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The First Pitch: April 11, 2026
Max Muncy performs the season’s first hat trick of home runs, with his third blast of the night walking it off for the Dodgers in an 8-7 home win over the Texas Rangers. It’s Muncy’s second three-homer game of his career, previously accomplishing the feat on May 4, 2024 against Atlanta.
Of historic note in the Dodgers’ win is a single and walk for Shohei Ohtani, extending his streak of consecutive games reaching base safely to 44—breaking Ichiro Suzuki’s major league mark for Japanese-born players.
It’s a bad day all around for Suzuki, the Hall of Famer with over 4,000 professional hits. During a ceremony in which a sculpture of his famed batting stance is unveiled at Seattle’s T-Mobile Park, officials remove a curtain that was hiding the statue—and while doing so, the bat that’s part of the art is nearly severed. “I didn’t think Mariano (Rivera) would come out here,” Suzuki joked through an interpreter after witnessing the accident.
A day after shutting out the Yankees at Yankee Stadium, the Athletics make the short drive to Queens and do the same to the Mets, winning 4-0. Former Mets infielder Jeff McNeil, in his first game back at Citi Field after eight years with the Mets, starts a three-run rally in the ninth with an RBI single, his second hit of the night.
It’s the first time that a team has shut out the two New York teams, the Yankees and Mets, on back-to-back days.
Could football’s Denver Broncos soon own the Colorado Rockies? The NFL team with three Super Bowl trophies purchases a 40% share of the team, making them the Rockies’ largest minority partner. The Rockies say that the infusion of cash will allow them to erase all of their existing debt.
The Broncos’ ownership group includes head investor and Walmart heir Rob Walton, racing star Lewis Hamilton and former U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice.
Congrats, Your Box Score Line Was the Best (Hitters Edition)
5-5-4-3—Max Muncy, Los Angeles Dodgers
It had been a quiet start to the veteran slugger’s season until Friday, when he launched three home runs—the last a tie-breaking, two-out shot in the ninth to send the Dodgers home victorious over the Rangers, 8-7. Adding a single, Muncy’s four-hit effort was the sixth of his career, while his five runs set a personal best.
Congrats, Your Box Score Line Was the Best (Pitchers Edition)
6-0-0-0-1-9—Shota Imanaga, Chicago Cubs
The 32-year-old southpaw became the third pitcher this year to pitch six no-hit innings, but he did so throwing 100 pitches against the Pirates—too much to continue, thought his coaches. Too bad: Caleb Thielbar, Imanaga’s replacement, gave up a single to the first batter he faced in the seventh (Ryan O’Hearn); on his first pitch to the second batter (Bryan Reynolds), Thielbar served up a home run, and that accounted for the game’s only scoring in a 2-0 loss for the Cubs. Back to Imanaga; his petite gem lowers his season ERA to 2.81 after three starts.
It Was Whatever-Something Years Ago Today
1966: The American League brings on 52-year-old Emmett Ashford as the first black umpire in major league history. Ashford makes his debut in Cleveland’s 5-2 win at Washington over the Senators. The only trouble Ashford encounters is from secret service agents protecting Vice President Hubert Humphrey; after scrutinizing his “papers,” he is allowed into D.C. Stadium.
You Say It’s Your Birthday
Happy birthday to:
Dodgers reliever Alex Vesia (30)
Mark Teixeira (46), three-time All-Star first baseman with 409 career home runs; holds MLB record for most games (14) going deep from both sides of the plate; 2009 AL leader in homers and RBIs; recipient of five Gold Gloves; eight-time accumulator of 100+ RBIs; currently pursuing a political career
Kelvim Escobar (50), 12-year pitcher of 101-91 record; brief spell as closer yielded 38 saves in 2002
Trot Nixon (52), outfielder with 137 homers over 12 seasons; career .283 batting average over 42 postseason games
Jason Varitek (54), popular Red Sox catcher from 1997-2011; three-time All-Star; caught record-tying four no-hitters; 11 postseason homers over 63 games
Bret Saberhagen (62), winner of Cy Young awards; 1985 World Series MVP; three-time All-Star
Born on this date:
Jim Hearn (1921), postwar pitcher with 109-89 record; 1952 All-Star; 1950 MLB leader in shutouts
Barney McCosky (1917), 11-year outfielder with career .312 batting average; 1940 MLB leader in hits and triples
Sam Chapman (1916), outfielder with 180 home runs from 1938-51, playing mostly with the A’s; 1946 All-Star
Shameless Link of the Day
Max Muncy joins the expansive list of Dodgers who’ve hit three home runs in a game.
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