Baseball Page 916 - Sports News, Headlines & Highlights

Alex Cora Can Do No Wrong
Through four innings of Game 1 of the World Series, the Dodgers and Red Sox were in basically the same spot. Boston had a 3-2 lead, but neither team’s ace had taken control of the proceedings, and their impending exits foreshadowed a wide-open final five innings. In the fifth inning, both managers s...

The John Smoltz Urban Legend That Was Too Good To Check
John Smoltz is, at this point in his second career as a color commentator, not really that good at the job. He understands the game well, but he’s also drowsy and grouchy in all the ways that old ballplayers tend to be: checked out and skeptical and reflexively salty about today’s players, grumpily ...

Yasiel Puig Homered, Crotch-Chopped, And Enjoyed Himself In Game 7
With his go-ahead two-run homer in Game 7, Cody Bellinger was a deserving NLCS MVP, but Yasiel Puig ribbed him for a perceived snub....

Chris Sale Does Not Have A Belly Button Ring, But It'd Be A Lot Cooler If He Did
Red Sox pitcher Chris Sale was forced him to miss his Game 5 start of the ALCS after he was hospitalized with an unspecified stomach illness. On Saturday, he used his deadpan personality to convince reporters that his health condition was something from a spring-break trip gone wrong:...

San Francisco Giants Owner Charles B. Johnson Donated To Super PAC That Made That Super-Racist Radio Ad
A super PAC called Black Americans for the President’s Agenda paid for a staggeringly racist radio ad in support of Mr. Peanut-looking-ass Arkansas congressman French Hill that dropped yesterday. The ad was targeted towards black voters (the PAC ran a similar ad in Missouri) and it features two cari...

David Price Tells Alex Bregman To "Post That" After Getting Blown Away By Nathan Eovaldi
The ALCS was largely beef-free, outside of the front offices. Certainly no player-on-player enmity, like we’re seeing in the senior circuit. The closest thing was Houston’s Alex Bregman posting before Game 3 an Instagram story showing that night’s starter Nathan Eovaldi surrendering back-to-back-to-...

The Red Sox's Superiority Starts At The Bottom
The World Series starts Tuesday night, and it’ll start at Fenway Park for the simple reason that the Red Sox are the best. They were the best team in the regular season—108 wins, fewer than it probably could have been had they not been allowed to take their foot off the gas after essentially clinchi...

David Price Finally Broke His Postseason Hex
Unfair or deserved, David Price has a reputation for pitching like butt in the playoffs. Before tonight, he was winless in 11 postseason starts since 2011. In Game 2 against the Astros, he had to settle for the “team win” when he was pulled after 4.2 innings and didn’t factor into the decision for B...

Joe West Tries To Explain That Fan Interference Call
The Red Sox took a 3-1 lead in the ALCS by winning Game 4 by two runs. The Astros had a two-run homer wiped out by a truly confounding ruling of fan interference. That’s the math for a call that could be remembered for a very, very long time....

Andrew Benintendi Puts Boston One Win Away From World Series With Diving Catch
It’s certainly less-than-ideal for a team to be up less than four runs in the bottom of the ninth with the bases loaded and an All-Star at the plate. It’s even worse when that All-Star is batting over .400 in the postseason. But that’s exactly where Craig Kimbrel was in facing Alex Bregman late Wedn...

Fan Robs Jose Altuve Of Game-Tying Dinger, Or Maybe Robs Mookie Betts Of Spectacular Catch
The Astros got off to a bad start in ALCS Game 4, going down 2-0 in the first inning. But in the bottom half of the frame, it looked like Jose Altuve’s mighty swing would quickly reset the score, when he smashed a ball into the first row in right field for what could have been a home run....

Craig Counsell Pulled His Game 5 Starter After One Batter, On Purpose
Left-handed pitcher Wade Miley appeared to be the Brewers’ starter for Game 5 of the NLCS today. And technically, he was. But after Miley gave up a lead-off walk in the first, Brewers manager Craig Counsell immediately went out to the mound and gave Miley the hook, replacing him with the right-hande...

MLB Buys Astros' "We Were Only Taking Pictures Of Other Teams' Dugouts To Make Sure <i>They</i> Weren't Cheating" Defense
In the second-pettiest looming controversy of this postseason, Houston had been accused by both the Indians and Red Sox of having a man working for the Astros standing in the camera well, using a cell phone camera to capture images of their dugouts. MLB has come out swiftly and strongly on the matte...

David Ortiz Went Nuts In The Studio For Jackie Bradley Jr.'s Grand Slam
A transcript to the best of our abilities, for the hearing impaired, can be found below:...

The Brewers Hate Manny Machado's Guts
Spicy times in the wee hours! A lengthy and bizarre Game 4 ended in the 13th with, of course, a Manny Machado slide. That’s not the close call the Brewers are thinking about, though....

Manny Machado's Wonderful Slide Finally Puts Everyone To Bed
The Dodgers scored a run in the first inning of tonight’s NLCS Game 4, and then the Brewers matched them with a run in the fifth, sending starter Rich Hill to go terrorize some Halloween treats in the dugout. And then, in a bizarre occurrence only rarely seen at a baseball game, a temporary black ho...

Manny Machado Probably Kicked Jesús Aguilar's Ankle On Purpose
Manny Machado is back in the postseason spotlight for the wrong reasons. In the bottom of the 10th, the Dodger hit a grounder to shortstop for what should have been a routine out at first. Machado decided to break the routine by kicking Brewers infielder Jesús Aguilar in the ankle after he was calle...

Cody Bellinger Celebrates Impressively Athletic Catch With Swan Dive Slide
The Dodgers are currently trying to knot up this series against the Brewers at two games apiece in extra innings, and Cody Bellinger is doing everything in his power to make sure his team comes away with the win. In the top of the 10th, Lorenzo Cain looked like he got a leadoff hit off of Los Angele...

Reports: Indians Warned Red Sox Of Astros Employee Who Took Photos Of Dugout In ALDS<em></em><em></em><em></em>
Major League Baseball is internally handling an incident from Game 1 of the American League Championship Series involving suspicious activity by a Houston Astros employee at Fenway Park, according to Alex Speier of The Boston Globe. According to the league’s investigation, the Astros employee engage...

Rich Hill Surrenders Lead, Takes It Out On Candy
Dodgers starter Rich Hill pitched well in Game 4 of the NLCS tonight, but he couldn’t quite hold on to L.A.’s slim 1-0 lead, which came early off a Brian Dozier RBI single. In the fifth inning, his final frame of the game, Hill gave up a base hit to Orlando Arcia (of course), and then surrendered a ...