Baseball Page 988 - Sports News, Headlines & Highlights

What was Chaim Bloom supposed to do?
Just how well is a GM/executive reign supposed to go when the first task given to them is to trade the best player in baseball? That was the road set out for Chaim Bloom, who came to Fenway from Tampa, probably with hopes that he could set up a Rays-with-money set-up like Andrew Friedman in Los Ange...

The Atlanta machine just keeps rolling on
While Atlanta fans apparently are pretty touchy about any perceived criticism of their club, even we have to admit there’s something pretty baller about clinching the NL East one day after the Philadelphia Phillies broadcasters were bitching about the bravado Atlanta showed as they were kicking the ...

The New York Mets get their guy, now what?
David Stearns coming back to New York to become president of baseball operations for the Mets was about one of the worst-kept secrets in baseball. The Mets asked to talk to him after he stepped down from his post in Milwaukee and were denied access after last season, but it didn’t take a cocaine-add...

The time has come for Mike Trout and the Angels to part ways
It’s time. Point blank. The Los Angeles Angels need to deal Mike Trout and rebuild. It’s a layered dynamic that’ll have people around Hollywood already upset that their beloved American superhero doesn’t figure into future plans. It’d have more substance if Mike Trout had ever been a part of a team ...

The Astros are just going to win again, aren't they?
There’s been a lot to get excited about in the American League, and a lot of new....

David Wells had a 'Sir, this is a Wendy's' moment when he bashed woke-ism and Yankees players
David Wells was fortunate to win 18 games and finish in top 3 of the AL Cy Young voting as a starting ace on the 1998 Yankees club that won an AL-record 114 games. Twenty-five years after he pitched a perfect game (allegedly hungover), Boomer Wells lived up to his nickname by ruining the good vibes ...

Willy Adames doesn’t agree that you should never meet your heroes
It’s hard to remember that baseball players were wide-eyed kids like all of us at one point. Sure, there’s plenty of antics caught on camera in the dugout that remind us they’re playing a kids’ game. But given the amount of work, training, and coaching these guys get, it’s hard to picture them ridin...

Jasson Dominguez is the latest reason to hate when good things happen to the Yankees
Even in the worst of times, there are signals that the best of times are just over the horizon for the New York Yankees. This season has been a bust for the Bronx Bombers until Jasson Dominguez saved them with a soft landing for 2024....

The Texas Rangers are backing up
For avid horseplayers, there comes a point in most races, especially when your steed has shot out to the lead from the opening of the gates, where it becomes pretty clear you’re going to lose. Somewhere on that far turn, your horse’s gait is shrinking, the jockey is working just a little too hard fo...

Julio Urías wasn’t sorry the first time
Never say never, but in all likelihood, Julio Urías’ 2023 MLB season has come to an end. He most likely will not take the mound in a Los Angeles Dodgers cap again. For the second time in four years, he has been arrested on domestic violence charges. Neither arrest was at his home. Both were in publi...

What do the Cleveland Guardians want to be?
To hear Larry Dolan tell it, the Cleveland Guardians are the poster child for the unfairness in MLB. They can’t run with the big boys of the American League, even though there are no big market teams in the AL Central, at least when the Tigers suck eggs (and the White Sox will never act like they pl...

Ronald Acuña and Aaron Judge made history, but which feat is more impressive?
Arbitrary arguments are as much a part of baseball as spit and crotch scratching, so in the spirit of lazy September standings, here’s one between two of the biggest names in the league. Which accomplishment is more impressive: Ronald Acuña Jr’s 30 home run-60 stolen base club, or Aaron Judge reachi...

Behold the dumpster fire that is the Los Angeles Angels' front office
On Wednesday, the Los Angeles Angels added another day of ignominy to their woeful franchise’s history under Arte Moreno by placing starting pitcher Lucas Giolito, relievers Matt Moore and Reynaldo López, plus outfielders Hunter Renfroe and Randal Grichuk on waivers. In a vacuum, they aren’t the big...

The National League Cy Young race is kind of a mess
With one month to go in the MLB season it’s generally about the time that not only playoff spot chases become pretty clear, but so do individual award chases. If not a clear winner, as one might find with the AL MVP, then at least a couple of candidates have separated themselves and voters at least ...

Mookie Betts, not Ronald Acuña Jr., is the NL MVP
We’d all be better off if every MVP award was simply renamed, “Player Of The Year,” as it would save us a very annoying and tiresome debate about what “valuable” means. It gets doubly so in baseball, where we still haven’t quite escaped what numbers people should pay attention to, and what is overbl...

Texas Rangers' current slide is tanking their chances at postseason redemption
How the tables have turned. On Aug. 15, the Texas Rangers were riding high, 24 games over .500, and in cruise control to the playoffs, if not an American League West title. Aug. 15 now happens to be the last time Bruce Bochy’s team has won. The Rangers are on a seven-game losing streak, including an...

So long, Stephen Strasburg, we hardly knew you
Stephen Strasburg’s announced retirement due to thoracic outlet syndrome isn’t so much a sad time as it is a prophecy fulfilled. Strasburg emerged from San Diego State and the minors as the most highly touted flamethrower in a generation. ...

Shohei Ohtani and Mike Trout are hurt — how else would the Angels season end?
Neil Young told us that it was better to burn out than to fade away. In the same fashion, some things are just meant to divebomb so hard into the dirt that they cause a smoldering crater that affects all life on the planet rather than just saunter out to the woods to die in peace. That quickly appro...

Did Rogers Centre kill Vladimir Guerrero Jr.’s power?
Whenever the post-mortem is compiled on this Toronto Blue Jays season — they’re still very much in the hunt for a wildcard spot — it won’t be hard to find culprits for how they didn’t quite manage to take the next step from a good team to a power that most in Ontario were expecting (feels like a the...
