Welcome to The Pregame Lineup, a weekday newsletter that gets you up to speed on everything you need to know for today’s games, while catching you up on fun and interesting stories you might have missed. Thanks for being here.

 

It was a milestone Tuesday night for Angels closer Kenley Jansen, who collected the 450th save of his career. As Jansen keeps firing his signature cutter past hitters in 2025, his 16th big league season, the only big question left is: Is Jansen a future Hall of Famer?

Now that Billy Wagner is in, the next Cooperstown closer might still be pitching. There’s a Big Three of active relievers — Jansen, Craig Kimbrel and Aroldis Chapman — who are the next up with a real chance at the Hall.

And Jansen is leading the way. Here’s a quick look at his Hall of Fame case.

He’s the active leader in saves, and fourth all-time.

 

Not only is Jansen now 10 saves ahead of Kimbrel and 113 in front of Chapman, but he trails only three Hall of Famers: Mariano Rivera (652), Trevor Hoffman (601) and Lee Smith (478). Six other Hall of Fame relievers are behind Jansen: Wagner (422), Dennis Eckersley (390), Rollie Fingers (341), Goose Gossage (310), Bruce Sutter (300) and Hoyt Wilhelm (228).

You can add 20 postseason saves to Jansen’s career total, too, second-most all time behind only Rivera (42).

He has 12 seasons with 25-plus saves.

 

The only closers with more 25-save seasons than the incredibly consistent Jansen are the Hall of Fame trio of Rivera (16), Hoffman (14) and Smith (13). Jansen has also recorded eight 30-save seasons, and four 40-save seasons — including two National League saves crowns and a career-high 47 saves in 2016 for the Dodgers.

His ERA and strikeouts are top-five among relievers, too.

 

Jansen isn’t just one of the best relievers ever at saving games, he’s one of the best at keeping runs off the board and racking up K’s. His 1,227 strikeouts as a reliever rank fifth all-time, and that total includes four seasons of 100-plus K’s. Jansen’s 2.56 career ERA is also fourth-best among all relievers with at least 750 innings pitched. Only Rivera (2.21), Wagner (2.31) and Wilhelm (2.52) are better.

Not a bad career for someone who started out as a catcher. Maybe even a Hall of Fame career.

 

— David Adler

• Angels vs. Rays (7:05 p.m. ET, MLB.TV): Many forecasters — including players! — picked a scrappy AL West club to be this year’s most surprising contender … but the Angels were not that team. We may be only about two weeks in, but seeing the Halos atop their division is a welcome wrinkle. A win over the Rays tonight would give them a fourth straight series victory.

• Phillies vs. Braves (7:15 p.m. ET, MLB.TV, MLB Network Showcase): Staring down just the fifth 1-9 start in franchise history, the Braves rallied late to deny the rival Phils last night. Now they face Taijuan Walker, who shrugged off last year’s struggles in a scoreless season debut (and got “a billion” texts about it from his mom).

The Nationals look like they have MLB’s next rising star in James Wood.

The 22-year-old slugger is raking in his second season in the big leagues; his light-tower power has been turning heads all week.

Wood has smashed three home runs in two games against the Dodgers to lead the Nats to back-to-back wins over the defending World Series champs. His opposite-field moonshot in Monday’s series opener had the baseball world buzzing, and he followed that up with two more blasts on Tuesday for his second career multi-homer game.

Wood is built like sluggers Elly De La Cruz and Oneil Cruz, standing 6-foot-7 and 234 pounds. He was ranked the No. 14 prospect in baseballby MLB Pipeline last year before his callup. After a nine-homer, 14-steal debut in a half-season, he already has four home runs and two stolen bases in 2025. And he’s only getting better.

If you’ve ever wondered whether Spider-Man or Superman would be more dependable in the outfield, two catches yesterday opened the debate. Above is (career infielder!) Edmundo Sosa pulling back a would-be Braves homer, à la Spidey.

 

Below, the Marlins’ Derek Hill soars onto the warning track to prevent a few runs. And a fun fact about Hill’s grab: Heavy winds at Citi Field pushed Tyrone Taylor’s drive 26 feet in and 9 feet to the right, meaning it would’ve been a grand slam under normal conditions (per Weather Applied Metrics).

The Giants debuted their new City Connect uniforms last night, billed as a remixed look inspired by the city of San Francisco’s rich musical history. There are white soundwaves woven into the black tops and hints of purple, a nod to the New York Giants who wore violet from 1913-17.

Bay area rapper and Giants superfan E-40 was of course part of the launch, styling the new threads alongside the players and throwing out the first pitch before the game. Note: Giant E-40 chain not included in City Connect package.

• If you were seeking Shohei Ohtani’s skincare routine, this is … not exactly it. But an ad the superstar did for a Japanese beauty company has somehow infiltrated the Dodgers clubhouse and inspired a brand new celebration on the basepaths. Sonja Chen has the story of how it came to be.

• It turns out if your name sort of rhymes with Barry and you start hitting a lot of clutch homers, you might be granted a nickname with a nod to one of the game’s great sluggers. So goes the story of “Kerry Bonds,” also known as the Tigers’ Kerry Carpenter, and Jason Beck talks with the player who swears he used it first, many years ago.

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