All the Yankees needed to snap a season-long losing skid and break out at the plate was a scorching hot afternoon featuring a pair of bookended rain delays. Just the usual remedy for an alarming cold streak.

While their performance wasn’t exactly pretty, the Yankees couldn’t have cared less about style points on Thursday in the Bronx. What mattered most was securing a long-craved win, and they did just that by outmuscling the Angels, 7-3, in their four-game series finale. They also prevented their old playoff nemesis from pulling off their first-ever four-game road sweep at Yankee Stadium.

The six-game slide, which saw the Yankees hit a measly .155 with 59 strikeouts and go a confounding 30 straight innings without scoring, didn’t encapsulate their entire season by any means. They entered Thursday with the highest OPS in the AL, and ranked third across the majors in runs scored.

So, the awakening was inevitable, even though it took a week for the bats to connect. The Yankees’ winning formula consisted of 12 hits — two of which were home runs from Trent Grisham and Paul Goldschmidt — all nine starters reaching base, and four runs driven in with two outs. Call it welcomed pop and production, from top to bottom.

“Obviously, these last few games haven’t gone our way. Today was good, but we’ve got to keep going,” Goldschmidt said after the win. “It’s a long season. A long season when you’re playing well, a long season when you’re losing a few games in a row. We understand that. So, we’ve done a good job just taking it day by day. Today was a good example of that.”

The “no style points” mentality can apply to the performance from Carlos Rodón. While the southpaw served up a season-high three home runs to the Angels, they were all of the solo variety, and the early run support allowed him to complete six innings and earn the quality start. He stuck out seven and walked one across 92 pitches, and his ERA now sits at 3.10.

“Three solo shots, obviously I want to be in a better place with those pitches,” Rodón said. “So there’s stuff to work on this week and be better at. But all in all, we won the game, so that’s the big part… I thought they swung it great, I thought we played some great baseball. Props to the bullpen for shutting it down when I came out.”

The Yankees’ week-long stench was one for the books. They were shut out in three straight games for just the seventh time in franchise history. For the first time since 1908 — yes, 1908 — they scored seven runs or fewer with six-plus losses across a seven-game span (h/t Katie Sharp).

But the Yankees finally showed signs of life on Thursday, and with the last-place Orioles arriving in town for a three-game set this weekend, hopes of a winning streak can re-enter the brains of players and fans.

“It definitely feels good hearing the music again and coming out with a W,” said Cody Bellinger, who collected a team-high three hits. “Carlos and the bullpen did a great job of minimizing them. For us, we got to come do our job and score some runs.”

We’re less than a month away from the 2025 Home Run Derby, set for July 14 at Atlanta’s Truist Park, and that means it’s time to daydream about which big bats will be taking their hacks in baseball’s power-hitting showcase.

Of course, certain names immediately jump to mind, such as Pete Alonso, Aaron Judge and Shohei Ohtani. But they have all participated in the event before, and while baseball fans everywhere would no doubt be happy to see any of them return, let’s turn our attention here to some fresher faces.

To do that, we asked six writers — three apiece from MLB.com and Yahoo Sports — to each select one potential first-time Derby contestant they’d like to see at next month’s event. Here are the sluggers they picked.

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Cal Raleigh, Mariners

Raleigh is one homer away from tying Johnny Bench’s 1970 record of 28 by a catcher before the All-Star break. It’s mid-June. He’s on pace for the greatest power-hitting season by a catcher. We need to see that in the Derby. No catcher has ever won, and no switch-hitter has won outright. Raleigh could end both of those droughts.

The Derby is about impressive home runs, but it’s also about putting on a show. Raleigh can switch sides of the plate, like Adley Rutschman did in Seattle in 2023. He also has an incredible nickname. Can you imagine how the crowd might react if he has a particularly electric round? A whole stadium chanting “Big Dumper”? We need that.

— Sarah Langs, MLB.com

David Heringer/Yahoo Sports

Elly De La Cruz, Reds

De La Cruz, still 23 years old, has appeared in only one All-Star Game. And while he got off to a slow start this season, Cincy’s superstar shortstop has posted a 1.157 OPS thus far in June and looks like the club’s most deserving All-Star. With his outrageous raw juice, De La Cruz would be a sensational watch in the Derby. And considering he’s a switch hitter, he (like Raleigh) could pull off a Rutschman switcheroo kind of thing.

Earlier this year, De La Cruz cranked a homer 451 feet into Kansas City’s fountains, his seventh career blast longer than 450 feet. In the Derby, De La Cruz would probably swing from the left side and would surely send a few moon shots flying over Truist Park’s Chophouse restaurant in right field.

— Jake Mintz, Yahoo Sports

Oneil Cruz, Pirates

The thought of Cruz hitting 120-plus mph lasers at the Home Run Derby has to become a reality at some point. Since Statcast began tracking in 2015, no hitter has hit the ball harder than Cruz, who crushed a home run with a 122.9 mph exit velocity against the Brewers on May 25, the hardest-hit ball tracked since ‘15. That broke the previous record, held by … Cruz, who hit a 122.4 mph single off the right-field wall at PNC Park in 2022.

With 13 home runs in his first 65 games, Cruz is tracking for the first 30-homer season of his career, in part due to his contact quality taking a big leap forward. Cruz leads all qualified hitters with a 96.6 mph exit velocity and ranks second with a 23.6% barrel rate and 59.7% hard-hit rate.

That elite contact quality has shown up in a big way on his 13 home runs. Of the 78 players who have hit at least 10 home runs, nobody is hitting them harder than Cruz (110.8 mph), while his 409-foot average home run distance is only bested by nine hitters. At 26 years old, Cruz has really blossomed into a budding star, and his off-the-chart tools have started translating into real production. That makes him the perfect fit for the Derby.

