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Mills looked like a first baseman or DH when he was drafted 13th overall in 2007. “We are committing to him as a third baseman now,” scouting director John Mirabelli said. “The only reason we moved him to first base was because of his shoulder. But with his shoulder no longer an issue, we like him more as a third baseman. He’s playing third base in the instructional league, and he’s going to go into next season with the game plan is he’s going to play third base.” We’re skeptical that Mills will reach the majors as a third baseman, but his bat should eventually get him into Cleveland’s lineup regardless.

The Marlins didn’t do much against Chris Sale in this one. In fact, Lopez’s two singles accounted for half their total hits and none went for extra bases. Nevertheless, the two knocks raised his batting average up to a league-best .349 in what’s been such a strong season so far that it’s becoming difficult to ignore. Apart from that high batting average, he also has four home runs, eight stolen bases, and 51 combined runs and RBI as one of the true breakout stars from the first chunk of the season.

Things weren’t going too bad for Junk until he came out for the sixth inning. To that point, the only runs he’d given up came via a three-run home run by Austin Riley. Then, he retired 11 batters in a row to get through five innings and it was shaping up to be a fine start. Yet, five straight Braves’ hits to begin the sixth which culminated in a three-run home run by Dom Smith turned Junk’s outing into a catastrophe. He didn’t make any really bad pitches that inning either, it was just a lot of impressive hitting on balls that were on the edges. After this poor start, Junk has a 5.07 ERA and is scheduled for a two-start week coming up against the Blue Jays and Mets with both starts on the road.

This wound up being a strange situation because Tigers manager A.J. Hinch opted to use closer Kenley Jansen against the heart of Cleveland’s lineup to protect a one-run lead in the eighth inning before giving the ball to Vest to face the bottom of the order. That gambit backfired as Vest surrendered back-to-back singles to Daniel Schneemann and Travis Bazzana before Patrick Bailey delivered a game-tying ground out a couple batters later. He managed to strike out Brayan Rocchio to preserve a tie ballgame, but the damage was already done. Cleveland went on to score a couple runs in extra-innings and close out a comeback win.

Bibee carried a shutout into the seventh inning before Detroit pulled ahead of a sacrifice fly from Matt Vierling following a leadoff walk by Kevin McGonigle and a single from Riley Greene. He finished with four strikeouts and allowed just five baserunners, needing 104 pitches (67 strikes) to navigate eight frames in his longest outing of the year. He’s been relatively consistent this season, allowing three earned runs or fewer in nine of his 11 starts so far. He’ll face the Nationals on Monday in his next outing to kick off a two-start week.

Anderson went exactly two times through Cleveland’s lineup, throwing 38 of 63 pitches for strikes, and allowing just four baserunners. He generated an impressive 10 swinging strikes and finished with a strong 33 percent CSW. He consistently challenged the Guardians with high fastballs in two-strike counts, resulting in five of his seven punchouts. Not bad for a journeyman pitcher making his first start in the big leagues since August 7, 2021. It seems highly unlikely he’ll get another turn in Detroit’s rotation, especially with Troy Melton (elbow) seemingly ready to return from the injured list, but he took advantage of his opportunity in this one.

Abrams gave rookie Zach Thornton a taste of big league life in his debut with a loud three-run homer in the first inning. A strange but true stat courtesy of the Nationals’ TV booth, this was the fourth time Abrams hit a home run off a pitcher making their major league debut. Even more surreal, it was the third time he did so in the first inning! He chipped in another base hit to start the Nationals’ sixth inning rally and continued what appears to be a major breakout campaign for the 25-year-old shortstop. In total, he’s up 10 home runs with 42 RBI, seven stolen bases, a .300 batting average, and a .928 OPS. Those are star numbers as we’re nearly through one third of the season.

This was a quintessential Zack Littell game. He was around the strike zone and the Mets hitters were aggressive, yet unable to do much damage. Of the 20 total batters he faced, 10 swung at the first pitch they saw and only three took a first pitch strike. Nevertheless, Littell pitched well enough to put himself in position for a win and now has a 23:15 strikeouts to walk ratio with a 5.83 ERA through 46 1/3 innings so far this season. He’s scheduled for a two-start week coming up against the Guardians and Padres.

On the eve of the anniversary of his first career home run, Soto chipped in two here against his original club. He hadn’t hit for a ton of power in the first few weeks after returning from his early season trip to the injured list, but now has five long balls over his past seven games. That gives him nine total on the season to go along with a .299 batting average and .951 OPS.

It was impressive to see how Thornton settled in during his big league debut. CJ Abrams greeted him rudely with a three-run home run in the first inning on a cutter that didn’t do much cutting. The Nationals scratched across another run in the second after Thornton walked Nasim Nuñez who then stole second base, advanced to third on an error, and scored on a hit by Keibert Ruiz. After that, he retired eight consecutive batters until Ruiz came up again and doubled. Thornton leans on his cutter – which has been tagged as a slider in some places – that he mostly spotted well running in on right-handed batters along with his fastball. On the other hand, he didn’t really have a put-away pitch so the Nationals were able to really zero-in on that cutter. If he sticks in the Mets rotation for another turn, he’d likely face the Reds at home next week.

Nimmo added that his exit from Wednesday’s series finale at Coors Field was precautionary in nature and that he felt like he could still play even though his hamstring wasn’t 100 percent. It sounds like he’ll be ready to roll after getting extra rest during Thursday’s off-day. Fantasy managers should consider him day-to-day.