Good morning, Camden Chatters.
Boston, MA
Red Sox Reject Trade Offers for Three Key Pitchers
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The Boston Red Sox are currently resisting becoming significant sellers in the trade market. At the moment, Boston sits last in the American League East at eight games under .500. Despite entering 2026 with high hopes, the club has struggled mightily during the first half of the season. Because of this, many believe that the Red Sox will make some significant moves this summer.
Nevertheless, WEEI’s Rob Bradford is now reporting that Boston officials are rebuffing outside interest in three key relief pitchers. According to Bradford, teams asking about the possible availability of Aroldis Chapman, Garrett Whitlock, and Justin Slaten are being turned away. The reporter, however, specifically claims that the club is rejecting potential offers as of right now.
The situation regarding the trio could certainly change in the near future. Assuming the Red Sox continue to falter, team officials may eventually opt to offload the standout relievers. So far this season, Chapman, Whitlock, and Slaten have been three of the team’s top pitchers in their bullpen. Chapman has allowed one earned run all season, while Whitlock and Slaten have provided stability working ahead of the closer.
Whitlock has been out of action since landing on the injured list on May 28 with knee inflammation. The reliever is expected to return to Boston’s bullpen in the coming days, though. Chapman is also dealing with an injury issue. Red Sox manager Chad Tracy confirmed on June 5 that the closer is enduring a “minor hamstring” problem. So far, Chapman has avoided the IL.
Boston Red Sox Eyeing Other Deals as Chapman, Whitlock, and Slaten are Off Limits
GettyAroldis Chapman would receive plenty of interest if the Boston Red Sox opt to trade him.
While the Boston Red Sox are holding on to their top relievers for now, they are willing to offload Connor Wong. According to The Athletic’s Jen McCaffrey, team officials are gauging interest in the backup catcher. The veteran backstop is available for trade because Boston has three catchers on the roster. Along with Wong, the Red Sox also have Carlos Narvaez and Mickey Gasper at the position. McCaffrey believes that Boston prefers to keep Gasper over Wong.
The Red Sox, however, are also being linked with making a key addition to the roster. ESPN’s Buster Olney recently claimed that Boston is specifically looking to acquire a right-handed hitter. With Trevor Story and Caleb Durbin struggling, Willson Contreras and Ceddanne Rafaela are currently the club’s two most prominent righties in the lineup. Not only are the Red Sox eyeing a new bat, but they are willing to spend significant money to do so.
Boston Likely to Become Sellers if Struggles Continue
Boston Red Sox chief baseball officer Craig Breslow has admitted that the club is being patient in the trade market. According to Breslow, it is just too early in the season to really commit to being a buyer or seller. The exec also claimed that while he is having “a lot of conversations” with other teams, he still believes that his current roster can turn things around.
Nevertheless, the situation can change fairly rapidly if Boston does not start to improve quickly. The Red Sox are already 11 games back in the division and have to jump six other teams to be in a wild card place. Boston will try to get a win streak going when they face the New York Yankees on Saturday, June 6.
Christopher Moore Christopher Moore has been a Heavy.com contributor since 2025. With over a decade of experience in the industry, he has published thousands of articles reporting on multiple professional sports. He was previously a sports writer for World Soccer Talk, the Yahoo! Contributor Network, and the Maryland Sports Blog. More about Christopher Moore
There isn’t a whole lot of heat in this version of the rivalry, but this one felt — and mostly looked — good. The Sox started with a former Yankee, Gray, who matched his season-high with 6⅓ innings, and closed with a former Yankee, Aroldis Chapman, who worked around a pair of walks in the ninth inning to record the save.
Willson Contreras and Andruw Monasterio hit home runs off lefthander Ryan Weathers (six innings, five runs). Contreras added another hit and RBI, and Monasterio snared Anthony Volpe’s line drive up the middle for a rally-killing unassisted double play in the fourth.
“Just a great game all around,” said interim manager Chad Tracy, who visited the current Yankee Stadium for the first time in any capacity.
