The New York Yankees and Cincinnati Reds saw injuries sideline their marquee players on May 31. The teams have responded in very different ways since.

Entering the opener of a three-game series Friday night in New York, the Yankees own a respectable record since losing Aaron Judge to a stress fracture in his right rib cage. Meanwhile, the Reds are struggling since losing Elly De La Cruz to a strained right hamstring.

New York is 9-5 since Judge last played in a 13-8 win over the host Athletics. When Judge landed on the injured list, the team announced he would be evaluated in four to six weeks.

The Yankees, despite making a pair of baserunning mistakes and getting only a homer from Ryan McMahon in a 5-1 home loss to the Chicago White Sox on Thursday, are performing better than they did during Judge’s last long-term injury. In 2023, he fractured a toe and missed nearly two months, and the team went 19-23 without him.

“Good players that are playing with real purpose,” manager Aaron Boone said Thursday regarding how the Yankees are getting by without their star slugger. “We’ve been able to win in a lot of different ways.”

Before Camilo Doval allowed a pinch-hit grand slam to Andrew Benintendi in the eighth inning on Thursday, the Yankees had won four games in a row while scoring 33 runs and totaling 46 hits. That surge came despite the absence of Judge, Giancarlo Stanton (sidelined since late April due to a right calf strain) and Trent Grisham (out since straining his right hamstring on June 12).

Among New York’s hottest hitters of late is Paul Goldschmidt, who has a .395 average (17-for-43) during a 10-game hitting streak. Another is Ben Rice, who is hitting .325 (25-for-77) in his past 19 games.

Cincinnati is 5-10 since losing De La Cruz, though the shortstop is expected to begin a minor league rehab assignment Friday. Since De La Cruz got hurt, the Reds are hitting .217 and the trio of Spencer Steer, Eugenio Suarez and Sal Stewart are struggling.

In June, Steer is batting 6-for-46 (.130), Suarez is hitting .185 (10-for-54) and Stewart is hitting .214 (12-for-56).

The Reds are 15-27 since winning 20 of their first 31 games. Cincinnati has scored three runs or fewer in nine of its past 15 games, including a 9-1 home loss to the New York Mets on Wednesday.

After scoring 17 runs while winning twice over the Mets, the Reds allowed 15 hits in the series finale. That figure equaled the second-highest total against Cincinnati this season.

“I do think for us to be the team we want to be, we have to play very clean baseball,” Reds manager Terry Francona said. “We haven’t done that as well as we’d like to.”

New York’s Cam Schlittler (7-3, 1.82 ERA) will face the Reds for the first time as he attempts to halt a personal three-start winless stretch. Since a win at Kansas City on May 26, the right-hander is 0-1 with a 3.18 ERA.

Schlittler has allowed one run or none in 10 of his 15 starts, including Saturday in Toronto, when he yielded one run on six hits in seven innings.

Right-hander Rhett Lowder (3-3, 4.60 ERA), who is 0-2 with a 7.00 ERA in his past five outings, opens the series for the Reds. Lowder has pitched better since missing a month with a right shoulder injury, allowing one run in a total of 8 2/3 innings over two starts.

He will be opposing the Yankees for the first time.

–Field Level Media

The Atlanta Braves picked a bad time to fall into a funk.

After looking like the biggest threat to the Los Angeles Dodgers in the National League for much of the season, Atlanta has lost six of seven. And now the Milwaukee Brewers are coming to town, and bringing baseball’s hottest pitcher with them.

The Braves will look to snap their second three-game losing streak in the past 10 days when they host the Brewers for the opener of a three-game set on Friday in a matchup of division leaders.

The NL Central-leading Brewers, despite having their three-game winning streak end with a 4-2 loss to the Cleveland Guardians on Thursday, have won eight of their past 12.

The Braves lost twice to the San Francisco Giants this week before the scheduled Thursday game was postponed because of bad weather.

“Nothing’s coming easy for us right now — on the mound, at the plate,” Atlanta manager Walt Weiss said. “Seemed like everyone was coming through early on, and it’s kind of infectious. This is almost inevitable, and over the course of the season you run into times like this.”

The Friday pitching matchup features Milwaukee flamethrower Jacob Misiorowski (8-2, 1.34 ERA) and Atlanta’s Martin Perez (5-3, 2.90).

Misiorowski, 24, is coming off the best outing of his career — a one-hit shutout of the Philadelphia Phillies on June 12 in which he struck out 15 and needed only 95 pitches while facing the minimum.

