Last Night In Baseball: The AL Central Is Looking Different Now

Massive implications for the AL Central. The Brewers outmuscle the Dodgers. A surprising new AL wild-card team. Sunday's MLB action provided all that and much more. Here are all the best moments from last night in Major League Baseball: The Tigers had been one of MLB's best teams of late, despite dealing away top starters Tarik Skubal and Casey Mize at the trade deadline. Detroit had even gotten to the point where its run differential was the best in the AL, and had come a game within being at .500 again despite being 16 under to end May. Before heading into the weekend series against White Sox, it would not be difficult to find Chicago fans nervous about the matchup, since the Sox had been going in the opposite direction all month. Rather than Detroit continuing to surge forward and even overtake Chicago in the AL Central, however, the White Sox pulled off a three-game sweep and gave themselves a 5.5-game cushion over the Tigers. Detroit was up 3-0 after two and then 4-1 after three, but Chicago added runs here and there - a two-run homer by catcher Drew Romo in the fifth, then a game-tying RBI single by shortstop Colson Montgomery in the sixth - before first baseman Munetaka Murakami hit the game-winner in the seventh. Murakami's 28th homer put Chicago ahead, and also extended the record for the most homers by a Japan-born rookie in MLB - Murakami is four dingers ahead of Blue Jays' third baseman Kazuma Okamoto for that distinction now. In the ninth, third baseman Miguel Vargas would hit his own 28th long ball of the year, giving Chicago its first teammates with at least that many home runs since 2019, in the days of Eloy Jimenez and Jose Abreu. Chicago would win, 7-5, and is now 5.5 up on the Tigers in the AL Central, at 65-58 - and the White Sox are also six games up on the Guardians and Twins. Minnesota was swept by the Phillies... Cleveland, like the Twins, isn't done yet, but things did just get more difficult for both teams. The Guardians lost to the Padres 5-0 on Sunday, dropping the series to San Diego. The scoring started early for the Padres, with third baseman Luis Rengifo and left fielder Gavin Sheets hitting back-to-back homers in the top of the second to put San Diego up 2-0. Rengifo's was a shot, too, 409 feet with an exit velocity just shy of 105 mph. Second baseman Jake Cronenworth would add on with another blast over 400 feet in the ninth to give the game its final score. The aforementioned Mize, acquired at the deadline from Detroit, went six scoreless innings with just three hits allowed, bringing his ERA for the season down to 3.18. That's two great starts in a row for the righty after a poor first impression with San Diego shot his ERA up from 2.70 to 3.40. The Padres are tied for the second NL wild-card with the Phillies, a game up on the Diamondbacks, three up on the Marlins and 3.5 ahead of the Cardinals. The Guardians, meanwhile, are 1.5 behind for an AL wild-card, but at 60-65 are looking up at seven other teams in those standings, and now sit six back of the AL Central leaders. With the Twins threatening late at home, second baseman Bryson Stott made a surprisingly great throw from the ground. That very easily could have been either a run or a runner on third, at minimum, with two outs and the tying run at first. Stott managed to keep it in the infield, though, which would have been feat enough, but then got the out at second. This came after Stott had swapped to second base from third, following a three-run eighth that gave Philadelphia the lead but also took starting second baseman Luis Arraez out of the game for a pinch-runner, Derek Hill, who would go on to score the third of those runs. Sometimes things just have a way of working out. This loss knocked the Twins six back of the White Sox in the AL Central and also tied with the Guardians, 1.5 back of a wild-card spot. That last wild-card, by the way, is now held by a surprising team that sold at the trade deadline. That team is the Baltimore Orioles - a visit to MLB-best Tampa Bay did not go the way it was maybe envisioned, as the O's swept the Rays right out of that designation. Baltimore won 10-2, first going ahead to stay in the fifth when DH Pete Alonso hit his 23rd double of the season to drive in a pair and make it a 3-1 game. The Orioles' scoring did not stop there, however: a seven-run sixth served as a whole lot of insurance. Don't let the 10 runs distract from Trevor Rogers' performance on the mound, though. The lefty went six innings while giving up just the two runs, with six strikeouts against a single walk and a mostly scattered seven hits. The bullpen handled business the rest of the way, and Baltimore is now holding the third wild-card that, just days ago, belonged to a Tigers team that hadn't slowed down