Betting

DeGrom struck out seven but gave up two homers tonight. He allowed four runs through six, yet he was left in to start the seventh anyway and was charged with two more runs then after giving up two singles (the latter being a bunt) and leaving with one out and runners on first and second. It’s the first time that he’s allowed six runs in a game as a Ranger. He did so 10 times as a Met, most recently in 2019. He’ll take a 3.11 ERA into Sunday’s start versus the Cubs.

Okamoto launched a solo shot off Drew Rasmussen in the first inning for his 10th home run of the season. After struggling a bit to begin the year, Okamoto is now 8-for-21 in May with five home runs, seven runs scored, and eight RBI in five games. He’s been hitting well for longer than that, but we seem to be in the eye of the storm for his hot stretch right now. The rookie is now slashing a respectable .244/.327/.489 on the season, and earlier concerns about him being a bust have quieted considerably.

This didn’t look good at all. Pagán hobbled off the mound and went to the ground clutching his left hamstring after throwing his first pitch of the ninth inning of a tie ballgame. The 34-year-old was carted off the field after several minutes. There should be an update on his status prior to Wednesday’s contest, but it certainly looks like an injured list situation. Tony Santillan or Graham Ashcraft would likely be next up for saves in Cincinnati.

There has been some steady progress in the underlying metrics for Rafaela this season. He’s chasing less outside of the zone and making more contact, but the impactful swings have not been there, so it was nice to see this game from him today. He took Framber Valdez deep in the first inning for his second home run of the year and then added an RBI single in the third inning as well. He’s getting caught stealing too much to begin the season, but new Red Sox manager Chad Tracy has been hitting Rafaela near the middle of the lineup, so that should be a real boon to his counting stats. He remains a hold in all fantasy formats.

Abreu got the start against left-hander Framber Valdez and has been getting far more playing time against lefties this season. He delivered too, with his fifth home run and second stolen base of the season. The 26-year-old is slashing .311/.393/.485 on the season and is a fixture in the middle of the Red Sox lineup. He looks like a major steal from fantasy baseball draft season.

For the first time this season, the Red Sox used an opener ahead of Brayan Bello this season. However, Jovani Moran struggled in that role, so when Bello entered the game in the second inning, he began with the ninth hitter and then immediately faced the top of the order. Perhaps it was more about facing a Tigers team that was downtrodden after losing their ace pitcher. Whatever it was, this was easily Bello’s best outing of the season. He threw 70 percent strikes and attacked lefties with more four-seam fastballs and fewer cutters. He also went to the sweeper more than usual against righties, and it had a 21 percent swinging strike rate on the day. The strikeouts are a bit unsustainable considering he only had 10 whiffs all game, so we wouldn’t go ahead and say that Bello is “fixed,” but he may be on the radar in the deepest formats this weekend against the Rays.

Hicks drilled a two-run single to right-center field against Orioles starter Chris Bassitt with two outs in the second inning before taking reliever Grant Wolfram deep for his eighth round-tripper of the season. The unheralded 26-year-old backstop should be able to find enough at-bats between first base and catcher to be a fantasy-relevant option in all leagues the rest of the way. He’s off to a really strong start this season, hitting .321 through 33 games. He’s currently tied with Matt Olson with a major-league leading 32 RBI during that span.

Harper homered off Luis Severino in the third for the game’s only run through six innings. The Phillies then exploded for eight runs between the seventh and eighth to turn it into a laugher. It’s Harper’s 31st career two-homer game and first since last August. He has nine homers this year, and he’s up to 13th in the majors with a .948 OPS.

Sánchez had been more good than great since striking out 10 against the Rangers on Opening Day, so it was nice to see him dominate tonight. Coming into the game, the league was hitting .287 against him with a 45 percent hard-hit rate against him, compared to .226 with a 40 percent hard-hit rate last year. Tonight, with his velocity up about 1.5 mph from his season average, the A’s were 3-for-27 against him.

It’ll go in the books as an encouraging rehab debut for Hader, who threw nine of 16 pitches for strikes, and averaged 94 mph on his sinker. He finished with one strikeout and wound up facing just three batters after a one-out walk was erased on a caught stealing. The 32-year-old upper-echelon closer will return to Houston’s bullpen sometime around mid-to-late May after making a couple additional rehab outings.