The reeling New York Mets will look to avoid being swept on Sunday afternoon when they visit the Miami Marlins in the finale of a three-game series between the National League East foes.

Christian Scott (0-0, 4.12 ERA) is slated to start for the Mets against fellow right-hander Tyler Phillips (0-0, 1.20), who will make his first start of the season for Miami.

The Marlins locked up the series win on Saturday when Max Meyer allowed only one hit over seven scoreless innings and improved to 5-0 as Miami beat the Mets 4-1.

The loss was the fourth in five games for the Mets, who will head home following this game in sole possession of last place in the NL East. The Marlins moved 1 1/2 games ahead of New York with their Saturday win.

The Mets didn’t score on Saturday until Mark Vientos’ two-out RBI single in the ninth and have been outscored 24-14 in the past five games.

The team-wide slump is reminiscent of the extended drought the Mets endured in April, when they lost 17 of their final 20 games of the month while averaging 2.7 runs per game. The slide started with a 12-game losing streak from April 8-21 — the longest skid for New York since 2002.

The Mets opened May by winning 11 of 16 games, a span in which they averaged 5.4 runs per contest.

“The past couple games, we’ve faced some good pitching,” Vientos said. “Obviously we haven’t done what we’ve wanted at the plate, but got to give credit where credit is due. The pitchers that we’ve faced, they’ve been doing their thing. And we’re just going to come (Sunday) and come back strong.”

Phillips, who has allowed more than one run just once in 15 relief appearances this season, will look to follow in the footsteps of Meyer and Eury Perez as the Marlins try to complete their first series sweep since March 27-29 against the Colorado Rockies.

Perez gave up one run on two hits — both to Juan Soto — over 6 1/3 innings in the series opener on Friday as he earned the 2-1 win for Miami.

Phillips, who has thrown three innings in relief four times this season, is taking the rotation spot of Braxton Garrett, who was demoted to Triple-A Jacksonville on Wednesday. The start against the Mets will be the first for Philips since last Sept. 7 and the ninth of his three-year big league career.

“We believe he has the pitches and the ability to start it,” Marlins manager Clayton McCullough said. “He’s done it in the past, something we had spoken with him about last year and had stretched him out some on the fly. As circumstances have happened in recent weeks, felt like he’s been throwing the ball terrifically.”

Scott didn’t factor into the decision in his most recent start last Monday, when he gave up three runs over four innings in New York’s 16-7, 12-inning win over the Nationals.

Phillips hasn’t pitched since Wednesday, when he allowed an unearned run over three innings in the Marlins’ 9-1 loss to the Atlanta Braves.

Scott is 0-2 with a 7.88 ERA in two career starts against the Marlins, and Phillips is 0-0 with an 0.00 ERA in five career relief appearances spanning 6 2/3 innings against the Mets.

–Field Level Media

Two sparkplug outfielders who have helped deliver wins in vastly different ways the last two days hope to continue to be a nuisance for opposing pitchers Sunday afternoon when Sam Antonacci and the Chicago White Sox face Harrison Bader and the host San Francisco Giants.

The teams have split the first two contests of a three-game set, each using a big inning to provide the difference in blowout wins.

Antonacci drew two hit-by-pitches and scored twice in a nine-run fourth inning in Friday’s series opener, which the White Sox won 9-4.

The 23-year-old leadoff batter has yet to get a hit in the series but has scored three times, which doesn’t surprise his Chicago teammates. He’s been hit by pitches 10 times this season, which is tied for the major league lead.

“Grinder. He’s our Cam Skattebo,” Davis Martin, Friday’s winning pitcher, assured reporters, making a comparison to the New York Giants’ running back. “Just any way imaginable to get the job done, he’s going to get the job done. And everybody knows it. To spearhead that lineup, I couldn’t think of anybody better.”

Giants fans are starting to see some of the same in Bader, who joined the club as a free agent over the winter, mostly as a defensive addition. But the veteran has been surprising offensively, hitting five home runs in 25 games in a season interrupted for a month by a hamstring injury.

Bader appeared to have disappointed the big crowd Saturday when, with the Giants leading 5-3, he popped up with the bases loaded and two outs in the fifth inning. But White Sox third baseman Miguel Vargas lost the foul ball in the sun, giving Bader new life, and the veteran responded with a grand slam to cap a six-run uprising.

