The Houston Astros, desperate for production from a pitching staff ravaged by injuries, turned to an old postseason hero on Sunday, one whose struggles this season have come to represent the club’s as a whole.

Right-hander Bryan Abreu worked two scoreless innings of relief and notched his first win this season as the Astros claimed the rubber match of a three-game road series with the Boston Red Sox, 3-1 in 10 innings.

It marked just the second road series win this season for the Astros, who will host a three-game interleague series against the two-time defending World Series champion Los Angeles Dodgers on Monday.

Abreu was on Houston’s World Series title team of 2022 and has played his entire major league career with the Astros since 2019.

“We can’t get to where we want to get to without Bryan Abreu,” Astros manager Joe Espada said after Abreu lowered his ERA to 10.32. “Hopefully, this is the trampoline that gets him going. I’m really happy for him, I’m really proud of him for those two innings.

“Momentum going into the Dodgers series at home, stuff like this matters,” Espada said. “These guys start seeing the light at the end of the tunnel. We’ve still got a long season, but series like this get you going.”

Left-hander Steven Okert (0-0, 4.20 ERA) will serve as the opener for the Astros on Monday, while rookie right-hander Ryan Weiss (0-2, 6.65) is likely to work as the bulk pitcher. Okert tossed a scoreless inning of relief against the Red Sox on Sunday and allowed one hit with one strikeout.

It will mark the fifth career start for Okert and first since Aug. 5, 2025, against the Miami Marlins, when he allowed one run on one hit with two strikeouts in 1 2/3 innings.

Okert is 1-0 with one save and a 2.18 ERA in 20 2/3 innings over 19 career relief appearances against the Dodgers. Should Weiss make an appearance, it will mark the first of his career against the Dodgers and his third against the National League. Weiss is 0-1 with an 11.37 ERA in two career interleague appearances — both against the Colorado Rockies.

Right-hander Yoshinobu Yamamoto (2-2, 2.87) has the starting assignment for the Dodgers. He did not factor into the decision of a 5-4 home win over the Marlins on April 27 after allowing four runs (three earned) on five hits and four walks with four strikeouts in five innings.

Yamamoto is 0-1 with a 3.20 ERA in his last three starts with 18 strikeouts across 19 2/3 innings. The Dodgers scored one run in both of their losses with Yamamoto on the mound.

He will make his first career appearance against the Astros. He is 6-3 with a 2.82 ERA across 14 interleague starts since 2024.

The Dodgers snapped a four-game skid with a 4-1 road win in the finale of their three-game series with the St. Louis Cardinals on Sunday. Justin Wrobleski twirled six shutout innings to pace the victory and deliver yet another strong pitching performance for the Dodgers, whose lineup scuffled during the skid but showed signs of improvement over the weekend.

Freddie Freeman delivered a two-out RBI single in the fifth, and he and Andy Pages produced runs while facing 0-2 counts. The Dodgers’ star-studded lineup is accustomed to more robust offensive displays, but given their recent struggles, all signs of progress are welcome.

“You’ve just got to bow your neck and find a way to win,” Dodgers manager Dave Roberts said. “It doesn’t matter how good or how bad it looks, we needed a win so we can have a happy flight.

“Yeah, the two-strike hits, the two-out hits are a sign of what we’ve done in the past.”

–Field Level Media

The New York Mets needed something to go their way in hopes of turning around a forgettable start to the season.

Fresh off a rare series win, the Mets will hope to keep the momentum going when they travel to Denver to take on the reeling Colorado Rockies on Monday to begin a three-game set.

New York began its six-game West Coast road trip by taking two of three from the Los Angeles Angels — the team’s first road series victory since a four-game set against the San Francisco Giants in early April.

After a 10-21 start, the club may be finding some momentum.

“That’s our goal, to start winning series,” Mets manager Carlos Mendoza said. “That’s what it’s going to take for us to get to where we want to be. One series at a time, one game at a time.”

Desperately needing a shot in the arm at the plate, New York received a pair of two-run home runs from Mark Vientos in a 5-1 win on Sunday. The Mets’ 118 runs are second fewest in the majors — ahead of only the Giants’ 106.

“I think that’s the name of the game — putting yesterday in the past,” Vientos said. “We have to focus on the right now.”

Mendoza said the team plans on using an opener Monday before David Peterson (0-4, 6.53 ERA) takes the mound.

