Wednesday, June 17
Welcome to The Pregame Lineup, a weekday newsletter that gets you up to speed on everything you need to know for today’s games, while catching you up on fun and interesting stories you might have missed.
Odes to cult classic movies are nothing new in the world of Minor League or independent baseball promotions. But for one collegiate summer league team, the connection goes a little bit deeper than that. MLB.com’s Matt Monagan recently traveled to Indiana to take in the scene and filed this report:
The cast from “Napoleon Dynamite” bought a baseball team. Yes, you read that sentence correctly. Jon Gries (Uncle Rico), Jon Heder (Napoleon) and Efren Ramirez (Pedro) joined an ownership group for a new Northwoods League team in the small town of Richmond, Ind. It’s a team with, of course, a fittingly weird name to go along with one of the weirdest movies of all time: The Flying Mummies. (Richmond was home to the Wright Brothers before they went on to aviation glory in Ohio and also features two Egyptian mummies on permanent, public display. It’s known as the Mummy Capital of the Midwest, but that’s a whole other story.)
But yes, the three stars from the cult classic 2004 film now are in charge of a baseball team. I wouldn’t have believed it myself, but I was there for Napoleon Dynamite Night last week. The three actors showed up, there were fans dressed and dancing as Napoleon, Uncle Rico’s van was parked on the concourse, the real Rex Kwon Do might’ve been in attendance — I don’t know, it all seems like some tater tot-infused fever dream to me now.
Gries fell in love with the community and Midwestern charm of the Northwoods League — a wood-bat collegiate summer circuit that stretches from eastern Michigan to North Dakota, with a stop in Ontario — last year and when the opportunity came up to own a team, he jumped at it. He convinced his co-stars to join him, or, as Heder puts it:
“[Gries] wore us down,” Heder smiled. “He was just like, ‘Baseball, baseball, baseball.’ I was like, ‘Dude, you’re known for football, let’s lean into the football thing.'”
It’s a funny, odd, but also, heartwarming partnership. You can see it in the fans’ proud faces at the tiny, 90-year-old McBride Stadium, you can feel a noticeable buzz at the local arcade and history museum.
“It’s very exciting, for a town this small,” co-owner Matt Bomberg said. “We’re in between Indianapolis and Dayton, you know, it’s kind of lost a little bit. It’s a big deal.”
The three may also be trying to bring one of the mummies back from the dead to be the new mascot. Find out more about that and the new ownership here.
ASHBY FIRST TO 10
He’s become The Vulture, and no, we’re not talking about the “Spider-Man” villain. We’re talking about Aaron Ashby, the Brewers’ lights-out reliever who leads the Major Leagues in wins and became the first to double-digits on Tuesday.
Ashby (10-0, 2.86 ERA) entered the seventh inning Tuesday protecting a 1-0 Brewers lead over the Guardians, and uncharacteristically, he allowed the tying run to score. But as Ashby has done for them many times this season, the Brewers’ bats had the lefty’s back. Garrett Mitchell retook the lead with a massive solo home run, and Abner Uribe and Trevor Megill shut the door to secure a tight win.
And Ashby, who has been largely dominant en route to his 10 wins, heard it from the clubhouse afterward — especially since starter Robert Gasser would’ve taken the W had Ashby finished a clean seventh. All in good fun, of course.
“That’s a vulture win for Ashby,” Brewers manager Pat Murphy said. “He’s got nine good ones, but that was a vulture.”
Ashby became just the second pitcher in MLB history to be the first to 10 wins while having all of them come in relief, according to OptaSTATS. The other was the late Roy Facein 1959.
Read more about Ashby’s season here.
— Max Ralph
RETURNING WITH A BANG
As most teams around the Major Leagues struggle to find any kind of offensive production behind the plate these days — 20 clubs entered play today with their backstops combining for an OPS of .694 or lower, and five have batting averages below .200 — the Mariners and Braves welcomed back two of the game’s best-hitting catchers on Tuesday.
Cal Raleigh, who spent 33 days on the shelf with a right oblique strain in his first trip to the IL of his career, connected on a two-run single in the seventh inning to put the Mariners ahead of the O’s in a 3-1 win. Raleigh, of course, had one of the greatest offensive seasons in history last year, clubbing 60 home runs and leading the AL with 125 RBIs before finishing second to Aaron Judge in the MVP race.
After a slow start to his season that was at least somewhat attributable to him playing hurt, Raleigh has come back looking refreshed, both physically and mentally.
Meanwhile, in Atlanta, Drake Baldwin returned to the lineup for the first time in nearly a month and picked up right where he left off at the plate, going deep for a 473-foot leadoff homer — the longest long ball hit in the big leagues this year. It was the 14th of the season for the Atlanta backstop, who didn’t get another at-bat before the game was suspended by rain.
Baldwin, despite having been out since straining his right oblique on May 18, leads all NL catchers in the latest All-Star Ballot update, and it’s quite possible that he will be behind the plate at the start of the All-Star Game in Philadelphia on July 14.
— Ed Eagle
GAMES OF THE NIGHT
White Sox at Yankees (7:05 p.m. ET, MLB.TV, MLB Network)
Any momentum the White Sox carried into the Bronx after series wins over the Braves and Dodgers was quickly reversed by last night’s Yankees romp. Still, the AL Central leaders remain one of baseball’s best stories and the only club in their division with a positive run differential. Tonight, the Yanks start former White Sox lefty Carlos Rodón, who has won all three of his starts vs. the club that drafted him third overall in 2014.
Pirates at Athletics (9:40 p.m. ET, MLB.TV, MLB Network)
The A’s are clinging to the final AL Wild Card spot despite owning the Majors’ 28th-best team ERA in large part because of Nick Kurtz’s 1.000 OPS (1.204 since May 13). But another big key has been Zack Gelof’s resurgence. The infielder posted 2.7 fWARacross just 69 games as a rookie in 2023 but regressed last year as his K% jumped to 45.5%. Having cut that rate to a career-low 25% this year, Gelof enters tonight with a 20-game hit streak, the Majors’ longest active run.
Orioles at Mariners (9:40 p.m. ET, MLB.TV)
The injury carousel continues to spin for the AL West-leading Mariners, who welcomed back Raleigh and J.P. Crawford last night but simultaneously lost Randy Arozarena, their leader in average (.291), doubles (18), steals (19) and smiles (a lot). Tonight’s Orioles starter, Kyle Bradish, has struggled to find a rhythm in his first full season post-Tommy John surgery; he posted a 1.11 ERA with just over 5 H/9 from May 13-31 but allowed five runs in each of his last two outings.
HERE COME THE NATS
It might be time to cue up “Baby Shark,”because the vibes haven’t been this good at Nationals Park since 2019.
The Nationals won it all that year, then immediately sunk into the abyss. From 2020-25, they tallied more losses than all but one team (the Rockies) and were never more than one game over .500 at any point.
It’s been a different story lately. Washington is baseball’s hottest team and grabbed sole possession of the third National League Wild Card spot with its fourth straight win on Tuesday, running its record to 39-35.
The Nationals’ lineup has been a surprise juggernaut all season long. Led by James Wood and CJ Abrams, no team has scored more runs in 2026. For much of this season, though, Washington’s pitching staff has made opposing offenses look just as potent.
But the Nationals have plugged some of their leaks over the past few weeks. Washington owns a 3.83 ERA since May 23, more than a run better than the NL-worst 4.96 ERA it had previously. That improvement has helped fuel a 14-8 stretch, during which the Nats have outscored their opponents by 36 runs (121-85).
— Thomas Harrigan
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RJ Hamster 