— Brent Maguire, MLB.com

Junior Caminero, Rays

Caminero perfectly fits the general criteria for a first-time Derby participant. Turning 22 years old just days before the Derby, Caminero is one of the youngest players in the big leagues and has begun to establish himself as an offensive centerpiece for the Rays. The Derby is an ideal event to spotlight an ascendent young talent, and Caminero clearly fits the bill. His game-changing talent at the plate is most evident in his 100th percentile bat speed, which enables tremendous raw power that would be an absolute treat to see in the Derby at Truist Park.

Perhaps more importantly for this event, Caminero also has a flair for the dramatic: He already boasts a lengthy highlight reel of exhilarating home runs, whether that’s in the big leagues or the Dominican Winter League, making it easy to get excited about how he would perform in a competition in which the sole purpose is to launch balls into outer space over and over and over. Oh, and it should be noted that he has 17 home runs this season, most on the Rays and fourth in the AL. Caminero is an easy pick to be invited; I hope it happens.

— Jordan Shusterman, Yahoo Sports

Jac Caglianone, Royals

So Caglianone’s been in the big leagues for a little over two weeks and just hit his first two MLB home runs … so what? The kid has monster power. Caglianone earned the highest power grade of any of MLB Pipeline’s Top 100 prospects entering 2025, and the Royals rookie has been hitting bombs all along his journey to the majors.

There’s the 459-footer he crushed in Triple-A a few weeks ago. There’s the 115.4 mph rocket he hit in spring training. There’s the estimated 516-foot monster shot he hit in college. The list goes on.

Caglianone was built to hit dingers. The Home Run Derby is the perfect showcase for him. Why not put one of baseball’s most exciting power-hitting prospects on the national stage against the biggest sluggers in the sport?

— David Adler, MLB.com

James Wood, Nationals

Wood is going to be an All-Star this season, and he should also be in this year’s Home Run Derby. After hitting nine home runs in 79 games last year, the 6-foot-7 Nationals outfielder has started to tap into his immense potential and his massive power in his second season in the big leagues. 

The 22-year-old already has 20 homers this year — including a walk-off in the 11th on Thursday — which puts him on pace for a possible 40-homer season. Watching his lofty swing launch balls into the Chophouse at Truist Park would be a delight.

— Russell Dorsey, Yahoo Sports

The New York Yankees snapped a six-game losing streak with a 7-3 victory over the Los Angeles Angels at home on Thursday.

A three-run second inning allowed the Bronx Bombers to establish a 4-2 lead early in the game. The Angels drew closer in the sixth, but New York sealed their victory with a run in the seventh and two more in the eighth.

Paul Goldschmidt and Trent Grisham each recorded two runs and two hits, including a home run for each. Aaron Judge, Jasson Domínguez and DJ LeMahieu also scored in the victory.

The win came after the reigning AL champions lost three straight to the Boston Red Sox and the previous three games in this series against the Angels. The Yankees will look to continue their new momentum when they face the Baltimore Orioles beginning Friday.

For three games during the skid, the Yankees failed to score a single run, losing 2-0 to Boston, 1-0 to Los Angeles and 4-0 again to the Angels. On Wednesday, the Yankees showed signs of life despite losing 3-2 to their visitors from out west. 

“It’s great to win,” Yankees manager Aaron Boone said postgame Thursday. “Really, there’s no panic or anything in that room. We understand, we go through it.

“It’s been an adverse week for us,” he added. “A week in which we’re pitching very well, doing a lot of things well, we made some mistakes along the way [and] broke out a little bit more these last few days, but definitely good to salvage one and shake hands in the end. Hopefully, we get it going.”

After Wednesday’s game, Judge insisted that the team was doing everything it could. “That’s baseball,” he said. “You’re going to hit a little rut like this, but you can’t give up.

“Guys are pitching, they’re doing their job,” he added. “Sometimes we’re faltering on doing our job. But it’s tough to say. I think it just comes down to us not executing, us not doing our job. Maybe a little passive in certain situations. But all we can do is show up tomorrow ready to go.”

The victory moves the Yankees to 43-31, still in first in the AL East. 

The Washington Nationals were on the verge of recording MLB’s longest losing streak of the season, and against a Colorado Rockies team that started the month by becoming the third-fastest major-league team to reach the 50-loss mark.

That’s when James Wood got the Nationals out of the woods.

With two outs and a man on third in the bottom of the 11th inning, Wood deposited a two-run, walk-off homer to center field on Thursday. Having also blasted a two-run shot in the fourth, the second-year left fielder logged all four of the Nationals’ RBI in their much-needed 4-3 victory.

Still just 22 years old, Wood is the youngest player in Nationals/Expos franchise history with a multi-homer game that featured a walk-off dinger, according to MLB.com’s Sarah Langs.

Wood now has 20 home runs on the season, and Washington has its first victory in 13 days.

One more loss, and the Nationals would’ve tied their longest single-season skid ever: a 12-game drought that ran Aug. 8-20, 2008, just four years into the team’s history.

And so the pressure was on Thursday at Nationals Park, especially because of Washington’s opponent. The Rockies entered the four-game road series with an embarrassing 14 total wins this season. 

Then Colorado rattled off three straight victories over the Nats — featuring a jaw-dropping 12 home runs — extending what turned out to be a four-game win streak following their June 15 blowout against the Atlanta Braves. That head-turning stretch represents 23.5% of the Rockies’ wins this season.

Colorado didn’t go yard Thursday in D.C., though. The Rockies took a 3-2 lead in the top of the 11th when first baseman Michael Toglia drove in third baseman Ryan McMahon with a single to center.

Wood then rescued the Nationals in the bottom half of the inning, launching a 1-0 pitch 428 feet. The long ball also scored Riley Adams, who was on third base at the time.