Yesterday I told you about Tyler Tolbert’s Monday, when the 28-year-old second-year Royal went 5 for 5 in Kansas City, including his first home run of 2026 and second of his MLB career. This was part of the Royals’ 15 – 1 thrashing of the Phillies, a game in which the Royals scored in all 8 of their innings at bat, including scoring 1 run in 5 innings in a row. Every Royal in the starting lineup got a base hit, except one (Josh Rojas).
Well… Tuesday Tyler Tolbert also went 5 for 5, this time in Philadelphia, with his second homer of 2026 (third for his career), giving him 12 straight plate appearances with a base hit, tying an all-time MLB record (according to the KC announcer). It was the first time a player had back-to-back 5 hit games (or maybe it was back to back 5 for 5s) since Roberto Clemente.
Tuesday evening every Royal got a base hit, Rojas having been benched in favor of Nick Loftin, who went 3 for 5 with a homer and two doubles. The Royals beat the Mets 16 – 12.
At various stages in his career,Tolbert’s stats have looked like this:
- Minor League career: .246, .334, .359
- 2025 MLB: .280, .321, .380.
- AAA 2026: .260, .365, .288.
- 2026 MLB: .200, .282, .200 (before the 12-plate-appearance hit streak
- 2026 MLB: .404, .442, .553 (at the end of his 12-PA-streak)
- 2026 MLB: .396, .434, .542 (current stats, after flying out in his sixth AB last night)
Tyler Tolbert is available as a veteran in our draft. He is rated at 2b, ss, and the outfield. His ratings are so-so (6.3, 7.0, 0.9 respectively). But he doubled his offensive rate stats in 12 PA. Just think what he might do to his defensive stats!
Of course, if you want Tolbert to sign with your club, you need to make the opportunity look as attractive as possible. Let’s see which of us did the most yesterday to spruce things up around their team.
Kaline 0.6, MLB 0.4. Kaline leads the series, 1.3 – 0.7.
Paul Skenes pitched 6 strong innings, allowing only 2 earned runs, and Jonathan Loaisiga added a seventh shutout inning to shoo the hovering replacement pitchers away. Fifteen Drive batters took 62 plate appearances, and put them to pretty good use: .281, .328, .439. Ben Rice had the best day, going 3 for 4 with a home run. Dominic Smith had the worst day, going 0 for 4 — the only Drive who failed to reach base safely Tuesday. Logan O’Hoppe erased the value of his only hit with a double play, so I suppose he could join Smith in the Drive dog house.
MLB 0.9, Cascadia 0.1. MLB leads the series, 1.9 – 0.1.
The Glaciers matched the Drive for plate appearances (62) — which is hard to do against the Swarm Approach Wizard. But I’m afraid that might be the only achievement worth celebrating in Cascadia yesterday. That swarm of hitters went .173, .306, .192, with Miguel Amaya having the best day at 2 for 4 with a single, a double and a walk — actually, that could be celebrated, too, since it might be the first time I’ve noticed Amaya in our league. (Carter Benge also did well: 2 for 3 with two walks and a stolen base. Ok, Ok, there is a little bit to celebrate here.)
But it was also dismal among the Glacial pitchers: 11 ip, 11 er. Bryan Woo had one of his downer days: 5 ip, 3 er. Hurston Waldrep had an even worse day: a 3 1/3 ip, 7 er chulk. Gabe Speier surrendered the losing run for the Mariners in his single inning of work. At least Speier’s run wasn’t as painful for the Glaciers, who were already way behind.
Flint Hill 0.8, MLB 0.2. Flint Hill leads the series, 1.9 – 0.1.
The Top Tornado is off to Tornado-unfriendly Point Loma with our trophy, desperate to avoid having to pay shipping to return it. So his Tornados are clearly getting serious about catching the Drive. Ian Seymour (5 1/3 ip, 3 er) and Anthony Nunes (2 ip, 2 er) were struggling, so Patrick Tolle (6 scoreless innings) and Louis Varland (1 scoreless inning) rushed to the mound to salvage the day (14 1/3 ip, 5 er, 3.15 ERA). Meanwhile Tornadic hitters compiled 52 PA of Edgar Martinez Day hitting: .340, .404, .532. The JW’s led the way, J Wood going 2 for 4 with a homer and a walk, and J Walker going 3 for 8 with a homer.
