Well, April didn't bring a lot of showers. Not where I live, anyway. May hasn't been yielding too many flowers, yet. But take what we can get over weekend one. Even if a few thorns showed up among them.
Power Player Dept. — Mickey Moniak (Rockies) had his fourth multiple-homer game Sunday, pulling the club to within a run of the Braves. That'd teach him: the Braves hung 3 more up to finish the job, 11-6. Quite the comeback after a returning Spencer Strider gave up 4 hits and 3 earned including a non-Moniak bomb.
But Moniak joined some distinguished company. Thanks to the incomparable Sarah Langs (incomparable baseball analyst, incomparable spirit in the face of ALS), we know he's one of eight players to bop for multiple bombs in his team's first 35 games of a season. The company he now keeps:
Harmon Killebrew* (Senators, 1959) — 5
Carlos Delgado (Blue Jays, 2021) — 4
Dave Kingman (Mets, 1976) — 4
Reggie Jackson* (Athletics, 1969) — 4
Frank Howard (Senators, 1968) — 4
Harmon Killebrew* (Twins, 1964) — 4
Gil Hodges* (Dodgers, 1951) — 4
(* Hall of Famer.)
Not Again Dept. — The bad news for the Braves: Ronald Acuña, Jr. on the injured list — yet again. The good news: it's a left hamstring strain that may not keep him out of action for long.
There is Some Joy in Metville Dept. — The hapless (enough of their fans might substitute "hopeless") Mets did something this weekend that some feared might never be done this year: they won a series. They took two out of three from the Angels in Anaheim, and Sunday afternoon proved the best of the lot for them: starting pitcher Clay Holmes held the Angels to a single run, their bullpen shut the Angels out, and Mark Vientos hit a pair of 2-run homers, in the fourth and the eighth — both with Carson Benge on board, the second after Benge doubled Brett Baty home.
Win None for the Unit Dept. — On Saturday, the Mariners did their Hall of Fame left-hander Randy Johnson honor and retired his uniform number 51 — just they way they did in honor of fellow Hall of Famer Ichiro Suzuki once upon a time. Even a man as gracious as the Big Unit was about it might have been willing to trade the number retirement for just one win. Sorry. The Mariners got swept by the Royals, including an extra-inning 3-2 loss on Johnson's big day.
Many Happy Returns Dept. — Pete Alonso took the higher road in his return to New York as an Oriole, refusing to diss his former Mets teammates and talking without temperament or exaggeration about the indifference that nudged him to signing with Baltimore. The bad news his first weekend back was the Yankees refusing to let him enjoy the return to a city he loved — even while they surrendered his first non-Mets homer hit in New York. They took the first three of a four-game set from the Orioles, including an 11-3 Sunday blowout that saw Aaron Judge pull into a tie for the home run lead.
Sunday's win gave the Yankees a comfortable hold on the American League East's leadership, and the second-best record in the Show behind the Braves. Yes, the season is still young.
No Drought About It Dept. — Shohei Ohtani now has a 4-game hitless streak for the first time in four years. That's in hand with his Dodgers going home run-less for 6 straight games, their longest such drought since an 8-game bomb-challenged streak in 2014. Still, the Dodgers avoided a sweep by the Cardinals Sunday by winning, 4-1.
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