Last Night in Baseball: George Springer Powers Blue Jays to Sweep of Yankees

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Are the Blue Jays actually better than the Yankees? That’s unclear: New York’s run differential is +100 on the year, but they’ve won a lot of blowouts and lost even more close games, and are noticeably less effective when Aaron Judge is merely one of the best hitters ever instead of looking like the actual best hitter in history. Toronto, meanwhile, was outscored by 34 runs through April, but now find themselves at +9 instead of continuing on what was a -143 run pace. New York is probably a bit better than their record, the Jays a little worse, but this is also why they play the game, folks. 

Meanwhile, Springer’s two homers mean that he’s that much closer to becoming the all-time leader from the state of Connecticut. Look out, Mo Vaughn, someone is coming for you.

Oh so that’s why Wood was intentionally walked

On Sunday, the Los Angeles Angels decided to intentionally walk Nationals’ slugger James Wood four times — the first time that’s happened to anyone in an MLB game since Barry Bonds kept getting free trips to first base. On Thursday, Wood made anyone who didn’t already know why aware of why it happened, as he went 5-for-5 against the Tigers in an 11-7 Nationals win. 

Wood singled in the bottom of the first, and would then score before the inning was out. He’d then hit his 23rd homer of the year in the second, giving him his first RBI and second run of the day, then hit another single in the fourth. His third single of the day (and fourth hit) would come in the sixth, and then he’d add one more single — and another run — in the eighth. Eight total bases, three runs, a home run, and one RBI. Oh, and Wood announced he’d participate in the Home Run Derby, too. Pretty good day at the office.

He wasn’t perfect, however: he did get thrown out trying to stretch that fourth-inning single into a double. Tisk tisk, for shame.

After that stellar offensive display, Wood is now batting .294/.395/.563 with 23 home runs in just his second season in the majors, good for a 171 OPS+ — he’s still just 22 years old, by the way. 

Freeman is seeing double

Do you know who holds the all-time doubles record? Former Boston and Cleveland star, Tris Speaker, who retired after the 1928 season: he hit 792 of them over a 22-year career. Speaker slugged an even .500 in those 22 years, and he hit just 117 home runs in that time, since more than half of it came in the Deadball era, so the sheer volume of doubles is what let him post numbers like that, anyway. 

Anyway, Freddie Freeman is the active doubles leader, and on Thursday night tied Al Oliver for 43rd all-time with his 530th career two-bagger, which also drove Dodgers’ teammate Shohei Ohtani in against the White Sox:

He wouldn’t stop there, however: Freeman would hit a second double — which drove in Ohtani a second time — breaking the brief tie with Oliver and giving Freeman sole possession of 43rd place. Next up is Lou Gehrig, with 534, and after that, Freeman will be just 40 shy of the top-25 ever.

That second double was Freeman’s 23rd of the year — despite missing time earlier in 2025, he’s on pace for over 40 of them, which, if accomplished, would be the sixth such season in his career. Freeman was always a doubles guy, but since joining the Dodgers, that’s increased: he led the majors for the first time in his career in 2022 with 47, then ramped up to 54 in 2023, which also led MLB. He’ll turn 36 before the end of the season, but has also been hitting practically as well as he ever has. Much to think about.

How, though?

Bobby Witt Jr. is a man of many talents. He can hit, as evidenced by 2024’s batting title and that he’s already approaching 100 career home runs across four seasons. He can field — that didn’t used to be true, but he worked hard and earned that Gold Glove last summer. Witt can run, too: he finished second in last year’s AL MVP race in no small part due to having a 30-homer, 30-steal campaign. 

It turns out Witt can also perform a little magic on the basepaths.

All Mariners’ catcher Cal Raleigh could do after the play was stare in disbelief. Witt Jr. contorted himself so that he’d slide with the folded leg closer to Raleigh, giving him less body to tag, and managed to stay upright until the moment where he needed to twist his body to allow himself to touch the plate, all while evading Raleigh’s tag. Incredible stuff.

Ray sinks former team with CG

Not a complete-game shutout, no, but Robbie Ray still went the distance, limiting his former team, the Diamondbacks, to just two runs over nine innings. The Giants’ lefty is having himself quite the year; this start was merely a continuation of that.

Ray is leading the majors in wins with 9, but much more important than that is that he’s managed to dispel the home run issue that plagued him a year ago and on other occasions in his career: he’s shaved an entire two runs off of his ERA despite a dip in strikeouts. Whether this is permanent or not remains to be seen, but it’s difficult to argue with the results to this point.

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George Springer

Toronto Blue Jays

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This news was originally published on this post .