Merrill Kelly goes five in victory over Athletics

Hernández’s latest stint with the Dodgers wound up lasting less than one week. The well-traveled 30-year-old has mostly operated in mop-up duty, registering a bleak 5.68 ERA across 25 1/3 innings of work this season.

Wilson takes a seat for the third consecutive game as he continues to deal with left shoulder soreness. It’s challenging to rule out a potential trip to the injured list, especially with the Athletics no longer in the mix for a playoff spot, but Wilson remains day-to-day for the moment. It’ll be Donovan Walton getting a look at shortstop on Wednesday evening.

Tolman earns his first trip to the big leagues after compiling an underwhelming 5.23 ERA, 1.61 WHIP and 42/23 K/BB ratio across 31 innings at the Triple-A level this season. The unheralded 27-year-old will operate in low-leverage duty for Washington.

Two batters after Rafael Flores Jr. tied the game with a 431-foot blast to left off Kenley Jansen, Lowe pulled a fly that looked like it was going foul but instead clanged off the pole to end the game. It was Lowe’s fourth career walkoff homer and 27th homer of 2026. He also walked twice in the contest.

Skenes allowed one run through four before giving up double and a walk to start the fifth. It was surprising he wasn’t pulled at that point, but he stayed in to strike out Colt Keith before giving up an RBI single to Gleyber Torres. Skenes departed then and Gregory Soto allowed one of the two inherited runners to score before finishing the inning. After coming in at just 95.7 mph last time out and getting a couple of extra days off this week, Skenes was back up to 96.8 mph on average with his fastball today. Four of his five strikeouts came on the pitch. He allowed just two hard-hit balls in the game, and one of those turned into a double play. The walks are really annoying, but the outing was still more promising than the line suggests. He’s due to face the Padres next week.

Montgomery entered with the Pirates down by one and got the victory after they came back in the bottom of the ninth. He’s pitched on back-to-back days and three of the last four, so it’s good timing for him that the Pirates have Thursday off.

He outdueled Paul Skenes today, but the two-run lead he left with failed to hold up. Jobe finished up with three strikeouts and three walks, giving him an 11/5 K/BB in 14 innings since he came off the IL. His first start back was more exciting and encouraging that the last two, and he seems like a fringe mixed-league option in a lone start at home against the Rays next week.

It’s the fifth time in his long career that Jansen has allowed two homers; it happened once in 2013, twice in 2018, once in 2022 and once last year, when the Tigers actually homered off him three times while he was pitching for the Angels. The blown save was Jansen’s fifth of the year but first since May 24. As much as this loss hurt, Jansen, who had a 1.35 ERA since the beginning of July, should remain the Tigers’ primary closer for now.

Flores had a pinch-hit homer batting for Henry Davis in the seventh and then tied the game with another solo shot off Kenley Jansen in the ninth. He’s now 15-for-48 with six homers in 19 appearances this season. His defense is rather rough and he made a throwing error during his brief time behind the plate today, but it seems like the Pirates need to start playing him fairly regularly to see if he can keep this up. Maybe that’s part of the thinking behind acquiring Christian Bethancourt; adding a third catcher would make it easier to start Flores at DH.

The Tigers would have been better off if he had just fanned four times. Torkelson finished the three-game series 0-for-9 with six strikeouts, leaving him at .224/.313/.411 in 496 plate appearances on the season. His strikeout rate has jumped from 26 percent last year to 31 percent right now, and he’s inching closer to becoming a non-tender candidate this winter.