If not for hip/glute injuries costing him about half of June and most of July, Culpepper would have taken over as the Twins' shortstop earlier this season. As is, he had to wait until Aug. 7, but he's made the most of his time since, hitting .340/.382/.480 with two homers in 55 plate appearances.
Culpepper, the 21st overall pick in the 2024 draft, was brought up after hitting .271/.367/.478 with 14 homers and 17 steals in 74 games for Triple-A St. Paul. In spite of that impressive line, he didn't draw much initial interest in shallow leagues, probably in part because he was going to be hitting at the bottom of the lineup for a mediocre offense. And that is an issue; through 14 games, Culpepper has totaled four RBI and six runs scored even with his impressive start. But he already has a case for moving up to the top third of the order. Culpepper offers above average bat speed and solid plate discipline. He might not have superstar potential, but he has a good chance of becoming an above average regular for a long time.
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To make an impact in mixed leagues in the short term, Culpepper probably will need to do some running. He's quite capable, having gone 46-for-54 stealing bases in 213 career minor league games. With the stakes higher and the pitchers typically better at holding runners close, it often takes time for prospects to become comfortable trying steals in major league games. If Culpepper doesn't get there this year, he'll probably remain a fringe option. Still, he has a higher ceiling than he gets credit for.
I didn't expect to be writing about Bassitt this week, but then, I didn't think Bassitt would come out firing 94-mph sinkers Tuesday against the Cardinals. In 6 2/3 innings of one-run ball, he averaged 93.4 mph with the pitch. That's his highest mark since one start in May 2024. He hasn't regularly been in that territory since 2022. Maybe it'll turn out to be a fluke, but he was also better than his season average in his first two starts back from back surgery. He averaged 92.2 mph in those outings, which is higher than he's typically been since 2024.

#games #probably

The Orioles kicked off a crucial nine-game road trip with a blowout 13-1 win over the hosting Cardinals on Tuesday night. Pete Alonso paced the lineup before he left the game with a flare up of his calf injury. O's starter Chris Bassitt turned in a solid 6.2 innings before Anthony Nunez over-powered the opposing hitters in the late innings.
This was the Orioles most dominant win of the season by run differential, besting a 12-1 win over the Dodgers on June 21. It also tied their season high in runs scored, which they originally achieved back on June 5 in a 13-3 victory against the Blue Jays.
The Orioles scored all of those runs between the third and sixth innings of this game. Power got things started, and then the rest of the lineup just peppered the ball all over the park for the remainder of the runs.
Alonso put the O's up 3-0 in the fourth inning with his 31st home run of the season, a 435-foot bomb to left center field that scored Leody Taveras and Jackson Holliday, who had singled ahead of him. A few batters later Christian Encarnacion-Strand went even deeper, launching a 450-foot solo shot to make it 4-0.
It was in the fifth inning where the Orioles put the game completely out of reach. The Cardinals had to use three different pitchers in that inning alone while the O's sent 13 batters to the plate and scored the eight runs on seven hits, two walks, and a hit by pitch. Six of those seven hits were singles.

#june

ST. LOUIS (AP) — Pete Alonso had four hits, including a three-run homer, and drove in four runs before leaving the game in the fifth inning, and the Baltimore Orioles routed the swooning St. Louis Cardinals 13-1 on Tuesday night.
Chris Bassitt (5-4) allowed one run on six hits in 6 2/3 innings, matching his longest start of the season. He struck out five and walked none as the Orioles, who are chasing an AL wild-card spot, won for the third time in four games.
The Cardinals lost their fourth straight.
Alonso, who has been dealing with a nagging calf injury, left shortly after he contributed his fourth hit, an RBI double during Baltimore's eight-run fifth that made it 12-1. He put the Orioles ahead 3-0 with his 435-foot shot in the third off Matthew Liberatore (5-12), his 31st of the season.
Jackson Holliday had three hits, scored twice and drove in a run for the Orioles in his first big league appearance in St. Louis, where his father, Matt, starred for the Cardinals. Christian Encarnacion-Strand had a pair of hits, including a 450-foot homer in the third, and drove in three. Leody Taveras had two hits, scored twice and drove in two runs.

