Welcome to The Pregame Lineup, a weekday newsletter that gets you up to speed on everything you need to know for today’s games, while catching you up on fun and interesting stories you might have missed. Today's edition is brought to you by David Adler.
Sorry, Shohei. Two-way players are so last year. We're all about three-way players now.
That's what Shotaro Morii is: a three-way player.
Ohtani might pitch and hit … but Morii pitches, hits AND plays the field. The 19-year-old A's prospect is the new Shotime.
Morii is headed to Single-A, where the plan for him is to hit and pitch for the first time. But unlike Ohtani, who is the designated hitter when he's not pitching for the Dodgers, Morii is going to play second base on days he's not on the mound (with some DH duty mixed in).
OK, OK, we'll give Shohei his flowers. Ohtani has also played the outfield before. He made seven appearances in left and right field with the Angels in 2021, and he occasionally played the outfield in Japan. So he's done it all, too.
But the future is Morii! We're just happy the A's are trying to develop him as a three-way player.
Morii signed with the A's last January for just over $1.5 million, the largest bonus ever for a Japanese amateur player outside of Nippon Professional Baseball.
Until now, he was only hitting in games, but it's time to unleash the full Morii experience.
Here's the plan: Morii will make his debut for Single-A Stockton today as the DH. On Thursday, he'll pitch the first game of his pro career. On Saturday, he'll play second base. And on Sunday, he'll be back at DH.
Morii is scheduled to pitch on Thursdays, with off-days on Fridays for recovery. Then he'll hit and play the field in the games around that.
To keep up with Morii's journey to three-way stardom, we suggest reading prospect guru Jonathan Mayo's story on Morii.
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THE MLB WINS LEADER IS ... A RELIEVER? |
Aaron Ashby's teammates are starting to call him "The Vulture," and for good reason.
Ashby is leading MLB in wins right now … and he's a relief pitcher.
The Brewers lefty is a perfect 7-0 this season. That's one more win than Chris Sale and José Soriano for the top spot on the league leaderboard.
We're a quarter of the way into the season, too. That's pretty darn late for a reliever to be leading the Majors in wins.
And if Ashby somehow kept up this improbable streak of vulturing wins, he'd make some crazy history. Let our Brewers reporter, Adam McCalvy, put Ashby's season into context for you:
• No true full-time reliever -- let's say, any pitcher who's making at least 80% of his appearances in relief -- has ever led MLB in wins.
• Of all the pitchers who have led the Majors in wins in the Modern Era (since 1900), the most reliever-ish among them was the Cardinals' Ernie Broglio, who tied Warren Spahn for the MLB lead with 21 wins in 1960. Broglio made 28 relief appearances and 24 starts that year.
• Even the true king of relief wins, Elroy Face -- the so-called "Baron of the Bullpen" -- never led the league. But he came close. Face went 18-1 for the 1959 Pirates without making a single start. That is the modern single-season record for wins in relief.
• The original "Vulture" was Phil Regan, who was given the nickname by none other than Sandy Koufax when Regan went 14-1 as a reliever for the 1966 Dodgers.
• Ashby is even following in the footsteps of a recent Brewers vulture: Brent Suter, who went 12-5 as a reliever for Milwaukee in 2021 and reluctantly embraced the moniker as the season went on, as he started wearing a T-shirt bearing the image of the bird.
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We've got full-power Skenes, the Rays' bounceback ace and the return of the wrong-way slider on tap for the three Games of the Night. For info on how to watch every game this season, go to MLB.com/Watch.
Rockies at Pirates (6:40 p.m. ET, MLB.TV)
Remember when Paul Skenes' ERA was 67.50? Neither do we. Since that fluky first start, the Cy Young winner has lowered his ERA to 2.36, and he's coming off his best start of the year.
Rays at Blue Jays (7:07 p.m. ET, MLB.TV)
Shane McClanahan's return this season after missing the last two full years has gone even better than the Rays could've hoped. He has a 2.60 ERA through seven starts and is leading the charge for the red-hot Rays as they've taken over first place from the Yankees in the AL East.
Mariners at Astros (8:10 p.m. ET, MLB.TV)
Tatsuya Imai and his unique "wrong-way" slider are back on the mound for the Astros tonight. Imai was on the injured list while he dealt with arm fatigue in his first Major League season, but he's set to rejoin the 'Stros rotation for this AL West battle.
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DON'T LET THE PHILLIES GET HOT |
The Red Sox are hosting the Phillies starting tonight in a rare battle of interim managers: Chad Tracy for Boston, Don Mattingly for Philadelphia.
Thomas Harrigan has a nice breakdown of which team has the better chance to turn its season around under its new skipper. But we want to take a second to focus on the Phils.
The Phillies have been extra hot so far. They're 10-3 under Donnie Baseball. And it's pretty simple how they're doing it: Their stars are showing up.
• Kyle Schwarber is leading the National League with 16 home runs and is tied for the MLB lead with Aaron Judge. He's homered in four straight games entering the series vs. the Sox.
• Bryce Harper is top-10 in the Majors and sixth-best in the NL with a .938 OPS. Harper and Schwarber (.950 OPS) are one of two teammate duos in the top 10 in the Majors in OPS, along with Judge and Ben Rice for the Yankees.
• Cristopher Sánchez has a 20 2/3-inning scoreless streak, the longest active streak for any Major League starter. He ranks third among qualifiers in the NL with a 2.11 ERA, behind the Braves' Bryce Elder (1.81) and the Mets' Clay Holmes (1.86), and he ranks second in the Majors with 67 strikeouts behind only the Brewers' Jacob Misiorowski (70).
• Ace Zack Wheeler has returned successfully from his surgery last September, with a 3.12 ERA and 18 strikeouts in 17 1/3 innings through his first three starts of 2026. The Phillies have won all three of the games he's pitched.
• He's not quite a "star" like Schwarber, Harper, Sánchez and Wheeler, but Brandon Marsh is leading the MLB batting race with a .353 average.
The Phils-Sox series opener at Fenway Park, with Wheeler on the mound, starts at 6:45 p.m. ET on MLB.TV.
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While the Knicks await the Pistons or Cavaliers in the NBA playoffs, the Mets are bringing a new Ewing to New York. Not Patrick, but A.J.
A.J. Ewing is the Mets' top position-player prospect now that Carson Benge is in the big leagues (MLB Pipeline ranks him No. 78 overall), and the Mets are turning to him for a spark.
The Mets called up Ewing today to make his MLB debut as they open a series against the Tigers at Citi Field (7:10 p.m. ET, MLB.TV).
Prospect expert Sam Dykstra breaks down what to expect from Ewing in the big leagues, including elite speed and strong swing decisions.
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MAY THE FORCE BE WITH YOU, MASON |
If you thought Padres closer Mason Miller was unhittable enough already … just wait until you see him throw a Force-aided pitch with the help of Grogu (aka "Baby Yoda").
Grogu, who's in the middle of his press tour for the upcoming "Star Wars: The Mandalorian and Grogu" movie, stopped by Padres practice -- on Star Wars Day, May the 4th, of course.
Grogu was sitting in the stands, with Miller on the mound, when they locked eyes. You'll just have to watch and see what happened next.
Now that Miller and Grogu have met up, you can even win a baseball signed by Miller with the Mandalorian catchphrase "This is the Way" here.
Tickets are on sale now to experience “Star Wars: The Mandalorian and Grogu” only in theaters on May 22.
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