extraordinaire Alec Burleson brings us our third dinger of the day, and surely we’re done, right? Wrong! To the bottom of the inning!

That’s right, it’s the WAR bear himself, Kyle Schwarber, tying things up. Now quickly, to the top of the fourth, come on!

And we have Masyn Winn putting the birds back in the catbird seat. We go live (on tape delay) to the bottom of the fourth:

And it’s Alec Bohm bringing us our final dinger of the day from Citizens Bank Park. That’s a half-dozen dingers in less than four innings, with each starting pitcher responsible for three apiece. That Winn home run was followed up later that inning by a two-run Burleson single, and a series of more mundane ball-in-play style outcomes helped propel the Cardinals to their 14-7 victory from that point on.

Twins Alive!

2025 is still young, but it’s been quite a tale of two seasons for the Minnesota Twins, which is nothing new for them, apparently:

Twins' winning streak is 10 after a doubleheader sweep in Baltimore.Last year, they started 7-13 and then won 12 in a row.This year, they started 7-15 and (soon after) have won 10 in a row.First time in Twins history they've had a streak of 10+ wins in back-to-back years.

— Aaron Gleeman (@aarongleeman.bsky.social) 2025-05-14T22:24:07.252Z

This year’s start felt a bit sharper than in 2024, given the team’s collapse down the stretch last season, but I know the Carson Picards among us are pulling for a different finish this time around. The Twins came from behind in both games on Wednesday, including a recovery from a six-run Baltimore third inning in the second game. It was Kody Clemens who played hero for Minnesota in that game, hitting a three-run bomb to put the Twins on top in the eighth inning:

Clemens is only a Yankee Stadium homer short of a home run in every AL East park, which is impressive for a guy who’s played part-time across four seasons, on three teams that are not in the AL East. Baltimore, meanwhile, has slid to 11 games under .500, sitting at 15-26 and last place in the division.

Rushing Hour LA Traffic

It was another Dodgers win last night that featured a Shohei Ohtani leadoff homer and several late insurance runs, including a Max Muncy three-run shot:

 

And while those are pretty humdrum events, we did get to see a first, as Hyeseong Kim hit his first MLB home run:

But for fantasy players and prospect watchers, it was who wasn’t playing in Chavez Ravine last night that might have been most interesting. The Dodgers called up their top prospect (No. 1 according to MLB Pipeline, No. 2 by FanGraphs) Dalton Rushing, who has the absolute fantasy manager-crazing combo of C/OF eligibility, and didn’t actually play him on Wednesday. And before you go blow all of your FAAB, temper your expectations, according to Dave Roberts:

To put on my baseball analyst hat (it’s too small and not very convincing) here for a second: The Dodgers’ corresponding move for Rushing was to DFA Austin Barnes, the current backup catcher on the 26-man roster*. Which means that Rushing only playing twice a week seems to track, as they’re looking to slot him in as the BUC. DH is full up with a certain Shohei, and Freddie Freeman is more than ably holding down 1B.

However, I’m confused about the “while he’s here” part of the quote. I don’t know if that’s direct phrasing or what, but the implication to me is that this is a short-term call-up, which seems at odds with the fact that, as of right now, there’s only one catcher on the roster. Does LA plan to have only Will Smith available behind the plate at some point? I don’t buy it. If LA is serious about Rushing not playing in the outfield (there’s currently an opening given the injuries to Tommy Edman and Teoscar Hernández, and the 13 wRC+ that James Outman is bringing to the table) then it does seem like the path to playing time is a narrow one, but then why call up Rushing in the first place?

I dunno, maybe I’m trying to play 5D chess when the game is checkers here, and for fantasy purposes we should all remain leery of catching prospects making an impact immediately. Rushing is the No. 6 name on this week’s Stash List, and as I explored above, his path to playing time isn’t any clearer now than it was on Sunday.

*Barnes is actually the longest tenured Dodger at the moment, given that Clayton Kershaw is currently on the 60-day IL.

