baseball Page 9 - Sports News, Headlines & Highlights

The Tampa Bay Rays-Texas Rangers series winner will advance to the World Series
Here’s your de facto American League Championship Series. Sorry to those in Baltimore, your luck will run out despite being undervalued the entire season. Postseason baseball is a different juggernaut. The Toronto Blue Jays and Minnesota Twins just don’t have the firepower to keep up. And Houston co...

2023 MLB AL batting average leaders
This article is based on data from Sportradar. Text was compiled by an AI engine that was then reviewed and edited by the editorial staff....

2023 MLB AL home run leaders
This article is based on data from Sportradar. Text was compiled by an AI engine that was then reviewed and edited by the editorial staff....

2023 MLB AL stolen bases leaders
This article is based on data from Sportradar. Text was compiled by an AI engine that was then reviewed and edited by the editorial staff....

2023 MLB NL stolen bases leaders
This article is based on data from Sportradar. Text was compiled by an AI engine that was then reviewed and edited by the editorial staff....

2023 MLB NL batting average leaders
This article is based on data from Sportradar. Text was compiled by an AI engine that was then reviewed and edited by the editorial staff....

No one does goodbyes, or hellos, like baseball
The MLB playoffs start tomorrow, which still gives us a day to reflect on the season gone. MLB more and more would like its fans to focus on only October so they can demean, and hence pay less for, the regular season. But that’s not how the game works, it’s not how baseball fandom works, and there i...

VAR performs its coup de moron
Whether VAR is still in its teething stages, and this is season five so it’s really debatable whether or not it should still be having growing problems, it will never be able to escape its fatal flaw. And that is it is still administered by humans. So it’s still going to be susceptible to human erro...

And now we get to the question that has plagued society: Can the Minnesota Twins win a playoff game?
Saturday night completed the field for the MLB postseason, and then Sunday sorted out some seeding and matchups. And while most of the questions will be can Atlanta cap off one of the more dominating regular seasons we’ve seen, or Houston turn it on once again in October, or which start will Clayton...

Our national nightmare is over, the San Diego Padres won a game in extra innings
What gets to the heart of baseball, and to the heart of a baseball season, is that 162 games is supposed to be enough for any anomaly or bit of screwiness a long enough timeline to flatten out. Anyone can get hot, but no one can get unreasonably hot for 162 games and six months. Every team is going ...

This time the Cubs can't blame Billy Goat
Though I no longer belong to the Wrigleyville parish, it doesn’t mean I have any more patience for tired and overused narratives about the Cubs. I do not find “#Cubes” any more entertaining or pertinent than I did when I bled blue. Most, if not all, should have been washed away by the 2016 World Ser...

The Bears and White Sox are studies in how NOT to handle a PR crisis
It’s a rough time to be a fan of Chicago sports. ...

Someone should look into this agreement Justin Verlander has with Father Time
If you’ve watched enough Justin Verlander starts, there’s always a feeling he has one last card to play when he absolutely needs it. That mostly comes from his habit of keeping his fastball velocity just low enough to be a tease early in his starts, and then somewhere later when he really needs it h...

If you're going to crash and burn, crash and burn like the Reds
Almost every demise in a baseball season is slow (unless you’re the Pittsburgh Pirates–more on them later). When a team still has a shot at the postseason by September, every game means that team is chasing something. And that chase means that should they falter on Tuesday, by Wednesday’s first pitc...

2023 MLB SB leaders
This article is based on data from Sportradar. Text was compiled by an AI engine that was then reviewed and edited by the editorial staff....

2023 MLB RBI leaders
This article is based on data from Sportradar. Text was compiled by an AI engine that was then reviewed and edited by the editorial staff....

2023 MLB HR leaders
This article is based on data from Sportradar. Text was compiled by an AI engine that was then reviewed and edited by the editorial staff....

Saluting Sean Doolittle, one of the good ones
There’s a fixation in sports media and society at large to focus on the negative. When you’re watching the nightly news, they’ll never lead with how a crossing guard helped hundreds of kids not get hit by a car. It’ll be about the accident up the street. And you can bet they’ll run the tape of somet...

MLB's final 10 days in the American League will be pure chaos
Entering the penultimate weekend of baseball’s regular season, so much is in flux. The calming part is the National League. Every division race is wrapped up and the Wild Card will become a matter of which pair of teams are the odd ones out between the Arizona Diamondbacks, Chicago Cubs, Miami Marli...

Get ready for lavish sports-themed resorts in college towns, as the expense of fandom continues to increase
Since America encourages maximum luxury that is far too expensive for the average person, of course, a project combining sports and extravagance is headed for college towns. Sports Illustrated has already built a sports-themed resort in the Dominican Republic, where the 2023 Swimsuit issue was shot....