Travis Lakins Sr. gets a spot start for the Orioles tonight as they play at Houston in the second of a three-game series. The Orioles scored five runs in the ninth last night - two more than they scored last week in three games against Houston - and they won 9-7. It was their most runs and hits (15) in one game since June 8 in a 10-3 win over the New York Mets. Last night the top five in the Baltimore order - Cedric Mullins, Austin Hays, Trey Mancini, Ryan Mountcastle and Ryan McKenna - were a...

For the Trey Mancini, it was an easy decision to accept an invitation to take part in the Home Run Derby competition in Denver on July 12 as part of the All-Star game festivities. Mancini, during a Zoom interview today, talked about winning a home run derby once in college. But this occasion gives him another chance to inspire anyone dealing with cancer and trying to beat it. Mancini missed the entire 2020 season after his diagnosis and surgery for Stage 3 colon cancer. He wants to take...

The latest Orioles lineup combination tonight has Ryan McKenna batting fifth and playing left field, with Austin Hays in right field and Anthony Santander serving as the designated hitter. Domingo Leyba is playing second base and Maikel Franco returns to the lineup at third. Austin Wynns is catching. Meanwhile, with a marathon win last night, the Orioles summoned right-hander Conner Greene from Triple-A Norfolk and put him on the taxi squad. A fresh arm is close. Greene would become the 11th...

A Nationals bullpen that already was being stretched thin with the losses of several key late-inning relievers to injury has lost another key late-inning reliever: Tanner Rainey, who today was placed on the 10-day injured list with a stress reaction in his lower right leg. It's a serious blow to a relief corps that has been trying to proceed without the services of Daniel Hudson, Kyle Finnegan and Will Harris and now enters a daunting closing stretch to the first half of the season against...

It's a rare thing when a ballclub plays three different opponents on three consecutive days, but that's the case for the Nationals tonight. After wrapping up their weekend series with the Marlins on Sunday, then facing the Mets in a one-off makeup game Monday, tonight they welcome the Rays to town for the first of two games in an interleague series. These two teams split a series at Tropicana Field a couple weeks ago, but things have changed a bit since then. The Nationals have gotten red...

The Orioles have decided on Travis Lakins Sr. as tonight's starter against the Astros in Houston. The mystery ended around noon with the team announcing it. Lakins, celebrating his 27th birthday, is making his fourth major league start and first since Sept. 26, 2019 with the Red Sox. None of his starts have lasted more than two innings and he worked a career-high four in relief Thursday in Buffalo. Pretty much indicates an opener, with Lakins perhaps followed by rookie left-hander Alexander...

When Juan Soto steps to the plate these days, he does so with one task in mind: Get on base. Don't worry about hitting a ball 450 feet somewhere. Just do whatever it takes to reach, whether via single, walk or some other mechanism. And he's done quite well in that department, with a .396 on-base percentage that ranks among the league leaders. "Yeah, that's what I'm trying to do," Soto said Monday during a face-to-face interview with several reporters at Nationals Park. "Like I told the...

Orioles manager Brandon Hyde spun his lineup again tonight in an attempt to find the right combination. A group that can make plays in the field and generate runs. Perhaps run with an opportunity. Locating strike-throwers also is on the agenda. The shuffling in the rotation is happening now in the infield with the arrivals of Domingo Leyba and Ramón Urías. They started again tonight, with Urías at short and Leyba switching from second base to third base. Slumps and health factor into...

The injury to shortstop Freddy Galvis, a strained quadriceps muscle in his right leg perhaps keeping him out of the lineup for the next two months, opened another door that Richie Martin couldn't walk through. Martin missed the 2020 season with a fractured right wrist, an injury sustained while playing in an intrasquad game at summer training camp at Camden Yards. Meanwhile, shortstop José Iglesias was in and out of the lineup because of an aching left quadriceps. Surgery to remove a broken...

As the balls flew off the bats of Kyle Schwarber (twice), Trea Turner and Gerardo Parra, and as Paolo Espino was carving up the Mets for five scoreless innings, the mood inside of Nationals Park was ... well, how exactly to describe this? Was it ecstasy? Was it delirium? Was it some emotion that has yet to be defined, because nobody in attendance had ever witnessed anything quite like this on a baseball field in a long time? And then how to describe the vibe as the Nationals bullpen turned a...