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.

 

Get ready, baseball fans. The “Korean Ohtani” is coming.

 

His name is Seong-Jun Kim, he’s a two-way player, and he just signed with the Rangers as an international free agent.

 

Now, we don’t want to get too far ahead of ourselves here … Kim is still in high school over in Korea, and he’s only 18 years old. So it’ll be a little while before we might see him in the Major Leagues.

 

But the emergence of a new two-way phenom in baseball is exciting. And the good news is, the Rangers want Kim to stay that way.

 

“We have full intent as an organization to develop him as a two-way player,” Rangers international scouting director Hamilton Wise said after Texas signed Kim on Sunday. “We believe he has the qualities and ingredients for that challenge.”

 

Will Kim be a superstar like Ohtani? He thinks he can.

 

“It’s gonna be hard, not easy,” Kim said after signing (via interpreter Kwangmin “Andre” Park). “But I will do my best. I’m not going to regret anything at all. I will do my best. … If I can improve better and earlier, I can be the best player in the big leagues.”

Here are some fast facts about Kim:

 

• He’s a shortstop and right-handed pitcher.
• He’s now ranked the Rangers’ No. 15 prospect by MLB Pipeline.
• As a pitcher, he throws a fastball, slider, splitter and curveball and already touches 95 mph with his heater.
• As a batter, he’s an above-average contact hitter and projects for 15-plus home run power in the future.
• His high school in Korea, Gwangju Jeil High School, has produced four other big leaguers: Byung-Hyun Kim, Hee-Seop Choi, Jae Weong Seo and Jung Ho Kang.

Want to know more about the Korean Ohtani? Read all about Kim here.

 

— David Adler

• Mets @ Red Sox (6:45 p.m. ET, MLB.TV, MLB Network Showcase): The Mets come in having lost three straight games for the first time this season, and they’ve scored three runs in that span. It doesn’t get any easier tonight against Boston ace Garrett Crochet, who is second in the AL with 73 strikeouts.

 

• Rangers @ Yankees (7:05 p.m. ET, MLB.TV): Jacob deGrom starts are once again marquee events, and this one is no exception as the electric right-hander returns to the city he called home for nine years as a member of the crosstown Mets. He’s actually struggled on this mound in the past, allowing 13 earned runs across three career starts in the Bronx, but he hasn’t pitched there since 2018.

 

• D-backs @ Dodgers (10:10 p.m. ET, MLB.TV): The Dodgers had their ace Yoshinobu Yamamoto on the mound last night, and he delivered seven scoreless innings of one-hit ball. Tonight the D-backs send their top man to the hill in Corbin Burnes, who has not allowed a run in 13 innings over his past two starts, and they have a chance to escape L.A. with a big series victory.

(Photo courtesy Mark S. Auerbach)

Connecting with an MLB star can happen in a variety of ways. These days that usually means the pregame autograph line, social media, or perhaps a chance encounter out in public.

But that’s nothing when compared to a group of kids who once saved hundreds of lives and got to meet Babe Ruth as a result.

 

MLB.com’s Dan Cichalski recounts a story of six orphans who in 1933 stopped a train carrying 400 people from heading into a ditch on a rainy evening in Passaic, N.J.

“At first, the engineer got out and was yelling and screaming at us,” John Murdock, one of the six boys, recalled in a 2005 interview in The Record, a northern New Jersey newspaper. “But when he saw the big ditch underneath the tracks, he got down on his knees and thanked us.”

 

Their quick thinking had prevented the train from crashing, and they were quickly lauded for averting a disaster and saving lives. When asked what they wanted in return for their heroic actions, one request topped the list: Would you let Babe Ruth know what we did?

 

An orphan himself growing up in Baltimore, Ruth responded in a telegram with his congratulations and promised that he’d invite the six boys to Yankee Stadium when the team returned from its road trip.

 

The stars aligned on that night for six orphans to meet the biggest star of them all.

Now that the temporary confusion over his Chicago baseball allegiance has been cleared up, Pope Leo XIV can enjoy the many kind gestures the White Sox have made in celebrating their ties to the supreme pontiff. The latest is a mural at Rate Field showing the pope with the Chicago skyline and a screenshot of the crowd from Game 1 of the 2005 World Series, which the pope attended (merely as Bob). There’s a deep sense of pride to the mural, but if you ask Ed Schmit IV, a family friend who joined the future pope at Game 1, the purpose is simple: “I don’t want anyone to think he’s a Cubs fan, because he’s not a Cubs fan.” Scott Merkin details the club’s tribute here in an excerpt of his latest White Sox newsletter.

 

— Tom Vourtsis

Can you Beat the Streak? Try to top Joe DiMaggio’s record hitting streak of 56 games by selecting a player each day to record a hit. If you get to 57, you can win $5.6 million. Plus, new for this year, a chance to win unique weekly prizes.

 

Think hitters look forward to playing in Colorado? Just ask Trea Turner, who owns a career .354/.371/.614 slash line with five homers and a .985 OPS in 28 games at Coors Field.

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