Major League Baseball’s dubbed “Rivalry Weekend” came to a close on Sunday night with the Subway Series finale. If you had to skip it or go to bed early, then you missed a damn good game — at least if you’re a Yankees fan. The 8-2 final score belies how close this was until a decisive six-run eighth by the Bombers, powered by Cody Bellinger’s rally-capping grand slam. They now lead the AL East by five games and hold the Junior Circuit’s second-best record.

That was just went on in Yankees/Mets though; here’s how some other key matchups involving their American League rivals turned out.

The Rangers looked like they had the four-game series victory over the Astros well in hand. Former No. 2 overall pick Jack Leiter delivered likely his best start to date in his young career, as he no-hit Houston until two outs in the seventh. At that point, Yainer Diaz lifted a solo shot to break the ice for the Astros, but Leiter still finished the frame with a 3-1 lead.

Framber Valdez limited the Rangers’ damage though, as while the three-run rally keyed by RBI hits from Josh Jung and Jake Burger hurt, they were the only real bumps on his record. He spun seven innings of his own to keep Houston in the game.

It all came undone in the eighth. Rangers skipper Bruce Bochy sent Leiter back out to start it since his pitch count was under 80, but he gave up back-to-back singles to Jake Meyers and Cam Smith. In came Chris Martin from the bullpen, and out went Chris Martin after just one pitch due to shoulder discomfort. Robert Garcia relieved Martin and got two outs on three pitches. On a 1-1 count with Isaac Paredes at the dish, though, he made a mistake and the 2023 All-Star blistered it.

At 352 feet, it was no tape-measure shot, but this wasn’t even one of Paredes’ expected Crawford Boxes homers since this game was in Arlington. Although some of the Astros’ offseason moves haven’t worked and they’d still probably be better off with Kyle Tucker, there’s no debate that Paredes has held up his end of the bargain with a 136 wRC+ thus far in 44 games.

Jonah Heim squandered a two-on, two-out chance in the eighth by flying out against Bryan Abreu. Josh Hader threw a perfect ninth with a pair of K’s, and the Astros earned the four-game split. They both sit 2.5 games behind Seattle in the AL West; the Yankees play the Rangers next for three in the Bronx, beginning tomorrow.

Okay, okay, fine. It’s well past time to bump the Tigers into the main section of the Rivalry Roundup. They were the first team in baseball to reach 30 wins and they’ve kept rolling at the top of a competitive AL Central, five up on Minnesota. Detroit won two of three from New York in April and currently boasts a record 3.5 games better than the Yanks.

We will now respect Gmac Cash and crew: the Tigers won again. The recently-recalled Akil Baddoo provided the defensive highlight with a preposterous extra-base-hit robbery in the first.

Detroit had put a pair on the board in their opening frame thanks to a two-run double from a resurgent Spencer Torkelson. Timely hits from Alejandro Kirk and Ernie Clement off rookie Jackson Jobe tied it up in the fourth, and Tork was back for more in the seventh.

The Tigers took a 3-2 lead and spun a slick 6-4-3 double play to snuff out a Jays rally after the seventh-inning stretch. Old friend Tommy Kahnle lowered his season ERA to 1.45 with a relatively easy eighth, and Will Vest closed it out. Note that Kahnle and Vest both have five saves on the season for Detroit, as manager A.J. Hinch has played it loose, preferring not to name a specific closer. Both arms have been nasty this year, so there’s no bad option between the two.

Other Games

Atlanta Braves (24-23) 10, Boston Red Sox (23-25) 4: Regular readers will notice that we bumped Boston down to the “Other Games” section. Honestly, in my gut, I do think that Boston will be an annoying threat for the Yankees to handle throughout 2025, but I don’t like asking my staff to go deep on more than two teams in the main section. The Tigers are the best team in the AL, and while Houston doesn’t (yet) lead the AL West, they are better than Boston and have been the more consistent threat in the past decade.
Oh yeah, and the Red Sox are still playing too many ugly duds like yesterday. With all the fun of the Rafael Devers walk-off homer from Saturday, they got another huge homer from their scalding-hot DH, whose grand slam put them up 4-3 in the third. Instead of coasting on that, they never scored again and Atlanta just kept denting of home plate with Brayan Bello on the bump. It was 7-4, Braves, by the fifth and never really felt close again.

Milwaukee Brewers (22-25) 5, Minnesota Twins (26-21) 2: The Twins’ longest winning streak since their championship 1991 came to a close at the hands of the Brew Crew. This was the best pitching matchup of the series for Milwaukee, and Pat Murphy’s gang at least capitalized there to snap the 13-game run. Zebby Matthews was gone by the fourth, while Freddy Peralta threw five innings of one-run ball. Still, the Brewers needed a sensational home run robbery from Jackson Chourio to preserve a 4-2 lead in the eighth. They tacked on an insurance run and it was smooth sailing in the ninth.

Seattle Mariners (26-19) 6, San Diego Padres (27-18) 1: What a weekend for the M’s. The Padres are a notoriously difficult team in “Slam Diego,” where they entered play on Friday with a 16-5 home record. No matter for Seattle, who swept them away and allowed just one run per game to San Diego. Bryan Woo outpitched Michael King in the finale, shaking off a leadoff bomb by Fernando Tatis Jr. to go seven innings and allow nothing else. Randy Arozarena took King deep to tie the game in the fourth and the M’s scored three times in the frame.

Cincinnati Reds (24-24) 3, Cleveland Guardians (26-21) 1: And how about a sweep in the Ohio Cup? The Guardos were the favorites, but not enough people were counting on the one-man wrecking crew that is Will Benson. He homered in his fourth consecutive games and added another bomb in the sixth to make it five in four days. Dang. Andrew Abbott went five scoreless, and neither Tony Santillan nor Emilio Pagán allowed runs in the eighth and ninth.

Bonus Schadenfreude

You love to see it.