MLB

Machado’s 11th homer in the fourth off Grant Holmes accounted for the only run in the finale of what was an incredibly low scoring day of baseball; 24 teams combined to scored 64 runs, with no team scoring more than six runs. Seven of the 12 games saw the teams total five runs or fewer. Machado, a future Hall of Famer, is currently hitting .185/.265/.384, probably due to analytics and algorithms and Driveline, which could all be fixed if someone would hire John Smoltz as a GM and Jeff Frye as a manager.

King had a 6.41 ERA in his previous five starts, but he succeeded tonight even though 12 of the 20 balls in play against him were hard hit. It helped that he walked none, and he struck out five in an outing for the first time in six starts. We’d still be nervous about using him in shallow leagues at the moment, especially since he’s due to face the Dodgers in his next two outings.

Miller made things a little interesting by allowing a single and a walk with two outs, but he struck out Mike Yastrzemski to end the game. He’s second in the majors in saves, three behind Cade Smith and two ahead of Bryan Baker and Riley O’Brien.

Holmes walked five. He’s pitched a total of 10 1/3 innings and walked 10 in his last three starts, which should have him on thin ice with the Braves. His 4.17 ERA for the season isn’t bad, but that he’s gotten fewer than 15 outs in seven of his 15 starts and more than 15 outs just five times suggests should have his rotation status in question. He’ll likely face the Giants on Sunday.

Riley wasn’t very good last year and certainly hasn’t been any good in batting .219/.295/.355 this season, but it’d still be very dangerous to write him off while his power remains intact. Maybe he won’t fully rebound, but it’s hard to imagine him not being somewhat better the rest of the way.

Maybe it shouldn’t be a total surprise that Bradish places on the short list of the league’s most inconsistent starters in his first full year back from Tommy John, but his strong showing at the end of the year did suggest more was in store. Still, things do seem to be getting better; he has a 2.78 ERA in his last nine starts after coming in at 5.03 in the first seven. Overall, he’s allowed one or no runs six times and four or more runs five times. He’ll take a 5-7 record and a 3.64 ERA into his next start versus the Nationals.

We’re all about looking on the bright side, and Aldegheri struck out three and walked one tonight, which is a nice improvement on his 5/7 K/BB from his previous three starts this season. Perhaps the Angels could look at alternatives prior to Aldegheri’s next start Sunday against the A’s, but it seems more likely that they’ll just stick with him for now and hope that Grayson Rodriguez can come off the IL and take his spot at the beginning of next month.

Yates was pitching with the Angels down 6-0 in the ninth, so this was hardly a crucial appearance for the 39-year-old. Still, it was nice to see him average 91 mph with his fastball for just the second time this season and fan three batters for the first time. His average fastball tonight was still down 1.7 mph from last year, and there’s little reason to expect big things going forward. However, there’s no one in the Angels pen who is clearly a better bet than Yates at the moment.

And he got to stay in left field the whole way through. That wouldn’t typically be noteworthy, but the Orioles needed someone to play third base after Blaze Alexander got hurt in the third inning tonight. The seemingly obvious move with Jackson Holliday unavailable would have been to lose Coby Mayo as the DH and play him at his natural position, but the Orioles instead galaxy-brained using Leody Taveras at the hot corner, even though Taveras had never played any infield as the pro. Ward, on the other hand, has started at third 42 times as a major leaguer and 101 times as a minor leaguer. Still, Ward stayed put and all worked out in the end. Taveras played five innings at third without incident, and the Orioles did finally sacrifice the DH and stick Mayo at third for the final two innings of a 6-1 win.

Incredibly, the Rockies collected hits in their final eight at-bats tonight. The first four of those, off Garrett Whitlock in the eighth, proved irrelevant, as the Rockies had two runners thrown out on the bases and failed to score. In the ninth, though, they opened up with four straight hits against Aroldis Chapman. The first of those might have been handled by Caleb Durbin at third, and the third was a sac bunt attempt on which the Red Sox were late to cover first base. McCarthy then ended the game with a slapper down the third base line that Jarren Duran kicked around in the left field corner for a triple, handing Chapman his first blown save of the year.