Monday, April 13

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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. Today’s edition is brought to you by David Adler.

He’s baseball’s current Iron Man. And he’s rapidly moving up the all-time list. 

“He” would be Braves All-Star slugger Matt Olson, who’s on the verge of playing his 800th consecutive game. 

Olson is sitting at 798 games in a row right now — tied with Nellie Fox for the 11th-longest games played streak in MLB history. Tonight’s series opener against the Marlins will be No. 799. And tomorrow, if all goes well, Olson will join the 800 club. 

Mark Bowman goes deep on the origins of Olson’s Iron Man streak here — it all started back in 2021, when Olson was with the A’s, after a mishap with a faulty batting cage screen.

Five years later, the streak is still going. And Olson is in line to move into the top 10 of all time this season. Here are the next three players he could pass in 2026: 

1) Gus Suhr — 822 consecutive games played

Olson would pass him: May 10 vs. Dodgers 

Passing Suhr would give Olson the 10th-longest streak in MLB history. Suhr, a first baseman for the Pirates back in the 1930s, set a then-National League record with his games played streak from 1931-37. If Olson keeps going, assuming no schedule changes, he’d pass Suhr in May in Atlanta’s series vs. the reigning World Series champs.

2) Eddie Yost — 829 consecutive games played

Olson would pass him: May 18 vs. Marlins 

Yost was nicknamed “the Walking Man” for his uncanny ability to draw bases on balls, but the Washington Senators third baseman was also an early Iron Man, with a games played streak that lasted from 1949 to 1955. A week after eclipsing Suhr, Olson would be in line to pass Yost and move into the No. 9 spot all-time. 

3) Stan Musial — 895 consecutive games played 

Olson would pass him: Aug. 2 vs. Nationals

This is the big name in reach for Olson this season. Stan the Man was an Iron Man for the Cardinals from April 15, 1952 until Aug. 22, 1957. The Hall of Famer’s games played streak was an NL record at the time (now held by Steve Garvey at 1,207 games), but Olson could pass Musial for the No. 8 streak in MLB history by August. 

 

GAMES OF THE NIGHT

Besides Olson and the Braves, here are three games to watch tonight. 

1) Nationals at Pirates (6:40 p.m. ET, MLB.TV/Nationals.TV/SportsNet Pittsburgh) 

Paul Skenes still has a ways to go before his ERA can get back to its usual sub-2 territory, but the Cy Young winner has gotten better with every start. Skenes is starting to look like his dominant self heading into tonight’s start in Pittsburgh. 

2) Cubs at Phillies (6:40 p.m. ET, FS1/MLB.TV/NBCSP+/Marquee Sports Network)

Of all the ace left-handers in baseball — a group that includes Tarik Skubal, Garrett Crochet, Max Fried and Chris Sale — Cristopher Sánchez might be pitching the best right now. He’s on the mound for the series opener between these 2025 playoff teams. 

3) Mets at Dodgers (10:10 p.m. ET, MLB.TV/SNY/SportsNet LA)

This rematch of the 2024 National League Championship Series might be the No. 1 series to watch this week, but New York and L.A. have been going in opposite directions. The Mets have lost five straight games as their offense has sputtered without the injured Juan Soto, while the Dodgers have MLB’s best record at 11-4.  

AROUND THE LEAGUE THIS WEEKEND

Here’s a quick a look at the big things that happened in baseball this weekend, in case you missed anything: 

• Shohei vs. deGrom was awesome

Shohei Ohtani faced Jacob deGrom for the first time, and we got exactly the fireworks we were hoping for. On the very first pitch he saw, Ohtani crushed a home run off the two-time Cy Young winner (extending his on-base streak to 46 games in the process). But deGrom — the Dodger dominator — got the last laugh by pitching a gem to beat L.A.  

• The “Uno Reverse” challenge in St. Louis

Cardinals manager Oli Marmol pulled off one of the craziest challenge twists you’ll ever see on Saturday, when he successfully challenged … a Red Sox successful challenge. Huh? Honestly, you should just read Brenden Schaeffer’s story on the whole thing. But basically what happened was, Boston challenged a hit-by-pitch and flipped it to a foul tip … only for the Cards to challenge the challenge and change that HBP to a catcher’s interference. 

• Tough times in New York  

The Mets and Yankees are both on five-game losing streaks after they were each swept over the weekend — the Mets by the A’s and the Yankees by the Rays. 