MLB 1.2, Peshastin (-0.2). MLB leads the series, 1.7 – 0.3
The Pears worked hard to correct for not having any pitching on Monday. They succeeded in erasing all the replacement hurling they had accumulated, getting 14 1/3 innings from a gaggle of 6 pitchers. Some did very well, especially Taj Bradley ( 7 ip, 1 er). Some did not so well, especially Will Warren ( 4 ip, 6 er) and Caleb Ferguson (1/3 ip, 1 er). Overall it was a disappointing effort: 8 earned runs for a daily ERA of 5.03.
The hitters were similarly disappointing. Nine batters amassed 39 PA, but only managed a .184, .205, .316 slash line. Juan Soto homered but did nothing else right in his 5 PAs. JJ Wetherholt accumulated 8 PA in his team’s double header, but only got one hit and one HBP. The best news might have been Cal Raleigh’s two doubles, but he’s still batting only. .169 and OPSing only .586. The Pears NEED Cal if they’re going to make a run at the rescuing the trophy from Point Loma.
D.C. 0.9, MLB 0.1. DC Leads the series 1.3 – 0.7
Slightly Balky hitting (35 PA, .286, .343, .321) made winning Tuesday an uphill climb. Ernie Clement started that clim by getting 3 hits in 4 AB, including a double. Justin Wrobleski — maybe the most out-of-nowhere young pitcher, at least according to how little I knew about him before the Balks drafted him — got the recovery going for good with his 7 ip, 1 inning performance. Shane Baz and Joey Cantillo built on Wrobleski’s work, going 11 innings between them at the cost of only 3 earned runs.
MLB 1.1, Salem (-0.1). MLB leads the series, 1.9 – 0.2
Salem’s up-and-down season took another downturn Tuesday. It wasn’t the pitchers’ fault: Spencer Miles did ok (4 ip, 2 er) and Aaron Ashby made a strong effort to scavenge another win (1 ip,, 0 er) but only got a hold. The hitters though: where were the hitters? They took 46 PA, but only got 4 singles and 4 walks, Jo Adell getting half of those singles, and Michael Busch half of those walks, all by themselves. Somehow Busch also got a sac fly even though there’s no other evidence that the Seraphim scored any runs. The .098, .174 .098 team batting line doomed the Seraphim to their -0.1 win day.
Pittsburgh 1.0, MLB 0.0. Pittsburgh leads the series, 1.1 – 0.9
Even though they only got 1 1/3 innings of scoreless pitching, the Alleghenys won the entire day. So obviously they must have had great hitting: which they did! All ten Allegheny hitters got hits, and Ryan O’Hearn did MUCH, MUCH more than merely get hits. He hit three home runs as part of his 4 for 5 day at the plate, leading the team to a .390, .444 .707 slash line.
Canberra 1.0, MLB 0.0. Canberra leads the series, 1.0 – 1.0.
The Kangaroos matched the Allegheny outcome and took a percentage-points lead in its series with a more balanced approach. They got great pitching: 10 2/3 ip, 2 er, led by Matthew Boyd’s 6 shutout innings. They also got solid hitting: 42 PA, .289, .356, .395. There was no Ryan O’Hearn-like monster performance, but Cedanne Rafaela led the way, going 2 for 5 with a home run. Isaac Collins did some good work, too, going 1 for 3 with a double and three walks.
Old Detroit 1.1, MLB (-0.1). Old Detroit leads the series, 1.5 – 0.5.
By a narrow margin the Wolverines had the best day in the league. Some of the thanks goes to Tarik Skubal (5 ip, 1 er) and relievers Lucas Erceg and Mason Miller who both turned in scoreless innings to chase the replacements away. But maybe the biggest boost came from AJ Ewing who, a day after watching Tyler Tolbert torment his Mets, went a nearly Tolbertian 4 for 4 with a homer, a walk, and a stolen base, leading the Wolverines to a 34 PA, .379, .471, .655 day (despite Nathan Church’s 0 for 7 double-header nightmare).
