Last Night in Baseball: The Rangers and Jacob deGrom Aren’t Giving Up Yet

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There is always baseball happening — almost too much baseball for one person to follow themselves.

Don’t worry, we’re here to help you by figuring out what you missed but shouldn’t have. Here are all the best moments from the weekend in Major League Baseball:

The Rangers refuse to quit

The Texas Rangers have not had an easy time of things in 2025. Their run differential suggests that they should be one of the top teams in the American League, but instead, they are fighting for the final wild card spot with a month of the season left to go, and constantly battling injuries to key contributors, as well — the most recent of which were to their Cy Young-contending ace, Nathan Eovaldi and star shortstop Corey Seager.

And yet! Here they are, on Sep. 1, just 2.5 games back of the Mariners for that spot thanks to rattling off five wins in a row. The Rangers swept the red-hot Athletics over the weekend, besting them by a combined score of 23-11 while scoring nine runs twice. They have also won eight of their last nine games, with a single loss to the Angels last week to kick off that series the only thing keeping them from a nine-game win streak.

Jacob deGrom dropped his ERA once more, owing to five innings of shutout work that saw him pick up 6 strikeouts against a lone walk. While his July ended and August began with back-to-back outings in which he allowed five runs to score in each, he’s settled down and looked more deGrom-like since, with just five runs total across his last four starts and 21.2 innings, in which he’s also posted a 26/4 K/BB and allowed all of 13 hits. He’s down to a 2.69 ERA and over 150 innings, the most he’s managed in a season since 2019, when he crossed the 200-inning mark for the last time — from 2022 through 2024, deGrom logged a combined 105.1 frames.

According to Baseball Reference’s calculations, the Rangers have a 43% chance of making the postseason, an increase of +22% over the last week thanks to their stellar stretch. Which goes to show you just how much more work they have to do if they’re going to beat the odds here, but also that their season is far from over even if they’re down to their final 24 games. A whole lot can change in a week’s time, never mind over four of them. They kick off a series against the Diamondbacks on Monday in Arizona.

Dodgers walk it off 

Speaking of the Diamondbacks, they took the first two games from the Dodgers over the weekend, meaning Los Angeles couldn’t pick up ground on the Padres in the NL West despite San Diego dropping two of three to the Twins. Los Angeles did come back to win on Sunday in a big way, however, avoiding a sweep at the hands of Arizona in the process. 

The Dodgers were up 4-1 through four innings, with the scoring kicked off by a Freddie Freeman double in the first inning. Andy Pages would drive in a couple more runs along the way, but then the Diamondbacks would respond with a 3-run eighth inning, powered by a Corbin Carroll homer, his 29th of the season — Tanner Scott allowed the 3-run shot, in what would be his eighth blown save of the season — his ERA is 4.44, but the Dodgers’ bullpen doesn’t always have a better option than him in it.

With the game still tied in the bottom of the ninth, Will Smith made it so that Scott’s failure didn’t matter. 

Yoshinobu Yamamoto didn’t get the win for his seven stellar innings — just that single run allowed with 10 strikeouts and all of 4 baserunners — but Los Angeles did, thanks to Smith’s 17th dinger of the year and his erasing of Scott’s blown save. The Dodgers remain two games up on the Padres in the West, and head to Pittsburgh for a series with the Pirates that starts on Tuesday.

Judge makes Yankees history

There hasn’t been any change to the Yankees’ historical record, as it pertains to their top-five ever in homers, for decades. The last new entrant to the list before this weekend was Yogi Berra, who finished his Yankees’ career in 1963 with 358 homers, good for fifth — Mickey Mantles’ career kept going beyond Berra’s, but he was already ahead of Yogi by the time this occurred. 

And now, Aaron Judge is tied with Berra 62 years later. He hit his home runs No. 42 and 43 for the season over the weekend, and the second of those was a historic one.

Babe Ruth, Mickey Mantle, Lou Gehrig, Joe DiMaggio, Yogi Berra and… Aaron Judge. That’s how the list reads now, and with Judge’s next homer, Berra will be pushed to sixth. Judge is at 358 homers now already, with DiMaggio just three ahead of him. Judge could very easily have fourth place in his possession before we even get to the middle of September, and then next up is Gehrig’s 493. That might take a little longer. But with the frequency that Judge goes yard, less time for him than… well, than anyone.

Not every Yankees homer went out, though. Giancarlo Stanton tried to get in on the action, too, but White Sox right fielder Michael Tauchman was there to put a stop to that with a leap at the wall and a spin move.

That’s Bobby Witt Jr.

Bobby Witt Jr. is an exceptional talent, as the Royals’ shortstop can do a little bit of everything. He’s stolen over 30 bases in each of his first four seasons in the majors, something no one else had done since the days of Ichiro Suzuki. He can hit for power, too, as he reminded the Tigers on Saturday, when he launched a ball into deep center field for his 20th homer of the season in what would end up being a 3-1 Royals win over the Tigers:

Witt might have fewer homers than last season, but he’s leading the majors in doubles with 41, on top of those 20 dingers. And just to round things off, Witt also has a tremendous glove. Part of the reason the score was still tied 1-1 in the first place for Witt’s homer was because of this play:

Rather than a ball hit up the middle by Kerry Carpenter that very well could have become a double with the outfielders playing deep, Witt dove backwards into the outfield and snagged it, then turned and made a powerful, accurate throw to first.

What a catch!

The defensive play of the weekend, however, goes to Steven Kwan. With the Guardians up over the Mariners just 1-0 in the sixth inning, Kwan laid out for a diving grab in left field off the bat of Josh Naylor to end the inning rather than extend it.

Beautiful. Probably a little painful for Kwan, too, but more beautiful than anything. Even more so since Cleveland ended up holding on for a 4-3 win over Seattle, one they desperately needed if they’re to stick around in the wild card race: even after taking two of three from the Mariners, who hold the final wild card spot in the AL, the Guardians are still four back. Pretty easy to imagine it could have been five if not for Kwan’s grab ending any potential emerging threat, though.

Duran’s inside-the-park shot

Jarren Duran is known for his triples — he led the majors with 14 a year ago, and is tops in the AL with a dozen in 2025 — but sometimes all that separates a triple from an inside-the-park home run is the right bounce. Here, that teeny bounce — and not even a wild one — put the ball just out of reach of Pirates’ right fielder Alexander Canario, forcing Oneil Cruz to catch up to it in the triangle in center field, at the 420-foot mark. That’s all Duran needed to leg this one out.

A stand-up inside-the-park homer. Duran is fast, but the distance he hit the ball — courtesy of that bounce — is what truly made the difference.

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