Last night in baseball: Cristopher Sánchez just had one of the best months ever

There is always baseball going on—almost too much baseball for one person to keep up with.

Don’t worry, we’re here to help you by finding out what you missed but shouldn’t have. Here are all the best moments from last night in Major League Baseball:

Phillies’ ace Cristopher Sánchez made five starts in the month of May, and he didn’t allow a single run in any of them. Those five starts all went at least seven innings, with two of them coming in at seven, two others at eight and one being a complete shutout. He struck out 36 batters in his 32 innings while walking just one threeand scattered 19 hits. He had an impressive 2.90 ERA at the end of April; it fell to a league-leading 1.42 after seven shutout innings against the Padres on Wednesday in a Phillies sweep of San Diego.

That’s all impressive enough on its own, but also consider that Sánchez’s scoreless streak now stands at 44 ⅔ innings, breaking the long-standing Phillies record set in 1911 by Hall of Fame hurler Grover Alexander. You can figure out how long ago 1911 was and be suitably impressed, but consider that the oldest stadium in use in MLB, the Red Sox’s Fenway Park, didn’t open until 1912. Robin Roberts, Steve Carlton, Curt Schilling, Roy Halladay, Cliff Lee, Cole Hamels, Zach’s Wheeler were able to mark that they couldn’t mark that century. But Christopher Sánchez did.

It goes beyond “just” knocking down Alexander’s brand. Per MLB’s Sarah LongSánchez is the second pitcher ever to go a full month with at least five starts without allowing a run, joining Orel Hershisher’s 1988. Sánchez also now has the seventh-longest streak in the live-ball era — Hershisher is first with 59 innings — and he’ll finish in the top five with two more. Also according to Langs, Sánchez is now tied for the third-longest streak of scoreless outings of at least seven innings since “at least” 1900, with five straight, trailing only Hershisher again and 1968 Don Drysdale – both had six.

Sánchez really just had one of the best single months by a pitcher in MLB history, helping the Phillies bounce back from a rough April. Philadelphia has gone 17-8 in May with a +28 run differential, winning in four of Sánchez’s five starts. (The lone loss? A 1-0 loss when closer Jhoan Duran gave up the only run of the game in the ninth inning.) Philly is now 29-27, in second place in the NL East — they were 12-19 at the start of the month and had been outscored by 45 runs on the season. Sánchez will eventually give up a run again, but so far he’s helped bring balance back to a Phillies team that was reeling.

How can Dodgers hurler Shohei Ohtani stack up on a night where Cristopher Sánchez threatens history? By doing your usual Shohei Ohtani stuff, of course. The two-way star to start for Los Angeles on Wednesday, and after a scoreless first inning, he hit a leadoff home run in the bottom of the frame.

It’s just the third time ever that a starting pitcher has started a game with a home run. You can guess who did it the other two times. Ohtani didn’t stop there, though. He didn’t allow a hit in the first inning… or in his entire start. The right-hander spun six no-hit innings before exiting, but unfortunately he allowed one run as he walked four batters and allowed one run on a force out.

Still! Ohtani’s bat has recovered from its early slump as he’s now hitting .269/.400/.482 with a 151 OPS+ despite those issues, and his ERA for the season is 0.82 in 55 innings and nine starts. That’s not enough to qualify for the ERA title, but he’s very rarely deployed to chase that kind of thing.

Plus, we got this nice little moment where first baseman Freddie Freeman saved Ohtani from throwing the ball away on a pickoff. Look at Ohtani trying not to have a visible smile and mostly failing.

The Dodgers would win, 4-1, and along with the Phillies handling the Padres, now have a 4.5 game cushion in the NL West.

On Monday, Astros’ DH Yordan Alvarez hit a homer against the Astros. On Tuesday, Astros’ DH Yordan Alvarez hit two homers against the Rangers. On Wednesday, Astros’ DH Yordan Alvarez hit two homers against the Rangers. If you sense a pattern here, maybe let the Rangers know about it since they kept hitting Alvarez for some reason.

Alvarez has six homers against the Rangers this season now, having blasted five in this three-game series alone. He’s been outstanding in his return from an injury-riddled 2025 and is now hitting .312/.422/.663: his batting average leads the AL, as do his 20 dingers, and he’s tops in the majors in slugging percentage, OPS (1.085), OPS+ (202) and total bases.

Houston has had far too many problems for Alvarez’s dominance to keep them competitive, but May has been significantly better for the Astros than April was – Houston is 13-12 this month and has a chance to take three of four from Texas on Thursday, after an 8-18 April. There’s still a good chunk of 2026 left, so if Alvarez keeps mashing and the Astros can get healthier…well, the AL West hasn’t exactly been dominant. Houston is 25-32 and just three games out of first.

The Rays have thrived at the top of the AL East to this point, but all that was interrupted by the Orioles. Baltimore has now swept Tampa Bay, which has dropped four in a row. Sure, the Orioles are still 9.5 back right now, but that doesn’t make the Rays losing to Baltimore any easier to handle if you’re pulling for Tampa Bay here.

