The San Francisco Giants are coming off a rebounding win against the St. Louis Cardinals on Saturday as they defeated the Redbirds in thrilling fashion, 6-5. The win gives the Giants a chance to fight on Sunday, the final game of the MLB season, for a .500 record for the first time since 2022. 

San Francisco will turn to rookie pitcher Hayden Birdsong (5-5, 4.66) to get it done on the hill. The 6’4” right-hander will be making his 16th start of the season after making his MLB Debut for the Giants this past June. The 23-year-old is coming off a win against the team’s division rivals, Arizona Diamondbacks, in his last start. Birdsong allowed only two earned runs across five innings of work and struck out six batters in the contest. 

Birdsong and the rest of the Giants will finish the 2024 campaign with a matchup against another young arm as the Cardinals will send a rookie pitcher themselves to the mound in Michael McGreevy. The former first-round pick for St. Louis will make his third career start on Sunday after making his MLB Debut at the end of July. McGreevy, a left-hander, last pitched at Coors Field against the Colorado Rockies, where he allowed three runs on five innings of work. Not surprisingly, he also allowed his first home run in the elevation at Denver. 

Both teams will not be heading to the MLB Postseason, which begins on Tuesday. Therefore, Sunday’s game is all about something to build off of heading into the offseason.

Here are the lineups for tonight’s matchup:

San Francisco Giants
1 RF Mike Yastrzemski
2 LF Jerar Encarnacion
3 1B LaMonte Wade Jr.
4 3B Matt Chapman
5 DH Michael Conforto
6 SS Tyler Fitzgerald
7 2B Brett Wisely
8 C Curt Casali
9 CF Grant McCray

Giants third baseman Matt Chapman enters Sunday, the final game of the season at 27 home runs. If he records at least one more on the season, it will be the second best season in his career in homers. His best is a 36 home run campaign in 2019.

St. Louis Cardinals
1 2B Brendan Donovan
2 LF Alec Burleson
3 DH Paul Goldschmidt
4 CF Lars Nootbaar
5 1B Matt Carpenter
6 RF Jordan Walker
7 SS Thomas Saggese
8 C Pedro Pages
9 3B Jose Fermin

The first pitch is scheduled for 3:05 p.m. ET in San Francisco at Oracle Park. The game will be available on NBC Sports Bay Area and Bally Sports Midwest. 

You can also watch it on fuboTV with a free trial by signing up here!

SEATTLE – It was clear something was on Julio Rodríguez’s mind when he entered the Seattle Mariners clubhouse before the team’s penultimate game against the for-now Oakland Athletics, but soon to be just “A’s” Saturday afternoon. He had a question for manager Dan Wilson who he found in the hallway outside his office.

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“Skip, is there early hitting today?” he asked.

If there wasn’t, it certainly could, and would be arranged quickly. While there were just two games remaining and the postseason no longer an option, Rodríguez felt the need to finish strong, if not in results at least by feel.

“(It’s) very important,” he said. “Being able to finish the season knowing that you feel good, that you kind of checked your boxes out. Especially later in the year, it kind of drives some good air into the offseason so you’re looking forward to the next year.”

It has taken some time for Rodríguez to get to this feeling. Having got off to a slow start while hitting just seven home runs through the first three months of the season, he would not experience a significant turnaround until July when his slugging percentage jumped 61 points. An ankle injury interrupted that success forcing him to miss 16 games. He did not miss a beat in his return posting similar numbers in August before taking another jump in September. The hitter we see today is not the hitter who left Peoria six months ago. Rodriguez admits it has been a process.

“In this last stretch, I feel like I’ve been a lot more comfortable and just kind of having a simple thought in my mind and going up there with that and just kind of believing in myself a lot more,” he said. “Especially in bigger situations, in any type of situations, just knowing what I want to do is something so simple and that can carry me. That has helped me out as a hitter and I’m going to plan on continuing to keep it moving forward.”

Rodríguez said leaving practice behind when he stepped into the batter’s box was key. “The work has been done, let it play.”

“That’s something that I used to do that maybe I took a little bit for granted and this year, I was able to kind of get it a little bit more again. It’s just kind of being out there and playing free.”

To get there, according to Julio, it takes good people around you. The name at the top of the list is likely not a surprise.

“I’ve got to give a lot of credit to (hitting coach) Edgar (Martinez),” he said. “He was he was somebody that instilled a lot of things that I kind of forgot in myself. And I’m grateful that he was able to be part of this coaching staff for the last stretch of the season.”

For Rodríguez and others, it goes back to simplifying. Martinez believes if the swing is good, trust it. Approaches can be simple. Stay up the middle, let the ball travel, adjust if need be, fight if you get to two strikes.

