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Santos, who spent seven years in the Rockies organization, was shifted to the pen last year, but he still had a tough time in Triple-A, finishing with a 7.94 ERA and a 32/27 K/BB ratio in 45 1/3 innings. His velocity is up to the 94-97 mph range as a reliever, but he’s not ready to help right now. He’ll almost surely be stashed in Triple-A.

Vientos was practically the lone source of offense for the Mets here. His solo home run in the second inning stood as their only run until the top of the 10th when he hit an RBI double on the first pitch of the frame. After being lifted for a pinch runner, Carson Benge drove his replacement Vidal Bruján to give the Mets a valuable insurance run. That means Vientos had a hand in all three of the runs they scored in this win. While it doesn’t always look pretty, Vientos has four home runs, 11 RBI, and an .824 OPS over his last 15 games as he tries to reestablish himself as a true middle of the order bat.

McLean made it look easy in this one. Besides a solo home run by Nolan Arenado, only one other Diamondback reached scoring position. That came in the first inning while Arenado’s homer was in the second, so Arizona didn’t threaten at any point after then. He forced multiple swings-and-misses with four different pitches and located his four-seam fastball especially well against left-handed batters, which can sometimes be a problem for him. Next, he’s scheduled to face the Tigers back home in Citi Field.

Otherwise shut down by Nolan McLean and the Mets’ bullpen, Arenado’s solo home run was the only run the Diamondbacks could push across in this one. It was his sixth long ball of the year and despite not hitting the ball hard very often and making generally poor swing decisions, he’s been highly productive thus far. His .271/.320/.449 is a huge step up from the hitter he’s been over the past few seasons, it just feels unsustainable given his underlying stats.

Nelson leaned on his trusted fastball to put together his best start of the season here. Any good game against the Mets’ anemic offense should be taken with a grain of salt, but he completed six innings for the first time all year and did so blowing fastball after fastball by them. That pitch accounted for six of his nine total whiffs and he threw them nearly 60% of the time. It had a 70% strike rate and the Mets only managed three hard-hit balls against it. Besides a solo home run from Mark Vientos, they practically never made Nelson sweat. Nelson has now stacked back-to-back good games after his two-start disaster from a few weeks ago and will try to keep the momentum rolling in his next scheduled start on the road against the Rangers.

The Cubs can do no wrong at the moment and Suzuki has been at the center of their surge. His home run here was a towering shot that traveled 419 feet and was hit 110 mph off the bat. Past that, he drew walks that were part of rallies in the first and seventh innings. On the season, he has a .304/.414/.565 slash line with seven home runs across 25 games.

The Cubs’ starting pitcher corps has been depleted by injuries, so they called on Brown to return to their rotation and he delivered them four quality innings. He leaned on his knuckle-curve as his primary pitch and it forced five of his nine total swings-and-misses. Also, his fastball didn’t lose much velocity despite him throwing 46 pitches, the most he’s thrown in a single outing since March 31st. Javier Assad threw bulk innings in relief later in this game and it feels like these two could be in a piggy-back situation moving forward. If Brown sticks in the rotation for another turn, he’ll face the Braves in Atlanta.

Burger’s season is in the tubes. After going hit-less here, he only has two hits in his last 20 at-bats. If you zoom out over his last 30 games, he’s hitting just .172 with 31 strikeouts and a .507 OPS. Following a rough 2025 season, this is not the type of month that inspires much confidence in Burger moving forward.

Rocker had yet another uneven start here. He was consistently behind the eight ball, throwing a first pitch strike to only nine of the 18 hitters he faced and then barely getting the Cubs to swing at anything out of the strike zone. He now has a 5.01 ERA and a poor 27:13 strikeout to walk ratio through 32 1/3 innings on the season. Next up, he’s scheduled to face the Diamondbacks at home.

This was the Luke Raley game. His third inning grand slam momentarily broke this game open before the White Sox stormed back in the bottom of the frame. Then, he pushed their lead back to four with a three-run home run in the seventh that effectively put this game away. He only has four hits over the past week, but three have gone over the fence and have brought his total to eight on the season along with an .890 OPS.

The White Sox were all over Hancock in this one. Munetaka Murakami greeted him with a loud home run in the first inning and then after being spotted a 5-1 lead, Hancock gave it right back in a four-run third. Most of that damage came from a Colson Montgomery three-run double on a first-pitch fastball that was right down the middle. That fastball was hit hard overall despite being one of the key contributors to Hancock’s breakout so far this season. It was impressive to see him settle down enough to get through six frames despite those struggles and he’ll have a chance to get back on track against the Astros in Houston next time out.