The Yankees offense came out absolutely flat last night, managing just five hits as they got shut out by the Guardians. Clarke Schmidt rebounded nicely from a rotten first inning where he surrendered three runs, but the bats never looked likely to erase the early deficit. There was plenty more baseball around the AL, so let’s recap the relevant results.
Pittsburgh Pirates (23-39) 3, Houston Astros (33-28) 0
A day after they bested Paul Skenes in a pitchers’ duel, the Astros found themselves on the losing end of a 3-0 shutout. This time was against a far unlikelier source of pitching proficiency — rookie Mike Burrows making just his fourth big league appearance. The 25-year-old righty neutralized the Astros lineup for 5.1 scoreless innings, allowing five hits and no walks while striking out six. Chase Shugart, Braxton Ashcraft, and David Bednar combined to allow just two more hits and a walk while striking out a further half-dozen to seal the shutout.
The Pirates scored three in the first three innings and that’s all it would take with their pitchers shutting things down. They loaded the bases in the first on a pair of two-out walks and a Ke’Bryan Hayes hit-by-pitch but an Adam Frazier groundout stranded all three in place. They had better luck in the second, Tommy Pham and Endy RodrÃguez opening the frame with a single and double, Isiah Kiner-Falefa driving the former home on an RBI groundout. Oneil Cruz followed with a single and Andrew McCutchen a sac fly to double the advantage. Then in the third, Spencer Horwitz led off with a single, went first-to-third on a Hayes single, and scored on a Frazier double play to conclude the scoring.
Detroit Tigers (41-22) 5, Chicago White Sox (30-26) 4
Sawyer Gipson-Long last pitched in a MLB game on September 29, 2023. He has since undergone internal brace UCL surgery and left hip surgery, finally making back to the big leagues after over 20 months out. The rookie looked a bit rusty, giving up three runs on five hits in 3.2 innings in his long-awaited fifth career start, but it remains a milestone moment in the road back for the former top prospect. Detroit scored four in the first on a Riley Greene two-run single and RBI singles from Dillon Dingler and Javier Báez, but they allowed the White Sox to hang around from there.
Chicago cut the deficit in half with a Mike Tauchman RBI double and Chase Meidroth RBI single in the third, and sac flies by Josh Rojas and Andrew Benintendi in the fourth and fifth leveled the game at four apiece. The Tigers finally reclaimed the lead in the eighth on a pair of doubles by Wenceel Pérez and Colt Keith to maintain their grip on the best record in baseball, still the only team to breach the 40-win mark.
Other Games:
This game was a barnburner early, with José Soriano surrendering seven runs on eight hits and three walks in 3.2 innings while Lucas Giolito needed just 1.2 innings to give up seven runs on eight hits. Taylor Ward slugged a grand slam in the first and Nolan Schanuel cracked a pair of RBI doubles while Wilyer Abreu, Abraham Toro, Ceddanne Rafaela and David Hamilton all drove in a pair for Boston. It required a three-run rally in the eighth and ninth innings for the Red Sox to avoid the sweep at home, and Rafaela provided the winning blow — a two-run walk-off homer that he sliced just inside the Pesky Pole, Fenway the only park in MLB where this ball would have left the yard. At 308 feet, it was one of the shortest walk-offs bombs on record, but it counts all the same.
Emerson Hancock made one of the best starts of his young career, holding the Orioles to a run on two hits with six strikeouts across 5.2 innings, the only damage an Adley Rutschman solo shot that knocked him from the game. The Mariners already had the lead at that point courtesy of a Randy Arozarena sac fly and Cal Raleigh RBI single, but Heston Kjerstad snatched that lead for the Orioles with a two-run triple in the seventh.
On the day the Twins learned they would lose staff ace Pablo López for the next few months to a shoulder injury, Zebby Matthews stepped up with five innings of one run ball, the lone damage coming in the form of a Jacob Wilson RBI double in the fifth. Ryan Jeffers and Harrison Bader each drove in a pair for the Twins, the former on a solo shot and RBI single and the latter on a two-run tank in the fifth. Trevor Larnach and Willi Castro added run-scoring singles in the eighth as the Twins have taken the first three of this four-game series by a combined 26 runs to eight. Meanwhile, the A’s continue their freefall from mediocrity; since improbably beating the Dodgers in LA on May 13th, they’ve lost 20 of 21. Criminy.
The A’s are now getting trolled by announcers calling other games.
“For the West Sacramento A’s, that is 9 losses in a row and 20 in their last 21 games.
The A’s have not had a stretch like that since the Connie Mack days in Philadelphia in 1946.”
– Gary Cohen. https://t.co/hezsbO5INW pic.twitter.com/uDmuGhQMrx
— Awful Announcing (@awfulannouncing) June 5, 2025