Baseball Page 970 - Sports News, Headlines & Highlights

Howie Kendrick Finally Has A Legacy
You’d be forgiven, Nats fans, if you wanted Howie Kendrick out of the game long before his instantly legendary grand slam in the top of the 10th that won the Nationals their first-ever playoff series. Kendrick, despite turning in a pleasant surprise of a 2019 season that saw him become one of Washin...

Clayton Kershaw Will Never Get Over It
Clayton Kershaw was on in the eighth for two batters, and two batters only, no matter how he looked, no matter the result. Kenta Maeda was warm and ready, and after Kershaw faced Anthony Rendon and Juan Soto, Maeda would come in for a string of righties. So, just two batters, with a two-run lead. Ke...

Clayton Kershaw, Dodgers Choke Away Game 5 In Stunning Fashion
Oh man. The Dodgers absolutely cruised through seven innings at home against the Nationals Wednesday night, in Game 5 of their divisional series. Walker Buehler was once again dominant. Postseason beast Max Muncy and Kiké Hernández pounced on opportunities presented by Stephen Strasburg’s early comm...

Kurt Suzuki Leaves NLDS Game 5 After Taking Deflected Fastball To The Face
Washington Nationals catcher Kurt Suzuki was taken out of Wednesday night’s Game 5 against the Los Angeles Dodgers when a high-and-tight fastball from Walker Buehler deflected off his wrist and into his face in the top of the seventh inning. The impact was audible, and Suzuki crashed to the ground a...

Braves Fans Perform First-Inning Tomahawk Chop, Watch Their Team Immediately Melt Down Like Chernobyl
The Atlanta Braves selectively and cynically scrubbed the “tomahawk chop” celebration ahead of Wednesday’s Game 5 against the St. Louis Cardinals. This did not go far enough, as was evidenced by defiant Braves fans loudly performing the chop almost immediately after the start of the game. Moments la...

Braves Announce Plan To Only Use The Tomahawk Chop When A Native American Isn't Pitching
Hours before today’s winner-take-all NLDS Game 5, the Atlanta Braves responded to Cardinals reliever Ryan Helsley’s comments about the disrespectful nature of the team’s longstanding “tomahawk chop” celebration. In a somewhat surprising turn, the team said they would not pass out foam tomahawks to f...

Rays Win Bullpen Game Over Justin Verlander To Send Series Back To Houston
The Rays roughed up Game 1 winner and eclipse lover Justin Verlander Tuesday night, got nine innings of tough pitching from their bullpen, and grabbed a 4–1 win to send their ALDS series against the Astros back to Houston for a winner-take-all Game 5. The Rays, who were widely considered to be chum ...

How Is The Twins' Playoff Losing Streak Even Possible?
The last time the Minnesota Twins won a playoff game, Shannon Stewart knocked in Michael Cuddyer for the go-ahead run, Jacque Jones homered, and Johan Santana threw seven scoreless innings as the Twins beat the Yankees in Game 1 of the 2004 ALDS. The next night, Hideki Matsui singled off J.C. Romero...

Yankees Complete Sweep Of Twins, Barf Barf Barf
The Yankees completed a three-game sweep of the Twins Monday night, with a 5–1 win in Minnesota to end their American League divisional series. These games were not close. The Yankees scored 23 runs in the series, to the Twins’ seven. Every other divisional series is still active, with both National...

Grunting Max Scherzer Gave The Nationals Everything He Had, And Just What They Needed
Davey Martinez and the Washington Nationals didn’t resort to another bullpen appearance from a starting pitcher Monday night, thank God. That’s a gimmick that was bound to fail the more it’s used, either spectacularly and all at once, or cumulatively, or both. It already blew up in their faces Sunda...

Yadier Molina Flipped His Bat To The Moon After Game-Winning Sacrifice Fly
The St. Louis Cardinals evened up their NLDS series against the Atlanta Braves Monday night, on a 10th-inning sacrifice fly to left field to score Kolten Wong. It was Molina’s second big feat of batsmanship of the game, and he was super-duper pumped to have driven in the winning run. So pumped, in f...

Braves Give The Lie To Rob Manfred's Insistence That The "Tomahawk Chop" Is Being Discouraged
The Atlanta Braves are supposed to be discouraging the “tomahawk chop” celebration at home games. Or, anyway, that’s what commissioner Rob Manfred told the Washington Post back in February, that the Braves had “taken steps to take out” the chant. But they’re not discouraging it, not really—the Brave...

The Nationals Can't Possibly Keep This Up
It would be nice, albeit utterly ridiculous, if the Washington Nationals decided to have Stephen Strasburg and Max Scherzer pitch every inning in the team’s series against the Dodgers, but considering how the two performed in Game 2 of the NLDS, fans would be forgiving for wanting something akin to ...

Everyone Mad At Ronald Acuña Jr. Over Baserunning
The Cardinals are mad at Braves superstar Ronald Acuña Jr. for how he ran the bases in Game 1 Thursday night. You can probably guess, that’s some musty “play the right way” bullcrap. But it turns out Acuña’s own teammates are mad at him over a completely different baserunning issue, and when your te...

Cardinals Nearly Blow Game 1 Against The Braves, But Don't, Dammit
Game 1 of the NLDS between the Braves and the vile Cardinals did not represent the best that either team had to offer. There were slick plays and dingers, and there was some gutsy pitching, but there was also some sloppy defense, lots of glaringly bad luck, and some spectacularly crappy late-innings...
![Braves Pitcher Injures Self While Warming Up On The Mound, Replacement Gives Up Dinger On First Strike [Update]](https://images.deadspin.com/tr:w-900/mmvs42gxlpe9xv5eudo1.png)
Braves Pitcher Injures Self While Warming Up On The Mound, Replacement Gives Up Dinger On First Strike [Update]
Before he got a chance to throw his first pitch of the postseason, Chris Martin of the Atlanta Braves was taken off the mound with an athletic trainer by his side just as the top of the eighth inning was officially about to begin. Martin appeared to injure himself during his initial warmup pitches, ...

The A's Got Embarrassed, Again, But There's Reason For Hope
So, yes. The Oakland Athletics are dead again. The A’s finally got to host a winner-take-all playoff game after losing last year’s Wild Card Game in New York but, for the ninth time in as many tries, they biffed it, losing 5-1. ...

Poor Rays Sideline Reporter Keeps Getting Absolutely Soaked In Celebratory Postgame Alcohol
I suppose this is one of those good problems, but it’s still a problem! Fox Sports Florida sideline reporter Tricia Whitaker keeps getting mercilessly drenched by celebrating Rays players, who seem to view live postgame interviews as opportunities to dump truly gargantuan quantities of beer and cham...

Rays Outfielder Excited To "Stick It To The Man," Fails To Realize "The Man" Is His Team's Owner
A shitty thing about baseball, stretching back to Bob Costas’s largely wrong-headed conditional invocation of socialism and beyond, way back into the sport’s dusty past, is it has a way of making the teams that pay their players lots of money out to be the bad guys. For one thing, those teams appear...

MLB's Empty Seats Aren't A Problem, They're Part Of The Plan
Major League Baseball saw attendance decline for the fifth straight year, falling to a mere 28,198 fans per game, the lowest mark since 2003. It’s a trend that has already prompted much public hand-wringing from baseball barons and the sportswriters who care about them: MLB commissioner Rob Manfred ...