Last Night In Baseball: Ketel Marte Hit A Walk-Off Homer You Have To See

There is always baseball happening — almost too much baseball for one person to follow themselves. Don’t worry, we’re here to help you by figuring out what you missed but shouldn’t have. Here are all the best moments from last night in Major League Baseball: Diamondbacks’ second baseman Ketel Marte walked off the Dodgers on Thursday, earning Arizona a series’ split with the surging NL West leader. It’s an incredible home run, a dinger worth celebrating (unless you’re a Dodgers’ fan, naturally), so let’s go through the moment piece by piece to pick out the best parts. First, the dinger in question, off of Tanner Scott: Baseball rules. Oh, and check this out. Add that bat flip to the above list, because it’s expert-level even without the mimicry. Marte has three walk-off hits already on the season, the most of anyone in the league. And there’s a whole lot of 2026 left, too. Speaking of walk-offs and a whole lot of them, the Chicago Cubs picked up their seventh of the season on Thursday, the most in MLB. “Are the Cubs good?” is not an easy question to answer, between this, the two 10-game winning streaks and the 10-game losing streak. But it’s at least a team that feels like it could be good, and with all these wild-card spots, that might be enough even in the more crowded National League. The hero of the day was center fielder Pete Crow-Armstrong, but before the walk-off, he went yard in the sixth to put the Cubs on the board and cut the Athletics’ lead to 4-1. The A’s would respond with another pair of runs, but then left fielder Ian Happ undid that progress with a two-run shot in the seventh. Still not nearly enough, but patience: the big inning was coming. In the bottom of the ninth, Joel Kuhnel came on in relief of Mark Leiter Jr. for the A’s. Everything began to unravel right then and there. First baseman Michael Busch led off the inning with a double, and then Happ hit a second one to cut the lead to 6-4. Second baseman Nico Hoerner singled Happ to third, but was then caught stealing — two outs. Moisés Ballesteros ripped a single to short that deflected off of Alika Williams, with third baseman Zack Gelof then unable to reel it in, either. Happ scored; 6-5, A’s. Seiya Suzuki entered as a pinch-hitter and singled, putting the tying run in scoring position. Luis Medina then entered the game in relief of Kuhnel, but he gave up a game-tying single to the first batter he faced, shortstop Dansby Swanson, whose knock also sent Suzuki 90 feet from home plate. That brought up PCA with a chance to be the hero, and he delivered. A complete meltdown by the Athletics in the ninth, but take heart, A’s fans: this just lost the game, not the series, and with the Mariners off on Thursday the damage to the standings was just half-a-game. There was also this fun bit of game, before said meltdown. Designated hitter Shea Langeliers joined a strange club, as he hit a home run the traditional way in the fourth inning… …and then in the sixth hit an inside-the-park homer for his second of the day. Per MLB’s Sarah Langs, Langeliers is the 15th player in A’s history to have a multi-homer game with an inside-the-park shot, and just the fifth during the divisional era (1969-2026). And also per Langs, this is the eighth time that it’s happened at Wrigley Field, and the first time since 1991 when Cubs’ legend Ryne Sandberg pulled it off. It’s worth pointing out, too, that it was Pete Crow-Armstrong who lost Langeliers’ second homer in the sky and let it fall behind him. PCA managed to make up for that mistake and then some by the end of the game, huh? While the Cubs were able to gain a game on the Brewers — Milwaukee lost to the Giants in that series finale, 12-9 — they were not able to do the same to the NL Central’s second-place team, the Pirates. Pittsburgh took on the Houston Astros in the rubber game at Daikin Park, and it went from close to not all at once. The Pirates were up 1-0 entering the sixth inning, as Astros’ starter Kai-Wei Teng had done a successful job of keeping the Bucs’ bats quiet, limiting them to a run and three hits. The sixth was a disaster, however: Teng allowed four consecutive hits, two of them for extra