Gray said: “There was definitely some juice.”
Chapman limped around the mound a bit in pursuit of the save because he has been dealing with a minor hamstring issue for about a week, Tracy said. But he has managed it and was able to pitch in the series opener, albeit wildly.
“We’re keeping an eye on it, but he’s grinding,” Tracy said. “He did a nice job. He obviously didn’t have his command the first couple of hitters, but then, like he always does, bears down and got it done.”
In his return to Yankee Stadium, a personal house of horrors through the years, including his 2017-18 stint with the Yankees, Gray limited the damage to three runs and eight hits. Ben Rice and Trent Grisham tagged him for home runs, but Gray was relieved that they were solo shots — acceptable on a night when he had “not even close” to his sharpest repertoire, he said.
He lowered his ERA in the Bronx to 5.95.
Gray’s outing featured virtually no pushback from the announced crowd of 43,750 (not a sellout).
In December, upon joining the Red Sox via trade with the Cardinals, Gray said that he “never wanted to go [to the Yankees] in the first place” and that it “feels good to me to go to a place now where, you know what, it’s easy to hate the Yankees.” His comments triggered an outrage cycle in New York.
Six months later, New York fans seemed indifferent about it. Gray garnered only a smattering of boos during pregame introductions, when the stands were not even half-full, and no discernable crowd reaction during the game.
Gray wondered if heightened emotion on his side led to his not being in top form.
“I’ll learn from it and be able to control my emotions and my energy and be able to just make pitches,” he said. “Felt really good, but I felt like my stuff just stayed up … It was fun. I’ve been back here and pitched, but first time with the Red Sox. But I’m glad we came away with a win.”
The Sox (27-35) took the lead for good in the third, when Contreras’s two-out check swing resulted in a soft bouncer to the third-base side of the mound. He beat it out for a single.
In the fifth, after the Yankees (37-26) had cut the deficit back to one, Contreras opened it up again with a two-run shot into the second deck in left field.
Lefthander Danny Coulombe relieved Gray in the seventh and got the final two outs of the inning. The last one was harder, though, because Contreras and Monasterio collided and dropped a foul pop from Rice. Monasterio said neither called for it.
Coulombe struck Rice out swinging on the eighth pitch of the at-bat.
“Next time, I’m going to call it,” Monasterio said. “I promise.”
Tim Healey can be reached at timothy.healey@globe.com. Follow him @timbhealey.
Rainbow flags are flying in the South End as the neighborhood prepares to celebrate Boston’s LGBTQ community at Saturday’s Pride for the People Parade.
Three hundred different organizations with about 12,000 people are expected to participate in what will be the city’s nearly 60th Pride parade.
”There are still things that we are fighting for today, and so we want to remember those that fought before us,” said Adrianna Boulin, of Boston Pride for the People.
The Pride for the People Parade and Festival is happening Saturday in Boston, among other events across New England.
This year’s theme is Pride as Protest – 1776, and organizers say Pride will always be a protest.
“The fact that we are here, the fact that in the midst of what is really an attack LGBTQ people’s rights by legislatures across the country, by our own federal government — we’re here to protest and say we’re not going anywhere,” said Gary Daffin of Boston Pride for the People.
The parade is nearly 2 miles. It starts in Copley Square and works its way through a number of streets in the South End and the Back Bay before ending on Charles Street between the Public Garden and the Common.
Not going to the parade? Watch NBC10 Boston’s coverage wherever you get your news, starting at 11 a.m. Saturday.
Break up the Orioles! The O’s continued their winning ways yesterday afternoon with an emphatic 8-2 victory in the rubber game at Fenway. The Birds’ bats blistered Boston’s Brayan Bello for six runs in the top of the first inning and cruised from there, sealing the Orioles’ fourth consecutive series win or split. Check out Andrea SK’s recap of the resounding victory.