The struggling veteran left-hander has failed to complete four innings in each of his last three starts. On Wednesday, the 30-year-old Denver native surrendered seven runs on five hits in 3 2/3 frames in a 14-2 loss to the Washington Nationals.

Peterson is slated to face his hometown team for the fifth time, going 3-1 with a 1.99 ERA in the first four starts.

Colorado, meanwhile, has dropped five of its last six since sweeping the Mets from April 24-26. The Rockies’ pitching staff is coming off a disastrous weekend set against the Atlanta Braves, allowing 28 runs across the three-game sweep.

Needing a stopper, Colorado will turn to offseason addition Tomoyuki Sugano (3-1, 2.84) in the series opener, which was moved up three hours due to predicted inclement weather.

Last time out, Sugano threw 5 1/3 scoreless innings, striking out two in a 13-2 win over the host Cincinnati Reds on Wednesday.

“(Sugano) set the tone, kept them off-balanced, relied on his offspeed pitches,” Rockies manager Warren Schaeffer said of Sugano’s last outing. “He was really good, efficient, just like he’s been all year.”

Sugano, 36, went 10-10 with a 4.64 ERA in 30 starts for the Baltimore Orioles last year as a rookie. The right-hander, who signed with Colorado in February, faced the Mets once last year, yielding three runs in six frames in a 7-3 win on July 10.

–Field Level Media

The three-game interleague series between the Atlanta Braves and host Seattle Mariners that begins Monday will be without one superstar and perhaps a second.

Braves right fielder Ronald Acuna Jr. was placed on the 10-day injured list Sunday with a strained left hamstring suffered while running to first base the previous day in Colorado.

“The MRI showed a Grade 1 strain, so not too serious, but serious enough that we had to put him on the list,” Braves manager Walt Weiss said before Sunday’s 11-6 victory against the Rockies.

“It’s not going to be just a couple days,” Weiss continued. “It’s gonna be more than that, so we need to put him on the IL, and, hopefully, it’ll be sooner than later. No idea with these soft tissue injuries how long they’re gonna take, but I think the silver lining is that the MRI showed it wasn’t too serious.”

Acuna had played in each of the Braves’ first 34 games this season after appearing in just 144 over the previous two campaigns after suffering a torn ACL in May 2024. The five-time All-Star and 2023 National League MVP had heated up after a slow start, batting .381 over his past six games.

“All things considered, it could have been a lot worse,” Weiss said.

Meanwhile, Mariners catcher Cal Raleigh, coming off a record 60-homer season, sat out the past two games with discomfort in his right side that required an MRI.

“Cal is continuing to make strides,” Mariners manager Dan Wilson said before Sunday’s 4-1 loss to visiting Kansas City. “He’s got a little soreness in the side. We’ll continue to look at it day to day and go from there and continue to assess it.”

Raleigh, who has never been on the injured list in his six-year major league career, said he’s hoping to avoid that.

He said he first felt the discomfort after Friday’s game.

“Didn’t really think too much of it,” Raleigh said. “It’s normal. Things happen in games throughout the season, but I woke up the next day and it stayed sore, and I let the staff know. I was just trying to play it safe.”

Raleigh, who won the Home Run Derby at last year’s All-Star Game in Atlanta, also recently heated up after a slow start with five homers in a seven-game span from April 20-27.

The 29-year-old said he felt much better Sunday and even took swings in the batting cage pregame to test his oblique area.

“It felt good,” he said. “(Sunday) was a good day. Obviously, everybody’s leaning on the cautionary side, which is to be expected. In the moment, you hate it, but down the line, I think they’ll pay dividends.”

While the Braves swept their three-game series in Colorado to improve to an MLB-best 25-10, the defending American League West champion Mariners lost all three to the visiting Royals to drop to 16-19.

Monday’s series opener is set to feature a pair of right-handers in Braves rookie JR Ritchie (1-0, 2.92 ERA), a Seattle-area native, and the Mariners’ Logan Gilbert (1-3, 4.03).

Ritchie, who attended high school on nearby Bainbridge Island, will be making his third major league start. After winning his debut April 23 at Washington, he didn’t get a decision Wednesday against visiting Detroit when he allowed three runs (two earned) on five hits over 5 1/3 innings, with four walks and four strikeouts in a game the Braves won 4-3 with two runs in the bottom of the ninth.

Gilbert didn’t get a decision Tuesday in a 7-1 victory at Minnesota despite allowing one run on six hits over five innings. He’s 1-0 with a 2.25 ERA in two career starts against Atlanta.

–Field Level Media