After a slow start to the season, the Philadelphia Phillies have a simple — and obvious — goal under interim manager Don Mattingly.

“We’ve got to win ballgames,” right-hander Zack Wheeler said after the Phillies defeated the Marlins 6-5 on Friday night in Miami. “You can’t get too far behind. The Braves are a really good team, and they’re already a good bit ahead (in the National League East). So we’ve got some catching up to do, but we’re playing better baseball right now. And like I said, it starts with the staff.”

The Phillies will aim for their fifth consecutive win on Saturday afternoon when they meet the Marlins in the second game of a four-game set. The four wins have come under Mattingly, who took over when Philadelphia manager Rob Thomson was fired Tuesday amid a 9-19 start to the season.

Wheeler, in just his second start this year, held the Marlins to one run over six innings. Bryson Stott and Alec Bohm — two veterans who have struggled — came up with big hits.

“There are so many guys with track records here that you know are going to hit,” Mattingly said.

And pitch.

“It seems like over the past few years the starting pitching has been the strength, and there was times, obviously earlier this year, it wasn’t as good as you’d like,” Mattingly said. “But it’s starting to iron itself out.”

Miami’s Otto Lopez enjoyed a big night, going 3-for-5 with two runs and two RBIs. The Marlins attempted a late comeback, as they rallied from a 6-1 deficit with three runs in the eighth and another run in the ninth, but their late surge fell just shy.

“We see with the group, day in and day out, they will just continue to hang in there,” Marlins manager Clayton McCullough said. “We came up short, but I loved how we were able to finish that one off.”

Now the Marlins will take aim at Philadelphia starter Andrew Painter (1-2, 5.25 ERA), who will look to rebound from a bumpy start his last time out.

In his fifth major league outing, the 23-year-old right-hander gave up a career-high five runs in 5 2/3 innings in a 5-3 loss to Atlanta on April 24. Painter allowed nine hits, walked two batters and struck out only one of the 28 batters he faced.

Painter actually had things under control — two runs allowed through five innings — before giving up three runs in the sixth.

Painter will face the Marlins for the first time. His counterpart, right-hander Max Meyer (1-0, 3.30 ERA) has pitched against the Phillies only once, allowing five runs in 5 1/3 innings in his major league debut in 2022.

Fast-forward to the current season, and Meyer has yielded three runs or less in all six of his starts. He gave up just an unearned run in five innings Sunday against the San Francisco Giants. The Marlins lost 6-3, and Meyer took a no-decision.

In essence, Meyer’s last start was the opposite of Painter’s, as McCullough pulled Meyer after five frames despite a relatively low pitch count (77).

“I thought Max had done his job, gotten us through five. We thought we had the right combination of guys to get to (closer Pete Fairbanks), but the game quickly turned on us,” McCullough said.

–Field Level Media

–Field Level Media

The concerns about the Detroit Tigers’ bullpen figure to be amplified following another late-inning setback.

Detroit has lost three of its last four games heading into Saturday night’s matchup against the visiting Texas Rangers, who opened the three-game series with a 5-4 win on Friday.

Detroit rallied from an early 4-0 deficit to tie the game in the fifth inning, but Texas moved ahead on back-to-back doubles by Jake Burger and Alejandro Osuna in the eighth against Burch Smith.

The Tigers’ bullpen entered Friday ranked 21st in the majors with a 4.39 ERA, and closer Kenley Jansen has blown two straight saves. The team also is monitoring the status of setup man Will Vest, who has not pitched since Sunday.

Detroit manager A.J. Hinch said Vest “is not 100%” but declined to say whether the reliever is injured.

“We’re going through a few things,” Hinch said. “Obviously, the bullpen has been leaned on quite a bit. There are guys that are not feeling at their best. That’s what we’re working through. We’re going day-by-day.”

Saturday’s pitching matchup will feature a pair of right-handers as Detroit’s Keider Montero (1-2, 4.00 ERA) will oppose Texas’ Kumar Rocker (1-2, 3.38).

Montero, 25, has pitched well while filling in for Justin Verlander, who has been out for the last four weeks with hip inflammation. There remains no timeline for when Verlander will begin a rehab assignment.