despite trading two of its best pitchers. This season is ridiculous. One of those two pitchers, Tarik Skubal, took the mound for his new team on Sunday. The Dodgers acquired the two-time Cy Young Award winner not just because they could, but because Los Angeles needed the help in a rotation with Justin Wrobleski regressing and Shohei Ohtani without a timeline to return to the mound. Skubal was his usual quality self - seven strikeouts against two walks, one earned run and two runs allowed in six innings - but that wasn't enough. Not with Jake Bauers around for Milwaukee. Bauers came to the plate five times, and made it on base in all five plate appearances. Four hits, five total bases, a walk, two RBIs and a run. His third hit drove in the go-ahead run against Los Angeles... ...and then he came around to score later after an RBI double, to make it 4-1. Bauers has a 19-game on-base streak now, and the Brewers won their third game out of four against the Dodgers to push their NL lead to three games over Los Angeles, powered not just by Bauer but also a seven-inning, one-run performance from starter Logan Henderson, who now has a 2.70 ERA for the season. That means the Dodgers are last among the three division leaders in the NL, which would have it playing in the Wild Card Series instead of getting a bye to the NLDS. That's as things stand, though - there's a lot of 2026 left and the Braves are just half-a-game ahead of the Dodgers, though, there arereasons to be concerned, as Rowan Kavner detailed. Things aren't looking great for the Mariners, but Seattle has been in worse places. The M's are 2.5 back of the Orioles for a wild-card and four back in the AL West after winning their series against the Astros this weekend. Left fielder Randy Arozarena put Seattle up 1-0 in the first with his 17th homer of the year... ...and the struggling Cal Raleigh managed to go yard with his 13th homer of the season later on, with what ended up being the game-winning hit. Bryan Woo threw six innings and allowed just the two runs, lowering his ERA to 4.10. The Astros are in a better place than Seattle - Houston has a two-game lead over the Rangers in the AL West and are four ahead of the M's even after dropping two of three to Seattle. But unlike the White Sox, this series didn't give the Astros a stronger grip over their division. The Cubs won the first game of this series against the Cardinals, but St. Louis picked up victories on Saturday and Sunday. A six-run inning in the fourth put this one out of reach for Chicago, capped off by right fielder Jordan Walker's 24th homer of the season. Chicago could afford to lose a series - this is a wild-card team that still has more wins than all but one AL club, and is two victories behind both the Braves and Dodgers. But St. Louis absolutely needed these dubs: the Cards are still 3.5 games back of a wild-card spot as is, with the Marlins and D-backs closer to securing one of the three than they are. The Royals aren't in the postseason race, and neither are their weekend opponents, the Angels. But a one-hit, complete-game shutout is still a notable achievement, and it's one that Kansas City southpaw Noah Cameron pulled off. Cameron had a perfect game going until a walk in the bottom of the sixth, and a no-hitter until the bottom of the seventh, when first baseman Vaughn Grissom singled with one out in the inning. Cameron didn't get yanked from the game at that point nor fall apart, though: he sat the rest of the opposition down in order until the game was done. Rafael Devers blasted his 25th homer of the year on Sunday, in what was otherwise a forgettable game for the Giants - San Francisco lost, 13-7, to the Rockies. This dinger, though, you have to see it. The Giants' DH hit this one "just" 380 feet, but basically hit it off his shoetops. Inside-and-low doesn't even begin to cover it, but Devers got to it, anyway, and shot it deep to right. The Blue Jays had been threatening in the AL wild-card race despite the low lows they have suffered this season, and Toronto still is a threat. However, this weekend represented a lost opportunity: the Jays could have won this series against the Yankees after forcing the game into extras with a run in the ninth, but instead, New York finished the job in the 10th. This wasn't a matter of bunting the starting runner even closer to scoring or anything like that, either: DH Ben Rice demolished a low in the zone slider 438 feet, and 108.5 mph off the bat, to give the Yankees a 4-2 lead. While the Jays scored a run in the bottom of the inning, one is that Toronto managed, and the chance for a W escaped. The Blue Jays are still just a game back of the Orioles for that last wild-card, but New York has strengthened its hold on the top spot; it's now eight games up, with the second-best record in the American League.