#cardinals #four #alonso

Blue Jays stay put in the power rankings after a grueling week originally appeared on The Sporting News. Add The Sporting News as a Preferred Source by clicking here.
After making the World Series last season, things have gone according to plan for the Toronto Blue Jays this year. While they had their sights set on making another deep run in the postseason, they have quite a bit of work to do.
The club has been missing some key pieces that helped them last season, like Bo Bichette and Chris Bassitt, while Vladimir Guerrero Jr. and George Springer have taken a step back this year.
And after trading away Kevin Gausman, Daulton Varsho, and Jeff Hoffman, things likely aren't going to get any easier, especially as they are already 3.5 games out of an AL wild card spot.
MORE: Blue Jays have complicated future decision with $150 million All-Star

#last

Mike Elias has made his first move ahead of the trade deadline. The Orioles are trading Dean Kremer to the Twins. The Athletic's Ken Rosenthal broke the news of the trade. Another reporter at The Athletic, Dan Hayes, wrote that the return for the Orioles is 18-year-old outfield prospect Jhomnardo Reyes.
Selling off a player right after a dramatic win kind of sucks. The Orioles are one and a half games out of a dang wild card spot and this is how Elias responds. Not only is the first move a sell, it's selling to one of the teams that is ahead of the Orioles in the wild card standings. That's the immediate reaction.
On the other hand, Kremer has a 6.50 ERA across his seven starts this year. He is giving up home runs like they are going out of style. He's been consistent across the past three seasons before that, posting ERAs of 4.12, 4.10, and 4.19. If he finishes the season with that kind of ERA, the Orioles may end up regretting the immediate aftermath of this trade. If he doesn't, then Elias has moved on from a pitcher at a good time and done well to get a player in the process.
This is a subtraction not just from the rotation for the rest of this season but for next season as well. Kremer has one season remaining before becoming a free agent. He's making $5.75 million this year and figures to get at least a modest increase on that next year. That's not even a third of what Chris Bassitt is making this season. Bassitt has started his rehab ******* ignment; he's probably the rest-of-season replacement for Kremer in the rotation, although that may take a start or two before he's built back up and can take that spot. It won't be good if Bassitt pitches like pre-back surgery Bassitt.
Reyes is an 18-year-old from the Dominican Republic who signed with the Twins for a bonus of $322,500 in January 2025. He made his US minor league debut this season with the Florida Complex League Twins affiliate and came away with a pretty darn good .296/.406/.541 batting line in 49 games, including seven home runs. He has since played in a small handful of games for Low-A Fort Myers. Presumably, the Orioles will ******* ign him to their affiliate at that level, Delmarva.

#orioles #bassitt #elias #good

In Monday’s loss to the White Sox, it took Chicago until the 9th inning to score their eighth run of the game. Tonight, they only had to wait until the 3rd inning, as the Southsiders clobbered Orioles’ starter Trey Gibson en route to a 9-3 blowout of Baltimore.
After only lasting four innings last time out against the Angels, the rookie right-hander was hoping to give the O’s additional length against the White Sox. Instead, Chicago chased him after a disastrous 3rd inning. The Orioles came into the inning tied at 1-1, but former Red Sox and Yankee Andrew Benintendi started the rally off the inning with a single to right. Gibson then hung a slider to Chicago SS Colson Montgomery, who proceeded to blast it toward Eutaw Street for a two-run homer
From there, it only got worse for Gibson. He’d issue his fourth and fifth walks of the game before a Tristan Peters single loaded the bases for the Southsiders. Jacob Gonzalez then dug the O’s grave that much deeper, slashing a 1-0 fastball to left field to score two runs and give Chicago a 5-1 lead.
And while Gonzalez couldn’t clear the bases, No. 9 hitter Junior Perez was happy to oblige. On the first pitch to Perez, Gibson left another breaking ball over the plate, and the outfielder sent it 409 feet to center field for a game-breaking three-run homer.
Gibson would stick around for a couple more batters, finally getting the first out of the inning by striking catcher Kyle Teel. The righty then got Miguel Vargas to pop out before Benintendi ended his evening by working the White Sox’s sixth walk in less than three innings. Gibson exited having thrown 78 total pitches and 37 in the 3rd alone, finishing with a final line of 2.2 IP, 7 H, 8 ER, 6 BB and 5 Ks. It was the Orioles’ shortest start since Chris Bassitt only completed three innings in an 8-1 loss to the Red Sox on June 3rd.

BALTIMORE (AP) — Baltimore Orioles pitcher Chris Bassitt underwent facet bone spur removal on his back and could rejoin the team later in the year.
Mike Elias, the team’s president of baseball operations and general manager, said Saturday the 37-year-old right-hander opted for surgery after injections to reduce inflammation in his back about a week ago did not work.
“It’s a pretty minor procedure and we’ll see where he’s at in a couple weeks and see if and when he can start throwing,” Elias said. “We’re feeling pretty good about things right there. We feel there’s a very strong possibility we get him back in better condition before the end of the season.”
Bassitt is 4-4 with a 5.27 ERA in his first year in Baltimore. He has not pitched since June 3.
Elias said catcher Adley Rutschman could return to the active roster soon. Rutschman was hit in the head with a throw while running the bases June 18 and was placed on the concussion injured list two days later.

