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.
If you check the box score from the Yankees’ thrilling walk-off win last night in the Bronx, you’ll see what on paper seems to be a ho-hum F4 from Aaron Judge in the third inning. But it was the result of a heavyweight, hard-fought, nine-pitch battle with two-time Cy Young Award winner Jacob deGrom, and the mutual respect between the two decorated players was clear as Judge jogged off the field.
The two-time MVP, on track for his third, nodded his head and smiled at deGrom as if to say, you got me this time, and the Rangers ace exhaled an obvious sigh of relief that Judge had swung slightly under his 98 mph fastball, after fouling off five other daring heaters in the at-bat.
We may take it for granted right now, but it’s possible that a decade or so down the road we’ll look back on this as a memorable exchange between two Hall of Famers.
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Wait, deGrom a Hall of Famer? — you ask skeptically while squinting at his 88 career wins. It’s understandable to raise an eyebrow. The starting pitcher with the fewest wins in Cooperstown is Dizzy Dean with 150. Even if deGrom were to average his career high of 15 victories, he’d have to pitch for about five more years (into his early 40s) to surpass Dean’s total, and of course that would require a clean bill of health, which has always gotten in the way of his greatness.
This is what makes deGrom the next great Hall of Fame debate, though, because he could usher in a new way of thinking about pitchers deserving of plaques. Once the apparent locks like Justin Verlander, Clayton Kershaw, Max Scherzer and (to a certain extent) Zack Greinke – who all boast the type of counting stats that have historically screamed Cooperstown – get in, a new generation of pitchers will be put under the microscope. deGrom may be the most intriguing of them all.
In terms of hardware, he has a Rookie of the Year Award, an ERA title and two Cy Young Awards to his name. If he stays healthy this year and continues pitching the way he has through his first 10 starts (2.33 ERA, 62 K’s in 58 innings), there’s no reason he shouldn’t be in the running for another. Eleven pitchers have won three or more Cy Young Awards, and all of them save for Roger Clemens are Hall of Famers or almost certainly soon will be (the aforementioned Kershaw, Verlander and Scherzer).
Much of this depends on how the 36-year-old deGrom closes out his career, but when the time comes he will make for a fascinating study. For now, all we can do is cherish moments like last night, two all-time greats – Hall of Fame or not – going at it at the highest level of the sport. There’s no debating that.
— Scott Chiusano
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• Guardians @ Tigers (6:40 p.m. ET, MLB.TV): The Tigers not only have the best record in the Majors through 50 games for the first time since 2006, they also have the biggest division lead in the game. They can create more space this weekend, with four games against Cleveland while the Royals and Twins duke it out in Minnesota.
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• Mariners @ Astros (8:10 p.m. ET, MLB.TV): The Mariners’ starting rotation gets a major boost tonight with the return of George Kirby, one of the Majors’ premier control artists (he led MLB in strikeout/walk ratio in 2024), who’s making his season debut after battling a shoulder injury since early March.
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When Corbin Carroll emerged during his NL Rookie of the Year season of 2023, it seemed like he was on the fast track to stardom. He took a surprising step backward last year, but his first two months of 2025 have put that far in the past. He’s looking like an MVP contender again, flashing speed and increased pop, with his 15 homers trailing only Shohei Ohtani and Kyle Schwarber in the NL.
How did he regain his form? A lot of it can be seen in his swing, as Mike Petriello details in depth. Carroll has altered how he attacks the ball, zeroing in on the “ideal attack angle” because that’s where a hitter gets the most value from their swing. Last year, he was in the 25th percentile of ideal attack angle, but so far in 2025 he tops the list, with a whopping 73% of his swings coming within this range.
For a really cool inside look at how Carroll is attacking the baseball, check out this video.
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Patience is a virtue, and the Triple-A Reno Aces very nearly paid the pricefor not heeding that old adage.
With the bases loaded and Reno trailing by a run, Connor Kaiser laced a liner that split the right-center gap and was sure to end it. Not so fast (literally). As Cristian Pache, who started on second base, was halfway home with the winning run, an Aces player who had stormed out of the dugout to start a premature celebration ran into him. The umpires called Pache out due to interference, which left a lot of befuddled players standing around wondering what had just happened. Except for one, the trail runner, who amid the chaos and confusion wisely came home to score. It all resulted in a walk-off win for Reno nonetheless, but it was an ace up their sleeve they are not likely to ever pull again.
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Pick one of the day’s games, open up your board and see if you can get bingo with these baseball occurrences. Do it for two-time World Series champion Bing Miller. Play free >>
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