INCREDIBLE performances from Shohei Ohtani, Cristopher Sánchez and Gerrit Cole!

He's had to pitch. Swing and a miss. He got him. And pounding his fist into his mitt, Christopher Sanchez. From MLB.com, this is the Morning Lineup podcast for Thursday, May 28th. I'm Anthony Kastrovitz, and I'm here to tell you everything you need to know about baseball today, beginning with a Philly-long scoreless streak. Grover Cleveland Alexander set the Phillies' franchise record for consecutive scoreless innings pitched back in 1911. Since then, we've been introduced to sliced bread, chocolate chip cookies, traffic lights, and notably, Christopher Sanchez, the Dominican Republic native and 2025 NL Cy Young runner-up, who on Wednesday afternoon in San Diego matched Alexander's streak of 41 straight scoreless innings and just kept going. Swing and a miss. He got him. Seven shutout innings for Christopher Sanchez. Five consecutive starts of at least seven shutout innings, which is also a new franchise record. The Phillies left-hander dealing again. With seven scoreless and only six hits allowed in the Phillies' 3-0 win over the Padres, Sanchez has now gone 44 and two-thirds straight shutout innings, the seventh-longest streak of the live ball era, and 14 and a third inning shy of Orel Hershizer's record of 59, set in 1988. Sanchez's streak has helped the Phillies pull within a game of a wildcard spot. After the Mariners won their division for the first time in a generation and reached Game 7 of the ALCS last fall, a lot of people picked them to repeat in the AL West. Heck, I picked them to win the World Series, and for a while that was looking like the kiss of death. But things are beginning to look the way we thought. Well, this is torched. Deep, left-center field, and gone. Julio Rodriguez with the bomb. Three-run tank in the eighth. His eighth home run this month. Julio is hot, and so are the M's. Their 9-1 win in West Sacramento completed a sweep of the A's, and for the first time all season, they are right where they wanted to be, all alone in first place. Shohei Ohtani launched a leadoff homer in support of himself in another terrific start on the mound. No, you are not listening to a rerun from last week. This is two straight starts in which Ohtani started a game as both pitcher and leadoff man, and went deep his first time up. This time, he did it to the Rockies at Dodger Stadium. Ohtani, dead-center field. Did he get enough? You bet he did. He's just showing off once again. Back-to-back starts. He leads off the game with a homer. That was Ohtani's ninth homer, and it came despite being plunked in the pinky a night earlier. And that homer was one more hit than he allowed. Ohtani walked four and had his 19-inning scoreless streak snapped, but he only gave up one run in six innings, and the Dodgers were just four outs away from a combined no-hitter before Tyler Freeman broke it up with a single off Tanner Scott in the eighth. L.A. prevailed 4-1, and Ohtani's ERA is now 0.82, which, by my math, is still less than one. I don't know where the Yankees found this Garrett Cole kid they called up from the minors last week, but he looks like a keeper. After a near-flawless 2026 debut against the Rays last week, Cole was at it again in Kansas City last night. The 0-2. Strike three. Got him looking. That is strikeout number 10 for Garrett Cole. Six-and-two-thirds scoreless in his second start back from Tommy John. The ace is acing. Six-and-two-thirds scoreless, four hits, ten strikeouts. That was the line for Cole in his second MLB start post-Tommy John. Ben Rice drove in three, and the Yankees cruised to a 7-0 win over the Royals. Cardinals pitcher Dustin May was only six outs away from becoming the first pitcher named May to throw a no-hitter in May. Then Garrett Mitchell doubled to open the eighth, and the Brew crew awoke an American family feel. They put runners on the corners against May, and then a Christian Yelich RBI single off reliever JoJo Romero tied it before Jackson Churio came to bat. Certainly improbable, but the Brewers have taken advantage of the mistake. It's all falling apart for St. Louis here in the eighth inning. Improbable, but incredible for the Brewers. So instead of getting no hit, the first-place Brewers prevailed 2-1 to complete the sweep of St. Louis. Coming up, hail to the chief. The Guardians have a new part owner, and come to think of it, Progressive Field would make a great wedding venue. That's after the break. Turns out marrying Taylor Swift was not the only major partnership Travis Kelsey is embarking upon this year. On Wednesday, the Cleveland Heights native and Kansas City Chiefs tight end announced on his New Heights podcast with brother Jason that he is joining the Guardians' ownership as a minority investor. Swiftly after the big announcement, the first-place Guardians defeated the Nationals 3-2 to avoid a sweep at Progressive Field. And now there might be bad blood — that's a Taylor song, duh — between Kelsey and his Chiefs teammate Patrick Mahomes, who is part owner of the AL Central rival Royals. Back on May 15, the Arizona Diamondbacks embarked upon a soft part of their schedule with 13 straight games against the struggling Giants and Rockies. And boy, did the Snakes make the most of it. They went 11-2 in those games, including a 3-2 victory in San Francisco on Wednesday that made them a perfect 6-0 against the Giants during this stretch. The D-backs are now tied with the Padres for second place in the NL West. Now we'll see if they can maintain their momentum as the schedule tightens, with the first-place Mariners and Dodgers next on their docket. The Cubs have had two double-digit win streaks this season, but they took a 10-game losing streak into Wednesday's game in Pittsburgh. At long last, they found happiness in the form of Ian Happ. Ian Happ deep down the right field line, Valdez towards the corner, and it's gone! Bumped by Ian Happ. Go ahead, three-run check. 11th of the year, he's driven in five. It's 7-4, Cubs. Take that! What better way to end a 10-game losing streak than to score 10 runs? Happ drove in five of them in the 10-4 pummeling of the Pirates that prevented the Cubs from dipping into sole possession of last place in the NL Central. Elsewhere in MLB, Jordan Alvarez hit his 19th and 20th homers of the season in the Astros' 4-3 win over the Rangers. Prior to the game, former NL MVP Andrew McCutcheon was designated for assignment by the Rangers to make room for free agent infielder Nicky Lopez. Gunnar Henderson also went deep twice in the Orioles' 11-2 route of the raise, completing a sweep of first-place Tampa Bay at Camden Yards. Kazuma Okamoto hit his team-best 11th homer of the season as the Blue Jays defeated the Marlins 2-1 to pull within two games of .500. The Red Sox snapped a four-game losing streak with an 8-0 shutout of the Braves at Fenway. A Chase Midroth grand slam and Mooney Taka Murakami's 20th homer led the White Sox to a 15-2 trouncing of the Twins. Juan Soto homered to get things going in the Mets' 4-2 win over the Reds, avoiding a sweep in Queens. This is the kind of season it's been so far in Detroit. Even when the Tigers win a game, they lose important pieces. They shut out the Angels 4-0 at Comerica Park, but starter Casey Mize and closer Kenley Jansen both left their outings early with groin issues. Coming up today, Chris Sale returns to Boston as his Braves and the Red Sox wrap up their series at 4-10 p.m. Eastern Time. And who doesn't want to see Paul Skeens in action? He'll oppose the Cubs at PNC Park at 6-40 Eastern. You can catch all that and more on MLB.tv. That's all for today's show. Will Leach is back with you tomorrow. Until then, thanks for listening. Please be sure to leave us a rating and review, share this episode with the baseball lovers in your life, and have a great day, everyone.