MLB's Luis Ortiz investigation, explained. Plus: Why now, Nats?

New York Times

12 hours ago

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Missed out on the action this weekend? We got you.
Plus: The Nationals cleaned house (but at a weird time), we make the case for a few All-Stars who aren't (yet), and how the heck did two pitches trigger a gambling investigation? I'm Levi Weaver, here with Ken Rosenthal — welcome to The Windup!
If you spent the weekend at the beach or grilling out with family, fret not: Here's a recap of a few key series over the weekend.
Yankees at Mets: The Yankees were fresh off being swept out of first place. The Mets were showing signs of righting the ship, coming off two wins against the Brewers after going 3-13 in their previous 16 games. The Mets took the first two to run the Yankees' losing streak up to six before the Yankees took the series finale. Even worse for the Yankees? Clarke Schmidt is 'likely' to have Tommy John surgery.
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Angels at Blue Jays: Coming off that sweep of the Yankees, the Blue Jays notched back-to-back extra-innings 4-3 walkoffs Friday and Saturday. They played it a little less dramatic yesterday, holding a 3-2 lead for the final three innings. Toronto has won eight straight and now leads New York and Tampa Bay in the AL East by three games. Mitch Bannon has a roundup of what's going right in Toronto.
Astros at Dodgers: The Astros have spent the last month proving to the baseball world that they're legitimate contenders in the AL. After losing Jeremy Peña to the IL with a rib fracture, they went out and put an exclamation point on that sentence over the weekend, sweeping the Dodgers in Los Angeles — including an 18-1 boat-racing on Friday.
Cardinals at Cubs: St. Louis took the middle game of the series between two blowouts by the Cubs — including an eight-homer game on the Fourth of July. As the trade deadline approaches, Patrick Mooney says it's time for the Cubs to go all in, while Jon Greenberg says this is the next great Cubs team fans have been waiting for.
Tigers at Guardians: 57-34 Detroit is starting to look a little bit unstoppable. Tarik Skubal is dominant, Casey Mize looks great and the Tigers swept the Guardians over the weekend. They now have a 13 1/2-game lead in the AL Central. The Guardians, by the way, are starting to look a little bit 'unstartable' — they've lost 10 straight.
White Sox at Rockies: Well, that happened.
From my latest column:
Indifferent. Apathetic. Disconnected. All of those words seemed to apply in recent seasons to the Nationals ownership group headed by Mark Lerner.
Well, wonder of wonders, ownership just snapped out of it, at just about the oddest time imaginable — one week before the Nats will make the No. 1 pick in baseball's amateur draft, and less than a month before the trade deadline.
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The timing of the Nationals' dismissals of president of baseball operations Mike Rizzo and manager Davey Martinez yesterday was so sudden, ownership did not even appear fully prepared.
Lerner named a successor for Rizzo, assistant GM Mike DeBartolo, but held off announcing Martinez's replacement until today. Bench coach Miguel Cairo and Triple-A manager Matthew LeCroy would appear the most logical candidates.
If Lerner and Co. were desperate to draw attention away from themselves, a theory advanced by one former team executive, they sure had an odd way of going about it.
Not that Rizzo, the game's second-longest tenured head of baseball operations, and Martinez, the manager who led the franchise to its only World Series title in 2019, necessarily deserved to keep their jobs. The Nationals' 37-53 record is the fourth-worst in the majors. More telling, the Nats rank second in the majors in losses, ahead of only the Colorado Rockies, since 2019.
True, ownership needed to decide this month on 2026 options for both Rizzo and Martinez. But general managers almost never get fired before the deadline. The last time it happened, as far as I can tell, was when the Minnesota Twins dumped Terry Ryan on July 18, 2016. In dumping Rizzo, the Nationals are leaving both the draft and deadline to DeBartolo.
The No. 1 pick, as the Nationals know well, is a monumental opportunity for any franchise. But picking first isn't always about simply choosing the best fit for an organization. Teams sometimes operate strategically, taking a player they can sign for less in order to spread their bonus pool money to other talents in later rounds. That strategy might make particular sense this year, with no clear No. 1 pick emerging.
More here.
The All-Star rosters have been announced — at least the first draft, before guys start dropping out and the replacements are named — and you can find the full lists in this story about the biggest snubs. Why? Because that's half the fun? Obviously?
In that story, Chad Jennings gives us one player at each position (and one bonus outfielder) with the best cases that they were unjustly left off.
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Trea Turner wasn't a random name, by the way. His 3.9 fWAR ranked eighth in the sport, higher than either of the NL shortstops — Francisco Lindor (3.3) and Elly De La Cruz (3.0). This is not a suggestion that either guy was undeserving, though.
Seiya Suzuki also has a legit case: He already led the entire sport in RBIs before last night's two-RBI performance. He's at 77. Alas, the RBI just doesn't mean what it used to, I guess.
On the pitching side, there will always be deserving candidates left out on the first draft. More will be added later — starters who pitch on the Sunday before the game will be replaced on the roster. The top of the list of replacements should probably be Joe Ryan of the Twins. After another quality start last night against the Rays, he's 8-4 with a 2.76 ERA and 0.89 WHIP.
Also … no Juan Soto, eh?
More All-Star news:
News broke Thursday that Cleveland Guardians pitcher Luis Ortiz was placed on 'non-disciplinary paid leave' through the end of the All-Star break while the league completes an investigation that has something to do with gambling.
What we later learned was that the league is investigating two specific pitches that Ortiz threw. Both pitches had a higher-than-usual number of bets placed on them — action that was flagged by a betting integrity firm.
Why would two specific pitches trigger a red flag? Buddy, there are essentially an infinite number of ways you can bet on sports these days. One of them is a micro-bet about what the first pitch of a given inning might be: ball, strike, swinging strike, etc.
Both of the pitches — the first pitch of the second inning against the Mariners on June 15, and the first pitch of the third inning against the Cardinals on June 27 — resulted in pitches thrown well outside the zone (you can see video in this story).
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That's really all we know for now, but it's worth pointing out that this is just the latest in a recent uptick of gambling investigations. Remember Ippei Mizuhara? Tucupita Marcano? Pat Hoberg?
I can't imagine this is the last investigation we'll see. In the meantime, we'll keep you posted if there are any further developments in Ortiz's case.
When we left you at the end of last week, Clayton Kershaw had just notched his 3,000th strikeout. Over the weekend, we got some more stories: Kershaw reflecting on the journey, his former catcher trying to will it to completion over the phone and Tyler Kepner's Sliders column reflecting on Kershaw's place among the greats.
There's never been a right-handed high school pitcher taken with the first pick of the draft. Melissa Lockard and Dhani Joseph tell us why that might never change.
In April, Sam Blum told you about former White Sox closer Bobby Jenks' battle against stomach cancer. Jenks died Friday at 44 years old.
After battling elbow inflammation and soreness all season long, Yu Darvish will make his 2025 debut for the Padres tonight.