The Orioles improved to 9-4 in their last 13 games, breathing new life into their 2026 season. Two weeks ago, the O’s were on the brink of collapse after getting swept in Tampa and falling to a season-worst eight games under .500. Last year’s Orioles, frankly, probably would have continued to spiral. But this group has rallied.
The O’s are playing their best baseball of the year right now, mostly against divisional opponents. The offensive approach has noticeably improved, with hitters up and down the lineup contributing quality at-bats, and previously underperforming hitters like Coby Mayo and Colton Cowser starting to swing the bats better. In the rotation, Kyle Bradish, Shane Baz, and Brandon Young are delivering quality starts more often than not. And we’ve seen signs of a resurgence from Trevor Rogers, who yesterday rattled off his second start in a row of 5+ scoreless innings before fading as he reached the 70-pitch mark. His command looks much better; now he just needs to work sustaining that pace deeper into games.
I’m not sold yet that the Orioles are a legitimately good ball club. The nature of a 162-game season is that a team can play like gangbusters for a while and then fade just as quickly. We could be back here in two weeks after the O’s go, like, 2-8, and reminiscing wistfully about this hot streak that didn’t last. But right now almost everything is clicking for the Orioles, and if they can sustain their solid play, the idea of the O’s being part of the playoff race this summer and fall isn’t so outlandish.
Will Orioles move on from Tyler O’Neill? | MAILBAG – BaltimoreBaseball.com
As the rest of the roster starts to gel, O’Neill’s continued lack of production sticks out like a sore thumb. Maybe the only thing saving him right now is that the O’s don’t currently have any healthy, productive outfielders in the minors ready to replace him. Tommy Pham ain’t it.
For Jackson Holliday, he wants to re-create his late season 2025 walk rate this year – Steve Melewski
Holliday has always struck me as a guy with a keen batting eye, so it’s weird that he wasn’t taking a lot of walks in the majors until late last year. If he can add that to his repertoire, it’ll lengthen the O’s lineup that much more.
Turns Out Adley Rutschman Is OK After All – FanGraphs
In April I was convinced that Adley was so back, but his dismal May had me wondering if he was falling apart again. Michael Baumann (not that one) offers some reasons to be optimistic about Adley’s 2026.
Jon Meoli: How Rico Garcia assembled the pitch mix that’s saving the Orioles’ bullpen – The Baltimore Banner
Rico has been thriving in large part based on his dad’s advice: throw everything hard. I’m starting the “Eddie Garcia for Orioles pitching coach” campaign right now.
Orioles birthdays and history
Is today your birthday? Happy birthday! You share your day with ex-Orioles catcher Robinson Chirinos (42) and right-hander Russ Ortiz (52).
On this date in 1982, Cal Ripken Jr., who had been lifted for a pinch-hitter the previous day, played the full game against the Twins to start a consecutive-inning streak that eventually reached 8,243. It ended in September 1987 when he was taken out for a pinch-runner during a loss to the Blue Jays.
And on this day in 1985, Orioles right-hander Dennis Martínez notched his 100th career victory in grand style, throwing a one-hit shutout against the Angels at Memorial Stadium. A Jerry Narron third-inning single was the only blemish for Martínez, who faced just one batter over the minimum. Even though he didn’t get his 100th win until age 31, the Nicaraguan-born Martínez finished his career with 245 of them, setting the MLB record for wins by a Latin pitcher (later broken by Bartolo Colon).
Random Orioles game of the day
On June 5, 1974, the Orioles won a dramatic walkoff against the Royals, 5-4. The O’s trailed, 4-2, heading to the bottom of the ninth as Kansas City starter Bruce Dal Canton dominated them for eight innings. But the Orioles got to Dal Canton for two walks in the ninth, then jumped on reliever Doug Bird to complete the comeback. Brooks Robinson’s RBI single brought the O’s within one, Elrod Hendricks tied the game with a sac fly, and Mark Belanger doubled to shallow center to bring home pinch-runner Frank Baker with the game-winning run.
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