Haviland 0.6, MLB 0.4. Haviland leads the series, 1.6 – 0.4
Noah Shultz, who has been in, and out, and back in Haviland’s good graces, edged back toward out yesterday with his 5 ip, 4 er performance. Luckily for Schultz, German Marquez backed him up with 5 scoreless innings to lower the daily ERA to a fine 3.60. Haviland hitters did just enough (59 PA, .236, .276, .364) to win the day. Jake Bauers went 2 for 5 with two doubles and two walks, and Joey Ortiz went 5 for 9 with a home run and a double, to lead the Dragon offense.
Portland 0.9, MLB 0.1. Portland leads the series, 1.4 – 0.6.
The Rosebuds completed our bottom-of-the-standings sweep against MLB thanks mostly to outstanding hitting from a nearly-skeleton crew of 8 hitters. They compiled 35 PA, got 13 hits (all singles) and 3 walks for a .406, .457, .406 slash line. Sam Antonacci and Alex Freeland each went 3 for 4 with a stolen base to lead the attack. Max Meyer completed 5 innings for 2 earned runs, Patrick Corbin added 2 1/3 innings for 1 earned run,, and Taylor Rogers contributed 2 outs for no earned runs, to assemble a fine 8 ip,, 3 er, 3.38 ERA day.
EFL wins the day, 6.7 – 4.3. 1 The bottom 5 teams won the day 4.6. – 0.4, while the top 6 teams lost the day 2.1 – 3.9.
EFL leads the series, 11.6 – 10.4! Yay us!! Our season record is now 499.5 – 512.5, back up to .494. So close to a winning record! If each EFL team can gain go just 1.2 games over .500 the rest of the season, we’ll catch them.
The bottom 5 teams lead the series, 6.6 – 3.4. The bottom 3 — inspired by Tyler Tolbert’s out-of-nowhere heroics — lead, 4.5 – 1.5. MLB leads the series against the top 6 teams, 7.0 – 5.1. I warned you that the bottom three teams would have to overtake the upper teams if the latter don’t start doing better. Teams 7 and 8 definitely got the message, as did the Balk and maybe the Tornados (both of whom we are thinking of making “Honorary Bottom Feeders.” ) But there are still some teams who have not heeded our warnings. Wake up before it’s too late!
- There are rounding errors fiddling with these totals, which makes them look like they don’t add up. I tried to use the least confusing options, using our standings, the Head-to-Head weekly results, and the running tab of total EFL season record I am keeping on my daily standings spreadsheet. The single most accurate number in these standing is probably our season record, which suggests we’ve gone 11.6 – 10.4 this week as a league.. ↩︎
The Swarm approach to the Drive’s offense: I take that approach because I am not good at predicting who will have a good week. If I bench a guy because of poor stats one week, next week he recovers his sanity and bats well. I can’t predict this. Same with pitching. Both Schlittler and Skenes had bad outings followed by good ones. Those of you who know more than I do about how to manage your lineup to keep unproductive players on the bench, yet have enough innings to avoid replacement players should teach me your secret. In the meantime, the Swarm approach doesn’t seem to be hurting the Drive that much.
Tom — I am not critical of the swarm approach. It’s working great as far as I can tell. For one thing, it should make your results more even, tending to correct more often for extremes in luck (good or bad). I can’t speak for other owners, but I suspect the Wolverines are not benefitting much (if any) from my delusional belief that I can tell when a player has experienced a significant durable gain –or loss — in ability.
I can’t really shift to your approach just now. Once I spent $30,000,000 on one guy, I didn’t have the resources to spread my risk safely by loading up on good but relatively inexpensive players. So my team is not as resilient when we lose stars to injury.
Yes, Ron. I did not take it as critical of my approach – the best I know how to do. I hope you’re right about spreading the risk. Occasionally I cut back on a pitcher when he’s been bad for 2-3 outings, like Weathers.
Friends:
In my rush to get this published, I missed another Tyler-Tolbert-connected event in the KCR-PHI game: the three-error, three-unearned-run little league homer. Tolbert doesn’t figure in the 1-3-5-2 three-error part of the play. But he does in the complete 1-3-5-2-9 play record. I am going to try to forward to you Sam Miller’s column on the event. I hope Sam will forgive me when he finds out (perhaps in heaven) that I shared it with you.
Miguel Amaya was a solid under-the-radar pick in the FA Draft this year. 2 years, $1.5 million. And already 1.2bWAR / 1.0fWAR. Certainly better than the more expensive Danny Jansen (but he may come around later in the season or next year).