And That Happened: Thursday's Scores and Highlights - MLB

Giants 7, Padres 3: Round one goes to the Giants, who pull to within one game of the lead. And they did it in an unexpected way for this team in this park: the long ball. Huff, Posey, Burrell and Uribe all went yard. Matt Cain — who has had some serious issues vs. the Padres recently — took a three-hitter into the ninth. He worked the corners and threw lots of strikes. Jon Garland didn’t have so great a night: “Terrible, terrible, especially to start a series. I
guarantee you no person in San Diego feels worse than I do, and I get to
go home and sleep on it. It’s going to be a fun night.” Poor, poor baby. And he’s wrong anyway: my brother lives there, and he’s got kidney stones right now. He feels way, way worse.

Rockies 6, Reds 5: Colorado gains a game as well. And they took the lead in this one in awesomely spectacular style. Check it out. Reds pitcher Nick Masset was on some other planet on that play, it seems. Or was he? “Before I was about to throw that pitch, I was going to fake to third and go to first,” Masset said. What a shame. If that’s really true, it would have been the first time in recorded baseball history that the fake-to-third-throw-to-first play had ever worked.

Tigers 6, White Sox 3: Chicago is six back with 22 games to play. The only glimmer of hope they seem to have is that the Twins were 5.5 back with 22 to play last year and forced a tie. Countering that: unlike the 2009 Tigers, the 2010 Twins don’t seem like a team that is going to struggle down the stretch.

Cardinals 11, Braves 4: Braves fans may be the only people on the planet who don’t mind that the whole world was all Brett Favre-crazy last night, because this was some embarrassing stuff. Colby Rasmus was 4 for 4 with two homers and four RBI. FOX’s Dayn Perry — a Cardinals fan — on Twitter last night: “Let’s hope that wasn’t Colby’s Braves audition.” I don’t care if he was joking. That’s the only thing that made me feel remotely good about this one.

Ran gers 4, Blues Jays 2: Colby Lewis won for the first time in forever. Jose Bautista hit his 44th home run.

Astros 3, Dodgers 2: Yay! John Lindsey got to bat! He flied out to center while pinch hitting for Ted Lilly, but an at bat is an at bat. And he probably had a lot of family in the stands, as he’s from nearby Mississippi. Lindsey is about the only thing interesting or, at the very least, non-despressing about the Dodgers these days.

The New York Yankees could be opening the season without three-fifths of their projected starting rotation.

Right-hander Luis Severino has a low-grade lat strain, Yankees manager Aaron Boone told reporters Saturday, putting the two-time All-Star at risk of starting the season on the injured list.

“Obviously it’s going to put him in jeopardy to start the year,” Boone said.

Boone expressed optimism this wouldn’t be a long-term issue but acknowledged that Severino “most likely” would get placed on the injured list.

Severino, 29, went 7-3 with a 3.18 ERA in 19 starts last season. He struck out 112 in 102 innings.

Boone said the issue arose after Severino made his last start on Tuesday.

“Afterwards when he was kind of doing his workout, arm-care stuff, he just felt some tightness in there,” Boone said. “He came in the next day and it was a little tight, and then yesterday he was going to go out and throw and that tightness was still there enough to where he wanted to go get it looked at.”

The Yankees already won’t have right-hander Frankie Montas or left-hander Carlos Rodón for the start of the season.

Rodón, who joined the Yankees by signing a $162 million, six-year contract in the offseason, has a left forearm strain that will cause him to open the season on the injured list. Rodón has been an All-Star the last two seasons, in 2021 with the Chicago White Sox and in 2022 with the San Francisco Giants.

Montas is recovering from shoulder surgery and won’t begin throwing until at least late May.

The only projected starters from the Yankees’ rotation likely to be ready for the beginning of the season are five-time All-Star right-hander Gerrit Cole and 2022 All-Star left-hander Nestor Cortes.

DEGROM SHARP

Jacob deGrom struck out six over 3 2/3 shutout innings against the San Diego Padres in his final start before making his Texas Rangers regular-season debut.

The Rangers had announced Friday that deGrom would get the start Thursday when the Rangers open their season against Aaron Nola and the Philadelphia Phillies. The two-time Cy Young Award winner signed a five-year, $185 million contract with the Rangers in the offseason after spending nine seasons with the New York Mets.

GREINKE WORKS 5 1/3 INNINGS

Zack Greinke pitched 5 1/3 innings in his final test before he gets the ball against the Minnesota Twins in Kansas City on Thursday.

It will be Greinke’s seventh opening day start. At 39 years old, he will be the oldest opening-day starter in the history of the Royals franchise, breaking his own record set last year. He will be the the oldest opening day starter in the American League since a 40-year-old Curt Schilling started against the Royals in 2007.

Greinke allowed two runs on five hits against the Dodgers with no walks and two strikeouts.

“He was great today,” first-year manager Matt Quatraro said.“It certainly looked like the way they (Dodger batters) were taking those pitches, he was just dotting the plate on both sides. His two-seamer and changeup looked really good. It was encouraging.”

VOIT OPTS OUT

First baseman Luke Voit has opted out of his minor league deal with the Milwaukee Brewers, giving the veteran slugger the opportunity to negotiate with other teams. He also could still return to the Brewers on a major league contract.

In other Brewers news, right-hander Adrian Houser left his start Saturday after 1 2/3 innings due to groin tightness.