Roger Clemens, Rafael Devers Highlight Diamond Dynasty's 4th Inning Program

4th Inning Program Yields Soto, Lindor

Stop me if you've heard this best: The new Inning Program in Diamond Dynasty has some familiar faces from places in the Eastern Time Zone.

The 4th Inning Bosses are, yet again, AL East stalwarts: A 97 OVR Milestone Series and Red Sox version of slugger Rafael Devers from his 50-double 2019 season is the hitter option, while a 97 OVR All-Star Series Roger Clemens — as an Astro, yes, but also a veteran of three AL East squads — is the mound-based choice. Devers has extraordinary hitting stats, but Clemens might well be the better pick, with an Outlier fastball and a towering 120 Pitching Clutch that will make posting crooked numbers against him quite difficult.

The structure of the 4th Inning Program duplicates the 3rd Inning fairly closely. A couple of Cityscapes Deluxe Packs, a Mural Deluxe Pack, and a returning 85+ OVR Live Series Pack are the most exciting things attainable on the XP reward path apart from the players, and maintaining the Boss Choice Pack at 400,000 XP should get plenty of Clemens and Devers cards in circulation while also dumping plenty of the wheel-spin content that comes after that final tier. A 95 OVR Mike Piazza is the first XP reward path player, available at 57,500 XP, with a 96 OVR Steve Carlton at 220,000 XP checking in as a Boss-level player. Piazza is a great hitter at catcher and has enviable 117 Batting Clutch, but probably isn't as useful as the many, many switch-hitting catchers near the top of the meta; Carlton, by contrast, has 117 Stamina as his best stat, likely making him one of the few DD starters who can pitch effectively for all three innings of a Conquest game.

The 4th Inning's Cornerstone Program player is Yankees right fielder Paul O'Neill. He's a solid lefty hitter with much more contact than power skills, and he is, as has been and will be the design for Cornerstone players, very easy to obtain through Moments-based objectives, with a pop of 20,000 Inning XP for full completion of his Program.

Jacob Misiorowski, Fernando Tatis Jr. are May Lightning, Retro Lightning Players

The May Lightning player for Diamond Dynasty in MLB The Show 26 is one of the best players in baseball in 2026. The May Retro Lightning player for Diamond Dynasty in MLB The Show 26 has infamously hit just one home run this season. But there are reasons to be excited about both Jacob Misiorowski and Fernando Tatis Jr. getting electrified this Friday.

Misiorowski might not have had the best ERA in MLB in May 2026, thanks to Cristopher Sanchez's equally stunning month of performances, but there's a good argument that the Brewers fireballer was still better: The Miz blitzed opponents to the tune of at least eight strikeouts in all six of his starts, allowed one earned run — and one extra-base hit — and continued to make his case as the best pitcher in baseball, even at a moment when that status is hotly contested. So of course his Red Diamond 96 OVR card is instantly one of the best players in Diamond Dynasty, with double Outlier quirks making his triple-digit heat a fait accompli and his slider a fearsome accomplice. Unlocking Misorowski will also be a swift and easy process, as it requires adding all five players from the ends of the respective May Spotlight Drop XP reward paths; players who have been keeping up on that will likely only need to obtain the Cody Bellinger at the end of today's May Spotlight Drop 5 to add to the four previously released.

Sanchez, though, earned his own 95 OVR Red Diamond card for his goose-egg May — it's just that it's in the May Retro Lightning Collection, unlocked by locking in 10 of the 16 May Spotlight Series players found in Packs rather than on XP reward paths. As a less overpowering pitcher, Sanchez having three pitches with 99 Break makes up for a lack of a best-in-class fastball, though his 82 H/9 against righties means he might struggle as a lefty in Diamond Dynasty.

Tatis is the real prize of that Collection, however, unlocked at 15 lock-ins and a likely cost of nearly a half-million Stubs. Is he worth it? Well, he's a shortstop who can also kick out to center or right, has green bars for every hitting stat other than Vision, possesses 90/90 Speed and Steal, and will throw out many a runner from wherever he is deployed with 99 Arm Strength. He comes to a Diamond Dynasty metagame flush with fine options at short, but his swing has always played well, and Vision is one of the better stats to tamp down in service of boosting others.

The rest of May Spotlight Drop 5 is fairly lackluster: Bellinger, who is about as much of a known quantity as a lefty slugger as any card in DD, "tops" the XP reward path, as mentioned, but James Wood is a rung below him and there's a choose-your-Drop May Spotlight Pack above him for tallying 500 Parallel XP with him; 95 OVR Pete Alonso, Byron Buxton, and Cade Smith cards are in the Drop 5 Pack, but none is a must-have unless you love Smith's superb splitter. A very good 94 OVR Konnor Griffin with great contact skills and speed is a fine consolation prize for missing the Red Diamond tier in Packs, while the 93 OVR Jonathan Aranda on the XP reward path boasts maxed-out 125 Contact against righties, making him potentially very well-rounded with the correct Parallel Mods.

Third Weekend Classic Holds PCA, Figgins

Returning for June, the end of the Multiplayer 3 Program, and the transition to the 4rd Inning is the super-sweaty Weekend Classic, which will run through Tuesday, June 8.

This version's prize players are speed demons: 96 OVR Pete Crow-Armstong and Chone Figgins. PCA's a defensive wizard in center — as amusing as that is to consider contrasted against his losing the ball last night allowing Shea Langeliers to chug around the bases for an inside-the-park home run, an event I have a sneaking suspicion may show up in the form of an Extreme Moment at some point — with some limits at the plate, while Figgins is definitely more well-rounded even if his Power — 70/66 — is a bit underwhelming without any boosts. (That said: A boosted Figgins will be a terrific table-setter on an Angels squad with excellent versions of Mike Trout, Shohei Ohtani, and Albert Pujols ... which will exist eventually, right?)

Pack rewards abound in Weekend Classic, which should help lower prices on at least some of the more expensive cards on the Marketplace by upping supply. A specific-bit of lower-end relief this go-round: The St. Patrick's Day version of Trout being a static lower-tier win reward for this Weekend Classic at many Ranked tiers will help supply that rare and Collection-relevant card, which currently sells for about 40,000 Stubs despite being a 90 OVR card outclassed by a better free Trout.

Other News and Notes

• There is a chance that, in all of the content dropped this Friday, that the 97 OVR Al Lieter in Chase Pack 15 is the most important — or at least coveted — card. His slew of off-speed pitches that will break well out of the zone should be murderous in the current metagame of never throwing a strike unless necessary, and while his price tag will induce sticker shock, his arsenal will induce strikeouts and weak contact.
• Tuesday's introduction of an Extreme Showdown — essentially, scoring 14 runs on a juiced-up Jacob DeGrom on Hall of Fame to earn that DeGrom as an unsellable card which can then be exchanged for a sellable one — is a neat wrinkle to reward high-level players for grinding offline content. That the DeGrom is selling for 25,000 Stubs or so and isn't in and of itself a super-desirable card doesn't make the idea any less laudable.
• Content — it's not spelled "contnet" — coming soon includes the Multiplayer 4 Program and new Ranked season debuting in conjunction with a new Event and Program on Tuesday, June 9 and the previously teased new Legends and Flashbacks — it's not spelled Flashbash — Collection and a roster update involving attributes being upgraded and downgraded on Live Series cards on Friday, June 12.