Pittsburgh Pirates' Mitch Keller plays during a spring training baseball game, Friday, Feb. 27, 2026, in Bradenton. (AP Photo/Matt Slocum)

BRADETON, Fla. — The Pittsburgh Pirates scored five runs in the bottom of the seventh inning to beat the Baltimore Orioles, 6-1, on Friday afternoon in Grapefruit League action.

Mitch Keller struck out four in 2• scoreless innings, which gives him 4• innings of no runs so far this spring. The Pirates also got a scoreless inning each from Dennis Santana, Gregory Soto, Isaac Mattson, Mason Montgomery and Kyle Nicolas.

At the plate, Brandon Lowe was 2 for 2 with a double and a walk. Esmerlyn Valdez had an opposite-field, RBI double in the team’s 5-run inning.

The Pirates will travel to West Palm Beach Saturday to play the Astros at 1:05 p.m. Braxton Ashcraft will start for the Pirates against former Pirate Mike Burrows.

No Snell to start

SCOTTSDALE, Ariz. — The Los Angeles Dodgers do not expect two-time Cy Young Award winner Blake Snell to be ready for opening day as he works on coming back from a shoulder injury that has lingered since last season.

Dodgers manager Dave Roberts told reporters Friday that the lefty has been throwing on flat ground, not the mound, and is making progress.

Snell was limited to 11 games last year in the regular season, going 5-4 with a 2.35 ERA. He was 3-2 in six postseason starts and helped the Dodgers repeat as World Series champions.

In a spring training game against San Francisco, right-hander Yoshinobu Yamamoto gave up two runs and five hits while striking out five over three innings. Yamamoto will head to Japan for the World Baseball Classic with Dodgers teammate Shohei Ohtani.

Mets name opener

JUPITER, Fla. — The New York Mets plan to put newly acquired ace Freddy Peralta on the mound against Pittsburgh on opening day, manager Carlos Mendoza announced on Friday before Peralta had three strikeouts against St. Louis in a spring training game.

New York traded two prospects to Milwaukee last month to add the two-time All-Star.

New York opens the season March 26 at home against the Pirates. The right-hander gives the new-look Mets a frontline starter after their rotation struggled in the second half of a hugely disappointing 2025 season. They also added Bo Bichette and Luis Robert Jr.

Devers hurting

SCOTTSDALE, Ariz. — The San Francisco Giants scratched slugger Rafael Devers from the lineup with a tight hamstring, keeping him out a spring training game against the Los Angeles Dodgers on Friday.

The three-time All-Star and 2018 World Series champion is starting his first full season with the Giants after they acquired him in a trade with Boston last year. Devers hit 35 home runs and had 109 RBIs last season, playing 90 games with San Francisco and 73 in Boston. He signed a $313.5 million, 10-year contract in 2023 with the Red Sox.

It’s official

Max Scherzer’s 8-year-old daughter wanted her father back with the Blue Jays so much she wrote a letter to the team in December expressing her hope for his return to Toronto.

After the three-time All-Star agreed Wednesday to a $3 million, one-year contract, the pitcher’s wife, Erica May-Scherzer, posted a copy of the handwritten note by Brooke. May-Scherzer said her daughter wrote the letter, dated Dec. 15, and asked her parents to mail it to the team. It must have worked because here he is.

An eight-time All-Star, Scherzer is a 41-year-old right-hander with a 221-117 record and a 3.22 ERA for Arizona (2008-09), Detroit (2010-14), Washington (2015-21), the Los Angeles Dodgers (2021), New York Mets (2022-23), Texas (2023-24) and Toronto (2025). He ranks 11th on the career list with 3,489 strikeouts — 20 behind the legendary Walter Johnson.

He was went 5-5 with a 5.19 ERA in 17 starts and 85 innings for the Blue Jays last season.