 

Best Moments From Yesterday

 

The Ceddane Connection

As a big Kerry Carpenter believer and rosterer, it brings me no joy to show you the following. However, it is an absolutely incredible play:

WHAT!??! A Tip Drill home run saving catch! 😳You'll be seeing this Catch for a long long time!

— Rob Friedman (@pitchingninja.com) 2025-05-15T00:46:37.394Z

That’s some truly heads-up ball from both Wilyer Abreu even getting there, and Ceddanne Rafaela for snagging what was clearly not a particularly aimed ricochet out of the mitt. It would all be for naught in the end, however, as the Tigers ended up walking it off on a Justyn-Henry Malloy single.

J-Rod: +3 Net Runs

It was the rubber game of the Yankees/Mariners series. The Yankees won the first game by a final score of 11-5, thanks in part to a pair of home runs from Trent Grisham, the first of which was helped by a Julio Rodríguez missed catch right at the wall. It looked like Grisham was about to put the Yankees up early with a leadoff home run last night… but Julio had other ideas.

Then in the third inning, he slashed a two-run double down the line:

When a guy does that, I like to net out the runs just because it’s easy math, so Julio is at a +3 for the night. Unfortunately for Seattle, +3 wasn’t enough, as the Yankees would go on to win the game 3-2, but that was a heck of a catch regardless. I guess it was just a night for eventually futile defensive wizardry.

Check It Out!

In something that’s both a feat of strength and an anti-feat of strength, we have this double from Kyle Tucker:

You’ll always get your share of weak contact/bad swing that goes for an XBH, but I can’t really recall the last time I saw one come on a conscious check swing like that. It’s still being counted as a feat of strength because, well, look at Kyle’s forearm in the thumbnail for that video; it takes a lot of muscle to stop a bat at full MLB swing speed.

Jeck Fer The Xon Of It

I just need you all to see this incredible name:

Marlins RHP Jeckferxon Hernandez has been promoted from the Florida Coast League to Single-A Jupiter.Just thought that's a name you'd like to know. www.milb.com/player/jeckf…

— Sam Dykstra (@samdykstramilb.bsky.social) 2025-05-14T20:44:21.758Z

 

Injuries and Other Moves

 

⚾ The Mariners announced that their struggling ace Bryce Miller is going on the IL due to “right elbow inflammation” which certainly isn’t going to make anybody feel better about his outlook for the rest of the year.

⚾ Boston’s placed Tanner Houck on the 15-day IL due to a “right flexor pronator strain” which is never good news for a pitcher.

⚾ Ketel Marte says that leaving Wednesday’s game was his own decision due to “general body stiffness” and claims he’ll be playing again on Friday. Marte is fresh off the IL due to a hamstring injury, so keep an eye on this space.

⚾ The Angels will be without Ben Joyce for at least the rest of this season, as he underwent shoulder surgery yesterday. The team is refusing to elaborate further on the nature of the injury.

⚾ Tobias Myers is back with the Brewers, taking the roster spot of Jose Quintana, who is headed to the IL due to a “shoulder impingement”. He’ll also be taking his spot in the rotation, so expect Meyers to start on Saturday.

⚾ The Tigers optioned Jace Jung to Triple-A and called up Akil Baddoo to replace him on the roster.

⚾ Harrison Bader exited yesterday’s game due to “left groin tightness”; he’s DTD as of Wednesday night.

⚾ Eddie Rosario is on his third team of 2025, signing a minor league deal with the Brewers.

⚾ Matt Carpenter announced his retirement. Thanks for the moustache memories, dude.

 

Articles You Should Read

 

Say It Ain’t So: Commissioner Manfred Posthumously Reinstates Rose, Jackson, and Others Banned for Gambling – Jay Jaffe, FanGraphs

Rob Manfred Makes Way for the Trojan Corpse – Steven Goldman – Baseball Prospectus (sub req’d)

 

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Asher Dratel

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Asher hails from Brooklyn, wears a 2008 Joba Chamberlain jersey to every Yankees game he attends, and pronounces BABIP funny. Appreciator of Beefy Lad dingers and beers. @asherd.xyz on Bluesky.

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