bases, and the Pirates were up 4-0 with a runner still on as he was relieved. Second baseman Brandon Lowe led off with a double, then DH Bryan Reynolds singled him home to make it 2-0. Right fielder Ryan O’Hearn followed with his ninth homer of the year, and then third baseman Nick Gonzales knocked Teng out of the game with a single. An error by Jeremy Peña at shortstop allowed Gonzales to come around and score to make it 5-0 later in the inning, and while Houston would hold the Pirates scoreless the rest of the way, the damage was already done. Reliever Carmen Mlodzinski gave up one run to the Astros, but secured a four-inning save by otherwise being highly effective, and that was the series. Pittsburgh moved to just 4.5 games behind the Brewers in the Central, and sits half-a-game up for a wild-card spot, as well. There was one bright spot for the Astros in the loss, though. Third baseman Isaac Paredes became just the fourth Mexican player in MLB to hit at least 100 home runs in his career, with this sixth-inning dinger off of Mlodzinski. The other three players? Vinny Castillo is the all-time leader with 320, followed by Jorge Orta (130) and Aurelio Rodríguez (120). As Paredes is a) a pretty good hitter and b) just 27 years old, he’ll be climbing further up this list. Vladimir Guerrero Jr. has had a power drought lately, but he’s still hitting plenty of singles and walking. When the opportunity to stretch a single into a double came up against the Braves, the Blue Jays’ first baseman seized it, even coming up against the powerful arm of right fielder Ronald Acuña Jr. Guerrero got the best of Acuña there, but the real gold is in the post-play finger wag. Pretty great, too, considering Guerrero just looked happy to still be alive after getting to second safe. It’s not every day a baserunner wins against Acuña’s arm! It’s worth celebrating. The Blue Jays would end up winning the game, too, 7-2. Toronto has nearly crept back to .500, at 30-33; the Braves are doing quite well despite this loss, though, thank you, as Atlanta is leading the majors with 42 wins and the fewest losses of anyone. About that 12-9 Giants win: once again, right fielder Jung Hoo Lee was at the center of a high-scoring day for San Francisco. He finished up his May with a five-hit game against the Rockies that saw the Giants win 19-6, and on Thursday he went 4-for-5 with a double, an RBI and three runs scored. The 27-year-old Lee, now in his third season in the majors, seems to be taking another step forward offensively. In his rookie season, he hit just .262/.310/.331 for an OPS+ of 85, but then put in an above-average performance in 2025, batting .266/.327/.407 for a 110 OPS+. This year so far, he’s added quite a bit of batting average, bringing up his line as a whole to .322/.356/.447 and a 132 OPS+. Part of this is probably batted ball luck, but he’s also been a bit more aggressive at the plate and taking advantage of pitches he can hit earlier in the count. It’s cost him some walks, but it’s tough to argue with the results so far. Baseball really is a series of adjustments back and forth forever. Betrayal. That’s all you can label this as. A betrayal by the mound, against Twins’ reliever Justin Lawrence. Here he is, in a tie game, throwing off the mound as pitchers always do, and a comebacker up the middle strikes the mound and sends the ball careening off its path. What should have been a ball hit to the pitcher instead struck at the exact wrong place and angle, and shot behind Lawrence and into center field. The game had been tied, 6-6, but the Royals had loaded the bases, and third baseman Josh Rojas — who had entered the game as a pinch-hitter for Nick Loftin — managed to thread the needle and score two runners to go up 8-6. The Twins wouldn’t answer in the bottom of the inning, and the Royals would win the opening game of this four-game series. At 25-38, Kansas City already needs every win it can get to catch up in the AL Central and wild-card races. Taking a series from the Reds and this win is a good start, but that’s all it is so far.​Ketel Marte hit a monster walk-off in style, the Cubs avoided a sweep thanks to PCA, the Pirates down the Astros again, mound betrayal and more from Thursday’s MLB action.