Loading: Travis Bazzana's big-league debut. Plus: The first woman to pitch in a DI game

The Windup Newsletter ⚾ | This is The Athletic's MLB newsletter. Sign up here to receive The Windup directly in your inbox. The Guardians are calling up Travis Bazzana, José Soriano is doing something that has never been done ... and so is Olivia Pichardo. Plus: On the podcasts, the fellas break down the early struggles by some NL East starters. Just as we were about to hit send this morning, news broke that the Phillies are firing manager Rob Thomson and replacing him in the interim with Don Mattingly. We'll have a full report tomorrow. By the time the MLB Draft came into existence in 1965, Cleveland was already in the 17th year of a World Series drought that is now approaching 78 years. Only once has it ever had the No. 1 pick. That came in 2024, and it took Bazzana over some recognizable names: Nick Kurtz (A's), JJ Wetherholt (Cardinals), Konnor Griffin (Pirates), Trey Yesavage (Blue Jays) ... it was a pretty good draft class, actually. Bazzana will now get a chance to join them on a big-league field -- the Guardians are calling him up to make his debut at home against the Tampa Bay Rays tonight. Bazzana, 23 was hitting .287/.422/.511 (.933 OPS) at Triple-A Columbus. He is expected to swap spots with fellow rookie Juan Brito, who was playing second base. Bazzana was No. 50 on Keith Law's top prospects list, and it wouldn't take much for him to quickly become the most accomplished position player from Australia. While the country has produced a couple of All-Star pitchers -- Grant Balfour and Liam Hendriks -- the only position player from the country to make an All-Star team was Dave Nilsson -- Bazzana's Team Australia manager at the World Baseball Classic -- back in 1999. More Ohio rookies: "He's killing this league." Opposing managers are very aware of Reds rookie Sal Stewart. Struggling starters Kodai Senga and Aaron Nola looked primed for rebounds this spring, but as the first full month of the season winds down, frustrated fantasy managers have been slowly hitting the drop button, as Derek VanRiper and Eno Sarris discussed on the latest episode of "Rates and Barrels." After racking up 16 strikeouts in 11.2 innings over his first two starts, Senga has recorded seven strikeouts over his last three starts combined, failing to complete three innings in two of those outings. In many ways, Nola's start to 2026 looks like a carbon copy of his 2025 performance, which was a season marred by injuries and struggles with the long ball. Rest-of-season projections are key as you consider 'buy-low' trade targets and pickups. For Nola, you're much more likely to get an ERA that starts with 4 here on out (OOPSY projects a 4.03 mark), but with a 1.22 WHIP and near strikeout-per-inning totals, it should be enough to make him a positive contributor in most leagues. Listen to (or watch) "Rates & Barrels" wherever you enjoy podcasts. When I was out a couple of weeks ago, Tyler Kepner filled in and told you about the strategy that has helped launch Angels starting pitcher José Soriano into a new stratosphere: using his best pitch ... less? At the time, Soriano was 4-0 with an 0.33 ERA. Well, he's now 5-0 with an 0.24 ERA in six starts. He has allowed one run in 37 2/3 innings. If you look at the Baseball Reference pitcher leaderboards, Soriano's name is the primary theme. But here's the one that stands out to me: ERA+. Here's the full explanation of the stat, but all you need to know is that a score of 100 is league average, and a score of, say 150 would be 150 percent better than league average. In second place* on that list: Justin Wrobleski of the Dodgers, at 267. More than twice as good as the average pitcher. Outstanding, right? Soriano's ERA+ is 1,836. That's a comma, not a decimal point. Even this early in the season, that is still absurd. How absurd? According to the Angels broadcast during Soriano's last start, it has never happened before. 💬 He's already undergone two Tommy John surgeries. The first one likely contributed to why the Angels didn't protect him in the 2020 Rule 5 Draft that saw him snapped up by the Pittsburgh Pirates with the No. 1 pick. And his second surgery likely played a role in why he was DFA'd and sent back to the Angels. He spent the last couple of years pitching to a lot of contact, but as Kepner pointed out -- and as Michael Baumann of FanGraphs writes about here -- the change in pitch usage has been revolutionary. Soriano starts again tonight against the White Sox in Chicago at 6:40 p.m. CT. *Shohei Ohtani's also-absurd ERA+ (1,070) would be second-best, as would his ERA of 0.38, but he has not pitched the minimum number of innings to qualify for the leaderboards, having started just four games. Speaking of history ... Back in 2023 (or, technically, after a fall 2022 walk-on tryout), Olivia Pichardo made history by becoming the first woman ever named to an NCAA Division I baseball roster, at Brown University. It was a massive achievement just to make the team, but in the intervening years, her playing time has been pretty limited. She got one at-bat in 2023, one plate appearance in 2024 (a hit-by-pitch that led to a run scored) and three at-bats in three games in 2025. In between, she has played in the Prospect League, the Mid-America League and made the Hamptons Collegiate Baseball League All-Star team. She has also played for the U.S. Women's National Team as an outfielder and pitcher. (Here's a rundown of her accomplishments.) On Saturday, Pichardo made history, again, becoming the first woman to pitch in a Division I game. With Brown University leading Cornell University 16-4 on Senior Day, Pichardo was called in to get the last out of the game. With the bases loaded and two outs, she induced a ground ball to shortstop to close it out. (You can see the video of the final pitch here.) It has been a big year for women in baseball. The WPBL (Women's Professional Baseball League) kicks off its inaugural season on Aug. 1, and will run through mid-September. (Pichardo -- as reported by Jake Mintz of Yahoo Sports -- was not drafted in the league's inaugural draft so as to maintain her NCAA eligibility.) We're still processing the firing of Alex Cora as the Red Sox manager. Jim Bowden breaks down the chain of command in Boston -- and what has gone so wrong. Meanwhile, the rest of the interim coaching staff has been assembled, and I need someone to write a profile on 28-year-old first base coach Pablo Cabrera and 26-year-old hitting assistant Jack Simonetty. How are some teams better when it comes to making Japanese players feel at home? Stephen Nesbitt and Sam Blum report on the history of clubs learning how to do it well, and faster, than others. In this week's Power Rankings, we look at some team leaders -- for better or worse. Giancarlo Stanton is officially on the IL. The implications for the Yankees roster in the coming days are complicated. Read this headline and tell me you don't want to know more: "A pitcher and catcher drank beer, played guitar and rapped together. It made them better." (It's not clickbait, the back-and-forth between Bronson Arroyo and David Ross was actually great stuff.) Dodgers closer Edwin Díaz spoke yesterday after having five (!!!) loose bodies removed from his arm. He insists he'll be back to his usual self for the second half. Ian O'Connor says that while Mets owner Steve Cohen has provided the needed resources, his decisions simply haven't paid off in Queens.