Baseball Page 856 - Sports News, Headlines & Highlights

Yeah, that Tony La Russa thing is going about as you’d expect
While it was fun to pretend that the forced “Odd Coupling” of a drunk old codger Tony La Russa and one of the flashiest, dynamic young teams in baseball would boil over simply due to culture clashes, that was always a touch unlikely. Certainly, atmospheres within a clubhouse have led to poisonous re...

Keith Hernandez was ready to dip when the lights went out in St. Louis
Before the Mets lost to the Cardinals 6-5 and fired hitting coach Chili Davis and his assistant Tom Slater, the team had something else to worry about — actually finishing the game. ...

Mets breaking bank for Francisco Lindor has claimed its first victim
It’s funny who ends up paying after a team signs a player to its biggest ever contract. The Mets stuck it on the little guy after the team’s wonky start at the plate, firing hitting coach Chili Davis and his assistant Tom Slater. The Mets are 11-12 and that’s not what they had in mind this year afte...

Video games, golf carts, eggs, and other odd ways players have gotten hurt
Before Saturday’s start, A’s pitcher Jesús Luzardo injured his pinky while playing video games. He wound up throwing hours later, going three innings and giving up six runs. After the game, he was taken in for an X-ray and put on the 10-day DL....

Dominic Smith and José Alvarado almost brawled, so here's the tale of the tape
In case you missed it, New York Mets first baseman turned outfielder Dominic Smith wanted to fuck up Philadelphia Phillies pitcher José Alvarado. ...

Sexual misconduct findings land Roberto Alomar on MLB’s banned list, but he’ll remain in Hall
On the same day that once-top prospect and former Olympian Felix Verdejo is being linked to an ongoing investigation surrounding a missing pregnant woman in Puerto Rico, Roberto Alomar is being whacked by Major League Baseball. The Hall of Fame second baseman has been placed on the league’s ineligib...

Please, for the love of all that is good, don’t let this DFA be the end of the ageless Óliver Pérez’s career
People have said, “Wow, I can’t believe Óliver Pérez is still pitching,” for what has felt like every year for the past decade. ...

SEE IT: Marty Foster makes one of the worst calls you’ll see all season
Marty Foster is giving Ángel Hernández a run for his money....

Booing Francisco Lindor was to be expected, but still, relax, Mets fans
Here’s a list of the top three least surprising things to happen this month:...

Please enjoy these three sweet bombs from Vladimir Guerrero Jr.
Young Vlad Guerrero Jr. was some sort of cheat code last night. The Toronto (Dunedin, soon to be Buffalo) Blue Jays player had… a… game. He hit three homers and drove in seven runs. The Jays beat the Nats, 9-5. You do the math: Vlad’s bat won the game on its own....

Mellon Collie and The Minnesota Twins: At this rate a playoff collapse looks unlikely
It’s probably hard enough to be the Minnesota Twins under normal circumstances. Because no one outside of the Twin Cities wants to see you in the playoffs ever again. Some have even drafted measures to get you banned from the postseason forever. That’s what happens when you can’t manage to win a sin...

What an actually good, consistent Rockies roster should look like
The timing of it made you wonder what exactly Jeff Bridich was fired for, or encouraged to step down, as it was. Make no mistake, Bridich deserved to be shitcanned for his job, and has for a couple years now. Maybe right after the ink dried on Ian Desmond’s or Wade Davis’ contract. But he was allowe...

A baseball league was finally crazy enough to institute sudden-death home run derby
Someone looked at baseball and asked, “What’s the most outlandish and absurdly interesting method that could decide the outcome of a game,” and our colleagues at The Onion ... oops! ... I mean real baseball executives in charge of the Pioneer League, have apparently found the answer — sudden-death h...

Dansby Swanson burns sage before Braves game, has himself a night
Yesterday, the Atlanta Braves found themselves somewhere most baseball teams will inevitably find themselves over 162 games — in a funk. They had lost two straight to the Arizona Diamondbacks and hadn’t scored a run since Friday. They needed something, anything, to get rid of the negative energies a...

It better be a no-hitter or these doubleheaders don’t count either
Let’s just get down to brass tacks, how much for the ape? Whoops, no not that. Sorry. Got confused. The brass tacks we need to get down to is that the seven-inning doubleheader is dumb. Not as dumb as the extra-inning rule, but dumb. The players seem to like it, and why wouldn’t they? But this is go...

It’s probably OK to steal Trevor Bauer’s signs
The subplots and nuances of the burgeoning Padres-Dodgers hot war are developing at a rate that’s hard to stay on top of. Perhaps that’s with the greater focus on these games and the race between the two (though the Giants are currently splitting them) because they’re two of the only four teams doin...

Please, please, send John Smoltz to a farm upstate
It was a slow, lazy Saturday afternoon. It would have to be for me to turn on the Mets when Jacob deGrom isn’t pitching (though Marcus Stroman can be a very entertaining watch, too). I grew up at a time here in Chicago when we hated the Mets as much as the Cardinals, and those instincts still flicke...

April 23 is officially Tatis day in LA forever, as Fernando Jr. belts 2 HRs on ann’y of pop’s 2-slam game
The odds on this were probably a million to one, but it happened anyway (aka, that’s baseball, Suzyn)....

Can’t anybody here hit in this league?
In the ninth inning at Wrigley Field on Thursday night, Kris Bryant led off with a single against Mets closer Edwin Diaz. After looking at a 99 mph fastball outside for ball one, Rizzo fouled off the next three pitches, falling behind in the count, 1-2....