“As a hitter in the times that we’re living, we kind of forget that feel of the game,” Rodríguez. “And that’s something that he really kind of brought to not just to me, but I’m sure to a lot of the guys in this room and, yeah, I’m going to give the credit to him.”

Martinez has been around the team for years, available before most home games, behind the batting cages. It’s different when he is the voice of hitting and not leaving the ballpark once the game starts. Julio has seen him have great impact in the dugout.

“One thing that might seem small for a lot of people, every time you have Edgar Martinez in your dugout telling you, ‘Are you ready to go compete?’ It kind of fires you up. Are you ready to go compete out there? Do you got this guy? Little things like that,” Rodríguez said. “That’s Edgar Martinez, he’s gonna get you riled up and you want to go out there and compete and just do the best you can. Even whenever you were to miss, he’s never doubting you and for the next at-bat he brings the same energy.

“It doesn’t matter what you do, he’s always there for you. And I feel like that’s something as a player that you love so much because we struggle so much in this game. Let’s say you have somebody in your corner that is actually there supporting you and you feel that, you feel like they got your back, truly. And that’s something that is really, really impactful for me.

Rodríguez plans to do more than give Martinez, who was brought on to help Wilson through the end of the year, credit. He would like him to stick around.

“I would love him to stay. I feel like he’s somebody that all of us, we can benefit so much,” he said. “We respect him so much and he just loves this organization just like how we do. He built this organization in the beginning pretty much. Just the impact that he has on all of us, I feel like that’s something that I would love for him to stay. At the same time, he has his own things going on. I feel like we (are) all waiting to see.”

In the meantime, there is a season of expectations not met to put behind them. Never one to focus on the negative, Rodríguez looks forward.

“I don’t want to say disappointed,” he answered when asked his feelings of the outcome of the season. “Obviously, it was definitely a learning year for a lot of us as players, to me personally, too. I just feel like this is part of a long journey. I feel like this isn’t the end right now, this is a chapter of it this year, but I feel like a lot of us as a player, we learned a lot and that’s something that we’re going to carry on for next year and obviously looking forward to going deeper into the games and into the playoffs and be able to play some real ballgames.”

More on the Seattle Mariners

• Cal Raleigh reflects on Mariners’ ‘disappointing’ 2024 season
• Rost: Where Seattle Mariners’ season ending leaves fans
• Mariners unveil 2024 minor league award winners
• Video: What led to Seattle Mariners missing the playoffs again
• Requiem for a Seattle Mariners Season: The questions that await

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The New York Jets made linebacker C.J. Mosley inactive for Sunday’s game with the Denver Broncos as both teams set their final active rosters for the game.

Mosley has not played in two weeks as a result of a toe injury he suffered against Tennessee. The Jets are trying to guard against re-injury. He has experience with a setback in injury recovery. In 2019 he returned early from a groin injury and ended up having season-ending surgery.

He was on the injury report all week, did not practice and was listed as doubtful on Friday’s final report.

Jamien Sherwood is expected to start for the second straight game.

As expected offensive tackle Morgan Moses is inactive. He was already listed as out on the injury report due to a knee injury, so making him inactive was a formality. Rookie Olu Fashanu will make his first start at right tackle for the Jets.

Moses is expected to miss next week’s game, too.

New York’s other inactives are defensive end Braiden McGregor, defensive tackle Leonard Taylor, cornerback Jarrick Bernard-Converse and running back Izzy Abanikanda.

New York made other moves leading up to the game, all involving practice squad players. The Jets elevated linebacker Marcelino McCrary-Ball and defensive lineman Bruce Hector.

McCray-Ball was elevated for New York’s last game and he played 14 snaps on special teams. The Jets added him to their practice squad in August and he’s been a part of the Jets’ practice squad off and on since last year.

Hector signed with the Jets’ practice squad last month. This is the first time he’s been elevated this season.

New York also signed linebacker Anthony Hines to their practice squad and placed linebacker Brandon Smith on practice squad injured reserve.

Hines was one of the Jets’ final cuts coming out of the preseason. Smith signed with the Jets’ practice squad earlier this week and has appeared in two NFL games with other teams.

The Broncos, as expected, designated JL Skinner as inactive. He was the only Broncos player listed as out on Friday’s injury report.

Denver’s remaining inactives were quarterback Zach Wilson, wide receiver Devaughn Vele, running back Blake Watson, cornerback Kris Abrams-Draine, tight end Lucas Krull and defensive lineman Eyioma Uwazurike. Wilson is a former Jets first-round pick who start for New York as recently as last year.

Tight end Nate Atkins (shoulder) and wide receiver Josh Reynolds (Achilles), who were both on the injury report, are active for the Broncos.