Last Night in Baseball: Goldschmidt Returned to St. Louis and the Yankees Lineup

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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:

Goldschmidt’s return to St. Louis goes well for New York

The Yankees entered the weekend just half-a-game up on the Cleveland Guardians, and it looked like it was the latter who had the momentum, considering how well they’ve been playing for some time now, compared to New York, which has been playing under .500 ball since before the summer began. 

The Cardinals were apparently just what the Yankees needed to get back on track, though, and at the same time that the Guardians were swept by the Braves, too. With sweeps in both series, New York was able to bump their wild card lead to 3.5 games, leaving Cleveland just half-a-game up on the Royals, too.

Yankees’ first baseman — and former Cardinals star — Paul Goldschmidt didn’t play in the series opener thanks to a knee sprain suffered on Tuesday, but he made an appearance in the eighth in the second contest, and then started Sunday’s game. He received a warm reception via a standing ovation from the Cardinals’ faithful, and why not? Goldschmidt spent six years in St. Louis, batting .278/.360/.483 with 153 homers in his time there, and even won the 2022 NL MVP on account of leading the Senior Circuit in slugging (.577) and OPS+ (177), in a nearly 8-win season.

Goldschmidt looked a lot like he did in St. Louis facing off against his former club, too. He went 3-for-5 with a pair of doubles and a run and an RBI each, bringing his season line up to .280/.334/.429. 

The Cardinals have now lost five in a row, and sit 5.5 back of the last wild card in the National League race. They are not out of it at this point by any means, not with 37 games left on the schedule, but Baseball Reference lists their chances of making the postseason at 3.1% now that they sit 61-64 after a sweep at the hands of the Yankees. They’ll have to turn things around fast if they are to avoid missing the postseason for the sixth time in 10 years.

The Dodgers swept the Padres

There was, understandably, a lot of concern about the way the Dodgers had been playing of late, combined with the much more successful way that the rival Padres had been playing. San Diego even moved into sole possession of first place in the NL West on Thursday, on the strength of a roster upgraded at the trade deadline.

When the two faced off over the weekend for a three-game series, though, it was all Los Angeles. The Dodgers swept the Padres, pushing their lead in the West back up to two games. The series was much closer than that suggests — Los Angeles won 3-2, 6-0 and 5-4 — but the standings don’t care how much a team wins by. Those dubs are in the bank, as are San Diego’s three new losses, and there is that much less time for the Padres to wrest the division from the Dodgers because of it.

Mookie Betts was the hero on Sunday, as the Padres tied the game up in the top of the eighth, and Betts immediately put the Dodgers back up on top in the bottom of the frame with a solo homer to left field.

Betts is having by far his worst season at the plate in the majors, but he’s at least been able to contribute defensively, and at a high level: despite his first below-average season offensively, Betts is on pace to finish with a 3-win season, by wins above replacement. He hasn’t been a drag on the Dodgers, basically, but if he can return to form offensively even a little bit before the end of the season — time for the postseason — then the Dodgers’ lineup is going to look that much better.

Raleigh had a better weekend than his team

Pretty big weekend for the Big Dumper, as Cal Raleigh smacked two doubles and a home run on Friday against the Mets, helping the Mariners to an 11-9 victory. While Seattle would lose the next two contests, Raleigh couldn’t be faulted for it. He had another two hits on Saturday, as well as a stolen base — his 14th of the year — and a pair of walks, and then on Sunday he went yard again for his 47th homer of the year as part of his third multi-hit game of the weekend.

Raleigh is leading the majors in home runs, and his 102 RBIs are also tops. And for as unfortunate as losing a series to the August edition of the Mets is for any team, the Mariners do still hold the second wild card in the AL, and are half-a-game up on the Yankees for that spot despite the latter sweeping the Cardinals.

Rockies take down the D’backs (and themselves)

The Rockies won three of four from the Diamondbacks over the weekend, but of course they couldn’t do it in a normal way. This is the 2025 Colorado Rockies we’re talking about, which is why their game ended on Sunday with what was basically one player tackling another player.

Now, to their credit, earlier in the season this happening would have resulted in that ball being dropped, and then probably thrown into the stands, or even into the Rockies’ dugout into the face of one of their players. Here, though, Juan Mejia managed to avoid the fumble and keep possession of the ball, despite the hard hit. [Football terms.]

Winning five of their last six has undone some of the damage of losing eight straight, so the Rockies are once again on pace to avoid setting the all-time losses record. They also have 38 games left on the schedule, though, and given the season they have had, maybe it’s not time to pop the champagne just yet.

Sorry, what?

Catching a ball that has popped out of your glove is the old hotness. Meet the new, catching a ball in between your legs by just squeezing really tight and presumably praying the entire time.

Jung Hoo Lee didn’t catch the ball in his glove as much as stop it with the bottom of it, and then it fell and slowly rolled down his leg, until he was able to somehow trap it in between his legs while he himself rolled on the ground. He knew it was there, though, as he even stood up — very carefully — to show what he’d done. 

Hey, if it doesn’t touch the ground, then it hasn’t actually landed. Nothing says you need to catch the ball in your glove.

The Brewers’ win streak is over

The Brewers managed to get their win streak to a franchise- and MLB-in-2025-best 14 wins in a row on Saturday, and they can thank Andrew Monasterio hitting a 3-run home run in extra innings for that. 

Try as they might, though, they couldn’t secure No. 15.  The Reds had a 1-0 lead in the ninth inning, and William Contreras hit a 2-run homer to put Milwaukee on top for the first time all game. 

The game wasn’t being played in Milwaukee, however, so the Reds got a chance to tie things up in the bottom of the frame. Which they did! With runners on the corners and one out, backstop Jose Trevino lined a ball just over the head of Caleb Durbin at second base, scoring Will Benson. 

The Brewers would fail to score in the top of the 10th, and with Grant Anderson — who had just blown the save the inning before — still on the mound in the bottom half of the inning, the Reds would score once more by way of the single.

Like with the Padres not losing to the Dodgers by all that much despite the sweep, the Reds shouldn’t feel too terrible about this series. They had their own dramatic extra innings victory on Sunday, and while Friday was a high-scoring affair, it was 10-8, not a beatdown by Milwaukee. Of course, Cincinnati would rather win these games rather than lose them, but they sit 1.5 back of the third wild card despite having to face the buzzsaw that is the Brewers. There are worse ways to wake up on a Monday morning.

Carroll crushed

That’s 474 feet off of the bat of Corbin Carroll you’re about to see.

Arizona’s weekend didn’t go so hot, but Carroll got all of that one, his 27th blast of the year.

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