• Home run No. 1 for MLB’s No. 2 prospect 

Tigers shortstop Kevin McGonigle, MLB Pipeline’s second-ranked prospect, hit his first career home run in Detroit’s series finale against the Marlins — and off a Cy Young winner in Sandy Alcantara, no less. But what did it cost him to get his home run ball back? 

• Fernando Tatis Jr. played … where? 

The Padres star got his first career start at second base on Saturday, and he played there again on Sunday. Up to that point, all of Tatis’ previous Major League starts in the field had been at shortstop or in the outfield. So where did this move come from … and why does it make sense? AJ Cassavell has the story.

• Walker Szn continues

Jordan Walker — whose breakout we wrote about in this newsletter last week — shows no signs of slowing down. The Cardinals slugger has an MLB-leading seven home runs after yet another blast on Sunday, which put him in a group of St. Louis legends when it comes to hot starts. 

• A double dose of double hits 

One of the many weird baseball plays we keep track of is when a hitter hits the ball twice with one swing. Somehow, that’s already happened three times this season — and it just happened twice this weekend. Braves star Ronald Acuña Jr. did it on Friday, and Pirates top prospect Konnor Griffin did it on Saturday. Both ended up with base hits. 

BASEBALL RETURNS TO RICKWOOD FIELD

Baseball is back again at historic Rickwood Field this summer. 

MLB is celebrating Juneteenth for a third straight year at the iconic Negro League stadium in Birmingham, Ala., with the return of the East-West Classic — a tribute to the Negro League All-Star Games held from 1933-1962. 

The 2026 East-West Classic will be held on Friday, June 19. The team captains will be 2025 Hall of Fame inductee CC Sabathia for the West and former All-Star Chris Young for the East, and the rosters are set to include former MLB stars like Mike Cameron, Jose Contreras, Prince Fielder, Dexter Fowler, Jeremy Guthrie, Matt Kemp and Justin Upton.

Rickwood Field is the oldest professional ballpark in the United States and was the former home of the Negro Leagues’ Birmingham Black Barons — where Willie Mays began his pro career. 

More info on the third annual East-West Classic and Rickwood Field is available here. 

CAUGHT HIM DANCING

Logan Gilbert channeled his inner Andy Pettitte on one of the niftiest plays of the weekend: a pickoff of Jose Altuve where Gilbert and Mariners first baseman Josh Naylor teamed up to fake out the Astros star. 

Naylor deked Altuve by leaving the first-base bag, prompting Altuve to jump out to a bigger lead … at the exact moment that Gilbert wheeled and fired his pickoff throw to first. 

You can see the pickoff play above, and Daniel Kramer takes you inside how the Mariners designed it and executed it here. 

DON’T SWEAT GRIFFIN’S SLOW START

Ed Eagle has a good nugget that should reassure you about Konnor Griffin, just in case you were worried about baseball’s top prospect getting off to a slow start in the big leagues: 

When it comes to finding big league comps for the seemingly incomparably talented Griffin, you can’t blame Pirates fans for crossing their fingers that they have the next Bobby Witt Jr. on their hands.

After all, like the Royals star, Griffin is a five-tool shortstop who could be his franchise’s marquee player for years to come.  

The Buccos faithful are riding high on their club’s 9-6 start to the season, good for first place in the NL Central. But how worried should they be about Griffin’s slow start through his first nine MLB games? 

Well, it’s probably a good time to remind everyone that Witt put up nearly identicalnumbers when he debuted in April 2022.

• Griffin’s first nine games: .138 BA / .235 OBP / .172 SLG, 1 2B, 4 RBIs, 1 SB 
• Witt’s first nine games: .139 BA / .162 OBP / .250 SLG,  2 2B, 1 3B, 3 RBIs, 1 SB

Witt quickly rebounded to finish as just the second player in AL/NL history to record 20 homers and 30 steals in his first season.

And let’s not forget that Witt was nearly 22 at the time of his debut — almost two full years older than Griffin, who’ll be a teenager until April 24. 

BEAT THE STREAK

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, there’s a chance to win unique weekly prizes.

We’ll take Pete Alonso today. The Orioles slugger has absolutely owned D-backs starter Ryne Nelson — Alonso is 5-for-11 with four home runs in five career games vs. Nelson. 

 

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