A’s Bats Are Cooking, Tigers Go Deep & Rockies Pain at Wrigley | BD Baseball 6-16-26

The homer teams had themselves a night… well, two of them did, anyway. The A’s absolutely stomped the Pirates 11–2, led by a full‑on manimal performance from Nick Kurtz: three hits, two nukes, five driven in, and a pretty clear “vote me into the All‑Star Game” message to the league. Old man Jeff McNeil – the Flying Squirrel – finally woke up too, with three hits and four RBI out of the bottom of the lineup, turning things over for Kurtz and making the A’s offense look downright dangerous again. On the mound, J.T. Ginn gave me another honest‑to‑God quality start: six innings, one unearned run, worked through traffic, and looked more and more like the ace of a very shaky A’s staff. Meanwhile Lawrence Butler keeps hitting rockets and the hits are finally falling. It was the opposite vibe for the Rockies. They blew a late lead at Wrigley and got walked off on a walk as Pete Crow‑Armstrong hit for the first cycle of the 2026 season and basically beat Colorado by himself. That’s one of those games where you shut the TV off and stand in a cold shower questioning your life choices. In Detroit, though, they’re partying. Colt Keith went deep three times, drove in six, and the Tigers dropped five homers on the Astros in a 9–3 win. We hit the best performances of the night, Dustin May’s one‑hit shutout, the standings, key transactions, and a full rundown of today’s pitching matchups. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices