In addition to the two homers, Crawford — who has not exactly wowed with his defense over the past few years — also made a game-saving play on a diving stop in the top of the tenth. He came around to score his fourth run of the game in the bottom of the frame on a walk-off hit from Randy Arozarena. Crawford has homered nine times in 2026 while forging a solid .741 OPS. He’s a much different player at this stage of his career, but the power and plate skills make him worthy of roster consideration.

Two of the four hits for Rice were doubles. The other extra-base hit was his 17th homer of the season, and a pair of RBI bring his season total to 39 in 57 games; putting him on pace to drive in triple digits for the first time in his young career. Rice had a bit of a scuffle earlier in May, but to say he’s been one of the breakout hitters of 2026 is certainly an understatement. There’s an awful lot to like about what Rice has done over the first two months of the year.

Ohtani also singled twice. His homer was one of four that the Dodgers hit off Zack Wheeler, and it gave the Dodgers a 3-0 lead while also giving Ohtani his 10th homer of the season. It seems unlikely to be the last. The 31-year-old has homered in back-to-back games, and this one comes a game after he threw six no-hit innings. Huh. Might be something here.

Tovar homered in the eighth to get the Rockies to within a run at 4-3. The 24-year-old gave the Rockies the win and also improved his homer total to four with a two-run blast off Caleb Kilian that completed the comeback win for Colorado, as the Rockies entered that inning trailing 6-3. Tovar has struggled for most of the year, but he’s homered three times this week, and he’s shown the ability — in spurts anyway — to be a fantasy factor.

Díaz clobbered a leadoff homer to right field off Angels starter Walbert Ureña before putting the exclamation point on the multi-homer outburst by walloping a go-ahead two-run blast to left-center field off Ryan Zeferjahn in the seventh. The 34-year-old on-base machine continues to serve as Tampa Bay’s primary offensive catalyst this season as he’s up to 10 round-trippers while also hitting .313/.392/.523 with 36 RBI across 51 games.

Cruz got a cutter over the heart of the plate and didn’t miss, sending a majestic blast into the Allegheny River over the right-field fence at PNC Park. It’s just the seventh round-tripper to reach the iconic river in the ballpark’s 25-year history, according to MLB.com’s Aiden Stepansky. The incredible feats of strength are nothing new for Cruz, but he’s made strides against left-handed pitching and boasts the highest hard-hit rate of his career so far. He’s up to 12 homers and 17 stelas in 252 plate appearances through 56 games. That’ll work.

Let’s start with the bad news. Jones served up a solo homer to Kody Clemens and a two-run blast to Trevor Larnach a couple frames later, with both long balls coming against his fastball. Not great. There were some positive takeaways for the dynamic 24-year-old as he averaged 99 mph on his fastball and topped out at 101.5 mph in his first major-league start since September 27, 2024. He finished with six strikeouts and only handed out two free passes. Jones remains a work in progress after missing last season recovering from Tommy John surgery, but his talent and strikeout upside are undeniable, which makes him worthy of a speculative roster spot in all fantasy leagues. He’ll make his next start against the Astros at Daikin Park on Thursday.

Smith got the call to protect a one-run lead in the final frame and managed to work around a leadoff single from Isiah Kiner-Falefa by striking out Marcelo Mayer, Caleb Durbin and Jarren Duran to preserve the win. The 27-year-old is the first closer to reach the 20-save plateau this season and finds himself four ahead of Padres star Mason Miller for the league lead. He holds a strong 2.60 ERA, 1.08 WHIP and 42/5 K/BB ratio across 27 2/3 innings of work.

It’ll be Skubal’s second time facing hitters within the past week as he continues to his literally record-breaking recovery from an innovative NanoScope procedure on his elbow earlier this month. Tigers manager A.J. Hinch told reporters previously that the 29-year-year ace will need at least one minor league rehab start before returning to Detroit’s rotation, which puts him on track to return at some point mid-June.

It was the drumbeat for most of the offseason, so this isn’t surprising, but it’s still galling to see it. A salary floor would be set at $171.2 million for MLB teams, meaning 12 teams would have to increase their payrolls while eight would have to shed to get under the cap. We’re not quite sure how likely any of this is to happen — either this or yesterday’s proposal from the MLBPA to raise the minimum salary to $1.5 million — but this will remain the backdrop as the union and ownership continue to talk ahead of the expiration of the CBA after the season.