MLB Page 964 - Sports News, Headlines & Highlights
The Royals Don't Miss
If you’re looking for one stat that neatly explains the Royals’ Game 2 victory over the Mets, it’s this one: Out of the 94 pitches Mets ace Jacob deGrom threw in his five innings, the Royals only swung and missed at three of them....
GM Alex Anthopoulos Shockingly Leaves The Blue Jays, Who Might Be Getting Cheap
GM Alex Anthopoulos, under whose six-year tenure the Blue Jays emerged as one of the best teams in the AL, will not return to Toronto, reportedly over philosophical disagreements over how he built a winner, and concerns that his power over baseball operations would be severely curtailed under a new ...
Johnny Cueto Was Tremendous Tonight
Johnny Cueto’s postseason form has oscillated between extremes. He shut down the Astros to take the Royals into the ALCS, giving up two runs in eight innings, then reversed those stats and gave up eight in two to the Blue Jays in his next start. The key difference was that Cueto’s dominant start, wh...
Lorenzo Cain Yosted Himself
If the Royals had lost last night, Lorenzo Cain’s disastrous attempt at bunting with a man on second and nobody out in the eighth inning of a 4-3 game would be under a hell of a lot more scrutiny today. It was a classic, self-defeating Ned Yost moment, except for the fact that it wasn’t Ned Yost’s i...
Only One Other Royal Was Told About Edinson Volquez's Father's Death
When Edinson Volquez came out after six innings, his wife and children were waiting for him in the clubhouse. GM Dayton Moore gave them the use of the manager’s office, where they could be alone and discuss whatever they needed to. It still isn’t clear whether Volquez knew yet that his father had di...
You Just Can't Ever Count The Royals Out
At this point it’s a cliche to write about how the Royals never quit, how they fight until the last at-bat, how they’re never out of a game, how they grind out wins....
Alcides Escobar Hits First Pitch, Leadoff Inside-The-Park Homer
Alcides Escobar, who just finished absolutely demolishing the Toronto Blue Jays in the ALCS, continued his torrid hitting by leading off the bottom of the first with an inside-the-park home run on the first pitch he saw. Sure he had a lot of help from the bumbling Mets outfield, but that’s pretty da...
Report: Former Phillies GM Ruben Amaro To Be Red Sox First-Base Coach
We have ourselves a reverse Jim Tomsula situation: man leaves prominent position for a job he’s wildly overqualified for. Ruben Amaro was the Phillies GM up until last month, when the team declined to renew his contract. Now, according to a report from ESPN, Amaro will be taking over a position as t...
Alcides Escobar Had One Of The Best Playoff Series Ever For A Leadoff Hitter
The Kansas City Royals are headed back to the World Series after beating the Blue Jays last night. Jose Bautista was tremendous, hitting two monster homers, but Lorenzo Cain scored in the bottom of the eighth off of a Eric Hosmer single. It was an illustrative breakdown of the two team’s styles: Tor...
MLB Wants Teams To Chill Out With Their Champagne Celebrations
Celebrating a clinch with a clubhouse champagne shower (or a beer slip ‘n slide) is a baseball fixture dating back to the 1960s, according to this interesting ESPN account of the tradition’s evolution. But in recent years it’s become as managed and regulated—and sponsored—as anything else baseball h...
The Pitcher Who Couldn't Lose
Bronson Arroyo was in some small town near Los Angeles, the name of which he doesn’t remember, and he was thinking about getting old. He and a friend had stopped at a diner to get a bite to eat, and he couldn’t help but notice all of the old men seated around them. He recalls this moment a few weeks...
Don Mattingly And The Dodgers Have Reportedly Parted Ways
CBS Sports’ Jon Heyman is reporting that the Los Angeles Dodgers and manager Don Mattingly have come to a mutual agreement to part ways....
Daniel Murphy Makes No Sense
“I can’t explain why the balls keep going out of the ballpark,” Daniel Murphy said after his MLB-record sixth consecutive playoff game with a home run, “but they do.” ...
What The Hell Was Kyle Schwarber Doing In Left Field?
Kyle Schwarber wasn’t the reason the Cubs lost Game 4. ...
Here's Your Gallery Of Sad Cubs Fans
The Cubs won 97 games this season, tied for their most regular season wins since 1945. In the playoffs they laid waste to the Pirates in the Wild Card game and the Cardinals in the NLDS. Going into the NLCS against the Mets, Cubs fans were very excited. This was their year to break the curse. Back t...
Daniel Murphy Strokes Another Dong
Daniel Murphy’s cherry on top of the ongoing destruction of the Cubs was his sixth straight game with a home run—setting a new postseason record—and his seventh home run in these playoffs, one behind the record for an entire postseason held jointly by Barry Bonds, Carlos Beltran, and Nelson Cruz. He...
The Cubs Defense Was A Hot Mess
The Cubs were only charged with a single error in Tuesday’s 5-2 loss to the Mets, but boy does that ever understate how poorly their defense played....