“It’s more that it finally clicked,” Misiorowski said. “Everything started settling in and feeling good.”

Misiorowski, who is 7-0 with a 0.17 ERA in his past eight starts, has recorded seven consecutive quality starts and has struck out a major-league-leading 131 batters in 87 innings on the season.

“He’s winning the 0-0 and the 1-1 (counts) a lot,” pitching coach Chris Hook said. “When he doesn’t, it stands out to be like, ‘Oh, God, he didn’t win the 0-0. He didn’t win the 1-1.’ Like that’s weird, for him to go to a two-ball count.”

Misiorowski has never faced the Braves.

Perez was seen as a luxury when he was signed as a free agent earlier this year but has proven to be invaluable in light of Atlanta’s pitching problems. His veteran presence will be especially important since the club placed Spencer Strider, considered the Braves’ second-best arm behind Chris Sale, on the 60-day injured list this week due to right elbow inflammation.

Perez has won three consecutive starts. He beat the New York Mets 3-1 on Saturday, allowing one run on four hits and one walk in 5 1/3 innings. He struck out four.

“Martin is like Picasso,” Atlanta utility man Mauricio Dubon said. “He’s a veteran. He’s out there just grinding and everything. You know, he makes it look easy.”

Perez has not had success against the Brewers, however. In five career appearances (four starts) vs. Milwaukee, he is 0-3 with an 8.54 ERA, having allowed eight home runs in 26 1/3 innings.

Also on Thursday, Milwaukee announced that Quinn Priester would miss the rest of the season. The 25-year-old right-hander was trying to avoid surgery through rehab but will now undergo thoracic outlet decompression surgery.

After going 13-3 with a 3.32 ERA for the Brewers in 2025, Priester was 0-5 with a 15.75 ERA in eight minor league starts this season, allowing 28 runs in 16 innings.

The Brewers and Braves are meeting for the first time this year. Milwaukee took the season series 4-2 in 2025 and has won six straight in Atlanta.

–Field Level Media

The Atlanta Braves continued their search for a backup catcher on Thursday, acquiring Joey Bart from the Pittsburgh Pirates in exchange for right-handed reliever Hunter Stratton.

Bart, 29, is a Georgia native who played for Georgia Tech. He hit .259 with two homers and six RBIs in 21 games for the Pirates this year before landing on the injured list in mid-May because of a left foot infection.

In five minor league rehab games over the past week, Bart went 4-for-16 (.250) with one homer and two RBIs.

Bart has a career .240 batting average with a .319 on-base percentage, a .369 slugging percentage, 30 homers and 119 RBIs in 356 games for the San Francisco Giants (2020-23) and the Pirates (2024-26).

Stratton, 29, heads back to Pittsburgh, where he pitched from 2023-25 until he was dealt to Atlanta last July. He made only one appearance for the Braves this year, throwing a shutout inning against the Colorado Rockies on May 2.

Stratton went 2-4 with one save and a 4.38 ERA in 21 relief appearances for Atlanta’s Triple-A Gwinnett affiliate this year before he was designated for assignment on Wednesday. The Pirates are assigning him to Triple-A Indianapolis.

In 60 career major league outings, all out of the bullpen, Stratton owns a 3-2 record with two saves and a 3.75 ERA.

The Braves’ regular catcher, Drake Baldwin, was activated from the injured list on Monday, and the next day he hit the longest home run in the majors this year. His 473-foot blast came as the leadoff man in the first inning against Giants right-hander Adrian Houser.

Baldwin had been sidelined since mid-May due to an oblique injury. The 2025 National League Rookie of the Year is hitting .298 with 14 homers and 39 RBIs in 50 games for Atlanta this year.

During his absence, the Braves tried Austin Wynns, Sandy Leon and Chadwick Tromp behind the plate.

Leon was designated for assignment on Thursday to clear a spot on the 40-man roster for Bart. He went 4-for-44 (.091) with no RBIs in 21 games for the Braves this year.

Wynns was designated for assignment upon Baldwin’s return, having gone 1-for-14 with no RBIs in six games since Atlanta purchased his contract from the Los Angeles Angels earlier this month. He became a free agent this week after clearing waivers.

Tromp returned to the minors after going 5-for-25 (.200) with no homers and three RBIs in 12 games for Atlanta.

–Field Level Media