Baseball Page 896 - Sports News, Headlines & Highlights

Lucas Giolito, Who Was The Worst Starter In Baseball, Is Now An Ace

It only feels like every strange or new thing that could happen in baseball has already happened. Lucas Giolito, who is currently pitching better than just about any starting pitcher in baseball a year after pitching worse than every other starting pitcher in baseball, is not remotely the first such...

Padres Pitcher Shines In Major-League Debut, Also Wins Bet With His Good Friend John Cena

A pitcher making his first MLB start against the Milwaukee Brewers’ fearsome offense is already a daunting scenario, but add the pressure of John Cena rooting for you, and man, it’s impressive that Logan Allen got out alive....

Mickey Callaway Has A Very Mets Reason For Overworking His Most Reliable Reliever

Mets ace Jacob deGrom was electric Tuesday night against the Atlanta Braves. Coming off a dispiriting 12–3 loss Monday to open the series, and having lost five of seven to drop four games below .500, the Mets needed deGrom to do the ace thing, and he delivered, pitching 8.1 innings and striking out ...

Expanded Protective Netting Is Coming To Major League Baseball, One Stadium At A Time

The Chicago White Sox announced Tuesday that they will extend protective netting at their stadium all the way to the foul poles this summer. They will be the first of 30 MLB teams to make the move all the way to the outfield wall, but certainly not the last....

Max Scherzer Breaks His Nose While Bunting, During Practice, For Crying Out Loud

Bunting is cool! It’s cool to surprise an infield. It’s cool to humiliate a shifted defense. It’s cool to make a noble sacrifice to advance a teammate. It’s cool to drive dipshit purists insane by bunting your way on to break up a lousy combined no-hitter. Possibly nothing in baseball is cooler than...

MLB Umpires Throw Whiny Tantrum Over Manny Machado's Whiny Tantrum

In the fifth inning of the Padres’ 14-8 loss to the Rockies on Saturday, San Diego third baseman Manny Machado blew a gasket after getting called out on strikes by umpire Bill Welke. Machado caught a quick ejection for arguing the call and was livid, yelling in Welke’s face and then tossing his bat...

Dominican Republic Officials Identify Man Who Allegedly Paid For Hit On David Ortiz

Prosecutors in the Dominican Republic identified several new suspects yesterday in the David Ortiz shooting case, including the man they say planned to pay the hitmen who shot Ortiz at the Dial Bar and Lounge on June 9. Court documents obtained by the Boston Globe claim Alberto Miguel Rodríguez Mota...

This Is Not The Best Way To Try And Catch A Home-Run Ball

Every baseball fan who buys tickets in the outfield dreams of exactly one thing: catching a home run ball hit by Seattle Mariners catcher Tom Murphy. With that goal so close to his grasp in the fifth inning of Monday night’s Royals-Mariners game, it’s understandable that an overexcited Ichiro suppor...

Matt Carpenter Beats A Marlins Shift With A Standup Bunt Double

Turns out the solo dinger he smashed in the bottom of the third inning was not the coolest thing Matt Carpenter did against the Miami Marlins Monday night, not by a long shot. With two down in the bottom of the fifth inning, the Marlins shifted their defense to the right side to face Carpenter. Carp...

Clint Frazier Pays The Price For The Yankees' Talent Bloat

The New York Yankees took another important step on their quest to assemble an all-beef lineup by trading for dinger-mashing DH Edwin Encarnacion over the weekend. Once Aaron Judge and Giancarlo Stanton return to action, a lineup featuring those two, Gary Sanchez, Luke Voit, and Encarnacion is going...

Let's Make This A Permanent Thing

The Yankees Added Another Bomber To The Bronx With Edwin Encarnación

The New York Yankees acquired American League home run leader Edwin Encarnación from the Seattle Mariners on Saturday for cash considerations and pitching prospect Juan Then, continuing the trend that the Lakers set a couple hours earlier of a historically hated franchise making a major roster impro...

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Giants' Kevin Pillar Successfully Steals Second With The World's Most Powerful Slide

In the bottom of the seventh, Brewers pitcher Alex Claudio attempted to pick off Giants center fielder Kevin Pillar at first. As Claudio turned to make the throw, Pillar took off for second. Thanks to a lack of urgency from Milwaukee’s Jesus Aguilar, Pillar was able to beat the follow-up throw and s...

Chicago Photographer Heroically Avoids Being Retraumatized By Ugly First Pitch

Just a couple of weeks ago, Chicago photographer Darren Georgia narrowly avoided a serious bump on his face during a ceremonial first pitch gone awry. Mere milliseconds after his flash captured a White Sox fan’s once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, Georgia’s camera found itself the victim of what was eit...

Shohei Ohtani's Superpowers Are Slowly But Surely Returning [Update]

Shohei Ohtani has been having a ho-hum season as a hitter, entering Thursday batting .256 with a mediocre .775 OPS in 133 plate appearances, with seven home runs and just eight total extra base hits. The good news is, his power seems to be picking up. Ohtani has now socked five homers in his last ni...

Javy Baez Settles Dumb, Escalating Plunk-Off By Socking A Mighty Four-Bagger

The Colorado Rockies and Chicago Cubs wrapped up their season series Wednesday with a good old-fashioned plunk-fest. The Cubs paid back a day-old plunking imbalance by targeting Colorado’s best hitter, and the Rockies buzzed and/or plunked three different Cubs. The good news is, just as it was getti...

Police Describe Some Pretty Unexpected Details In Ongoing Investigation Of David Ortiz's Shooting

David Ortiz was flown from Santo Domingo to Boston Monday, where he received further medical attention following emergency surgery in the Dominican Republic after he was shot there Sunday night. The good news is, Ortiz is reportedly up and moving around and speaking with family, and is mostly out of...

It's Getting Pretty Hard Not To Get Ejected From A Game Ángel Hernández Is Umpiring

There isn’t an umpire more widely despised by MLB players than Ángel Hernández, who has been infuriating people with his terrible calls for years now. This frustration has often boiled over into profane arguments followed by ejections, which is just how these things tend to go. But during last night...

Red Sox Give Up History's Easiest Inside-The-Park Home Run When Brock Holt's Body Unexpectedly Shuts Down

This was an odd moment in Tuesday night’s Rangers-Red Sox game. Red Sox outfielder Brock Holt chased a Hunter Pence opposite-field smash toward Pesky’s Pole in right. Holt misjudged the ball on the fly and failed to haul it in, and the ball caromed off the low wall and back onto the track in deep ri...