Last Night in Baseball: Andrew Vaughn's Big Night Lifts Brewers Over Cubs

There is always baseball happening — almost too much baseball for one person to follow themselves.

Don’t worry, we’re here to help you by figuring out what you missed but shouldn’t have. Here are all the best moments from last night in Major League Baseball:

Brewers down Cubs, again

The Brewers and Cubs are facing off this week in a battle for NL Central supremacy, and things are not going Chicago’s way so far. The Brewers won on Monday, and they did it again on Tuesday, 9-3, thanks to scoring seven combined runs in the fifth and sixth innings.

Andrew Vaughn, acquired from the White Sox for Aaron Civale in mid-June, was at the heart of Milwaukee’s attack. He kicked off the scoring for the Brewers with a sac fly in the bottom of the third, and then added an RBI single in the bottom of the fifth to make it 4-1, Milwaukee. 

That would be enough in the end for the Brewers to win, but Vaughn wasn’t finished. In the bottom of the sixth, the bases were loaded for Vaughn, and he managed a whole lot better than a sac fly or single.

Vaughn struggled with the White Sox in 2025, batting .189/.218/.314 in 48 games with them before the trade. Since he joined the Brewers, though? The first baseman has played in 15 games and hit .375/.439/.771 with five home runs – including this grand slam – and 21 RBIs. He’s already walked as many times (seven) for the Brewers as he did in Chicago despite a fraction of the playing time, and matched his home run total, too. 

Whether Vaughn can keep it going or not is unknown at this point, but if he’s making better decisions at the plate – and it seems like he is, albeit in a small sample – he should at least be better than he was. And even if Vaughn turns into a pumpkin, the big hits he’s provided to this point are already in the bank, and have helped the Brewers to a two-game lead and the best record in MLB.

He’s not just a bat, folks

Nick Kurtz made waves for his historic four-homer game over the weekend, but don’t let his immense power and offensive potential distract you from what he can do with his glove. The Athletics’ slugger made a fantastic game-ending grab at first base against the Mariners on Tuesday, sealing the A’s 6-1 win.

The kind of diving catch you can only make with not just the instincts to go for it, but also by being 6-foot-5, as the 22-year-old Kurtz is. He was stretched for that one, and still just got it in the glove.

When the pitcher reacts like this, you know

Jarren Duran gets more attention for his ability to hit triples, but he got a hold of one on Tuesday against the Twins. The Red Sox outfielder took Minnesota reliever Michael Tonkin deep in the fifth inning, and Tonkin knew it, immediately. Look at his reaction when bat meets ball here:

The spin move to watch it, the instantaneously drooping shoulders. Tonkin knew. And so did anyone else who saw that, because Duran bounced it off the second-deck facade in center field.

A true Schwarbomb

Speaking of huge homers, Phillies’ slugger Kyle Schwarber got a hold of one on Tuesday. He hit it 441 feet, onto the concourse in right field behind the seats, and it certainly sounded like it was going to go that far when his bat hit the pitch.

Bonus info! That dinger, per MLB, was Schwarber’s 25th since 2022 with an exit velocity of at least 113 mph, which ranks fourth in the majors, behind pretty much who you’d expect to find on the list: Shohei Ohtani (42), Aaron Judge (35), Giancarlo Stanton (27) despite the missed time, and then Schwarber. 

How!?

One great catch isn’t enough. What if you could fit two great catches into one play? Now that’s efficiency, and it’s also what Tigers’ center fielder Matt Vierling pulled off in the top of the fourth in Detroit against the Diamondbacks.

Now, no one said he meant to make it two catches on one play, but that’s just how things shook out. Literally, as the ball bounced out of his glove after he caught it and crashed into the wall in center. He barehanded it on the way down, though, and got his out. 

MLB’s Gameday description reads, “James McCann flies out sharply to center fielder Matt Vierling,” that doesn’t quite capture what went down there. We’re here to fill in blanks, people.

What’s going on with Volpe?

Anthony Volpe had a big night on offense for the Yankees in a 7-5 win over the Rays, going 2-for-4 with a home run and two RBIs. He also did this, though, which was brought up after the game by the media for obvious reasons.

Incredibly, that video is out of date already, since Volpe would make a second error later on, giving him 15 for the year. Which is a bit aggressive even for him: he had 17 and 16 in the previous two seasons in around 200 additional chances each time. What’s odd is that Volpe grades out as an exceptional defensive player even with the errors, by both Baseball Reference’s and FanGraphs’ accounting, but 2025 has just seen him making more and more plays like the one above. 

Fielding percentage isn’t everything by any means, and Volpe’s range is part of why he gets to some balls he can whiff on in the first place, but there’s still something here in need of fixing. 

Arozarena’s speed and power on display once more

Randy Arozarena has been on a heater in July, with 10 homers and a .256/.322/.622 line that looks even better than it is once you remember that the Mariners’ home park stifles offense. He’s a danger on the basepaths, too, and picked up his fifth steal of the month on Tuesday night against the A’s. That theft was a notable one, as it gave Arozarena a 20 home run, 20 stolen base season — his fifth in a row.

Arozarena is the 10th player ever to have five consecutive 20-20 campaigns, and he’s been pretty even with the distribution that whole time, too. For his career, he’s at 111 long balls, and 120 steals: those five 20-20 seasons also represent Arozarena’s five full MLB seasons, so this is pretty much just how a year for him goes at this point.

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