Bryce Harper blasts go-ahead homer in ninth

Talk about stuffing the stat sheet. McCarthy was an unstoppable force here. He started the game off with a loud 440 foot homer on the first pitch Logan Webb threw and smashed a 427 foot grand slam later on in the fifth inning. Between those, he was in the middle of a couple more rallies and has been scalding hot for a while now with seven home runs, five stolen bases, and a .347/.379/.621 slash line over his last 30 games. He’s also hit lead-off against the last 13 right-handed pitchers his Rockies have faced. That’s not too shabby!

The Rockies had amassed a seven-run lead by the third inning and Feltner cruised with that cushion. The trio of his fastball, slider, and changeup were especially lethal as each forced at least five swings-and-misses. That’s amazing, but this is a rarity for Feltner who rarely misses bats or even strikes hitters out. His 17 total whiffs were the third most in any start of his career and the most since April 2024. To further show how rarely Feltner stacks up strikeouts like this, his nine in this game are one quarter of his season total. Don’t get roped into this.

Devers blasted a 432 foot moonshot as the Giants tried to make up a two touchdown deficit against the Rockies in Coors Field. They’d never get close to striking distance, but it’s nice to see that Devers has fully pulled the nose up on his season. Overall, he’s up to 16 home runs and a .775 OPS. Over the last 30 days, he’s hit nine of those home runs and has an .893 OPS. That looks much more like the Devers we know than who he was over the first chunk of the season.

Coors Field is not a safe place for any pitcher. Not even a sinker-baller like Webb who came into this game on an absolute heater after pitching to a 0.71 ERA in June. He gave up multiple runs in each of the first three innings before being mercifully pulled. This is one of those starts you just flush, forget about, and move on. Webb is scheduled to face the Blue Jays next week to close out his first half.

The discomfort is in his pitching arm, though he said he felt it while batting in his last at-bat. Shutting Ohtani down as a pitcher for a spell would doom his Cy Young chances, but it might be the right call for the Dodgers’ World Series chances. Still, at this point, the Dodgers are terming Friday’s removal as precautionary. If he feels better, he could DH on Sunday. Dalton Rushing or Teoscar Hernández figures to DH on Saturday.

Jeff Hoffman and Louis Varland finished up the four-hitter. Cease allowed three hits and walked one in his fourth scoreless start this season. He’s second in the majors with 137 strikeouts and 11th with a 2.79 ERA. He’s given up five homers, which is tied with Ranger Suarez for the lowest total among qualified starters. Although Cease finished second in the AL Cy Young balloting in 2022 and fourth in the NL balloting in 2026, the All-Star nod he’s sure to pick up on Saturday will be the first of his career.

Jeff Hoffman set him up with a scoreless eighth. Varland was feeling pretty strong tonight, averaging 99.6 mph with his fastball. He gave up a single to Dominic Canzone with one out in a 2-0 contest, but he then struck out Cal Raleigh and got Josh Naylor to ground out to end the game.

Unfortunately, three of the five hits came in a four-batter span in the third inning, producing both runs. That was enough to doom him in what turned out to be a 2-0 game. Castillo has a nice 2.72 ERA and a 30/9 K/BB in 36 1/3 innings over his last seven appearances. If there are no changes, he’s currently in line to make his next start Thursday against the Marlins.

A groundout, a popout and two strikeouts. Raleigh is hitting .154 with one homer in 16 games since coming off the injured list, and his current .560 OPS is the same mark he had when he got hurt in May. In his 60-homer season, Raleigh had 200 hard-hit balls and 188 strikeouts in 159 games. Right now, he has 42 hard-hit balls and 79 strikeouts in 57 games.

He will not stop. After his six-game home run streak was snapped on Thursday, he may have started another one here with his 25th home run on the season. This now makes it 10 homers in 10 games for the 22-year-old phenom just one day shy of his 23rd birthday. The ‘must watch’ label isn’t thrown around too often in baseball, but Caminero with his prodigious power, infectious energy, and demonstrative celebrations is absolutely a must watch player right now.