“He’s still fighting through it,” Hinch said Friday, “which doesn’t mean he should be shut down or changed. It just means it’s slow.”

Montero allowed three runs over five innings in a no-decision in his team’s 8-3 victory over the Cincinnati Reds on Sunday. He owns a 23-to-5 strikeout-to-walk ratio in five starts covering 27 innings.

Texas’ Andrew McCutchen has two homers in four at-bats against Montero, who is 0-1 with an 8.31 ERA in one previous start vs. the Rangers.

The Rangers will counter with Rocker, who gave up two runs over six innings in a 2-1 home loss to the Athletics on Sunday.

Rocker, 26, threw five scoreless innings after giving up a two-run triple to Carlos Cortes in the first inning.

“Rocker was great,” said Texas manager Skip Schumaker. “He walked those two guys in the first inning, and after that really settled in. He gave us a chance to win. Six innings, two runs, you’d sign up for that all day long. He was fantastic. We just couldn’t get that big hit.”

Rocker made his only career start against Detroit on July 19, 2025, when he allowed one hit over 6 1/3 scoreless innings in a 4-1 home victory.

Texas third baseman Josh Jung continued his hot stretch on Friday with two singles and two RBIs. Jung is batting .378 with two homers and 11 RBIs during a 10-game hitting streak.

Rangers right fielder Brandon Nimmo exited Friday’s game with right hamstring tightness and is listed as day-to-day.

“He felt it a little bit in the at-bat,” Schumaker said. “I saw him shaking his leg. I ran out there, asked what the deal was, he said ‘I could play,” shocker, like I thought he would, but I didn’t really … feel like it was worth it. I didn’t really want to push him.”

–Field Level Media

Walt Weiss had a successful return to Coors Field on Friday, and the Atlanta manager hopes to make it two straight wins there when the Braves play the second of three games against the Colorado Rockies in Denver on Saturday night.

Atlanta will send left-hander Chris Sale (5-1, 2.31 ERA) to the mound, while Colorado has not named a starter.

The Braves rallied from a 6-0 deficit to win the opener 8-6 on Friday night.

Weiss, who took over as Atlanta’s manager when Brian Snitker retired in the offseason, led the Rockies for four seasons (2013-16) before the organization replaced him with Bud Black.

Weiss spent 15 years in the Colorado organization as a player (1994-97), special assistant to the GM (2002-08) and manager, compiling a 283-365 record in the latter position.

“I’ve seen a lot of games in this park, and I’m not going to sit here and say I got the secret sauce, but we all know the game is a little different here,” Weiss said before Friday’s game. “But at the same time, I don’t think you can make too much of it. You got to go out and play the game.

“But obviously, big outfield, a lot of first-to-thirds, a lot of balls drop in. And there’s a lot of traffic throughout a game on the bases. You have to take care of the ball.”

Weiss is leading the top team in the majors after a losing 2025 season. Atlanta has won 13 of its last 16 games and embarked on a tough road trip that will continue in Seattle and Los Angeles against the Dodgers.

Sale has faced Colorado five times in his career — three starts — and is 1-1 with a 1.48 ERA in those outings. His last start against the Rockies was a 2-1 loss on April 30, 2025, when he allowed just two runs and fanned 10 over seven innings.

Colorado has dropped three of its last four games after sweeping a road series from the New York Mets last weekend. Friday’s loss came when the usually reliable bullpen allowed seven runs over the last three innings to turn a 6-1 lead into a loss.

Even with the disappointment, the Rockies had more bright spots in the game. Mickey Moniak, who missed the first six games of the season, had two hits, including his ninth homer of the season, and catcher Hunter Goodman continues to be impressive.

Goodman, Colorado’s lone representative at the 2025 All-Star Game, is tied with Moniak for the team lead in home runs with nine.

Goodman was 0-for-5 in a 6-4 loss at the Cincinnati Reds on Thursday to wrap up a 4-2 road trip, which came after a two-homer performance in Wednesday night’s 13-2 victory over Cincinnati. He has worked at not chasing pitches out of the strike zone to improve his at-bats.

“It’s just some things with my approach, thinking a little bit differently and trying not to be so focused on the internal,” Goodman said. “Be more focused on the external stuff.”

–Field Level Media