The thorn in the side of the Rays on Wednesday was Blaze Alexander, who played some third base and some left field for the O’s. Alexander went 3-for-4 with a run and six RBIs, the first two of which came in the first inning on a two-run single to put Baltimore up 5-0. In the fifth, Alexander would drive in two more, this time on a double that scored Coby Mayo and Leody Taveras.

Alexander would hit one last time in the seventh to put the Orioles up 11-1 on a two-run homer that sent home Colton Cowser. That’s a pretty good day at the office for anyone, never mind a player who entered the game hitting .237/.293/.289 — yes, this homer was his first of the season, in his 47th game of the year.

Although Alexander did the most damage, he didn’t have the only highlight of the night. Orioles first baseman Pete Alonso picked up career hit No. 1,000 in this game on a first-inning single.

However, Alexander was still involved: Alonso was one of the runners he ran into later in the same lap. Blaze was unavoidable in this one.

The 10-game nightmare is over for Cubs fans as Chicago finally won a game again. And with authority, too: The Cubs had 14 hits and scored 10 against the Pirates while holding Pittsburgh to four runs.

The game was relatively close for much of it, as both starters — Jameson Taillon for the Cubs and Bubba Chandler for the Pirates — went five innings and allowed four runs apiece. While Chicago’s bullpen held things together after Taillon, the Pirates had no such luck.

Left fielder Ian Happ drove in a run in the first inning against Chandler…

…and then broke loose in the seventh while facing right-hander Yohan Ramírez. His 11th homer of the year made it 7-4, Cubs, and Chicago didn’t look back from there.

Pinch hitter Michael Conforto would hit a two-run homer in the same inning to make it 9-4, then first baseman Michael Busch — who led off the seventh by being hit by a pitch — came back and got revenge with an RBI single. Neither team would score again from this point, giving Chicago the 10–4 win. On Thursday, the Cubs have a chance to go from a 10-game losing streak to a four-game winning streak: as they went from atop the NL Central to 4.5 back during that stretch, putting together even a short streak in the other direction wouldn’t be the worst outcome for them.

What is it? Another Munetaka Murakami update? Sorry, can’t do it, the White Sox rookie just keeps mashing taters. And this one was particularly impressive, a true showcase for Murakami’s immense power.

Murakami took a 94 mph four-seam fastball low and away in the zone and drove it deep the other way to left-center field. He didn’t even look like he swung that hard at it, but those wrists did the work, and the result was a 432-foot explosion that came off his bat at 108.3 mph. Say what you will about the White Sox, but they seem to have solved every velocity problem Murakami was supposed to have, and now he’s tied for the AL lead in homers with 20, along with Yordan Alvarez.

And here’s Murakami’s first MLB steal, for good measure. Kind of awkward, but hey, he’s used to trotting past the second.

It’s like he was never gone. Gerrit Cole has now made two starts for the Yankees since returning from Tommy John surgery, and he already looks a lot like Gerrit Cole. In the first start, there was some rust to shake off – Cole struck out just two batters and walked three – but he also allowed just two hits and no runs in six innings. On Wednesday against the Royals, Cole found the missing strikeouts, striking out 10 in 6 ⅔ frames without allowing a walk or a run.

This is welcome news for the Yankees on a smaller scale – Cole is one of the best pitchers in baseball and is already pitching like it, helping them to a 7-0 win against the Royals – but in the shadow of Max Fried’s IL stint for a bone bruise on his elbow, his return helps avoid one of their top arms. And at some point, the two may even be in the same rotation at the same time – no such luck on that one yet, but it’s still May and all.

Don’t let all the offense distract you from the fact that Elly De La Cruz is an impressive defensive shortstop. Look at the reach and expansion on this play!

De La Cruz isn’t a threat to win a Gold Glove, but he’s one of those guys who can find a use for every inch of his 6-foot-6 frame when it comes to making defensive plays. A whole lot of shortstops wouldn’t have made that catch, in large part because a whole lot of shortstops aren’t exactly the height of your average NBA player. De La Cruz is, though, and it makes for some great highlights.

So that was the good news for the Reds on Wednesday. The bad news is that they had to pitch to Juan Soto, who has been on one as of late.

Even Elly De La Cruz isn’t tall enough to get a glove on it. Soto took a 79 mph curveball low and in and blasted it 366 feet away by shooting that way, all the way up to right. It’s home run No. 12 of the season for Soto, who has crushed it over his last 12 games. His season OPS was in danger of dipping below .800 about two weeks ago, but since then he’s hit .386/.471/.932 with eight of his 12 homers, bringing his season streak to .301/.392/.594 with a .986 OPS, comfortably ahead of his career OPS.

The Mets would end up winning, 4-2, and while they’re still in the NL East basement, they need those wins against teams that will also be vying for wild-card spots. And also just winning in general – we can say “it’s still May” a few more days, sure, but New York is also 23-33; there’s a lot of ground to make up for the rest of the season, and the Mets need to prove they can. If Soto keeps hitting like this, the task becomes that much easier.