The good thing about the punishing grind of an MLB season is it doesn’t allow a lot of time for wallowing. Just one day after the Mariners blew a winnable game in Detroit to drop a series against the lowly Tigers, they escaped with a win in Baltimore today in the series opener against the Orioles, 6-3. There were many aspects of this game that mirrored Sunday’s heartbreaking loss, but today the Mariners came out on top thanks to some timely challenges and a big blast from Josh Naylor.
Emerson Hancock was good, not great, today. The Achilles heel in Hancock’s breakout season – aside from some yucky peripherals on his fastball – has been his occasional command outages, something that’s plagued him since he was in the minors, although his struggles with command now seem to be more related to his expanded ******* nal, especially the devastating but finicky sweeper.
That sweeper got away from Hancock in the third: he hit Blaze Alexander to lead off the inning before getting it back to strike out Sam Huff looking on the pitch. But Hancock then lost the handle on his sinker to Taylor Ward, walking him on five pitches, and losing an eight-pitch battle with Gunnar Henderson to walk the bases full. A sacrifice fly from Pete Alonso brought home the first run of the game, but Hancock was able to cap the damage there, getting Colton Cowser to fly out harmlessly to end the Orioles threat.
It wasn’t pretty – Hancock was at 69 pitches by the end of the third before bouncing back with a six-pitch fourth – with Hancock missing his good secondaries, needing to lean heavily on the sinker today, a pitch that has a propensity to get hit hard; he almost doubled up his usage of the pitch today, but also had some extra velo on the sinker, which helped keep the ball finding gloves. The only tick against Hancock was his search for command cost him about an inning of work, going just five innings a day after the Mariners got just 5.2 innings out of their starter yesterday.
Meanwhile, the Mariners hitters struggled against Orioles rookie Trey Gibson (not to be confused with umpire “Power” Tripp Gibson), making a start in place of the injured Chris Bassitt. Gibson poounded the bottom of the zone, eliciting a bunch of weak-contact groundball outs. Finally, in the fifth, Dominic Canzone led off the inning with a single, and then with one out Jhonny Pereda hit a solid line drive single (101.2 mph exit velocity). Ryan Bliss, getting a start after Colt Emerson was a late scratch with back tightness and J.P. Crawford was placed on the 10-day IL after being hit in the hand by Public Enemy #1 Framber Valdez – did his job, knocking in the run with a sac fly. Pretty good, considering Bliss had been ferried to the ballpark with such little fanfare his bags didn’t even arrive (leading to a very cute exchange postgame where similar Short King Brad Adam offered to loan Bliss some of his clothes). Cole Young, pressed into leadoff duty, kept the pressure on, cashing in his Dollar Token o

Sometimes you eat the road, and sometimes the road eats you. I’m not totally sure how relevant that is to today’s Orioles-Red Sox game, but what I mean is, this was a total inversion of Wednesday’s lopsided, 8-1 loss. As the O’s unsuccessful starter that night, Chris Bassitt, said after the game, “When your starter goes three innings and gives up three runs, that’s pretty much a recipe for disaster, so this one’s on me.” Today, however, Orioles starter Trevor Rogers looked just fine, thanks, and it was a recipe for a win.
An easy win, at that. Boston starter Brayan Bello has had a curiously bimodal 2026 season: when he starts games, he has a 9.68 ERA, but he’s under 1.00 when he comes in after an opener. Well, the Sox played with fate, and Bello got rocked in the first inning, to the tune of six runs. It wasn’t much of a nailbiter after that.
It started with the leadoff pitch, which leadoff hitter Taylor Ward did something predictable to—he doubled—and a Bello cutter hit Gunnar Henderson on the foot. Adley Rutschman singled to the gap, and Ward made it 1-0. Then, oh no!, Pete Alonso hit into a double play. I confess I thought the rally was over.
I was very wrong. Samuel Basallo took a very grown-up walk. Leody Taveras singled through the infield and Gunnar scored. 2-0, Birds. Still not done: Colton Cowser walked to load the bases for Coby Mayo. Bello threw him a bunch of sweepers—one too many: Cowser skied a ball three-fourths of the way off The Monster, and all the little Orioles came home.
Baltimore had one more trick up their sleeve, still with two outs: Jackson Holliday walked, and leadoff man Taylor Ward came back to the plate, and singled up the middle, his second hit of the inning. 6-0, Orioles, after one.

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