Bader gladly accepted a Gatorade soaking from teammate Willy Adames during a postgame television interview on the field.

“Feels good,” Bader, 31, insisted. “Every single day since I was 5 years old, I dreamed about playing this game at a high level. I love what I do, so it feels real good to deliver for my team.”

The pitching matchup on Sunday will feature two left-handers: the White Sox’s Noah Schultz (2-3, 4.93 ERA) and the Giants’ Robbie Ray (3-6, 4.28).

Schultz will make the eighth start of his rookie season, his fifth on the West Coast. He already has beaten the Athletics and San Diego Padres on the road, and he has lost at the Los Angeles Angels and Seattle Mariners.

The 22-year-old has never faced the Giants, who hit three home runs in a game for just the fourth time all season Saturday. Schultz has served up just three homers in his seven starts this year, never more than one in a game.

Meanwhile, Ray is coming off his worst start of the season, roughed up for 10 runs (nine earned) in a 12-2 shellacking at Arizona last Monday.

Ray will face the White Sox for the sixth time in his career, having gone 1-2 with a 2.78 ERA against them.

– Field Level Media

San Diego Padres manager Craig Stammen cracked a joke about a lack of hitting on Saturday night, when his team managed only two hits in a 2-0 shutout of the visiting Athletics.

“If you want to put it into football terms, we got our safety and got out of there,” he said.

Stammen will hope for a bit more offense from his team, as well as a series sweep, on Sunday afternoon when the Padres wrap up their weekend series against the A’s.

All jokes aside, winning without much offense has been the norm for San Diego much of this season. The Padres are last in the majors in batting average (.219) and are tied for last with San Francisco in on-base percentage (.293). San Diego stands 27th in slugging percentage (.365) and 24th in runs (209).

Yet the Padres are 11 games over .500 and have won six of their past eight games, mainly because they seem to score runs when absolutely necessary. And San Diego rarely gives up a late-inning lead because of its high-leverage arms in the bullpen.

Stammen said the Padres will figure things out offensively, citing the eight walks they drew Saturday night as proof they are taking the proper approach at the plate.

“We celebrate the small wins, and if we have enough of those, it’s going to turn into big things,” he said. “Any time we can find a way to hand a lead to our bullpen, it’s a good day for us.”

Having right-hander Michael King (4-2, 2.31 ERA) on the mound typically gives San Diego a chance to win, and he will start against the A’s on Sunday. King excelled in a 1-0 shutout of the Los Angeles Dodgers on Monday, firing seven scoreless innings and allowing just four hits while walking two and striking out nine.

In three career games against the Athletics, two of them starts, King is 1-0 with a 3.75 ERA. The win, 5-4, occurred on April 7, 2025, in West Sacramento, Calif.

Opposing King will be right-hander Luis Medina, who’s 1-1 with a 2.41 ERA in 14 relief appearances. This will be the first start since 2024 for Medina, who fired two scoreless innings Wednesday night at the Los Angeles Angels in a 6-5, 10-inning win for San Diego.

In his only previous game against San Diego, Medina worked 3 2/3 innings of relief in 2023, striking out seven and walking four while allowing two hits and an earned run.

This will likely be a second straight game in which the A’s bullpen does most of the work. J.T. Ginn left after only 2 1/3 innings Saturday night because he had thrown 73 pitches, given up two runs, walked six and hit a batter, forcing relievers to record 17 outs.

The bullpen gave up just two hits during its lengthy stint to keep the Athletics in contention, but the A’s couldn’t come up with timely hits for a second straight game. They were 0-for-7 with runners in scoring position and stranded eight runners.

But San Diego did see Nick Kurtz tie Rickey Henderson for the third-longest on-base streak in franchise history. Kurtz’s first-inning single marked the 46th straight game he has reached base. If he makes it 47 on Sunday, he’ll tie Jimmie Foxx for second. Mark McGwire leads with a 62-game streak.

“Every day is a new day for him,” Athletics manager Mark Kotsay said of Kurtz. “He’s not a hitter that chases hits. He’s a hitter that takes what’s given to him.”

–Field Level Media