Ronald Acuña Jr. belts ninth home run in win

The homer off Davis Martin was Valdez’s third in 34 games after he hit 14 in 37 games to open his major league career. He’d seem to be in line to lose some playing time once Ryan O’Hearn comes off the IL, though probably not as much as he’d lose if O’Hearn were ready to play right field right away. Most likely, he’ll be limited to DH and first base initially.

Montgomery struck out Sam Antonacci and Miguel Vargas to end the game, which saw the Pirates use eight pitchers. It’s Montgomery’s 19th straight scoreless appearance since July 27.

The White Sox again failed to score for Martin, who pitched five scoreless innings as the club was shut out by the Astros last Thursday. Martin was successful despite striking out just one and giving up nine hard-hit balls. He’ll take a 9-6 record and a 4.15 ERA into his next start against the Guardians.

Montgomery is the 25th player to fan 200 times in a season and third member of the White Sox after Adam Dunn struck out 222 times in 2012 and Yoán Moncada fanned 217 times in 2018. The three tonight put him at 201, so Montgomery is 22 away from tying Mark Reynolds’ major league record with 17 games to play.

Teoscar Hernández’s turnaround seemed to lessen the chances of a De Paula promotion, but maybe it’s Shohei Ohtani’s condition that has opened things back up. The 21-year-old De Paula has hit .303/.401/.547 with 27 homers and 31 steals in Double-A this year. He’s yet to play in Triple-A. The Dodgers will likely give him starts against right-handers in an effort to see if he can be useful in October.

If people wanted to see some real scoring on Wednesday night, they should’ve tuned into Mets vs. Marlins rather than the opening game of the NFL season. Regardless, the Mets pulled out this 15-14 thriller with a huge boost from the bottom of their lineup. Torrens drove in four runs from the ninth spot, Christopher Morel three after coming in for the injured Brett Baty who plated one of his own hitting eighth, and A.J. Ewing with two RBI from the seven-hole. That’s a whopping 10 RBI from the bottom third of their lineup. Otherwise, Torrens raised his OPS to .701 with another strong game as he has put together a truly phenomenal second half. Since the All-Star break, he’s slashing .296/.359/.592 – that’s a .951 OPS – with six home runs and 19 RBI in 24 games as the Mets’ part-time catcher

This save from Myers was not about him challenging Kodai Senga for the Mets’ closer role to end the season. More so, he was the sixth reliever they were forced to turn to in this chaotic 15-14 win which literally took all hands on deck to come away with. He still closed the door though and has leaned on his splitter heavily since coming back from the minor leagues to positive results.

One poor inning sunk Stock’s night here. He breezed through the first three innings before trouble found him in the fourth. To start the frame, he plunked Otto Lopez. Then, a walk and three singles brought home three runs and already at 80 pitches, Stock wouldn’t come back out for a fifth inning. He did allow nine hard-hit balls along the way too, so it wasn’t a bad spot to pull him. He’s scheduled to make another – likely abbreviated start – at home next week against the Orioles.

Marsee was a true pest as the Met and Marlins played one of the wildest games of the year. Twice the Mets pulled away with huge leads and both times the Marlins made them sweat it out. Marsee was a central reason as to why with a single to start their rally when down 8-0 in the third, a two-run, two-out single to knot this game at eight in the sixth, and a single to cut the lead to 15-14 in the ninth. It would wind up as too little too late, but Marsee has hit a groove lately. Over his last 30 games, he has a .314/.421/.480 slash line with three home runs and three stolen bases as he tries to salvage his poor season.

The Mets jumped all over Junk for six runs in the second inning that included five consecutive hits to start the frame. He came back out for the third inning, and promptly gave up a two-run home run to Christopher Morel. His ERA jumped by more than half a run from 4.00 to 4.54 after this implosion, but he was likely able to avoid a loss after the Marlins stormed back from their 8-0 deficit to take him off the hook before blowing the game again later on. Regardless, it may be difficult to trust him in his next scheduled start against the Diamondbacks on the road despite their offensive deficiencies.