MLB Notebook: Walks are the highest they've been this century, Pirates are surging, and more

Welcome to a new column I'm doing this season, where I take a bi-weekly look around Major League Baseball to fill you in on the league-wide trends, surging teams, and top individual performances. There will be some highlight clips, some criticisms, and some personal analysis of where I think the game is at and/or going. I hope that, if you've had a busy week or haven't been able to watch as many games as you'd like, this article can be a great way to keep up with what's happening in Major League Baseball.

So, let's stop wasting time and dive right in. ⚾️ Baseball is back on NBC: MLB returns to NBC and Peacock in 2026 ! In addition to becoming the exclusive home of Sunday Night Baseball, NBC Sports will broadcast MLB Sunday Leadoff, “Opening Day” and Labor Day primetime games, the first round of the MLB Draft, the entire Wild Card round of the postseason, and much more.

MLB Injury Report: Andrew Vaughn suffers hamate fracture, Nick Lodolo aims to return next week Jorge Montanez breaks down all of the relevant injury news around the league over the last week. Jorge Montanez , Are Pitchers Struggling With Command or the ABS? In our first edition of this column, we talked about Major League Baseball adopting an Automated Ball-Strike Challenge System that had been used in the minor leagues in previous seasons.

That system has been a success so far this season, but we're still learning what the ramifications will be throughout the game. Could one of them be an uptick in walks? It's become a bit of a discussion point since the league walk rate is up considerably in the early stages of the season.